The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.38

c8.38

Our account of the textual data for the study of the religious art of India will be incomplete, if we fail to refer to the dhyāna-mantras of numerous deities, which are incorporated in the work on rituals connected with the well-known cults. Here, a clear distinction can be made between the dhyānas of different deities belonging to various Brahmanical cults and the dhyānas or sādhanas of the deities belonging to the Vajrayāna Buddhism. The difference lay in the manner of meditating on the deity and in fixing the relationship between him and the individual. In the Brahmanical sectarian systems where love and adoration (bhakti) of a personal god was the outstanding feature, an element of duality was present. But a strictly philosophical Vajrayānist emphasised the real unity between the god to be meditated upon and the individual meditating on him; an element of spiritual monism seems to have been present there. This observation can be substantiated by referring to two typical dhyāna-mantras, one belonging to sectarian Brahmanism and the other to Vajrayāna Buddhism. One such well-known mantra outlines the conception of Śiva thus:—*Dhyāyennityaṃ maheśaṃ rajatagirinibhaṃ cārucandrāvataṃsam | ratnākalpojjvalāṅgaṃ paraśumṛgavarābhītihastaṃ prasannam || padmāsīnaṃ samantāt stutamamaragaṇairvyāghra-kṛttim vasānaṃ | viśvādyaṃ viśvabījaṃ nikhilabhayaharaṃ pañcavaktraṃ trinetram.* We do not fail to find in these lines a clear-cut concept of the god in which his main iconographic features are delineated; it will be needless to add that these followed principally the already established iconographic type of the deity, and the whole mantra was a sort of a handy formula for the convenience of the worshipper in meditation. Now, if we compare this with a *sādhana* of any one of the Vajrayāna divinities, we find the difference noticed above. The *sādhana* of Siṃhanāda Lokeśvara, one of the varieties of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, runs thus:—*Ātmānaṃ Siṃhanāda-Lokeśvararūpaṃ bhāvayet, śvetavarṇaṃ trinetraṃ jaṭāmukuṭinaṃ nirbhūṣaṇaṃ vyāghracarmaprāvṛtaṃ siṃhāsanasthaṃ mahārājalīlaṃ candrāsanaṃ candraprabhaṃ bhāvayet. Dakṣiṇe sitaphaṇiveṣṭitaṃ triśūlaṃ śvetaṃ, vāme nānāsugandhikusumaparipūritapadmabhājanaṃ vāmahastāt utthapadmopari jvalatkhaḍgam* (Sādhana-mālā, Vol. I, p. 63). We can certainly pick out many details of an iconographic character from the above extract, which give a clear-cut outline of the deity (evidently based principally on the Brahmanical god Śiva, cf. the śūla entwined with snake by his side, the matted locks, the half-moon among them, the tiger skin garment, white colour, the absence of ornaments, etc.); but the distinctive feature lies in the fact that the *sādhaka* meditates on himself as the deity, the portion in the mantra—*ātmānaṃ bhāvayet*, etc., being significant. Sometimes, the *praṇāma-mantra* of particular deities also contains their iconographic descriptions in broader outlines, which are helpful. Thus, one such in honour of the goddess Śītalā (*Namāmi Śītalāṃ devīṃ rāsabhasthāṃ digambarīm | Mārjjanīkalasopetāṃ sūrpā-laṅkṛtamastakām*) leaves little to be added to her iconographic description in her *dhyāna-mantra*. The stavas—eulogistic verses sung in honour of respective divinities—also incorporated in them such outlines. But, in all such types of texts, we seldom light upon any new detail which is not already known from earlier typical iconographic texts noticed previously, and thus the importance of the former is of a secondary character in the study of Brahmanical Hindu Iconography. It is not so in the case of the Vajrayāna Buddhist Iconography, and the standard works on it by Foucher or Bhattacharyya prove how much beholden its study is to these *dhyāna-* or *sādhana-mālās*.