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The Development of Hindu Iconography c20.s2: (b) Jīrṇoddhāra

The Development of Hindu Iconography c20.s2

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(b) Jīrṇoddhāra

c20.s2.1.1

Restoration of old and dilapidated shrines and replacement of broken, decaying and sometimes defiled images or other cult objects by new ones have been regarded from a long time as great acts of religious merit in India. In some texts, these are even described as more meritorious than the establishment of new shrines and construction of new images. One of the earliest instances of *jīrṇoddhāra*, though associated with Buddhism, has been recorded in the steatite casket discovered at Shinkot in Bajaur territory, 20 miles to the north-west of the confluence of the Panjkora and Swat rivers, beyond the borders of the old North-West Frontier Province. Two sets of inscriptions are engraved on it, the earlier one referring to the establishment or consecration of (the corporeal relic) of the Buddha in the reign of Mahārāja Minadra (Menander), the donor being a person named Viyakamitra, the *apraca-raja* (‘one who has no king as his adversary’). The later portion of the record also refers to the establishment of the corporeal relic of the Buddha, and of the bowl, but by a person named Vijayamitra, also an *apraca-raja* and evidently a descendant of Viyakamitra, on the 25th day of Vaiśākha of the 5th regnal year. This subsequent epigraph records—“This corporeal relic having been broken is not held in worship with zeal. It is decaying in course of time, (and) is not honoured; (and here) by the offering of alms and water, ancestors are no longer propitiated;

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(and) the receptacle of that (relic) has been cast aside. (Now) in the fifth year and on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Vaiśākha, this has been established by Vijayamitra, who has no king as his adversary.”¹ Thus, there is no doubt about its being a clear case of *jīrṇoddhāra*. H. Thsang says that “in recent times Śaśāṅka, the enemy and oppressor of Buddhism, cut down the Bodhi-tree, destroyed its roots down to the water, and burned what remained. A few months afterwards Pūrṇavarmā, the last descendant of Aśoka on the throne of Magadha, by pious efforts brought the tree back to life and in one night it became above ten feet high. This king then built round it a stone wall 24 feet high" (Watters, On Yuan Chwang, Vol. II, p. 115). Here also is a clear case of restoration after the original shrine was defiled by a non-believer, for the stone wall which was set up by Pūrṇavarmā was nothing but a re-erection. The śilā-prākāra was originally erected in the first century B.C., through the pious zeal and munificence of a lady, Āryā Kuraṅgī by name, the wife of Indrāgnimitra, perhaps a local chieftain. What Pūrṇavarmā did was to use the old materials—the thabhas (pillars), sūcīs (joining pieces) and uṣṇīṣas (coping stones), all made of greyish sandstone—in rebuilding the wall, using new material (granite) when the old fell short of his requirements; there are clear structural indications which fully prove this point (Barua, Gayā and Buddha Gayā, Vol. II, pp. 12 ff.).

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I have referred in the last page of my first chapter to the rebuilding of the Chauṅṣaṭ Yoginī temple at Bheraghat by Alhaṇādevī, the queen of the Haihaya King Gayakarṇadeva, during the reign of her son Narasiṃhadeva, in the Kalacurī-Cedi year 907 (1155 A.D.). Cunningham noticed that the style of architecture of this temple was plain and simple and might belong to any period between 900 and 1200 A.D. But the characters of the inscriptions on the pedestals of the images point to the earlier date and thus it is clear that they were restored and re-enshrined at a later date.¹ R. D. Banerjee proved with the help of the images divisible into two broad groups, one standing, made of brittle reddish sandstone, with no inscription, and the other seated, mostly carved out of a dull greenish yellow sandstone, inscribed with letters datable in the 10th century A.D. inside the circular temple, that ‘before the building of the circular temple in the 10th century A.D., another structure existed on this spot.’ Banerjee thinks it extremely probable that the most ancient shrine on the top of the hill, on which the circular temple stands, was erected in the Kushan period, and it enshrined the standing uninscribed images of brittle reddish sandstone.²

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¹ *Ime śarira paluga-bhud(r)ao na sakare atrita | sa śariat(r)ikalad(r)ena śadhro na pimḍoyakeyi pitrin griṇayat(r)i | tasa ye patre apomua | Vaṣaye pāmcamaye 41 Veś(r)akh(r)asa masasa divase-pāmcaviś(r)aye iyo prat(r)ithavit(r)e Vijayamitrena apracarajena Bhag(r)avatu Sakimuṇisa samasa(m)budhasa śarira* —*Epigraphia Indica*, Vol. XXIV, p. 7. The Kharoṣṭhi record was edited by N. G. Majumdar (ibid., pp. 1-8), who, however, did not notice this aspect of the epigraph.

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¹ Cunningham, A.S.R., Vol. IX, pp. 11, 73. Cunningham says, "the old circular wall, with its inscribed statues, belonged to the 10th century and the cloister with its roof was the work of Queen Alhaṇādevī in the 12th century."

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² R. D. Banerjee, The Haihayas of Tripuri and their Monuments (M.A.S.I., No. 23), pp. 69-70.

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The last few verses of the *Pratimāmānalakṣaṇam*, being edited by me with translation and notes in Appendix B, Part II, contain some interesting details about the replacement of old images by new ones, similar to those incorporated in Ch. 67 of the *Agnipurāṇa*. The details, however, contain more about the manner in which the decaying images are to be destroyed than about their restoration. My study of some ancient Brahmanical and Buddhist images in the Sarnath and Rajshahi Museums has convinced me that attempts were sometimes made to restore them when they were partially damaged. The *Śilparatna* tells us that " when an image is slightly damaged, it should never be discarded; but when its arms, hands, feet and legs are severed, when it is broken, split up or nine *yava* portion of it is gone or when it gets disfigured, it is usually to be discarded. If its fingers, etc., are cut up (or broken) the sages recommend binding (repairing) them." ¹

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¹ *Śilparatna*, Part II, p. 206 :— Doṣe laghutare bimbam naiva tyājyam kadācana | Bāhucchede karacchede pādacchede tathaiva ca || Tathaiva sphuṭite bhinne yasmin navayave gate | Vairūpyam jāyate yasya tat tyajyam prāyaśo bhavet || Aṅgulyādi paricchede bandhanam sas'yate budhaiḥ |

Cites (4)