The Development of Hindu Iconography c9.30

Language: English

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It will be useful, now, to consider in their proper perspective some of the early Vedic texts, already referred to, which are utilised by Bollensen and Venkateswara in support of their views. The whole of the 33rd hymn of the second maṇḍala of the Ṛgveda, the first line of the 9th verse of which is taken by the former to allude to a painted image of Rudra, contains the praises of the god in which he is described in various ways; thus in verse 3, he is addressed as Vajrabāhu (with thunderbolt-like arms); in verse 5 he is characterised as soft-bellied, of good hailing voice, brown and possessing a beautiful nose (Ṛdūdarah suhavo...babhruḥ suśipro...); in verse 8, he is brown and white at the same time (babhrave... śvitice); in verse 10, he is addressed as the worthy god holding bow and arrow, wearing a beautiful and multiformed niṣka garland (i.e., a garland made of niṣkas covered with many forms—Arhan bibharṣi sāyakāni dhanvārhan niṣkaṃ yajataṃ viśvarūpam); above all, in the line quoted by Bollensen the word pururūpaḥ (having multifarious forms) shows that the god Rudra was endowed with various forms according to the imagination of the hymnist Gṛtsamada, and there is not the least justification for assuming that these were based on actual concrete figures. Similarly, the allusion to a probable image of Varuṇa wearing a golden coat of mail with spies sitting around him, in R. V., I. 25, 13, is not at all convincing.

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Varuṇa, the moral god, sung by the hymnist in various ways, is conceived as covered by a coat of mail and veiled in his radiance, thus being impervious to prying eyes, but himself looking into the secret virtues and vices of the mortals; the hymnist's idea about his spies is a necessary corollary of this conception about him, for the god sends them to look into the actions of mankind and report to him all about them. As regards R. V., V. 52, 15, Max Müller has translated the whole verse in this way, “If he, after perceiving them, has approached them as gods with an offering, then may he for a gift remain united with the brilliant (Maruts) who by their ornaments are glorious on their march.” He further remarks, “This verse, as Roth says, is very obscure;...whatever the verse may mean, *eṣām devān* cannot mean the gods of the Maruts or prove the existence of idols, as Bollensen and even Muir imagined.”¹ This verse is undoubtedly difficult of correct interpretation; it is extremely uncertain whether the particular extract from it at all means the images of the Maruts, and one cannot support a theory with the help of this enigmatic passage. The eleventh verse in the same hymn, however, may throw some light on it; there we are told that the Maruts might assume different forms according to their different functions (*iti citrā rūpāṇi darśyā*), such as protecting the world or collectively supporting it or sustaining from afar (the planets, stars and others).

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The devas in the passage in question may mean these various imaginary forms. In any case, if we read the whole hymn in which it occurs, we cannot but hesitate to accept the interpretation put upon it by the above-mentioned scholars. *Śumbhatā* in the passage in *R. V.*, I. 21, 2, explained by Sāyaṇa as ‘*nānāvidhairalaṅkāraiḥ śobhitau kuruta*’, actually means ‘adorned with various praises,’ which are figuratively taken by Sāyaṇa to mean ornaments. The words *sūrmyam suṣirāmiva* in *R. V.*, VIII. 69, 12, cannot unquestionably refer to an image of Varuṇa in that particular context; Ballantyne’s rendering of this passage is based on the similar description of a perforated iron image in later works, which was heated and employed as a sort of punishment for wrong-doers who were compelled to embrace it. But that sense can hardly be applied here. No great importance can be assigned to the descriptive epithets as *suśipra*, *kapardin*, *darśata* and such others which merely emphasise the anthropomorphic conception of the deities to whom they are applied. The Ṛgvedic verse, *Catvāri śṛṅgā* etc. (IV. 58, 3), merely presents to us in a metaphorical manner the Vedic sacrifice. Yāska explains the imagery, thus, " The four horns stand for the four Vedas, three legs for the three savanas, viz., the prātaḥ-, the mādhyandina- and the tṛtīya-savana, the two heads for the iṣṭis, viz., the prāyaṇīya and the udayanīya, and the seven hands for sapta chandas or the mantras.

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Here sacrifice is likened to a bull bellowing, tied in three ways; this threefold binding is explained by Yāska as referring to its association with the mantras, brāhmaṇas and the kalpasūtras; the bellowing of the bull stands for the praising of the gods in sacrifices with Ṛk-mantras, offering oblations to them with Yajus ones, and praying to the gods with Sāman songs. The god Sacrifice is said to have entered into human beings for the purpose of making them offer sacrifices.¹ Such passages as R. V., VI. 28, 6 and IV. 17, 4, which according to Venkateswara contain distinct references to the fashioning of images, do not admit of the interpretations which have been put upon them, if they are read along with their contexts. What is the full meaning of the two verses in which the above occur? In the first, cows, probably the clouds alluded to in a metaphorical manner, are exhorted by the hymnist, Bharadvāja, the son of Bṛhaspati, to nourish him and his people, to make lean, and thus ugly-looking, bodies beautiful, and to make his and his friends' houses prosperous; the cows are described as emitting auspicious sounds, the gifts of which are so well sung in the sacrificial assemblies (Yūyaṃ gāvo medayathā kṛśaṃ cidaśrīraṃ citkṛnuthā supratīkam | Bhadraṃ gṛhaṃ kṛnutha bhadravāco bṛhadvo vaya ucyate sabhāsu).

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In the second, on the other hand, Vāmadeva Ṛṣi describes Dyaus who was the progenitor of Indra, copiously praised, wielder of good thunderbolt and not fallen from heaven, as being possessed of a valiant son by bringing forth whom Dyaus became a most skilful workman (Suvīraste janitā manyata dyaurindrasya kartā svapastamo bhūt | Ya īṃ jajāna svaryaṃ suvajramanapacyutaṃ sadaso na bhūma). Thus, there cannot be the least justification for our finding in any portion of these Ṛk verses a reference to the practice of image-making. Pratika in the first passage should not be made much of, because the sense of a symbol or an image became attached to it in later texts; as vigraha primarily meant a body and secondarily also came to denote an image, so was the case with this word. Very little also can be said in support of the above-named scholar's method of finding a reference to the practice of casting metal images in the particular passages quoted by him from the Ṛgveda. The late hymn of the text (R. V., X. 184, 1) is really a mantra uttered in the time of impregnation (garbhādhāna), and there are clear indications of the real meaning of the three verses constituting the hymn. As regards the particular passages in such Ṛk verses as VII. 56, 14, and VII. 59, 10, if these are taken to allude to the temples of the Maruts, numerous others may be collected from the same text, which can be assumed to denote them.

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But the fact is that there is practically no support for the assumption that words like gṛhamedhīyaṃ or gṛhamedhāsa even distantly allude to the temples or shrines of such Vedic gods as the Maruts. The characteristic terms, however, used in the gṛhyasūtras, as we shall presently see, are devagṛha, devāgāra, devakula, devāyatana, etc., which denote the shrines of the gods; but, by the time the latest section of the Vedic literature was composed, images and temples had already been accepted by the higher sections of the Vedic Indo-Aryans. In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, description is given of a structure of post and thatch with mat walls, which was discussed by Simpson as denoting a temple; but Coomaraswamy has rightly pointed out that "this was a building for the performance of sacrifices, not a temple in the later sense." This, again, was a very simple shed of the primitive type and was called prācīnavaṃśa or prāgvaṃśa (also described as śālā) on account of the top beams which were bamboo ones extending from west to east; on a different mode of laying these again, the fire chapel was differently designated. In the udīcīnavaṃśa type of structure, also named vimata by Hiranyakeśin (Śrautasūtra, 3, 2 and 7, 1), the beams were laid from south to north. In more pompous types of sacrifices performed by kings, these types of buildings also served as fire chapels.

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In the Brāhmaṇa literature, again, “ many precise and elaborate details are given regarding the building of altars, generally fire-altars ” of various shapes; and it is noteworthy that the rules for the construction of these sacrificial altars, given in the Śulva Sūtras, make use of dynamic symmetry, of which no trace can be recognised at a later period.¹ But nowhere in such literature is to be found any reference, however slight, to the mode of construction of temples or shrines, which must have found some place if the images and temples had played some part in the sacrificial religion of the early Vedic Indo-Aryans. The supposed allusion to the processions of the images of Indra in Ṛgveda, I. 10, 1 and III. 53, 5-6, if carefully scrutinised, will be found to rest on no better data.