The Hindu Temple v2.c11.s8.13

v2.c11.s8.13

The upward journey approaches its end the nearer it leads to the Central Pillar of the temple which emerges from the High Vedi, a straight passage in its vertical direction though not factually, right from the Garbhagṛha and its centre. Above the crown and ring of the Āmalaka there is no competition, only a meeting and concurrence from all directions in the point of the finial; it rises bud-shaped or in the likeness of a fruit (mātuluṅga) from the vessel, the Amṛta-kalaśa (amara-kāraka) which makes immortal because "Viśvakarmā made the Kalaśa from the different parts (kalā) of each of the gods" ('Mahānirvāṇa-tantra', V. 181). So the substance of the Kalaśa, which is gold, as a rule,¹⁶⁹ contains the properties of each of the gods up in the deathless (amara) region, straight above the Nidhi-Kalaśa in the foundation of the temple in which were placed the treasures (nidhi) of the earth.¹⁷⁰ The ‘treasures’ would be transmuted into Deathlessness in the High Vase in which their several colours, scents and shapes would have entered through their presiding divinities. As above the temple, so also is a vase below the temple. In the Vase (kalaśa, kumbha) of the finial (stūpikā) are collected (from the root ‘stup’ to collect) all the properties of all the objects and their potencies and merged in Amṛta, the Deathless. Into this vase, the Golden Prāsāda-puruṣa is laid.