The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.270

v2.c17.s1.270

The making of monograms was a common practice in India, and the union of *a*, *u* and *m* in the Hindu sacred and mystic *Om* is a notable instance of it of the most ancient times. The *Vīja mantras* of the different gods and goddesses are also no other than monograms; and the om, hṛm kṛm, hum of the Buddhist and the Tantric ages can be accounted for in no other way. The assumption, therefore, founded on the closest resemblance of the letters with the monogram is by no means unwarrantable. The use of the monogram is quite as extensive in Buddhist art as that of the wheel⁶⁰. It is the symbol of Dharma, the second member of the Buddhist Trinity. This member is Concrete•Nature, or matter, and the five letters are the names of the five elements which constitute that nature. The union of the Concrete Nature with Buddha constitutes Saṅgha, the third member of the Trinity, and the wheel and the monogram are usually joined together to represent the Trinity. Buddhist philosophers are not of one mind as to the exact relation of the two elements of the Trinity. The materialists exalt Dharma to the highest place, and make Buddha or spirit, subordinate, while the spiritualists raise spirit over matter. Accordingly we find the wheel sometimes placed above the monogram and sometimes below it⁶¹. In either case the result is the same—the union of *Buddha* and *Dharma* forming the *Saṅgha*. On one of the Sāñchi gateways the wheel appears below the monogram and three such united figures occur in a line as shown in woodcut No. 17. On another the united symbol is highly developed and its different lines are so curved and turned as to give them high artistic finish and two such figures are placed one on each side of a wheel symbol, also richly ornamented. A figure of this developed form is shown in the woodcut No. 18, and by comparing it with the figures of Jagannātha, Balarāma and Subhadrā as given in woodcut No. 19, it will be seen that the latter differs from the former in having eyes and mouths painted on them and a cloth thrown over the arms. Remove the cloth and the painted eyes and mouths, and the difference between them and the Buddhist symbol will be found to be slight indeed. The woodcut No. 19 has been copied from Gen. Cunningham’s figures published in his *Bhilsā Topes*; but it does not give a true picture of the images. The figures prepared by me (woodcut Nos. 11-14) are more faithful, and the faces of Jagannātha and Balarāma in them bear even a closer representation to the monogram. They differ, however, in one important particular. While in the former the hands are uplifted, and therefore they closely resemble the two lateral arms of the letter *y*, in the latter the hands are stretched forward, and can, therefore, bear no relation to those members. But I believe the original Buddhist emblem was partly carved and partly painted and the uplifted limbs of the latter were indicated by paint, and the paint having been rubbed off, the face now includes the whole of the [127] monogram. If it be borne in mind, moreover, that the figures have been renewed a great number of times under Hindu dominancy during the last fourteen hundred years, it would be easy to conceive that originally the figures were exact counterparts of the symbol and that the differences, slight as they are, are due to subsequent Brahmanic influences. As already described, (p. [109]) the figures were so intimately associated with the veneration of the people that Yayāti found it expedient to adopt them in their entirety and only slight changes have since been surreptitiously introduced from time to time, but never in such a way as to alter their general character.