Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c22.7

c22.7

The five priests in the five quarters have again five Koṭālas, or guards, or rather gate-keepers with them, viz., Candra (the moon) in the west, Hanumān in the south, Sūrya (the sun) in the east, Garuḍa in the north and Ulūka in the void. The Koṭālas, as they are depicted in the Śūnya-purāṇa, seem to be so many attendants on the priests and gate-keepers in the five directions of the Dharma temple; they open doors to the visitors and again shut them up. The association of the sun and the moon with the east and the west is well-known, and the association of Hanumān with the south is also well-known through the stories of the Rāmāyaṇa (Ceylon, which was the field of activity of Hanumān being situated to the south of India). So the appointment of these three Koṭālas in the three quarters is easily explicable. Garuḍa and Ulūka are well-known as the mounts of Viṣṇu and Dharma-ṭhākura respectively. As Hanumān, associated with the south, happens to be something like the mount of Rāma-candra, it is perhaps by the law of association that the two other well-known mounts are placed in the other two quarters. In the Dharma-pūjā-vidhāna, however, the Koṭālas or the guards are differentiated from the gate-keepers (Dvārī or Dvāra-pāla), who are again attended by four Pātras (attendants). The four gate-keepers in the four quarters (the fifth gate of void being omitted here) are, Jharjharī-sundara (or Jharjharikā) or Mahākāla in the west, Jambhava or Tikṣṇa-damṣṭra in the south, Mahākāya in the east, and Nandideva in the north; and the Pātras are Paḍihāra, Hanumān, Ḍāmaraśāni and Kāmadeva respectively. We have somewhat detailed description of these Dvāra-pālas in the Dharma-pūjā-vidhāna.