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The Hindu Temple v1.c6.s2: The Subtle Body of the Puruṣa and Its Pictures

The Hindu Temple v1.c6.s2

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The Subtle Body of the Puruṣa and Its Pictures

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The symbolism of the Vedic altar, Agni, is continued in the Hindu temple, in its plan. The Vāstupuruṣa of this maṇḍala is indeed Agni-Prajāpati. It is drawn on the ground and not piled up. No fire burns on it; the temple is set up on it. The image of the Vāstupuruṣa coterminous and one with the maṇḍala is drawn in the likeness of man. His head lies in the East, in the maṇḍala of 64 squares, the legs opposite; body and limbs fill the square. No bricks are laid down which had been identified with the several parts of his body. The bricks were square; now squares are drawn, lines separate and connect those parts and limbs and are their joints and vital parts. These must not be hurt. The lines too (nāḍī), belong to the anatomy of the subtle body of the Vāstupuruṣa, they are channels of energy as the nerves are and the arteries in the gross body. Their prototypes are Prāṇa and Vāyu. The spine (vamśa) of this Puruṣa of 64 squares, is the middle line of the plan of the temple, as it is of the altar.

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In the net of this plan the figure of Man is caught, not by its likeness, but by its proportion and symmetry in its parts, the "head" confronting directly the aim of his being (the East, where the sun, light of consciousness, arises), the feet at the opposite end, a schematism in which the figure of Man is seen fitted into the square plan of the extended universe. It consists of name and measure. Such a picture or image (pratimā) is a workable and not necessarily visible, analogy, not of the human being but of the order by which it is upheld. Its diagrammatic field of co-ordinates, intersections and diagonals is sensitive to any interference with its order and in this respect it functions like the subtle body of the human being.

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Such constructions have wide currency in Indian thought where they signify the universal law as a working entity. For the sake of identification and reference, the whole of it and its parts are placed and named according to the parts and limbs of the human body. Puruṣa in these 'images' is a term of reference. It affords a means of location of the several parts within the whole; and an identification by transfer of one's own bodily frame into the special design as well as an introduction of that image into the corresponding disposition of one's own body. The body here means nothing but a place of co-ordinated activity, each part being the seat of a special function.

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The reference to the 'figure of man' as a place of co-ordinated function, is made factually and repeatedly in Brāhmaṇism and Buddhism, in sacred texts and works of art. The 'Āpastamba Śrauta Sūtra', XV. 15. 1. for example prescribes that a figure of man be laid out composed of the ritual implements of the Pravargya sacrifice. Three cauldrons form the head, the milk buckets the ears, and other sacrificial instruments and objects are the various parts of the body.

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Similarly, the presence of Buddha is referred to in reliefs in Sāñcī (North gate, left pillar) and Amarāvatī by the following allocation: footprints, at the place of the feet¹⁵, life-tree or pillar as trunk and axis of the body, wheel (cakra), etc., as head and sun-shade (chatra) above it.

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¹⁵ In Amarāvatī, the throne is added, above the footprints, to this symbol of "total manifestation". See Coomaraswamy, 'Elements of Buddhist Iconography', Pl. I. 2, etc.

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The Puruṣa of the ‘Puruṣa Sūkta’ is the archetypal, all embracing term; in its analogy are drawn the specified Puruṣas and the corresponding diagrams of universal time and situation such as the Ātmapuruṣa who is Duration,¹⁶ the Kāla-puruṣa¹⁷ who is Time and whose surface is outlined as that of man and marked in its extent by the signs of the Zodiac. The Nakṣatrapuruṣa¹⁸ correspondingly contains the signs of the lunar asterisms, and other star pictures, such as the Śiśumāracakra;¹⁹ this Puruṣa is related to the Vāstupuruṣa. With the star pictures, the description of the Vāstupuruṣa as support of the building has one trait in common: he is described as lying with his face turned down, to the ground, whereas Agni Prajāpati of the Vedic altar lies facing upwards. Dhruva, the Pole star, is described as moving with his head downward round the summit of Sumeru, as if looking at it.²⁰ If the reconstructed Agni Prajāpati faces upward, this connotes “an ascent from here” (Ś.B. VIII. 5. 2. 16), an aspiration towards and attainment of the higher region. From there Dhruva looks down, his face turned to the earth.

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¹⁶ ‘Viṣṇudharmottara’, as quoted by Alberuni, ‘India’, vol. I. ch. 32, p. 321.

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¹⁷ ‘Bṛhajjātaka’, I. 4.

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¹⁸ ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’, CIV. 1-5; ‘Matsya Purāṇa’, LIV. 7. The Nakṣatra Puruṣa Vrata is worship of Nārāyaṇa. In the rites of the ‘moon-vow’, the Candra-vrata, the Moon, Lord of the Nakṣatras, is beheld as Puruṣa. The rite is performed when Candra is joined with the asterism Mūlā: when his feet are joined with Mūlā, his legs in Rohiṇī, knees in Aśvinī, thighs in the 2 Āṣāḍhās, etc. ‘Mahābhārata’, XIII. 172. 3-10.

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¹⁹ ‘Matsya Purāṇa’, CXXVII. 19-29.

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²⁰ ib., 28-29. cf. note 43.

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