Shonaleeka Kaul - Cultural History of Early South Asia - A Reader-Orient Blackswan Private Ltd. (2018)
Shonaleeka Kaul - Cultural History of Early South Asia - A Reader-Orient Blackswan Private Ltd. (2018)
Shonaleeka Kaul - Cultural History of Early South Asia - A Reader-Orient Blackswan Private Ltd. (2018)
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Cultural History
Of
Early South Asia
A Reader
Edited by
Shonaleeka Kaul
Orient Blackswan Private Limited
Registered Office
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© Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. 2014
First published by Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. 2014
eISBN 978 81 250 5601 0
e-edition:First Published 2014
FIGURES
5.2 A garden party with dance and music, Mathurā, c. second century
bce
5.3 A couple from Kauśāmbī, c. second century bce
Oxford University Press India for ‘Rock Paintings of the Mesolithic Period’,
in Erwin Neumayer, Prehistoric Rock Art, New Delhi, 1983, pp. 5–28. ©
Oxford University Press.
Studies in History for ‘The Jataka as Popular Tradition’, 9(1), 1993, pp. 43–70.
© Jawaharlal Nehru University. Reproduced with permission of the
copyright holder and the publisher, Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
In the scheme of this book, the first of these questions is: Who was the artist
in early South Asia? Or, who were the producers of culture? Indeed, the
broader word ‘producer’ is more appropriate since ‘artist’ is often associated
with the performer of visual arts like painting and sculpture or dance, and
not usually understood to cover poet and playwright or folk bard, nor even
the artisan, though there is no reason why it should not include them. It is
also more appropriate because the artist does not seem to have been greatly
differentiated from the craftsperson in early South Asia, the term for both
being ‘shilpin' in all the early texts.1 Indeed, the two indigenous words for art
—shilpa and kala—connote essentially ‘skill at performance’, whether of a
practical or aesthetic or ritual kind. Thus, it appears, art was craft and craft
was art in early South Asia, the two embraced by the conventional sixty-four
kalas that are said to exist in the world. A more pervasive presence in the
day-to-day lives of people can thus be surmised for art viewed in this way.
Indeed, art was not only craft, it was also rite and ritual in early South
Asia. Its performance, and participation in it, was understood to have the
function of a yajna or sacrifice. Hence the ambivalence in the social status of
artisans: they were as an occupational group classed low as shudras,
presumably for being engaged in physical rather than intellectual labour. But
they were nonetheless regarded as having divine origins, being descendants
of cosmic architects Vishvakarma, Maya and Tvashtri. Hence also the textual
injunction that the hand of the craftsperson was ritually pure, as it was
engaged in the creation of objects of consecration.
Further, the punya or spiritual merit accruing from this ‘sacrifice’ is
believed to be the chief reason why patrons sponsored art in the first place
(this sponsorship was known as dana or donation / gift). The second reason
was likely to be public recognition and acclaim, and corresponding social
status. Royalty and others in positions of power making such donations
enjoyed the additional benefit of legitimation by association. Indeed, the
inscriptions that we find in large numbers associated with works of art are
those proclaiming the name and fame of the donor much more than that of
their producers.2 Art then certainly seems to have been an instrument for
society in more senses than one.
But was it just an instrument? Was the role of the artist merely executing
projects of power, social and political, and slipping passively back into the
wings? From what derived the capacity of art to be a vehicle of power in the
first place? First of all, cultural studies have shown that the relationship
between artist and patron—even the mightiest of patrons, the king—was
hardly a one-way affair or an unequal equation with the former being
dependent on the latter, and so his official mouthpiece. Not only was the
patron also dependent on the artist for legitimation or for propagating his
agenda, which is well known, but the artist on his own resisted the power of
the patron in a variety of ways and exercised a fair deal of critical
individuality or autonomy through his art.3 This is inevitable for a creative
medium in any case, a fact not given due consideration in modern studies
on patronage. Also worth emphasising is the fact that not all art was royal
art; most of the early South Asian art represented in this book was not. It
catered to broad sections and, evidence tells us, was also patronised by
diverse elements from among them. Indeed, it is the public nature of the arts
that made them worthy vehicles for royal messages or non-royal
advertisements of status, in the first place.
A second clue to the power or popularity of art may lie in asking: What
did the production of art—or cultural forms—primarily involve and intend?
It is perhaps to state the obvious that a deference to aesthetics, to the
creation of beauty variously defined, lay at the heart of cultural expression.
As such, its primary function would be to produce pleasing perceptions, to
entertain. No doubt any cultural form, be it a poem or play, a sculpted relief,
a painting, or a piece of magnificent architecture, when meant for public
consumption, would invoke an element of spectacle, of entertainment. But
to conceive of so limited a purpose internal to cultural production is only to
duplicate the inadequacy of the political economy approach that emphasises
a narrow purpose external to it, like social legitimation. It may also be to
commit the fallacy of ‘making of works of art a kind of aphrodisiac’4 and of
all creators and consumers of art in early South Asia, simply aesthetes!
Certainly texts like the fourth-century Kamasutra, a treatise on pleasure and
good living for the nagaraka (the urban connoisseur), prescribe mastery
over arts and crafts as part of a cultivated, refined way of life. But witness the
earliest extant treatise on aesthetics itself, the second-century Natyashastra
that went on to influence the theory of virtually every other branch of art: it
mentions not only the production of delight (priti, vinoda) but also
anukarana or imitation/mimesis of the ways of the world, and most
significantly, upadesha or instruction, as the goals of an art form like the
drama (natya, more properly dance-drama).5 A clearly contemplative aspect
to artistic production is thus indicated. Besides, cultural forms themselves—
their themes, motifs, symbols, methods and modes of depiction—all testify
to enormous investment (of intent and attention) in representationality. And
inherent to any representation is meaning.
These are precisely the points, not always recognised or asserted in studies of
art, that the first two essays in this book make. The piece by the father of
South Asian art history, Ananda Coomaraswamy, may be six decades old
but raises a basic question of understanding instructive to this day: Is art an
aesthetic or a rhetoric, i.e., is it a feeling or a meaning? His answer is a
passionate affirmation of intellect in art, ‘a theory of art as the effective
expression of theses’, much like the Greeks understood it. Further, he
suggests regarding art as a language (rather than a spectacle) regardless of
the medium in which the artist worked. And the traditional science of that
language, alamkara shastra, he argues, corresponds not to a category of
aesthetics or empty ornamentation, so much as to the category of rhetoric.
In the latter, eloquence or beauty is not an end in itself—art for art’s sake;
nor is it just to display the artist’s skill, which is the usual
understanding/criticism brought by scholars to the study of alamkara or
ornamentation. It is essentially a means of effective communication.6
Communication of what? Coomaraswamy has been criticised for reading
too spiritual a meaning into art, as when he speaks of it in this essay as
meant to ‘assist the soul’s interior revolution, to restore it to order and
concord with itself ’, to adhere to ‘our knowledge of what is good and bad for
us’—a concept of ‘liberating art (vimuktida)’. Nonetheless, his work makes a
fundamental point by emphasising the union, not separation, of beauty,
philosophy, and utility in art. These, incidentally, constitute the very contexts
of consumption—the functions of culture—spelt out in the beginning of this
introduction.
Once we foreground meaning in our approach to cultural forms, yet
another role played by art and the artist in early South Asia emerges. It was
an overarching role, an umbrella function that subsumed all others and
located ‘meaning’ within a larger cultural process/order. This role was the
giving of form to and the transmitting of tradition. Tradition may be defined
as values and practices an individual participates in as part of a community.
What kind of values did art transmit (or what kind of meanings did art
communicate)? It would appear these were aesthetic, intellectual, ritual and
civic values, apart from the political and social overlays. Where did these
values come from? Often they came from the process of artistic
interpretation and rendition itself.
But was the making of tradition a one-way process, a handing-down of
values conceived by artistic convention or innovation? Or, more likely, did it
operate in a dialogic fashion, creating meaning only when consumed by the
community within a shared system of signification?
The very fact that, as several articles in this book underline, in early South
Asia there was not a single tradition but plural traditions in every branch of
culture, variously intersecting or diverging but always interacting—is evidence
of the central role played by variegated communities (‘consumers’) in
constructing the meanings of cultural forms. To transmit tradition was thus
not always to endorse it but to engage with it and reshape it in as many ways
as there were communities of response. In turn, traditions shaped
communities that conceived them and gave the latter their identities. In this
sense, the cultural was necessarily implicated in the social world, but
perhaps in a subtler ideational way as much as in a political/ideological way.
More on this later. For now, let us turn to the second point:
representationality and its relationship with the crucial shaping factor of the
community.
With Stella Kramrisch’s piece we enter the world of painting in early South
Asia as laid out in the exhaustive canon on the subject, the
Vishnudharmottara Purana. This is believed to have been compiled in the
seventh century CE. Taken together with the preceding centuries of art
practices that it would cumulatively reflect, as any technical treatise
invariably does, the Vishnudharmottara's sections on painting are thus
contemporaneous with the mature phase of painting at Ajanta and at sites
like Sigiriya and Anuradhapura, in Sri Lanka, which belong to the same
tradition as Ajanta.25 Admittedly, the text contains but the theory of
painting. However, as Kramrisch emphasises, like all theories, it is derived
from and subservient to the practice of the art. In the same context, it is
important that the theory of painting in the Vishnudharmottara itself ‘left
every freedom to the artist to work “according to his own intellect”’. The
suggested say and autonomy of the artist is instructive for all those who
believe that early South Asian culture was ruled by convention. It is much
better appreciated as the confluence of canon and practice, of tradition and
innovation.
Kramrisch’s essay brings out very well that early South Asian painting was
also the confluence of imitation and imagination, of description and
suggestion. In its use of a variety of techniques like foreshortening,
proportion, and shading, it was science. And in its privileging of mood and
expression, it was story-telling. Indeed, the conjoint stress on observation
and imagination, and on emotion, was common to painting, sculpture,
literature, and dance in early South Asia, making these kindred arts.26 This is
proved also by the fundamental importance of the rasa theory in all of these,
and by the use of colour symbolism, i.e., the differential use of colours to
denote different characters and characteristics, detailed in the Natyashastra
and Vishnudharmottara. The latter also explicitly prescribes a knowledge of
dancing movements, body gestures, and rhythm as imperative for attaining a
knowledge of painting. Unity of early South Asian cultural forms is thus
reiterated.
Who was this exercise in realism and expressionism that painting
represented geared towards? Who were the audience or consumers of
paintings? A lot of different people were, it would seem, going by the
Vishnudharmottara and other texts like the Jatakas, kavyas and Kamasutra
which Kramrisch cites. The Vishnudharmottara speaks of the variety of
tastes, from the refined to the simple, that different aspects of a painting
appealed to and was required to satisfy (again echoing the Natyashastra).27
The range of consumers is also indicated by the range of materials or locales
that paintings appear to have been made on. They were used as decoration
or narrative, especially for festivals, on the floors, walls and ceilings of
private houses, palaces, temples and viharas alike. They were made on
boards as didactic tools used by sages, and also on canvas rolls (yamapata)
displayed by itinerant showmen in the streets and in courtyards of dwellings.
Painting thus comes across as one of the most democratic cultural forms in
early times, widely available and visible to its community, and enjoying quite
a social presence.
Let us turn now to the last four essays of this book, which cohere into a
section of sorts on literature broadly. Uma Chakravarti on Pali Jatakas; my
own essay on Sanskrit-Prakrit kavyas (ornamental poetry and drama); K.
Kailasapathy on early Tamil poetry, and A. K. Ramanujan on variegated
folklore (tales, songs, proverbs, riddles, etc.) present studies on four very
different genres of narrative and cultural expression. But they throw up
common issues, namely, orality, language, and performance; popular, folk
and elite traditions; multiplicity and questioning of tellings; cultural
appropriation, transmission and profusion, and so on. In fact, most of these
issues relate, as we have seen, to the larger cultural situation in South Asia
that we have been reviewing so far. Literature, in its different forms, helps
underline the complexity and fluidity of that situation.
So much anthropology and social history have shown the limitations of
hidebound categories like ‘popular’ and ‘high’ culture or Little and Great
Traditions, and their interpermeability. Even as she goes along with these
dichotomous categories, Chakravarti’s first-rate analysis of the multiple
layers to the structure and intentionality of the Jatakas proves their
limitations. It also instantiates the interweaving and cross-referencing of oral
and written traditions that were widespread in early South Asia. The Jatakas,
says she, are drawn from folk tales about common people that floated about
in oral form; as such, they must have been authored by ‘sections who are
normally outside the arena of intellectual production’ or ‘subordinate
classes’, which is why they constitute popular literature for her.
If this kind of statement on the authorship of a text sounds vague, it
serves to illustrate an important point for appreciating cultural dynamics in
the early period. In an ancient oral context, literary processes in the
subcontinent were marked by difficulty of pinpointing singular, well-defined
origin and character. They were inherently fluid and, be it the Vedas, the
epics, the Puranas, the Sangam anthology, or creative literature like the
Panchatantra, the Dashakumaracharita or the Kathasaritsagara, texts almost
always contained material that belonged to more than one strata of time,
place, and ideology. Thus, while Chakravarti calls the Jatakas popular
literature, she herself demonstrates that in the process of their compilation,
these tales were appropriated and critically altered by monk-editors who
were representing and advancing values of ‘high Buddhism’.
Not believing this to be a total contradiction, Chakravarti speaks of the
grey area that is the relationship between popular and high culture. She has
other reasons to maintain that the nature of the texts was popular (she
alternatively calls it ‘folk’, not distinguishing the two terms at all). Among
these, she speaks of Pali, the language in which the Jatakas are composed, as
‘closer to the language of the people’ than Sanskrit which was ‘a language of
a fairly restricted group even among the elites’. She also cites the Jatakas
being orally rendered or performed as being a sign of the popular. While we
shall return to the points about language and performance, Chakravarti’s
chief contribution in this context is emphasising the role of the audience.
Though unable to quite reconstruct the audience of the Jatakas specifically,
she argues generally, after Roger Chartier, that cultural consumption is also a
form of cultural production. Audiences, far from being passive spectators,
may recompose a text during viewership to permit a plurality of meanings.
Indeed, open-ended meaning is what lies behind another remarkable
literary phenomenon: multiplicity of tellings of a traditional text like the
Ramayana. As Paula Richman and others have shown, a rather than being a
closed text the epic represented a motif, that of the story of Rama, which was
successfully appropriated many different times, simultaneously as well as
across centuries and regions, by social groups seeking to express different
worldviews.28 This is an important new way of comprehending literary and
cultural processes. It means that one popular motif could lend itself to
multiple forms, fashioned by multiple communities of interpretation. It was
a situation of cultural profusion rather than diffusion, and may provide a
model for understanding the transmission and sprawling currency of certain
motifs, styles and icons in early South Asian sculpture, architecture and
painting too, which we have seen.
The next essay analyses a literary genre which is the seeming opposite of the
Jatakas. Kavyas were poems and plays (in the main) composed as art, i.e.,
highly literate, aestheticised compositions in Sanskrit as well as Prakrits.
Historians have typically regarded them as classical literature, born of a
courtly culture and meant for the pleasure of elite audiences. In my essay in
this volume, as well as in my book, I have urged a substantial review of this
understanding. I have specifically taken up the linguistic question, and
argued against the supposed subalternity of dialects like the Prakrits and the
‘elite-ness’ of Sanskrit. I have pointed out that the two are represented as
literary languages of comparable stature in the traditional view as laid out in
manuals like the Natyashastra and the Kavyadarsha.
Further, in my essay, the performative aspect of the plays is reconstructed
to show that they seem to have been open presentations at public venues like
temples and street crossings, and so would have enjoyed, in all likelihood,
mixed rather than small and elite audiences. A related point is the large
audio-visual component, including song, dance, acting and pantomime, in
the performance and consumption of texts. This not just demonstrates,
again, the unity of cultural enterprises in early South Asia but, significantly,
proves that the reach of literature exceeded the limits of literacy. Orality as a
cultural technique thus assumes a powerful new role and implication. It
suggests how traditions were built and fortified and knowledge propagated.
A heterogenous viewership, bringing with it varied bents and
expectations, would have made very different sense of the content of the
plays. For example, when exposed to such an audience, the extensive
critique of the political, ritual and socio-sexual institutions of authority—the
preserve of the elite—that several of these plays resort to, takes on a radical
complexion. I have argued that this must be factored into any appraisal of
the function and social location of kavyas.
I NthanTHISChalcolithic
ESSAY, ALL PAINTINGS WHICH ARE stratigraphically earlier
rock art will be treated as Mesolithic. The earliest
paintings which may have originated in a period earlier than the Mesolithic,
whose designation is still under dispute, will also be assigned to the
Mesolithic period for their cultural traits are similar to those of the
Mesolithic paintings as a whole.
The research into palaeolithic and Mesolithic cultures in India has so far
dealt only with finds of stone tools or other technological innovations found
in archaeological excavations, which provide very little clue to
understanding the lifestyles of people living in this period. The research in
stone-tool typology and the initial, but nonetheless rich, results of rock
painting research present us with two complementary sources of
information which together give us a better understanding of the people of
an age long past.
The rock paintings, engravings and bruisings were not intended by their
authors to furnish us with a complete picture of their activities. We have to
look at them as a manifestation of forms of expression, which were external
to their authors’ physical needs. The reason for this development is open to
speculation; the paintings may have been considered a means of influencing
themselves or their environment. Nor should we overlook the decorative
value of this form of expression. Many of the paintings are highly abstract, a
fact which can be regarded as a step towards symbolism and writing.
Extracting answers to our questions from these paintings is difficult, for the
modern observer of these symbols and pictures is himself largely confined to
the perceptions dictated by his own milieu. Most writers present the hunter-
gatherers of the Stone Age as being at the mercy of wild animals and all-
absorbed in the struggle for subsistence, as subject to the vagaries of nature,
and as scarcely different from wild animals themselves. This view may be a
projection of our own fears about a strange environment. The untouched
jungle is perhaps the most peaceful landscape that I know, even when it
harbours wild or dangerous animals which can be harmful to man under
certain circumstances. Although modern man has withdrawn into the cities
for his ostensible security, he is nevertheless at the mercy of dangers which,
by comparison, make the most vicious tiger or king cobra seem as harmless
as lambs!
The information that we gather from the tool typology and the rock
pictures deals with two different aspects of culture which do not overlap
very much. The rock pictures provide some detailed representations of
weapons, like spears and arrows, which give us an idea of how the microliths
we find in excavations were actually used. Querns and grinders are also
shown in the paintings. The rock pictures are rich in often intricate designs
which have yet to be found on any portable artifact from a stratified layer in
an excavation.1 Designs on bones and ostrich egg shells are confined to
cross-hatched lines and arrangements of dots. Because there is no
overlapping of design traits between excavation finds and rock paintings,
stylistic change cannot be dated on an absolute time scale. It can only be
seen in the relative context of the succession of styles.
The earliest picture complex is distinguished by the extreme naturalism of
its animal depictions. The representations of human forms, on the contrary,
are abstract and reduced to symbols. This earliest style masterfully captures
the sense of movement. The execution of the lines is extraordinarily fine
even to the smallest detail. These distinct details stand in contrast to
paintings of later styles which are often drawn in wavering lines of varying
thickness.
Not many groups of pictures from the earliest style remain. This style also
has the few polychrome pictures known to exist. In these paintings, a red
drawing usually has a green outline, sometimes joined by a yellow one. A
composition in Kharwai shows a group of dancers; some of them have
multicoloured head ornaments or multicoloured loincloths. In Jaura I
noticed the painting of a bull in which the body was shaded in with two
different pigments of red, and surrounded by a green contour line. The
painting gives a feeling of plasticity, which makes it quite unique.
The largest group of green pictures is located on the northern edge of
Lakhajoar in a shelter which contains pictures from the Mesolithic period
only. Under several layers of red paintings is a long group of green dancers,
many of whom are doing complicated steps. The ‘S’ position of the dancers’
bodies and the intricate positioning of the legs and arms immediately
recalled to me the mating dances of the cranes which I had often observed
from that shelter in the fields below.
A parallel which may approximate to the meaning of this dance depiction
is the practice, current among many existing tribal societies, of
pantomiming animal movements. Next to the isolated dancers there is a
group of seventeen dancers in a row led by one with a square head-mask.
Row dances, in which one often finds a complete village society
participating, are still practised in Indian tribal areas today. The last dancer
in this group seems to be having trouble maintaining his balance. Or what
appears to be mockery may have had a meaning which we do not
understand today. But it is a good example of the many small details which
are so typical of Indian rock art. Amazingly enough, the human figures
always wear loincloths which must have been made from a material soft
enough to swing around with the movement of the dancing. This leads me
to believe that they were actually made from some woven material. The
technique of weaving cloth was perhaps already known since it is only a
refinement of weaving.
The heads of the dancers are kidney-shaped. Often there is a small circle
in front of the mouth, which doubtless indicates that the person is singing.
The dancers are often depicted with extended headdresses. Nevertheless, it is
not evident which material was used to fashion them; they are strongly
reminiscent of the headdresses worn by some of the Naga tribes in eastern
India. In one picture at Bhimbetka, a green dancer wears a necklace with
small sticks radiating from it. In this style no sex difference is evident,
perhaps because all the humans depicted are men. These earliest paintings
give no technological information whatsoever. There is also no depiction of
food-gathering, nor are men and animals ever portrayed in a hunter-prey
relation. In one dancing scene in Lakhajoar, one of the participants holds a
musical instrument composed of vibrating prongs. In another group at
Kharwai one of the dancers is swinging a branch, but nowhere could I find a
clearly distinguishable tool. This is all in sharp contrast to later Mesolithic
paintings.
It is important to understand the psychological motivation behind this
pictorial art. Hunting was a sacred act, hence the great number of ‘hunting
chieftain’ depictions in hunting scenes. Success at the hunt was desirable; but
for the successful hunter the emotional upheaval of inflicting wounds and
death was too strong. None wanted to be individually responsible for the act
of killing. For this reason, single hunters are only rarely depicted. Hunting
was a social act and killing was a communally shared trespass. Heroes who
encounter animal or human foes alone do not yet exist. They appear for the
first time in the Chalcolithic period. This may be the reason why dancers
and hunters are reduced to stickmen in the Mesolithic period, despite the
fact that the artists definitely had the technical capability to paint humans in
the same naturalistic style as they did the animals. Yet with the possibility of
pictorial art, the taboo against depicting scenes of a kill or of an assault on
other human beings would soon have to disappear.
Theoretically, the depiction of naturalistic animal and schematically
drawn man should have been reversed. This takes place later, to a certain
extent, when the hunters came to be depicted more bodily. When this
change occurred, the animals’ movements were shown according to the
circumstances of the hunt and the artist began treating the subject in the
context of the situation in the picture when choosing naturalistic or abstract
forms. The later Mesolithic styles reveal some of the most dramatic pictures
of animals panicking, rolling over in death, writhing in pain at an inflicted
wound and dying. In the same way as the depiction of animals was adapted
to show the hunting mêlée, the human forms had to be modified as well.
Of course, the Mesolithic artist never had any difficulty in indicating the
movement of even a stickman, but a stickman is always somehow weightless.
This does not mean that the stickman was given up totally, for artists would
occasionally still find this a convenient form. But in some of the paintings
where the hunter is running, jumping and throwing a spear, the figures are
well filled out, no longer stickmen.
Depictions of woman also become more frequent. It is worth noting that
in contrast to their spouses, women always look well-nourished and fat.
Women did not live under the threat of the killing taboo since their part in
the economic structure was to gather food, as depicted in Indian rock art;
for this reason there was nothing to prevent the artist from portraying them
in a more individualistic manner than their male counterparts. Another
difference between the earliest rock paintings and the later Mesolithic ones
is the absence of food production activities in the former. In the later
Mesolithic paintings, in contrast to the earliest ones, hunting and gathering
is the central theme. The stylistic details of Mesolithic rock paintings also
underwent some modification as time went by, as seen for example in the
modification of head forms and ornaments; but the theme remained static as
a whole.
Sometimes a rudimentary landscape will be included if necessary, as for
example in Jaora where a herd of elephants are trampling through high grass
or bamboo; a hunter in Bhimbetka ambushes some animals from behind
scrubs, and monkeys can be seen climbing trees. Water pools are not only
indicated by fish but also by an encircling shore line. Shelters and caves in
which people are engaged in some activity are shown as well, as are the caves
in which animals like rats, porcupines and scaly ant-eaters hide themselves.
An X-ray style which depicts the internal organs of animals with
anatomical accuracy is rare. More often the structure of the intestines and
the skeleton was simplified to a design-like pattern. In many instances it is
open to question whether the pattern was derived from an X-ray style.
Frequently these patterns seem to symbolise some mythological quality with
which the depicted animal is endowed. Even in the earliest styles there are
paintings replete with complicated geometric designs; these designs are
sometimes several metres square and are often the remains of oversized
animal portraits. These are mainly depictions of the horned boar, which had
a central place in the lore of Mesolithic Indian culture. The exact
stratigraphical position of these pictures is unclear; too few of them have
been found and most of those that have been found are in a very bad state of
preservation. But since many of them are polychrome, I think they probably
belong to the earliest stylistic group.
A hint as to the meaning of these designs comes from a picture in Jaora
which shows a rectangular plane divided into seven vertical design stripes;
on the upper side of the rectangle there are two wavy lines to denote water
out of which reeds are growing; fish are swimming beneath the lower
waterline. Ducks are paddling along the right and lower edge of the
rectangle. Towards the right of the design are five birds in flight. This picture
could be a depiction of the Mesolithic cosmos in which the rectangular
plane symbolises the earth, the wavy lines signify water with fish and reeds;
the air is indicated by flying birds. The seven design stripes could indicate
different features of the earth, which, when transferred to the body of an
animal or man, would show the same earth quality incarnated.
Of course, without verbal explanation from the artist, no speculation of
this kind can ever give us a definite answer; but nevertheless some
explanation should be attempted. A peculiarity of the Mesolithic paintings is
that the limbs of sitting humans or supine animals always cross each other—
which incidentally is a perspectival treatment we consider to be correct,
though it is contrary to the method employed elsewhere in Mesolithic
paintings. This perspectival treatment of crossing the limbs is used so
compulsively that one often gets the impression that the kneeling man or
resting animal have actually become entangled in their own limbs.
The concept of perspective in Mesolithic paintings as well as in paintings
of later periods followed a very complex pattern. Objects which are meant to
be furthest away from the beholder are placed towards the top of a
composition. Since this does not always solve the problem of understanding
the position of an object, a ‘mixed’ perspective sometimes had to be used, as
for example the flattening out of a group of objects which stand in some
relationship to each other. Here the main object is placed in the middle of
the composition and those related to it are arranged around it in such a way
that the relationship between them can be understood. That this was not
always easy for the artist can be seen from the many paintings where he
struggled very hard to paint things according to the then understood
concept of perspective.
Several hunting scenes employ this perspective. One group in Kathotia
shows a bovid in the centre, surrounded by hunters. In order to ensure that
the hunters behind the animal would not be concealed by its body, the artist
has drawn them above it; to show that they are dashing their spears against
it, he has drawn them with their heads towards the animal—in other words,
upside down.
The perspective of animal horns or antlers as well as the animal’s ears is
always a twisted one. The horns must already have been imputed with a
special meaning in Mesolithic lore, for there are depictions of animals with
horns even when they actually have no horn at all, as for example the boar.
To emphasise this power attributed to the horns, they had to be shown in a
twisted perspective on the exclusively silhouetted animals. The crescent
shape of the horns gave them their full symbolic appearance.
The same treatment of perspective is given to the limbs of standing
animals, which as a rule are always shown with four legs, when actually two
should be at least partly obscured by the ones closer to the viewer. This
attribute makes the Indian rock paintings appear somehow flat when the
animal is not shown in motion. Yet when the animals are in motion, it adds
an extreme dynamism to the paintings. Exceptions to this twisted
perspective are found in the earliest paintings which, as already mentioned,
are often executed in green. Here in some cases, the horns and legs are
shown in the perspective we would consider ‘correct’. The eye, which is a
prominent organ in folk art, and incidentally in witchcraft, is totally absent
from Mesolithic and Chalcolithic art.2
Snakes are completely absent from the Mesolithic zoo. There might be
two explanations for this: either these creatures were insignificant to the
people of the time, which is not very likely, or snakes were so feared or
venerated (which amounts to the same thing) that drawing pictures of them
would have had some unpleasant consequence for the artist. However
significant a place snakes may have in Indian folklore and mythology, they
are totally absent in Mesolithic and Chalcolithic rock art. They first appear
in rock paintings contemporaneous with the Gupta period.
Domestication of animals is not what we would expect from a hunting
and gathering culture, and yet I know of three paintings which depict wild
animals which seem to be mascots or animals kept by the people for
sacrifice. Two examples come from Kathotia. One shows a pig being fed by
some people with food which seems to have been prepared by a woman
grinding some fruit on a quern. In another group of pictures a man and an
antelope appear to be playing together. In Lakhajoar there is a depiction of a
woman carrying a basket on her back and a monkey on her head (which
could also be prey, however).
The boar might have had a similar significance for the Mesolithic Indians
as the bear had among the Ainus in Siberia and Japan. The latter kept their
bear-brothers in cages until they were too big for captivity and then
‘murdered’ them for food. The depiction of the monkey and the antelope
allow us to imagine that they were mascots which were found when young
and kept as pets.
The style of Mesolithic rock paintings in the Vindhyas is remarkably uniform
[emphasis added]. Rock paintings which are located sometimes dozens or
even hundreds of kilometers apart show scarcely any difference in style,
theme or execution. This allows us to conclude that the nomadic hunters
and gatherers had a very uniform culture and code of expression.
One question which always turns up is whether women or men painted
the rock pictures. There are no really good criteria for distinguishing
women’s art from that of men. Rock art was an integral part of a culture
which had not yet consciously begun to mirror the cultural milieu. The
artists were almost certainly not an independent community as in modern
pluralistic society.
If we assume that the creators of the rock art were shamans, they could
only have communicated their mystic experiences through an established
and commonly understood code of expressions, which, it is true, was
sometimes different for women and men both in pictorial art and in
language. But this difference in expression is not conditioned so much by
sex as by the hierarchies of power current at the time, an example of which
is the range of dependency relationships within a society. (That hierarchies
are generally formed on the basis of sex is not denied; nevertheless,
hierarchical groups are not based exclusively on gender.) This would mean
that through the study of the artist’s product (which is a social product as
well, since the artist is not distingnished from the rest of the society), we
should theoretically be able to infer his position or role in society (as well as
the position of the society itself), which should answer our question as to
who did the paintings.
The difficulty in accomplishing this is our own limitation, which stems
from the way we perceive history. Research into the history of art takes the
artistic possibilities of the present as its perspective, its yardstick by which it
analyses the art and culture of societies with other technologies, social
organisation and inclinations. From this arises the totally chauvinistic
division between primitive and classical art. Our patriarchally-oriented
social world makes it extra ordinarily difficult for us to understand the
societies that created the rock paintings.
Although most of the house-wall paintings in India are done by women,
the exceptions to this are not insignificant. Yet the theme of modern Indian
folk art is probably fundamentally different from that of the Mesolithic
period. The Mesolithic portraits of women, as well as those of men, do not
idealise (at least as our culture defines this) man or woman as a sex object. If
it were otherwise we still would not know who made the pictures, but we
would get some indications as to whom they were done for.
There is a striking segregation between hunting and gathering activities in
the Mesolithic pictures. In depictions of the hunt the man has all the skill
necessary for running, jumping, hurling weapons and retreating from a
charging animal. Even so, he is most often depicted as a stickman. On the
other side are the women gathering food, nursing babies, being pregnant,
carrying baskets and working on the quern. This observation conforms with
our concept of a sex-defined division of labour. But there is no indication of
the distribution of power in these pictures. Since the women produced the
greater part of the food requirements through their gathering activity, it
would be logical to conclude that the greater power within the group rested
with them—if our concept of power is even applicable in this situation.
Sensuality was never portrayed as something completely ecstatic in the
Mesolithic pictures. There are very few pictures of women exposing their
genitals or of ithyphallic men. Depictions of sexual activities are so natural
that they do not always fulfil our expectations of sex scenes; the possibility
often remains that we are only viewing dance scenes in which the men and
women are closer to each other than normally. Amazingly, these depictions
of sexual intercourse preserve the stylistically different ways of portraying
women and men. A stickman is playing with the breasts of a woman, whose
portrayal called for three times as much pigment as did her somehow
meagre lover.
I have to admit that all these thoughts about society and the distribution
of power did not finally bring me to a clear understanding of who did the
paintings. But assuming, on the basis of the information furnished by these
paintings, that Mesolithic society was a very egalitarian one, the question of
who made the paintings still cannot be solved because painting does not
appear to have been an activity invested with any particular prestige or
practised by an elite determined on the basis of sex [emphasis added].
The Mesolithic paintings clearly illustrate a society of hunters and
gatherers. The Indian rock paintings provide a more varied source material
on lifestyles than do the excavations carried out thus far, which generally
furnish information relating mainly to tool technology. But even with all
these exciting new discoveries, the deciphering of the data has not yet made
much progress. The pictures are certainly not illustrations of the hunter-
gatherers’ day-to-day activities. They are a part of some socio-religious
ritual; certain themes are emphasised more than others, which, though
obviously of greater economic importance, only appear as peripheral by-
products. We must try tuning our mode of perception in an attempt to filter
these facts.
These pictures may possibly be part of a ritual to magically influence
circumstances which were difficult to control rationally. Ethnological studies
of traditional societies show a direct correspondence between the
complexity of the activity performed and the magical attention given to it.
Difficult tasks require more magic, while everyday ones hardly need any.
Success on the hunt is one of the results most often invoked through magic.
Although the hunt was not the most important source of food, most of the
pictures are dedicated to this theme.
Yet we tend to overemphasise the magical content of the pictures,
implying that superstition was the dominant force in the society, and
therefore labelling the society ‘primitive’, which it definitely was not. The
pictures originated during a period of change of which even the new
technique of painting is an indication. The mental capacity to make
representations must already have been present for millennia before this art
actually appeared. The earliest specimens of rock art cannot be classed as
products of the human spirit emerging from its childhood. They are not
early steps on the way to a more highly ‘evolved’ art; rather, their symbolism
and technical proficiency indicate that these oldest examples were high points
in the field of artistic expression [emphasis added].
The rock paintings are expressions of the code which governed the life of
a microlith-using people. Magical ideas could already be expressed through
a complex symbolism which helped cope with psychological fears and
insecurities, and so helped to channelise them. This is a circumstance which
comes under the scope of the term ‘culture’. Only under these social
conditions could the development of organised food production be
accomplished. Therefore, the rock paintings are important documents of a
transitional period; they not merely furnish us with statistics about tool
types and middens, but also, and more importantly, provide us with
illustrations of the cultural circumstances of the Mesolithic people.
CULT REPRESENTATIONS AND SOCIETY
The Mesolithic rock pictures form a unity which has had to be separated
into single themes for the purpose of analysis in order to attempt an
explanation of what motivating causes lay behind their origin. The
distinction between the individual theme complexes are subject to the
intuition and experience of the modern viewers. These reflections and
speculations could either be confirmed or denied by the perceptions of
another viewer, but none can claim that his interpretations are final.
Animals pursuing man are often portrayed in the rock paintings. The
hunter is the victim of his chosen prey. Often these depictions seem to recall
a hunting accident. In Lakhajoar a buffalo is throwing a man over his back.
At Bhimbetka, a boar is chasing an unarmed man, while in another shelter
on the same hill, a rhino is hurling one of his attackers into the air. Nowhere
in the Mesolithic paintings does this turning of the tables appear to be a
desired occurrence. The men in these pictures are depicted as being inferior
to an animal, which symbolises the greater power of the latter. In the
Mesolithic paintings this fact of people being thrown around by animals
cannot be explained as the sport of ‘bull jumping’ which was practised in the
Chalcolithic period in western Asia and was, above all, a strong cultic
peculiarity in Crete. The depiction of the men being chased by animals has
to be seen in the context of the hunting complex, even if the animal is
sometimes depicted as an oversized deified being with a body composed of
many parts of different animals.
Nevertheless, pictures showing these hunting accidents were possibly
already executed as part of some cultic activity. Pictures which depict well-
organised hunting expeditions do not seem to have any mythological
content. But, as already mentioned, they could very well have had an entirely
magical purpose. It is even possible that the execution of the painting was in
itself a magical exercise, and that—not very likely, but still possible—the
finished product was of no importance after the act of execution.
But a great proportion of the rock paintings of the Mesolithic period
cannot be explained as depictions of everyday activity. The most eye-
catching scenes in this group are the occasional huge drawings of animals,
which often carry the typical attributes of some other animals as well. One
of the best preserved picture groups of this type is at Bhimbetka under a
mushroom-shaped rock some 12 m high, whose very form and setting
already convey the aura of a sacred place.
The most distinctive figure among the many paintings which this rock
shelter houses is a huge animal with the body of a boar; however, its snout is
very similar to a rhino’s—the underlip seems to derive from an elephant,
and, most surprising, it has bovine horns. This creature, for which it is
difficult even to assign a name, is chasing away a diminutive man. The
contiguous form of the boar is not placed on a horizontal plane; rather, he is
storming down at an angle from above at a man who is seeking safety in
flight. This special organisation lends immense power to the composition.
The boar is spraying his semen in long streams towards the earth, over a
number of small piglets, which makes it look as if he is generating all these
little creatures drawn beneath him. (This of course is only a personal
reflection, for it cannot be ascertained whether the small animals belong to
the same group or have just incidentally been overpainted by the big boar.)
Yet the portrait of the deified creature shows a great many cultural
accretions which were all added during the Mesolithic period.
In front of the figure of the fleeing man is the drawing of a comparatively
large crab. Between the man and the snout of the boar are radiating lines
which may indicate the snorting of the boar, or arrows which the man has
dared to shoot at his oversized foe.
There is a stylistically contemporary depiction in Jaora. In this case,
however, the animal depicted is clearly a rhino. (This is incidentally one of
the best animal portrayals in Indian Mesolithic art.) Once again we see a
man taking to his heels, closely followed by the formidable snout of the
rhino. Over his shoulder he carries a long spear. But he will not be able to
get away because a few steps ahead he will encounter a big boar, no less
formidable than the rhino. In Lakhajoar again, there is a picture of a boar
being attacked by two comparatively small hunters with microlith-tipped
spears.
There are many more deified animals depicted at Bhimbetka but few of
them are involved in any action. Generally their bodies resemble those of
boars, but they always have horns which are sometimes even longer than
their bodies. Another group at Bhimbetka shows a boar which is placed
vertically, head down, on the shelter wall; to the left of its snout is the
drawing of a crab, and to the right a woman with a carrying net extended
from her head. This composition seems to illustrate the polarisation of ideas
in the Mesolithic mythological system. There is the huge and vengeful beast
which chases a man, ejaculating its semen on the earth; on the other hand,
the woman with the basket goes about her business unchallenged. The boar
could be the ‘Lord of the Vegetation’—to use Frazer’s term. The man
symbolises the hunter challenged in his pursuits by the deified boar, or the
equally powerful rhino, or in some cases by a buffalo bull.
The woman with the basket, which could be a symbol of plenty, is left in
peace to harvest the fruit and vegetation. The deified animals seem to have
been cult idols whose depictions were maintained and restored over a long
span of time. In Bhimbetka one of these depictions revealed successive
layers of paints and repaint due to a trickle of water having washed off the
uppermost layer. This clearly shows that the paintings were actually restored.
Of course in this process some of the features of the original painting
underwent considerable change. The deified animal or the concept it stood
for was recognised not only in the Mesolithic period; it seems that some of
the paintings were repainted well into the historic period, or overlaid by
animal paintings which were modelled on the already available outlines. Of
course we cannot expect a cult to exist unmodified for millennia, and these
paintings had to be adapted to a different symbolism.
The 4 m-long depiction of a bull in Jaora—one of the most impressive of
the Indian rock paintings—seems to be a product of continuous repainting.
The bull as we see it now is in the style of paintings which were done after
the beginning of the Christian era. The unique form and position of the
head in this painting is puzzling. The artist, or rather the restorer, seems to
have shaped the head according to outlines already available from earlier
paintings, which may have depicted a rhino rather than a bull.
The body of this big bull is whitewashed and decorated with thousands of
red dots, which are in fact fingerprints. What is surprising is that lines of
Mesolithic animal bodies, which could easily have been whitewashed as
well, were repainted and restored. Painting compositions were adapted,
changed and enlarged even during the same style period to which the
originals belonged, in other words at a time when the symbolism of the
original paintings was still understood. This fact is clear from the group
from Bhimbetka described above. Here the lower smaller deified boar is
only an adaptation of an elephant, with whom he shares the lower lip and
one leg. It could easily be imagined that new adaptations of earlier sacred
paintings could alter the iconography of a deified animal considerably. A
freak depiction could develop into the prototype of new iconography for
sacred images.
Some of the earliest layers of paint reveal traces of larger than life-size
animals embellished with extraordinary designs which are sometimes
executed in three colours—red, green, and white. Unfortunately none of
these big paintings of the Mesolithic period are complete. And, more often
than not, the scarce remains are almost invisible. Moreover it requires
considerable knowledge of the stylistic peculiarities of the Mesolithic
paintings to recognise the almost invisible lines and reconstruct the original
shape and appearance of the animal. The execution of animal depictions of
this size, in sometimes very inconvenient places like high rock walls or
ceilings, could only have been done by using elaborate ladders or
scaffoldings. But even this does not explain the well-executed lines, seeing
that the painter had to work too close to the rock to be able to get an overall
view of the composition. The animals are well-proportioned and radiate the
same dynamic movement as do the generally much smaller works of art of
the Mesolithic period.
A modern artist would solve the problem of depicting the proportions of
the animal correctly with the help of a grid and model. It is not unlikely that
a similar method was used by the Mesolithic artists, though no trace of this
survives. It is only in the Chalcolithic period that artists constructed animal
figures from geometric forms (as unfinished animal drawings at every stage
of completion tell us) using a technique similar to that of the cubists of this
century, though for a very different reason.
Interpreting the big boar as a deified animal—and equating him, quite
speculatively, with the Lord of the Vegetation—seems quite plausible
considering his similarities with the iconography of West Asian cultures.3
But the problem gets much more complicated with depictions of beings
which are only comparable to Rakshasas. Here we identify them with
Yakshasas only on account of the fact that these Indian demons have the
ability to change into whatever form and size they fancy.
At Jaora we find a bird-like being with human legs and a huge beak with
wicked-looking teeth. A tiny human seems to be running away from its
beak. At Kathotia we find a being composed almost entirely of jaws and
teeth. Two paintings at Kathotia show fish standing on their tailfins, which
exceed some humans standing close to them in size. In one case the fish is
surrounded by figures of the ‘hunting chieftain’ type, who are clearly women
in this case. One man is shooting a microlith-barbed arrow into the fish. In
the second painting one ‘hunting chieftain’ figure with a basket on his back
is touching the fish which is three times bigger than him.
Depictions of fish—apart from those in fishing scenes—are quite rare. In
Lakhajoar there are drawings of two snake-like fish whose forms have been
adapted to the available space, which only allowed the artist to draw the fish
snake-like. From Sauro Mauro comes the depiction of three big fish. As the
body patterns look quite Chalcolithic, it is possible that the big fish
continued to be a symbol right into the Chalcolithic period.
In Kathotia there are pictures of some cult activity which seem to be
confined to this particular site. These pictures show uniformly adorned men,
standing on a double line which moves, most often, along a zig-zag path.
Many lines radiate downwards from these double lines, which I believe are
symbolic of the flow of water or a cascade of water. The men are bent over
and knocking something against the ground with both hands. In one case it
is easy to see that they are knocking tortoises on the ground and throwing
them down in the same direction in which the water is flowing.
In one case a lizard has also been drawn between these wavy lines. In
Satkunda there is a unique group showing the same subject in a very
symbolic way. One tortoise is placed between a human figure and another
figure which looks like a human but has a long tail like a lizard. Around this
scene are dancers with interlocked arms.
In a shelter on the northern end of Lakhajoar, I noticed another unique
picture group. To investigate this group thoroughly, Dr Wakankar and I had
to construct a scaffolding, which dangled quite precariously above the
ground. But the exercise was worth the labour. While standing on this ‘air
raft’ it was not surprising to find the painting of an elaborate construction.
The picture shows a platform resting on four long poles; the outer two have
branches cut in such a way as to facilitate human climbers, like a ladder. Two
men are climbing this structure, which stands about four to five times their
own height. They carry big loads on their heads. Two men sitting on the
platform seem to be lending a hand to the overloaded climbers. To the left of
this platform is another, bigger one on which a few men are actually dancing
and beating some instrument. (This shows that the Mesolithic people had
some confidence and skill in their carpentry work.)
To the left of this Mesolithic dance platform are faded drawings of fishes
and lizards, and between this jumble of aquatic creatures is a creature, rather
human in appearance, engaged in a dance. Since the rock surface here is
crystalline and the paintings very faded, the overlapping of painting layers
cannot be discerned. Hence we cannot tell whether the left part, that is the
fishes and lizards, belongs to the composition depicting the scaffolding, even
if we assume that it belongs to the same stylistic epoch.
One surprising feature of Mesolithic art is, as already mentioned, the total
absence of any depictions of snakes. There are many writers who have tried
to explain several of the weird depictions of Mesolithic art as proto-Hindu
or even ‘Aryan’ deities. The ‘hunting chieftain’ becomes the Kurma
incarnation of Vishnu, the fish Matsya, the boar Varaha. Occasionally the
boar is said to be a bull on account of its horns and called Indra, depending
upon the fancy of the writer. The absence of the snake would be difficult to
explain if we were to assume that all these deified beings are merely early
depictions of Hindu deities. Snakes are an important iconographic
peculiarity right from the earliest examples of classical Indian art as well as
in Indian folklore.
The reluctance to depict snakes—and scorpions as well—in the Mesolithic
period could of course be explained as being a reflection of the great
reverence in which these creatures were held by Mesolithic people. In any
case snakes and scorpions are totally absent in Mesolithic paintings. Dance,
music, and chants are the most widely recurring cultural symbols.
Mesolithic paintings show that rhythmic movements most probably
reinforced by a uniform beat, were used to forge a number of people into a
unified mass sharing a homogeneous psychological condition. This practice
is still common today. It has a simple magic which nobody can escape. I
often experienced this same spell while participating in tribal dances with a
monotonous rhythmic drum and repetitive step pattern in surroundings
which were otherwise totally strange to me (as was the deer). In the earliest
rock painting style—the one in which green colour was used—dance scenes
are almost the only theme. These pictures indicate a very complex dancing
culture with uniform step and movement patterns.
A picture done in a green pigment at Bhimbetka shows three dancing
men, two of them positioned symmetrically to each other. A depiction in
Jaora also shows two dancers in a symmetrical relationship—in this case
their posteriors form the symmetrical axis.
The Mesolithic paintings show a number of incidents in which dancers
lose their balance, which I cannot really believe is caused by the rugged
surface of the dancing ground. An example comes from one of the best
preserved green paintings found in Lakhajoar. This group shows some
people engaged in acrobatic dance steps followed by a group of seventeen
dancers who have formed a chain by placing their hands on the back of the
man in front. The last man has lost his balance. Unfortunately the reason for
this is not clear. But the jungle definitely yielded some liquids, plants and
bark during Mesolithic times, the consumption of which was intoxicating
and which would therefore have facilitated the losing of balance. Small
circles are painted in front of the mouths of many of the dancers, which I
believe to be ‘speech bubbles’ showing that the person was singing or
chanting. The long chain of dancers follows a man decorated with a square
headdress and some radiating feathers or ornaments. A small green picture
in Lakhajoar shows a group of five dancers with one holding a comb-like
rhythm instrument.
Musical instruments are rarely depicted in any of the rock painting
periods. Besides this comb-like instrument, I only know of a harp-shaped
one depicted in a Mesolithic painting. Gongs and drums which are beaten
by sticks are the only examples of instruments I know of from the
Chalcolithic period.
In paintings of the historical period, drums are the most frequently
depicted instruments, and are found mainly in scenes of war. But a few
pictures also show the harp and wind instruments. Probably the most
beautiful picture of a musician comes from Pachmarhi. It shows a man
playing on a harp, surrounded by his family. His bow, arrows and axe lie
beside him. This painting belongs to the historical period as well, but is
executed in the graceful style characteristic of the Mahadeo hill rock
paintings.
In Kharwai we find another green painting group showing a dancing
scene; this is the most carefully executed painting of the earliest style group.
It is placed in a very low shelter and is overprinted by many later Mesolithic
compositions. The painter of this group used not only the rare green colour
but also yellow and red. Like green, yellow is a very rare pigment and is
seldom used. This yellow colour is derived from a thin patina formed on a
deposit of brown or orange chalcedon, which has been lodged for a long
time in a humid lateritic layer.
The square shape of the dancer’s head in this group differs from the usual
kidney-shaped form. This square shape reminds one of the lead dancer of
the long dancing group in Lakhajoar or other green paintings in Muni Ki
Pahar. One of the dancers in the Kharwai group has an intricate headdress
painted in three colours (green, red, and yellow).
Worthy of notice in all these early human depictions is the prominently
executed loincloth, which definitely cannot be described as practical
clothing. This view is strengthened by the figure of the green dancer in Muni
Ki Pahar who holds his loincloth between his hands while dancing; as if to
accentuate the whole dance movement by the swaying of the wavy material.
Incidentally, in the iconography of paintings of the early Buddhist period in
Afghanistan as well as in the art of Mongolia and Tibet, the swaying
garments lend a graceful touch to the otherwise static forms of the
meditating Buddha.
Many of the early dance depictions gave us only a glimpse of what may
have been the use of masks and body ornaments. Since the human body is
reduced to the simplest and barest number of lines the figures often look
over-decorated and it is not always easy to distinguish the shape of the head
from a mask. Some depictions dwell lavishly on masks, adornment, and
perhaps also body paint, neglecting the human form altogether.
A painting in Kathotia shows more than a hundred dancers in a row.
Leading this chain of people are three persons decorated with headdresses
from which long radiating red and white lines form a round ray-like halo.
The bodies of these figures are again almost hidden by lavish costumes.
These paintings remind one of some of the dance costumes of the Nagas
in eastern India with their cotton clothing dyed in red, black, and white and
their headdresses radiating bamboo-splinters. Some of the dancers in this
group in Kathotia have linked hands, while others place theirs on the back of
the man in front. It is surprising that the artist should have given some
consideration to perspective in this portrayal of dancers, for only one leg can
be seen when people are viewed from the side, and both when they face
outwards from the picture and are being seen from the front.
Few of the dance scenes give any clue as to the purpose of the dance (if it
is at all necessary to search for one). The experience of the dance itself was
probably a sufficient incentive to stage one, as it is in Indian tribal societies
today. The tribals hardly have anything to celebrate—by our standards—but
yet they dance almost every evening. One of the early painting groups from
Kathotia (which is, incidentally, one of the few groups in green not
belonging to the very first Mesolithic style) shows dancers in close proximity
to another painting of a hunting scene which belongs to the same period;
probably these two groups were actually part of the same painting, but got
separated by weathering and rock chipping. What is important in this scene
is that the dance centres around a dead boar. One of the dancers holds fork-
like instruments in his hands and another man, who is sitting, plays on a
harp. In the hunting scene nearby we see men thrusting their spears into a
bovid. Of interest in this group are two dancing men. One of them is
bending his head back below shoulder level. The other one has a ‘U’-shaped
form above the shoulders.
A similar depiction comes from Bhimbetka. I believe these figures are
arranged according to another type of perspectival treatment to show
progress of movement in much the same way as a draftsman portrays an
object from two sides in a blueprint. The artist wanted to show a man
violently throwing his head backwards and forwards. In the profile view, he
has shown the head thrown back; in the view from the front, the shoulder-
head-shoulder line becomes ‘U’-shaped. In Bhimbetka the ‘U’ shape of the
head is very clear. In Kathotia the artist put the ‘U’ shape above the shoulder,
but it still meant the same thing.
As already mentioned, row-dancers are plentiful in all the rock painting
epochs. In the Chalcolithic period, these row-dancers are often related to
cultic activities which have a strongly homoerotic character. These dance
groups are often related to chariot-processions. One can see acrobats
walking on their hands, and fist fights in progress. Many of the dancers
indulge in pederastic activities. Many men have erect phalluses of
sometimes astonishing size; this could also mean that they wore penis
sheaths.
A very well-preserved group of this kind of painting is found in Kathotia.
Here the men are walking in a row, with both hands placed on the man in
front. The leader of the group stands bent in front of a man twice his size
holding a stick in his hand. All the men have erect phalluses. The genital of
the man with the stick is very large, the testicles are shown in a twisted
perspective. To the right of this group is a row of dancers with interlocked
arms. The procession ends before a man squatting on the floor and
masturbating. Above him is the depiction of a cow with some other small
figures beneath. Some men sitting on the shoulders of other men can also be
seen in the left part of the painting.
Practices analogous to the ones shown in this picture can be found in the
ethnological literature of still existing tribal peoples. The popular form of the
spring festival Holi has in it a great number of sexual elements which today
are only manifested in verbal abuse or obscene songs. The depiction of
pederastic activities finds analogies in descriptions of the Dionysian
mysteries.
The depictions of dancing and sexuality from the Mesolithic period are
contrary to the ecstatic depictions of homosexuality in the Chalcolithic
period. The Mesolithic paintings are totally confined to heterosexuality. Sex
in Mesolithic paintings is an ‘everyday activity’ not distinct from others.
These scenes never have a rapturous air about them. Sexual intercourse is
shown in much the same way as is a dance, the only difference being that in
the former the couples get closer to each other than in a ‘normal’ dance. The
activity of the other people around seems neither to be disturbed nor
disturbing. Beside a loving couple, another woman suckles her baby, another
grinds fruit on a quern. Sexuality is not taboo, and the subject does not have
to be depicted in a voyeuristic manner. The difference between the orgiastic
homosexual activity of the Chalcolithic period and the innocent lovemaking
of the Mesolithic people illustrates a basic difference between the two
societies.
In the Mesolithic hunting and gathering culture whose subsistence came
mainly from gathering, the activity of the woman must have given women a
position equal in importance to the work they performed. (I would not
conclude from this that it was a matriarchal society, for I can imagine a
society existing without any hierarchical organisation at all.) But in order to
have a term for the society we could label it matristic; women were not
subjected to the authority of men or that of other women, nor were men
subject to anyone’s authority. This fact is strengthened by the position in
which the couples perform intercourse. I am aware that I am now moving
away from archaeological reasoning to a psychologist’s interpretation of the
paintings. The Mesolithic heterosexual couples sit while making love,
contrary to those of the Chalcolithic and historic periods where the few
heterosexual depictions show the woman subjected to the man, lying on the
ground while the man stands with an erect penis; in one case there is even a
whole row of men standing in this condition, as if waiting for their turn. All
this looks more like a rape scene than lovemaking.
In the Chalcolithic and historic periods, dance depictions are sometimes
closely related to depictions of the transportation of the soul. An interesting
Chalcolithic group of this kind is found in Lakhajoar. Here one man with a
bow in his left hand is hanging on to the neck of a bovid with six legs. Some
bovids, a pig, and some animals drawn too schematically to be recognised,
follow behind them. A long row of dancers with interlocked arms
accompany this procession. The man holding on to the neck of the bovid is
adorned with a horned mask. The dancers also wear some headgear which
has the wavy decorations so typical of designs of the Chalcolithic period.
Swastika-like symbols are drawn between some of the dancers. This group of
paintings bears so many thematic parallels to the depictions of the Cemetery
H urns from Harappa, that one can hardly help thinking that what we see
here is a ritual centred around a bull who acts as the carrier of the departing
soul.
In the historic rock paintings near Pachmarhi which were executed a few
thousand years later, we find depictions of the same type, but the soul’s
vehicle to the place of final rest has changed from the bull to the horse. Even
in the modern wooden hero boards of the Korkus, which are stored by the
hundreds beneath the big mango tree opposite the Tehsil office in
Pachmarhi, it is the horse which carries the soul to heaven.
In early historic rock paintings, we also encounter cult scenes centring
around a tree fenced by railings. In older painting groups, we see cults in the
vicinity of decorated pillars or posts. In these scenes there are people
wrestling or holding boxing competitions. These paintings remind one of
the reliefs on the toranas in Sanchi showing the bodhi tree and railings.
Dances and cult activities around a stake or a pillar could indicate a popular
axis mundi cult which later developed into the pillar-erecting activity of
which the pillars of the Maurayan emperor Ashoka are the climax.
Most of the Mesolithic rock paintings deal with the relation of men to
animals. Generally this is a hunter-prey relationship. Even so, as already
mentioned, there is a whole group of pictures where the animal signifies
more than just prey.
In none of the existing hunting and gathering societies of the moderate or
tropical climatic zones is animal flesh the most important foodstuff. The
jungles of India provide a rich variety of plants, fruit and tubers which, as
the paintings show, were exploited in the Mesolithic period, just as they are
exploited today by the poor tribal population to make up for shortages in
cultivated grains and pulses or as substitutes if the crops have failed.5
It is certain that during the Mesolithic period, the greater part of the
people’s subsistence was derived from collecting plant food as well as from
different kinds of small game like rats, insects, eggs, and fish. It is true that
only a small proportion of the paintings depict this kind of activity, as
against the many which portray hunting scenes. But as already mentioned,
an activity like gathering was much less dependent on non-rational support,
and it could not have inflicted as much mental stress upon the specific group
engaged in collecting as hunting did on the hunters.
The hunt is clearly depicted as an exclusively male activity. The
organisation of the bigger hunting expeditions demanded a whole array of
special abilities—such as setting traps, preparing microliths to barb and arm
spears and arrows and getting into psychological readiness with the help of
magicians, the ‘hunting chieftains’ as I call them.
Contrary to all these preparations for the hunt, food gathering, which was
solely done by women, seems to have been a simple affair. All that was
needed was a basket and a digging stick. But it has to be kept in mind that
the women who did the gathering had to have a thorough knowledge of the
ecology of the area which they were going to exploit. And organised
exploitation of an area is not far different from organised agriculture.
Women were the backstage workers in this economical set-up without
whom the rock painting show could not have gone on. Nevertheless, they
remain more or less unnoticed by casual visitors and researchers.
The large and well-organised hunting expeditions, whose depictions form
the bulk of the Mesolithic paintings on the rock walls of central India, seem
to have been comparable in importance to Mesolithic man as the seasonal
hunts, which modern tribal societies in India still enjoy, are to the latter. In
these seasonal hunts, a number of villages join together and choose a chief
of the hunt. The success or failure of this hunt serves as an omen for the
success or failure of the next agricultural season.
Hunting scenes in Mesolithic art furnish us with the greatest amount of
technological information for this period. They also give us the better part of
the knowledge we have about body ornaments, masks and group
organisation. The overemphasis on hunting in rock paintings indicates that
the very art of drawing was closely connected with a revolution in hunting
and technology. Weapons tipped or armed with microliths became more
efficient. From now on the hunter was able to bag his prey from a much
greater distance and this made for far less emotional stress.
The ease with which man was now able to kill had to be controlled
mentally; he needed new facilities to adapt his consciousness to the newly
acquired possibilities. Man’s mental balance is protected by his cultural
background. This culture has to be adapted to new innovations. It is man’s
ultimate strength that he can accomplish this very rapidly.6
Even so, the earliest rock paintings do not depict hunting scenes. To
portray an act of killing was taboo, it would seem. Fashioning paintings was
the creative mind’s way out of this antagonistic mental crisis which the new
long-range weapons like the bow and arrow brought with them. The
Mesolithic man had to hunt, but the successful hunter became guilty. This
guilt was eased by dance and later by depictions of the hunt, showing the
hunter as a symbol not accountable for a deed accomplished—a symbol in a
mass of symbols. The hunt was the domain of the male, just as gathering was
the domain of woman. The pictures leave us in no doubt about that.
Big game hunting scenes are plentiful in Mesolithic art; unfortunately
most of them are in a bad state of preservation and only parts of
compositions which were originally many metres long remain. The most
important of these groups and also one of the earliest was found in
Lakhajoar. This group spans about 6 m of a shelter wall and is covered by a
layer of grey sinter which protected the paintings from weathering but still
left them transparent enough not to obliterate the view. The drawing was
never overpainted in a later period, but there are some green paintings
underneath it which are so faint as to be hardly noticeable.
This hunting scene gives us a clear picture of all the activities involved in a
big hunt. Most of the men are beaters standing in two rows, of whom one
group is armed with rattles; the other beaters have one hand in front of their
mouths as if to break a continuous sound by pressing the palm rhythmically
to the mouth. Both lines of beaters are parallel to each other and have
between them succeeded in trapping a number of animals. Above these two
columns of beaters, one man has broken away and caught hold of the hind
legs of a pig with his bare hands. Some other people, including one with a
basket, are engaged in bending down a tree, but it is not clear for what
reason—perhaps to make a trap. Four bovids are caught between the two
rows of beaters—two of them seem to be calves. Behind these animals is the
big figure of a hunter with a bow and arrow followed by a bull. The drawing
of this animal is interesting for its body outline is a finely scratched line
which is only visible because the sinter which has accumulated in the
indentation has a slightly brighter colour than the more recent layer of
deposit over it. Below the bull, beaters can be seen gesticulating and
running. Above them a large group of dancers is following; one of them is a
‘hunting chieftain’ figure, making ecstatic movements. Behind them, the
hunt continues. An antelope has already been hit by an arrow. A row of
beaters can be seen running. In this section the painting is so obscured and
heavily weathered that it provides no further information.
Such big hunting expeditions were definitely not part of the daily quest
for food. About seventy men are engaged in this expedition. (Originally
there must have been more, but the right side of the painting has been
damaged by water and the sinter is not oblique enough for us to see this part
of the painting.) Hence this undertaking must have been organised by a
group of at least 200 people if we take two persons for every hunter engaged
—that is, women, children and people who did not participate for whatever
reason. Surely 200 people could not have been the population of a single
nomadic hunting and gathering group. The area they would need to cover in
search of vegetable foodstuff would be too vast to constitute a single
residential unit for all of them. Storage and conservation of vegetable matter
can only have been practised on a small scale since a nomadic group cannot
transport an unlimited load. What we know about hunting and gathering
groups in the ethnographic present supports this hypothesis. The number of
members in a modern group of hunter-gatherers varies from less than thirty
to never more than seventy.
The most important technological information we get from these hunting
scenes are portrayals of various microlith-barbed weapons and implements.
In India no weapon has yet been found with its original microlith arming
still intact in its setting. It is probable that microliths were used in the same
way as those on tools found in Europe and the Middle East, as well as the
microlith-armed tools used in living memory in Australia. In India all our
information as to how the microliths were used comes from rock paintings.
Most of the arrows and spears as depicted in Mesolithic rock paintings
have harpoon-like barbs made from microliths fastened on both sides of the
shaft. Of course the depictions of these tools are never clear enough to
understand which particular microlith type was used for arrows and spears.
Triangular shaped tools would be the easiest to set in this manner.
(Incidentally triangles are the most frequently occurring tool type in the
geometric tool assemblage found at Bhimbetka.) The arrow types seen in the
paintings show a wide spectrum of variation; every hunter had more than
one type of arrow in his quiver to be used for the different prey he
encountered.
Arrows with pointed tips are the most commonly depicted. Points or
slender lunates would have been the most suitable types of microliths with
which to tip an arrow. A sharp point would easily penetrate the skin of an
animal; the barbs on the arrowshaft would cause an extensively bleeding
wound. Another arrow type has a trapeze-shaped tip. Trapezes are found in
the Mesolithic toolkit as well. Set at the end of an arrowshaft they would
have had a formidably sharp cutting edge. Arrows with blunted ends
without barbs were obviously not meant to penetrate the prey’s body, only to
hit the animal hard enough to disable it. Arrows of this type, topped by a
wooden plug, are still used for bird hunting. Many of the drawings of arrows
have fletching for proper trajectory, probably made of feathers. They also
have a notch at the shaft end to accommodate the bow’s string.
The depictions of the bow are also varied in size and form. Some of them
are bigger than the hunters who use them, while others are so small that
they look rather like toys. However, it has to be kept in mind that not every
artist attached importance to the correct portrayal of things which to him as
well as to his contemporaries would be clear enough once it could be
ascertained what the artist wanted to portray. But generally speaking, the
size of the bow as depicted in Mesolithic paintings was somewhat smaller
than the size of a man.
It is not clear from the paintings whether the bow was stressed by the
arrow or whether it had already been stressed even before the arrow was
placed on the string. Since there is a painting showing a man stringing his
bow with the help of his knee, I rather believe the latter to have been the
case. Nor do the paintings give any due as to what material the bowstring
was made from. Most of the central Indian tribal people use a bamboo-
splinter which is fastened to the bow by a fibrous cord. This detail is very
well recorded in the depiction of the harp player from Pachmarhi which, of
course, is a historic painting. But none of the Mesolithic paintings is detailed
enough on this subject.
As with the arrows, spears are also barbed with microliths. The barbs
sometimes reach right to the middle of the shaft. Spears as well as arrows are
often decorated with strings and tassels. An important preparation for the
hunt was the placing of traps on animal tracks or in the area where the
hunters wanted to chase their prey. However, depictions of traps are rare and
often schematic.
There is a picture of frame-traps at Lakhajoar. Splinters of flexible
branches or bamboo were fashioned into a frame and hung into the scrub
and bushes through which the beaters were supposed to chase the animals.
The beasts’ horns and antlers would thus get entangled in the traps, and
make it easy for the hunters to kill them. In this hunting group a deer is
actually shown with his head and antlers entangled in one of the frames and
heading straight for another.
The use of snares is clearly depicted in a painting found in Putli Karar.
This shows a row of snares arranged in a semicircle and held in place by
poles. One deer is running in the direction of these traps and a hunter has
already shot an arrow into its back. Another painting from Lakhajoar shows
a bear being driven into a circular trap fashioned from long elastic bamboo
which seems to have been placed slightly above the ground and fixed to the
undergrowth. This flexible obstacle would irritate the animal and enable the
hunters to aim at him with ease or club him down. All these methods are
still practised by tribal people today, mainly for animals smaller than the
ones in the Mesolithic paintings.
A method which must have been very successful in the area around
Bhimbetka, where the hills frequently have cliffs, was to drive a herd of
animals towards precipices where they would fall to their death. But only
one painting at Bhimbetka portrays this. A group of bovids can be seen
falling. The vertical cliff is indicated by a vertical crack in the rock.
The most important part of the preparation for an organised hunting
expedition was the conditioning and shaping of the individual hunters’
minds. This knit them into a competent and organised group which could
respond to the requirements of the hunt to come. There is no doubt that this
task was codified in customs as the pictures show. The figure which stands
out in the midst of the stick-like hunters in most hunting scenes is that of
the ‘hunting chieftain’. These figures are always covered by a full-body mask
which has the intricate designs so typical of the patterns on Mesolithic
animal depictions. Frequently the hunting chieftain carries a basket, which I
understand to be a symbol of plenty.
What their exact purpose was is not clear. It is interesting in this context
that during their seasonal hunts some tribals choose chieftains whose
function is to stand behind a cane fence which has two holes for the eyes,
and cast a spell over the animals. The depiction of these chieftain figures is
reminiscent of that of women, and in one painting in Kathotia these figures
are clearly women since the artist has taken care to show breasts. Even so,
this painting does not have a clear hunting context. This raises the question
as to whether women had a magical role to play even in the male-dominated
field of hunting. It is even possible that the artist did not generally bother to
indicate the sex of these hunting chieftains since his contemporaries knew
what he wanted to depict anyway. However there is not a single instance of a
woman carrying or using hunting weapons.
In a few hunting groups, women with baskets may be seen as if to bring
back the kill to the camping ground. In one case a woman carries a basket
with two children inside. What this might indicate in a hunting context is
not clear.
In many hunting scenes, all the hunters are heavily adorned; as already
mentioned it is not always easy to distinguish between a mask and the rather
unusual head-forms which the artist sometimes gave to his creations. Masks
and excessive garments must have hampered movement during the chase. I
am aware that fashions, clothes and jewellery have almost never developed
for practical reasons only. But the ornaments which the hunters wear in
Mesolithic rock paintings would completely hamper movement. This fact
could be another indication of the cultic significance of the hunts as well as
of the paintings.
A picture from Jaora shows hunters wearing decorated helmets with
tassels hanging down. The helmets show some of the usual intricate design
patterns. The hunters, who are armed with bows and whole bundles of
microlith-barbed arrows, are not dressed in the usual small loincloth but in
finely decorated skirt-like apparel, rather similar to that of the dancers in the
Kathotia painting described earlier.
It cannot have been easy for the hunters to follow their prey with all these
fancy decorations on. In any case, the heavily adorned hunters are never to
be seen engaged in real combat; they seem to feature in the paintings only
for show—being stiff and motionless. In a Mesolithic depiction of a hunt at
Bhimbetka, five hunters encounter a rhinoceros. One man has already been
thrown into the air by the mighty horn of the animal. The spears of the
hunters have microlithic barbs. All the hunters have mask-like head-forms
resembling the snout of a rhino. In this case, the head-form seems related to
their activity. But in Mesolithic paintings this particular head-form is not
confined to rhino hunters only.
What is strange in this depiction is the sixth figure, whom I have
deliberately excluded from the count of the hunters. This person’s activity is
directed against the hunters. Being bigger than them he attempts to grab the
spear of one of the hunters, who tries to ward him off. So there is actually
someone to fight for the rhinos. Without verbal explanation from the
Mesolithic artist we may postulate many things, but we have to admit that
we will never know everything about these paintings.
The hypothesis that the depiction of the successful hunt in painting has a
sympathetic effect on the actual hunt to come can nowhere be proved in
Indian rock paintings. The climax of the hunting scene is not the ‘successful
hunter putting his foot on the head of the slain tiger’. Nowhere is man the
master of nature; often he is its inferior. The rhino flings him into the air,
and the deified boar or a combination of many animals chase him away.
Even so there are no pictures where we can see joy over a successful kill.
Death is seldom portrayed in Indian rock art. There are of course depictions
of animals who have been wounded during the hunt. They still have spears
or arrows implanted in their bodies, are bleeding extensively and crying in
agony. The hunter is aiming the bow at the victim. But the Mesolithic artist
never dwelt on the act of killing—there is no parallel, for example, to the
image of Durga cutting through the neck of Mahishasur. In such a
representation death becomes revenge—a sanctified cruelty. Not even in the
Chalolithic and historic rock paintings, where war-scenes are plentiful, are
warriors to be seen bringing down the sword half-way through the skull of
their foes or sticking spears into their bodies, and there are no horses
trampling decapitated and dismembered foes into the dust. Indian rock
paintings never reveal which side the painter sympathised with.
I have noticed only one Mesolithic painting which could be explained as
depicting a cult activity centring around a killed animal. This depiction
comes from the already mentioned green group at Kathotia. In one part of
the group there are three hunters engaged in spearing an animal. Behind
them the head of an animal is lying on the ground. Three persons are
moving in a file adopting strange postures. Below them is the picture of a
bovid and two men doing an ecstatic dance. Above them are a pregnant
woman and a man. The second part of this group, which is separated from
the first by an area of heavily chipped rock, shows a dead boar lying on its
back and people staging some dance in its vicinity. There is a man swinging
fork-like instruments and another man playing a harp. Elsewhere, a woman
has caught hold of a long ornament on the head of a hunter carrying bow
and arrows.
The expression of this group is definitely unique. Hunting was one aspect
of the exploitation of the environment which demanded a great deal of
magical attention. This magical attention probably accounts for there being
so many hunting depictions in Mesolithic rock paintings.
The greater part of the food requirements in the Mesolithic periods came
from the collection of vegetable foods as well as small game. Paintings of
such activity are rare.
Gathering was a simple affair. A basket and a digging stick were the
means of production. But it should not be forgotten that the women needed
a thorough and intimate knowledge of many more plants than a modern
farmer has to deal with. The dependence on a vegetable subsistence caused
the Mesolithic people to move constantly between areas where plants were
to be found. In the dry season the hunter-gatherers could live in close
proximity to rivers or perennial springs. During the rains, when every nulla
carried plenty of water, it was definitely more comfortable to live in rock
shelter areas than in constructed huts on open land. It is not impossible that
some cultic activities were related to certain seasonal periods.
Fruit-gathering depictions are related to the ripening of certain fruits.
Unfortunately the pictures are not detailed enough to tell us which fruit is
being harvested. But there are several indications that it is the mango. In
some cases these fruit-gathering scenes are drawn in close proximity to
depictions of deified animals. This closeness in space also indicates the
possibility of a spiritual closeness between them.
Under the mushroom-shaped rock at Bhimbetka near where the large
deified boar is chasing away the hunter, there is another painting in a very
inaccessible hollow. On the top it shows a boar very much like the big one,
again chasing away a man. What is of interest in this painting is that there
are some people near a fruit-laden tree.
In the same hollow there is another painting again showing the boar, but
this time without the features of other animals. There is a fruit-laden tree
below him again, but this time with a person climbing up. Another person
holds a few fruits in his arm, while one is seen to be sitting and eating from a
fruit straightaway. A fourth person with a basket is standing nearby. This
would mean that the fruit depicted was one which could be eaten without
having to remove a hard shell.
In the Rangmahal shelter at Bhimbetka one person is climbing a tree with
a basket on his or her back. The very stylised tree has only a few fruits. But
they definitely have the shape of mangoes.
This could mean that the cult of the deified boar had some relation to the
rainy season. The presence of water animals like the crab depicted in the
paintings would then make sense. It has to be kept in mind that gathering
and hunting as shown in the paintings were a highly organised harvest of
the jungle, the rivers and the open country. The cult of the Lord of the
Vegetation and that of the great Mother could have grown from this cyclical
harvest of the jungle and the rivers, long before the people began practising
what we now call agriculture.
Collecting small game and fish has to be understood as gathering, and so
fall within the sphere of women’s activities. At Jaora, there is a picture group
showing five women unearthing a rat nest and killing its inmates. This
picture records such minute details that one could believe that all the artist
had in mind was to hand down a description of Mesolithic life to people
who came that way many thousand years later. And in this the artist has
succeeded fully. Since one part of the drama is enacted underground, the
artist had to make a cut-away drawing to show the burrow with its tube-like
entrances and the rats caught inside.
A woman is digging open one of the tunnels with the help of a digging
stick. The artist even took care to show the already excavated earth. Three
dead rats lie beside the woman, and the five rats hiding inside the burrow
will surely share the same fate. A sixth rat has tried to escape through the
other tunnel and only gets as far as a pair of fateful hands belonging to a
woman waiting above. This shows how selective details were used in
Mesolithic paintings. Generally, fingers or toes are not included in the
depiction of human figures. But details were often overemphasised if they
were considered necessary for the understanding of some specific action—as
here with the two hands of the woman lying in wait. (The figure of the
woman herself has chipped off.)
This picture group also shows the baskets then in use in great detail. In
the Mesolithic period, loads were generally carried in baskets supported by a
headband. The type of basket used in this ‘rat hunt’ is similar to the conical
baskets still used in the northeastern and eastern parts of India where people
also carry them in the same fashion as the Mesolithic people in these
paintings. carrying loads with the help of headbands is a peculiar feature of
Mesolithic life. All loads in later periods were carried with the help of
wooden poles in much the same way as porters do today.
The Mesolithic paintings show several types of baskets, carrying nets and
small bags. Baskets carried by hunting chieftains are generally flat-bottomed.
The baskets used by women on gathering trips are conical. Hunters usually
carry nets or small bags with them. A well-preserved picture group at
Lakhajoar shows people fishing. As before, all the implements and
techniques are recorded in minute detail—so much so that even the branch
where one of the fishermen has hung his bag is shown. The shoreline of a
pond or pool of stagnant water in a nulla is indicated by a circular outline.
The people fishing look bulky and are probably women. They are catching
the fish with nets extended from sticks. One person has put aside the net to
leave both hands free to catch a tortoise. One fisherwoman is holding three
fish on a rod, while she tries for more with her net. Extending from this
woman downwards is another figure which seems to depict her reflection on
the water.
In the same shelter is the depiction of a tent-like structure made of
branches. By means of a cut-away view, a man, woman and child can be seen
eating inside it. Beside their very cultured-looking dining table are two
containers probably made from dried pumpkin, just like the ones tribal
people in this area use today.
Women grinding on querns are found in several rock painting groups;
this indicates that some of the vegetable food had to be processed by
grinding. The quern and grinding stone, besides being important kitchen
utensils, must have had some further significance as well. A skeleton found
in one of the trenches at Bhimbetka was covered by a great number of
rubbing stones. One painting in Kathotia shows a woman grinding fruit
which another woman has brought in a basket. close at hand, a man is
feeding a pig. Another painting nearby shows a group of several men,
women and children engaged in all sorts of activities: dancing, suckling
babies, making love and singing. Two women are grinding down some fruit
which other women bring in baskets. Since the fruit are always shown as red
dots, it is impossible to tell what fruit is being ground. But having examined
the activities of the people in this picture, I rather feel the fruit had an
intoxicating effect on them.
In Kharwai I found a painting of a woman working inside a shelter. At the
far end of the shelter are two baskets which have something round inside
them. In the above-mentioned painting from Lakhajoar similar round-
shaped objects are placed before the two persons who are eating. It is
possible that ground tubers or grass seeds were ground to a paste-like
substance and formed into balls for later consumption.
The gathering and processing of food is well documented. In the case of
small game, the pictures tell us what sort of animals were collected. But
where fruit and plants are connected, they are not detailed enough for us to
tell what species they are. It is also not clear as to which materials were used
to produce baskets, net and garments. But these questions are really no
problem because ethnological studies of Indian tribes tell us about a large
number of crafts which could have been practised in the Mesolithic period
as well. Tribal people in eastern India fashioned almost all their
requirements from bamboo and cane. Clothes which are now produced
from cotton were made of soft fibrous bark not so long ago.
The tribal population of central India, whose small plots of land have
regularly been appropriated by moneylenders, would starve for many
months in the year if they did not know how to harvest jungle produce. The
Mesolithic jungle, which then also included the fertile alluvial lowlands
along the rivers, could feed a large population of hunters and gatherers.
In an ethnological or archaeological context, we often think of the
hunting and gathering economy as being synonymous with primitive
culture. Yet the pictures are evidence of codified socio-religious expressions
and group organisation. This cultural organisation undoubtedly reflects a
highly economical harvest of the environment in accordance with the cycle
of the seasons, a way of life we can suitably call proto-agriculture. The
question which remains is how we are to distinguish between this economy
and agriculture proper.
3
CHRONOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
The term ‘Indus Valley tradition’ refers to the long series of cultural
developments taking place from around 6500 bce to approximately 1500
bce, in the areas of modern Pakistan, north-western India and parts of
Afghanistan.6 The roots of this tradition can be traced to the beginning in
the Neolithic period (6500 bce) in sites such as Mehrgarh. Specific
ornament styles recovered from the Neolithic and early Chalcolithic levels at
Mehrgarh appear to have provided the basis for the early Harappan and
Harappan ornament styles found at sites such as Nausharo, Harappa,
Mohenjo-daro, Chanhu-daro, etc.
‘Early Harappan’ is the term usually associated with the formative phase
of the Harappan or Indus civilisation which is dated from 3500–2600 bce.7
The Harappan phase is now dated from approximately 2600 to 1900 bce and
is characterised by a fully developed urban civilisation that extended over an
area that was twice the size of contemporaneous civilisations in
Mesopotamia or Egypt.8 The Indus Valley tradition continues through the
late Harappan period (as late as 1500 to 1000 bce) and overlaps with the
cultural developments that coincide with the Vedic period in the northern
subcontinent.9
Whereas in the past scholars assumed that there was a major ‘Dark Age’
between the Indus civilisation and the early Historic period in the northern
subcontinent, current research is showing that there are in fact numerous
continuities.10 When properly demonstrated, these continuities can serve to
strengthen the reliability of inferences about the Indus civilisation.11
Bead—any object that is perforated along its major axis, generally worn on a
cord or wire, sewn onto clothing or used as an ornament.
Pendant—any object that is perforated or scored at one end and is hung or
attached to a cord or wire, sewn onto clothing or used as an ornament.
Bangle—any circlet (closed or open) made of a continuous homogeneous
material that can be worn on the arm or ankle.
Bracelet—any circlet made of components such as beads, chain or cord, etc.
that can be worn on the arm or ankle.
Due to the regional climate and various disturbance factors, only
ornaments that are made from permanent and durable materials are
available for study in the Indus sites. However, the Indus peoples may have
used other forms of ornamentation that have not been preserved, i.e., body
paint or tattoos, horn, feathers, decorative fabrics, flowers, etc. Some of these
more ephemeral forms of ornamentation, such as flowers or fabrics are in
fact depicted on figurines and seal carvings. In most cases, these less
permanent types of ornaments were used in combination with other more
durable ornaments (fig. 3.2).
Most cultures at this time in history had a similar range of ornament
categories, but each region seems to have developed a specific emphasis on
certain ornament styles. The shapes and colours of Indus ornaments, and
the way they were worn, definitely represent a regional cultural aesthetic.
These distinctive ornament styles can be defined through a careful study of
the five major variables, which include the raw materials, the technology of
manufacture, the physical shape, the style of ornaments (combinations of
colour, design and shape) and the ways in which specific ornaments were
combined and used.
Keeping these examples in mind, it is possible to assume that the value and
importance of an ornament was not simply a function of the final shape or
design, but also derived to some extent from the type of raw material,
combined with the time, effort and techniques used to produce a specific
object. Even though it is not possible to assign specific values to ornaments,
it is possible to differentiate and rank specific ornaments or ornament styles
on the basis of raw materials and technology.
Bangles
For example, at most sites of the Indus tradition, terracotta bangles in
various shapes and sizes occur in extremely large quantities. While some of
the objects classified as terracotta ‘bangles’ may actually have been used as
kiln setters21 and not actually worn, the extremely high number of terracotta
bangle-like fragments is still significant. During the course of five seasons at
Harappa, 34,127 terracotta ‘bangles’ and fragments were recovered,
constituting 97.72 per cent of the total number of prehistoric bangles
recovered. From these same excavations only 390 (1.12 per cent) faience,
340 (0.97 per cent) shell, 48 (0.14 per cent) stoneware, and 17 (0.05 per cent)
copper* bangles/fragments were recovered. Due to the fact that all of these
types of bangles, except for copper, tend to break into an equally wide range
of fragment sizes, the total numbers do in fact provide meaningful
comparisons. (*Copper appears to have been recycled and the low number
for the copper bangles is not representative).
The ranking of bangles on the basis of raw material and the level of
technology seems to be correlated with the overall abundance of bangle
fragments from the excavations. Gold, silver, stoneware, copper and faience
would be the highest ranked and terracotta the lowest, with shell falling
somewhere in between. The higher numbers of faience bangle fragments
could be a function of their tendency to break into smaller fragments than
shell bangles. While most of these bangles are relatively comparable in terms
of shape, there are specific elements of design and decoration as well as the
contexts in which they have been found, that will be further evaluated
below.
Beads
The ranking of beads is not quite as simple because of the numerous raw
materials and technologies involved (Table 3.3). On the model of bangles,
one might expect that there would be thousands of terracotta or bone beads
and relatively fewer beads made from materials that were more difficult to
acquire, and manufacture. However, this pattern is not evident, and steatite
beads appear to be the most common, comprising 77.30 per cent of all
recovered beads and pendants. Most of these beads are made from white
fired steatite and have a very short cylinder or disc shape. This shape and
colour of bead was first made from shell during the Neolithic and then made
from steatite and fired steatite in the Chalcolithic and early Harappan
periods. Except for a few examples in faience or paste, disc beads came to be
made exclusively from fired steatite during the Harappan phase. It is quite
clear that these beads were produced in extremely large quantities, and worn
in long necklaces or anklets. Two such ornaments recovered in the cemetery
at Harappa contained 340 and 297 beads respectively.22
By ranking the beads on the basis of raw material and technology (Table
3.4) terracotta and bone fall below the other raw materials though they were
not the most abundant. shell and some varieties of stone that can be worked
with relatively simple technologies fall in the middle, but most of the beads
are made from raw materials that require relatively complex technologies
and high temperature kilns.
The objective of these examples is to demonstrate the relationships that
can be found between general categories of ornaments, raw materials and
technology. the sample of material collected from recent excavations at
Harappa is unique in that it represents the total number of artifacts
recovered by a uniform recovery and recording method. Future research at
sites in South Asia, Mesopotamia and Egypt may some day provide
comparable samples, but at this time there is no such published data. In the
absence of such comparative samples, the meaning of these patterns can be
further understood by examining the ornaments on the basis of shape,
colour and the ways in which ornaments were combined and worn.
There are several levels at which ornament shapes and styles can be studied.
In most cases, archaeologists discover single ornaments, such as beads or
broken bangles that were discarded or lost and became buried along with
domestic garbage. Each of these individual ornaments preserves a total
shape and colour that can be analysed and classified according to specific
ornament types. Such studies are currently underway for the site of Harappa
and the Indus tradition in general.
At a different level we can study the ways in which these separate
components were combined by different individuals to form complete
necklaces or body ornaments. Ornaments found in burials and depicted on
figurines and carvings demonstrate that the Indus people had developed
distinctive ornament styles. Ornament style refers to the combination of
different components to produce specific patterns derived from shapes and
colours. Preliminary results from the study of Indus bangles and beads
indicate that both the raw materials and the varieties of ornament types
changed significantly over time. In this essay, most of the discussion will
focus on specific examples from recent excavations at Harappa, with some
correlations made to other sites.
Bead Types
During the Neolithic and early Chalcolithic at Mehrgarh beads were made
from both locally available and exotic raw materials and in a relatively
limited range of shapes and sizes.24 The vast majority of the beads were
made in short or long cylindrical shapes, though there are some other
varieties. Most of the beads were made from relatively soft raw materials;
shell, limestone, steatite, serpentine, lapis lazuli and even turquoise. There
are some examples of hard carnelian beads in the Neolithic, but they all
appear to have been short biconical shapes that can be perforated by
chipping rather than drilling. Later, during the Chalcolithic period (4200
BCE Period III) there is evidence for the use of hard stone drills and the
production of longer bead shapes in agate and carnelian. A very important
development during this same period is the firing of steatite to produce
white steatite beads25 and also probably the intentional heating of agate to
produce a deeper red-orange carnelian. The raw materials, techniques of
manufacture and even the bead styles of these earlier periods, undoubtedly
formed the basis for later developments in the early Harappan and
Harappan phases.26
Current research indicates that the production of beads in the early
Harappan and particularly the Harappan phase sees a dramatic increase in
the variety of raw materials and also an increase in the shapes and varieties
of beads being produced. One of the important features of the beads made
during the Harappan phase is that many bead types, defined by shape, size
and decoration, were made in different qualities of raw material (Table 6).
Continuing in the trends established during the Neolithic and chalcolithic
periods, the Harappan bead makers chose to use steatite, fired steatite,
banded agates, carnelian and other multi-coloured rocks. By careful
chipping and grinding they were able to accentuate certain patterns of
banding, dots, circles or mottling that were present in the natural stones.
However, the Harappan artisans did not limit themselves to the natural
rocks alone, and by using other raw materials and new techniques they
made copies or imitations of the natural stone beads in terracotta, fired
steatite, or faience (Table 3.6).
Table 3.5: Major Harappan phase bangle types and raw materials
Table 3.6: Selected Harappan phase bead types and raw materials
Styles of Adornment: Bangles
In order to better understand the role of these ornaments in the Indus
tradition and especially the urban Harappan society, we need to determine
how these ornaments were worn and who wore them. Bangles, by definition,
refer to circlets worn on the arms, but there are ethnographic examples of
circlets worn in the hair, on belts, on the ankles, or sewn onto clothing. The
evidence from burials and figurines from the Neolithic through the urban
Harappan phase suggest that circlets were worn primarily as bangles on the
lower and upper arms. In Neolithic Mehrgarh, a single wide shell bangle was
worn on the wrist and bead bracelets often were worn on both wrists. Later,
with the introduction of narrow bangles of shell or terracotta, several
bangles appear to have been worn at the same time, often on both wrists.27
This pattern is well documented from figurines and seal carvings of the
Harappan phase (figs. 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3).
During the Harappan phase, some female figurines depict three of four
bangles at the wrist and two or more bangles above the elbow, often with
equal numbers of bangles worn on both arms.28 A similar style is seen on a
male figurine from the early Harappan phase at Nausharo (Period ID).29 A
slightly modified pattern is depicted on the famous copper figurines from
Mohenjo-Daro, where several bangles were worn on the right arm at the
wrist and elbow, but the left arm was filled with bangles from wrist to
shoulder.30
The famous seals depicting a seated male with horned headdress show
both arms filled with what have been interpreted as bangles. In one seal, the
bangles appear to be of different types. A bangle with projecting section was
worn at the wrist, followed by four flat bangles on the forearm. Another
projecting bangle is seen above the elbow followed again by four flat bangles.
A final projecting bangle is worn on the upper arm.31 A second seal shows a
similar individual with bangles from wrist to shoulder, seven on the right
arm and eight on the left arm.32
The increased diversity of bangle and bead styles and raw materials
during the Harappan phase can be attributed to a need for more outward
symbols of identity to differentiate an increasingly diverse urban population.
This sort of identification would have been extremely important in order to
avoid conflict and confrontation between socially stratified and ethnically
diverse populations.
On the other hand, the reproduction of identical shapes and styles using
different raw materials can be interpreted as the need to reinforce general
cultural beliefs or aesthetics. The relative value of the raw materials
themselves could serve to reinforce ranking or stratification within the society
as a whole [emphasis added].
The examples of bangles and beads presented above show how several
varieties of raw materials were used to produce ornaments that had the same
basic shape and often the same colour. From a distance these ornaments
would have been indistinguishable and would communicate similar
messages about the wearer. Such ornaments may have served as symbols to
express overarching cultural beliefs or aesthetics. Because of the fact that
they were made in many different raw materials, these symbols would have
been accessible to all members of the society, thereby reinforcing important
belief systems and the social order.
Upon close examination, however, the discerning eye would be able to
distinguish the precise nature of the ornament, its relative value and
presumably the economic and socio-ritual of the wearer. The manufacture of
similar beads or bangles from different raw materials is not unique to the
Indus civilisation, but is seen in all societies where valuable raw materials
are not equally accessible to all members of a community. In such contexts,
different raw materials can be used to differentiate individuals on the basis
of economic, social and ritual affiliations.
Based on the discovery of hoards containing exquisite ornaments of
carnelian, turquoise, copper, silver and gold, we can assume that these raw
materials were relatively more valuable than the common forms made from
steatite and terracotta. Furthermore, we can assume that individuals who
owned and/or wore these exquisite ornaments would have been ranked
relatively high in terms of economic or socio-ritual power. The distinct
ranking in ornament styles on the basis of raw material and technology
most likely reflects social ranking or even stratification within Harappan
society. This ranking or stratification may have applied both to individuals
who wore the ornaments, and in a different context, to the artisans who
manufactured them.
In other words, an individual wearing numerous carnelian and gold
ornaments was undoubtedly of a higher status than an individual wearing
similar ornaments made from steatite or terracotta. Similarly, the artisans
who worked on carnelian and gold may have been ranked higher than the
artisans who made red painted terracotta imitations. These examples may
seem a trifle obvious given the ranking of gold in modern societies, but it is
important to point out that the interpretations presented above rely
primarily on archaeological patterning and not simple analogies to modern
value systems.
There is little doubt that ornaments played a significant role in the
reinforcement of the Harappan socio-ritual order, but there must have been
some fluctuation over the course of 700 years. Detailed chronological studies
of ornament styles are under way and will be extremely important for
identifying the role of specific ornaments, both as unifying symbols and
ethnic identifiers. A brief discussion of the role of shell bangles and bangles
in general will illustrate this point.
The shell bangle appears to have been used as a symbol that expressed an
overarching unity as well as sexual and possibly ethnic distinctiveness. Shell
bangles with the incised chevron design are found at most settlements of the
Harappan phase, and although the symbolic meaning of shell bangles could
have differed from region to region or over time, they do represent a shared
aesthetic.
On the other hand, the limited quantity of such bangles indicates that
they were not available to all members of the community. The recent
cemetery excavations at Harappa indicate that this shell bangle style was
worn primarily by middle-aged adult women and that this use remained
quite uniform for several generations, if not longer. Although the width of
the shell bangles decreased over time, the continued use of the chevron
motif and the uniform manner of wearing them on the left arm, suggests
that the women buried with these ornaments came from a stable and well
established community. It is not clear when this design of shell bangle
became common, but it is reported from early Harappan sites and continues
throughout the Harappan phase.47
The extensive manufacture and use of other types of bangles in contexts
outside of burials is also quite significant and can be interpreted in several
ways. It is possible that women who wore shell bangles did not wear other
types of bangles, and that the cemeteries represent only a limited segment of
the population. Alternatively, if they did wear other types of bangles, these
were systematically removed or broken before the women were buried.
The distinctive patterns of shell bangle use and discard suggest that they
were more than simply decorative ornaments. In view of the extensive use of
other types of bangles it is possible to propose that bangles, as an ornament
style, came to be used as important symbols for defining and reinforcing the
socio-ritual order during the Harappan phase.
When compared with contemporaneous sites in Mesopotamia and the
Persian Gulf, the use of bangle in the Indus region appears to be quite
distinctive. It has not been possible to make a detailed comparative study of
archaeological materials from Mesopotamia, but the available published
materials and personal communications with archaeologists working in
Mesopotamia indicate that while bangles were made in a range of materials,
the variety and quantity of these ornaments were significantly less than what
is seen in the Indus sites.
Furthermore, in direct contrast to the Indus, valuable ornaments,
including carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper and gold were often buried with the
dead.
The distinct patterns of ornament use established during the first urban
development in the Harappan phase undoubtedly had an important effect
on later developments in South Asia. Excavations at early historic sites
throughout South Asia combined with the evidence from early Vedic and
epic literature indicate that bangles continued to play an important role in
rituals, sensuality and general social and economic identification.
From infancy, children wear specific types of bangles as amulets for health
and to enhance beauty. A young woman wears bangles during courtship,
and at marriage these bangles are replaced by different types of bangles to
symbolise her changed status. Throughout a woman’s life, bangles are worn
as ornaments and also to protect and preserve her family’s well-being. These
bangles are removed or broken at the death of her husband, and all valuable
ornaments are passed on to subsequent generations. Men often wear bangles
for physical protection in battle, for amuletic purposes, for defining status
and ethnic affiliation, and simply as ornaments.
While the use of bangles can differ from region to region, and definitely
fluctuated over time, it is apparent that bangles as an ornament style have an
extremely long and meaningful history in South Asia. Furthermore,
throughout history, the degree to which bangles have been used as socio-
ritual and economic symbols in South Asia appears to be significantly higher
than in other adjacent regions.
CONCLUSION
Through these various examples, I have tried to demonstrate how a
systematic analysis of ornaments can provide important new insights into
the character of the earliest urban society in South Asia. The methods used
to analyse these ornaments need to be refined and adapted to other objects,
and the initial interpretations need to be tested through comparative studies
at other Indus sites. Through such studies of the different components of the
ancient Indus tradition it is possible to break through the barriers of
understanding that have resulted from the absence of literary documents. As
we gradually understand more about the nature of this early urban
civilisation we can begin to define its relationships to contemporaneous
civilisations in West Asia and its contributions to later cultural
developments in this region of the world.
4
Texts on Stone
Understanding Aśoka’s Epigraph-Monuments
UPINDER SINGH
The tribal and peasant cults continue in the Maurya period, but for the first
time we see terracottas as objects of art. Secular and artistic terracottas are
mainly confined to Magadha (south Bihar) which had become the most
important economic and political centre of India under the Maurya empire.
As Professor Niharranjan Ray has shown, court influence was the
predominating feature of the Maurya art in stone, commissioned by King
Asoka for the propagation of Buddhism. The tall and elegant columns with
their naturalistic perfection in animal sculpture reflect austerity and dignity
of the royal court, and also the love of foreign art, Achemenian and
Hellenistic.17 The Mauryas had established diplomatic and economic ties
with West Asiatic and Hellenistic countries. So great was the influx of
foreigners in the Maurya capital, Pāṭaliputra, that, as Megasthenes notes, the
municipal board had to set up a special committee to look after them.
Foreign influence is reflected in terracottas of Pāṭaliputra, (Bulandibagh,
Patna) ‘with definitely Hellenistic heads and faces, Hellenistic modelling
and, in a few cases, also Hellenistic drapery’.18 They remind us of the
Tanagra terracottas of the fourth-third century BCE. 19 The emphasis on
drapery and elongated physique is a common feature of both Pāṭaliputra and
Tanagra figurines.
These dancing girls and graceful ladies of the Maurya capital breathe the
air of urban sophistication with their smooth and sensitive modelling,
dynamic dancing movements, delicate neck, and rich, probably starched,
drapery. They reflect the tastes and interests of the royal family and the
śreṣṭhin class who had acquired a dominant position in the social life of the
period. As these terracottas are large and fragile, they could not have been
preserved in small houses or huts of the common folk. They were meant for
decorating large palaces of royal and aristocratic families, and were most
probably produced by rājakumbhakāras or royal potters of whom Pāṇini
speaks about.20 These potters did not produce for the market but produced
for the individual needs of the royal family. The Cullakaseṭṭhi Jātaka also
refers to a king’s potter. There were artisans attached to wealthy sreṣṭhins
also.21
We may mention here that the Maurya date of the Patna dancing figures
is sometimes questioned by art historians. But the find of a similar figure
from Sonpur (Gaya district) in its period II along with NBPW shows its
Maurya date, while figurines of period III at Sonpur show Śuṅga
characteristics.22
Sophistication in its highest form is seen in terracottas of Buxar mainly
representing fashionable ladies with elongated foreign facial features and
elaborate hairstyles in numerous varieties.23 The foliage and floral designs in
their ornaments and headdresses suggest that they could be females
associated with vegetation and agricultural rites. Pāṇini informs us that the
Śālabhaṅjikā festival was peculiar to the eastern people. From the Buddhist
literature it is known that the people plucked śāla flowers and celebrated the
festival amidst merrymaking. We learn from the literature (Meghadūta) of a
later period that in a similar vegetation festival of Aśokabhaṅjikā, aśoka
leaves were worn on the ears by the girl, who performed this rite of
rejuvenating the tree. The Buxar figurines with floral and foliage motifs seem
to be a sophisticated version of a fertility maiden.
Along with these urbanised figurines, we also see a continuation of
archaic forms in terracottas. The nāga figurines seen in the earlier period
continue to appear in several sites of the Middle Gaṅgā Valley. They retain
the linear abstraction and stylised form of the earlier period. The nāga
worship on the new and full moon days was known to Kauṭilya. He says that
persons knowing Atharvavedic magic should perform auspicious rites in
honour of snakes to ward off their danger (Arthaśāstra, IV–3).
The cult of the Mother Goddess was widely prevalent in the Maurya
period the evidence of which is found not only from terracotta figurines but
also from numerous stone discs representing the goddess, sometimes with
her partner.24 Such discs are found in a number of sites from Bihar to
Punjab and Taxila. The largest number of Mother Goddess terracotta
figurines are found at Mathurā, which, in the Maurya period, became an
important terracotta-making centre outside Magadha. Here, Mother
Goddess figurines have been found along with NBPW and coins in the early
and middle phases of period II.25 Their archaic and vital form is altogether
different in idiom from Magadhan figurines. The inspiration is clearly
religious. There is no emphasis on drapery as in Patna figurines. The
Mathurā figurines represent a fat steatopygous female, with prominent
breasts, an applique collar or necklace, an applique girdle often punch-
marked or incised, and a well-marked navel. The earlier examples have
animal or bird-like face which is replaced by moulded oval face in later
examples. Rosettes and large round earrings are peculiar decorations of this
type of goddesses.
The Mathurā types of the goddess are seen in several sites of Uttar
Pradesh. V. S. Agarwala has pointed out the similarity of Ahicchatrā
figurines (stratum VIII) with those of Mathurā.26 A figurine showing a
broad-jewelled girdle from Hastinapur (mid-level of period III) is similar to
one of the types of the goddess of Mathurā.27 Sarairnohana near Vārāṇasī
(period I-B with NBPW)28 and Vaiśālī (early level of period II)29 also show a
Mathurā type of female figure with applique necklace and girdle and incised
eyes. Similarly, Masaon30 near Vārānasī has, along with NBPW and punch-
marked coins, female figures with pinched up nose, big neck and prominent
breasts, which have resemblance to Mathurā figurines. Similar figurines have
been found at Kauśāmbī.31
We may mention here that Charsada (Puṣkalāvatī) in Gandhāra on the
junction of several trade routes, has typical Mother Goddess figurines of
smooth and levigated clay excavated from the levels dated between circa
250–100 BCE.32 But these figurines with small breasts, applique eyes
resembling inverted shells, and without an indication of navel are different
from female figurine of Mathurā and Pāṭaliputra.
A popular theme in the Maurya period is animals: elephants, horses,
rams, bulls, dogs, etc. Animal figurines of Pāṭaliputra, Buxar, Vaiśālī,
Mathurā, Hastināpur, and Atranjikhera are meticulously decorated as in
cases of ceremonial animals. The decoration consists of the prevalent
applique and technique and punch-marked and incised circlets. It is
interesting to see that the animal figurines of Mathurā have rosette motifs
similar to those seen on the Mother Goddess figurines. Elephants of
Hastināpur and rams of Vaiśālī are decorated with vegetation motifs
reminding us of the same motifs on the Buxar female figurines. It is possible
that animal terracotta figurines were connected with Mother Goddess
worship. The contemporary stone-discs show animals such as lion, elephant,
horse, ram, and deer surrounding the goddess. Animal figurines may have
also been used as toys. The Vessantara Jātaka refers to toys consisting of
horses, bulls and elephants.
Thus we see that in the Maurya period, secular and artistic figurines have
been mainly confined to Magadha whereas other sites of the period have
generally ritual figurines. The monopoly of the Magadhan state in economic
and political fields and the resultant social inequality are reflected in
terracottas of the period. The royal society and the upper class of Magadha
commissioned special potters to produce artistic terracottas resembling
Hellenistic figurines, whereas the country outside Magadha was producing
crude terracottas for cults and rituals. Magadhan (Patna, Buxar) terracottas
have been found from Kauśāmbī, Bhita and Rajghat, but the reverse is not
the case.33 This indicates that the Magadhan terracottas were popular in
other regions and possibly also that they were traded. Candraketugarh and
Tamluk in Bengal have some specimens of this period, but these also show
influence of the Magadhan style. The economic and political centre of
gravity was located in Magadha which dominated the cultural scene in this
period.
Figure 5.1: A goddess with partner, Ahichhatra, about second century bce
Source: Archeological Survey of India (ASI).
The cults of these gods and goddesses were associated with festive
gatherings (samājas) in city gardens (nagaropavana), which become a
favourite subject with the terracotta public. In urban atmosphere, remote
from the actual relation with nature and growth of plants and corn, the
celebration of these fertility festivals tended to get secularised and
sensualised. They were treated as krīḍas (sports), to use the word from the
Kāmasūtra, for such fertility festivities. The garden party scenes of Mathurā
breathe secular air. Similarly, a plaque from Kauśāmbī showing a richly
dressed couple sitting on a chair manifests urban tastes and vision in its
depiction and seems to be associated with the sophisticated nāgaraka class.38
The ritual significance is retained by showing the woman touching her own
earring which is a symbolic gesture associated with fertility goddesses such
as Śrī.
The taste of the nāgaraka class is reflected in some of the plaques showing
goṣṭhi or cultural parties (Kauśāmbī), wrestling, animal fights (Kauśāmbī ),
palace scenes, ladies decorating themselves (Kauśāmbī, Mathurā, Rajghat), a
well-dressed nāgaraka with a parrot in hand, a nāgaraka with elephant
(Candraketugarh), a child writing an alphabet (Haryana), Kāmaśāstrīya
scenes (Chandraketugarh, Tamluk, Bhita, Kauśāmbī), love-making couples
(Kauśāmbī, Sankisa, Mathurā, Ahicchatrā), udayana- Vāsavadattā theme
(Kauśāmbī), etc. The vast array of themes is baffling. The potter-artists of the
period have succeeded in presenting the dynamic quality of popular culture
in terracottas.
Figure 5.2: A garden party with dance and music, Mathurā, c. second
century bce
Source: National Museum, New Delhi.
CIRCA 50–300 CE
Sātavāhana terracottas
Active trade with Rome and the consequent commercial prosperity in
southern regions created a favourable situation for the manufacture of
terracottas during the early centuries of the Christian era. We see terracottas
(kaolin or rich white clay figures) in a number of towns such as Kondapur,
Yellesvaram, Nagarjunakonda and Chebrolu in Andhra Pradesh, Sannathi in
Mysore, and Ter, Paithan, Kolhapur and Nevasa in Maharashtra.
From the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, we get detailed information
about the maritime trade between India and the Roman empire and the
number of ports and inland market towns which had come up as a result of
this trade. The discovery of the Roman coins of the first century ce in south
India and the well-known reference of Pliny of the drainage of gold from
Rome to India indicate the favourable balance of trade and the resultant
wealth and prosperity.
It is in this period of urbanisation in the south that we get one of the
earliest inscriptions referring to a guild of potters. This inscription from a
cave at Nasik records that money was deposited with a guild of potters for
the benefit of the Buddhist sect residing in the monastery.39 This means that
the potters who flourished in this period, were well-organised in a guild and
that money was invested with the guild as in other commercial activities.
Besides the fine pottery with red lustrous polish, potters also made beautiful
bangles, amulets and beads, as a large number of these have been found
from Sātavāhana sites. Kondapur and Maski were known for terracotta bead
industry.40
Figure 5.3: A couple from Kauśāmbī, c. second century bce
Source: ASI.
Making of terracotta figurines with kaolin was also an industry which
catered to the tastes and interests of the wealthy mercantile community. This
is evident in the thematic content of terracottas, most of which is secular.
Among the themes most popular, are joyous aristocratic men and women
(whose heads are mostly found), wearing rich ornaments with neatly
arranged coiffure. Another theme representing an aristocratic couple riding
a horse reminds us of a similar motif on the capitals of the contemporary
caves of Karle and Kanheri, though however there are stylistic differences.
There are figurines representing a male riding a horse, children, gaṇas, and
animals such as horses, rams, lions and buffaloes. These dainty figurines
could not have been used as toys as they are too delicate for children’s play.
They seem to be decorative pieces.
The Sātavāhana terracottas have a totally different idiom from that of the
north Indian terracottas. The difference is not so much due to the adoption
of the double mould technique in the south as the practice of double mould
was also prevalent at many places in the north such as Mathurā, Ahicchatrā,
Purana Qila, etc. It is rather the dainty forms and delicate workmanship of
Satavahana figurines and the representation of a distinct ethnic type of
features and physiognomy which distinguishes them from those of northern
India.
The cultic figurines showing a nude goddess sitting with legs apart are
Roman-Egyptian in inspiration and are found at Ter, Nevasa, Yellesvaram,
Nagarjunakonda, etc.41 That this cult was spread among the aristocracy is
evident from an inscription at Nagarjunakonda which mentions a queen
who was avidhavā and jīvaputā (with her husband and sons alive) in
connection with this type of figurine. The image seems to have been
dedicated by the queen as an offering for the fulfilment of certain desires.42
Kuṣāṇa terracottas
Under the Kuṣāṇa, India was materially a prosperous country having trade
links with Rome and the Hellenistic west. A century before and after the
Christian era, there were several invasions from the nomadic tribes—the
Śakas, Parthians and Kuṣāṇa as a result of events in Central Asia. The period
witnessed the acculturation process when foreign religious cults, motifs and
forms were gradually being assimilated into the cultural pattern of India.
Terracottas vividly document the interesting results of the mixing of
cultures.
Two distinct trends are noticeable in the Kuṣāṇa terracottas. One is the
continuation of the old tradition of moulded plaques as we saw in the Śuṇga
or post-Maurya period. The other is the emergence of the new trend due to
the cultural changes brought about by the influx of new races.
The older tradition of terracotta reliefs is widely seen at Candraketugarh,
Tamluk, Rajghat, Kauśāmbī, Bhita and Mathurā. There is a further
improvement in the formal quality. The flattened reliefs of the earlier period
give place to reliefs in depth. The themes reflect the tastes of the affluent
nāgaraka class. We see a well-dressed gay nāgaraka in a dancing pose
(Candraketugarh), erotic plaques (Chandraketugarh, Bhita), a woman with
parrot on the right hand (Kauśāmbī), a woman holding flowers (Mathurā), a
salabhanjika under a tree (Kauśāmbī, Rajghat), a drunken woman helped by
her paramour or husband (Ahicchatrā), etc. Some of the subjects are seen in
Mathurā stone art.
The other trend in terracottas represents influence of the new races which
had infiltrated into India. This second group of terracottas is mainly of two
types, one produced by double moulds and the other modelled completely
by hand. Seated gaṇas and yakṣas, grotesque figures, musicians and riders on
horseback were produced by the double mould technique which gives depth
and roundness to figures. However, the figures are often crudely produced,
unlike the Sātavāhana terracottas of about the same period. They remind us
of the Seleucian terracottas of the Parthian period.43
The completely hand-modelled figures were more widely prevalent and
represented both religious and secular demands of the new public. The
newly rising Brahmanical cults of Śāivism, Vaiṣṇavism and Śāktism as well
as Buddhism were supported by the foreign rulers. Religion was ‘humanised
and emotionalised’ as a result of the development of bhakti (devotion).
There was a demand for images of gods and goddesses for household
worship. Several Hindu gods and goddesses received their shape and form in
this period. Ekamukhī Śiva liṅgas are seen in large numbers at various sites
such as Mathurā, Rajghat, Kauśāmbī, Bhita, etc. Balarāma, Viṣṇu,
Kārttikeya, Gaja-Lakṣmī, Sapta Mātṛkās and Devī Mahiṣāsuramardini were
seen both in terracotta and stone. Some of the sites of Bengal such as
Bangarh produced powerful Mother Goddesses with archaic features.
Buddha and Bodhisattva images appeared for the first time. Mathurā and
Hastinapura have good terracotta Bodhisattvas.
Some of the foreign cults were assimilated into Indian religious practices.
Parthian influence is seen in terracotta votive tanks enshrining a Mother
Goddess surrounded by birds and musicians.44 These votive tanks have been
found from various sites such as Ahicchatrā, Hastinapura and Taxila
(Sirkap). The cult of the nude goddess having Roman-Egyptian influence is
represented in clay plaques of Bhita, Kauśāmbī and Jhusi.
The public of the period were interested in portraiture. From the
dramatist Bhāsa who flourished in this period we learn about the rājakula
housing statues of ancestors. Kuṣāna royal portraits in stone are well-
known. In terracottas, we see a number of heads (with tenons) of both men
and women with expressive facial features. Sites of Uttar Pradesh have
yielded better figurines compared to those of Bihar, as the centre of
economic and political activity now shifted to the north. Terracotta heads
from Mathurā, Kauśāmbī, Bhita, Masaon, Atranjikhera, Ahicchatrā, etc.
reveal the artistic talent of the potter. ‘Faces of female figures are
characterized either by a smile or at least an animation noticeable on the
cheek-bones set below a pair of flat wide-open eyes.’45 Some of the heads
represent distinctly foreign ethnic features. But there are a number of
crudely made heads having heavy and harsh facial features. One wonders
whether they were meant to be portraits.
The appearance of a large number of crude and coarse terracottas is
somewhat surprising, as this was a period of great prosperity. Numerous
gold and copper coins were issued by the Kuṣāṇa rulers. Even the
indigenous dynasties issued copper coins. As Prof. R. S. Sharma says, ‘This
would suggest that perhaps in no other period had money economy
penetrated so deeply into the life of the common people of the towns and
suburbs as during this period, a development which fits well with the growth
of arts and crafts and the country’s flourishing trade with the Roman
empire.’46 Urbanisation was at its peak in this period. Most of the excavated
sites show large brick structures and baked tiles for roofing and flooring.47
Probably potters were preoccupied with the making of bricks, tiles and pots
(red ware) at the cost of the artistic quality of terracottas. It seems that new
forms of images which were emerging in this period required a certain
degree of experimentation, and hence hand-modelling was resorted to for
the purpose. When the potter had to meet the large demand for terracottas
raised by the increase in the purchasing power of the people as well as the
increase in population, he was forced to pay attention to the production
rather than to the quality of terracottas. However, he could afford to pay
special attention to images and secular figures had he been paid more for
these. Some of the portrait figures or heads representing noblemen and
aristocrats are well-executed, especially at Kauśāmbī, Bhita, Ahicchatrā and
Mathurā. It is for the first time that one comes across the powerful intensity
in the facial expression of Kuṣāṇa terracottas. It is not the ornamental
quality but the massive and sturdy forms and expressive facial features that
distinguish Kuṣāṇa terracottas from those of other periods.
CIRCA 300–600 CE
This is a period of transition when on the one hand there was a tremendous
prosperity on account of industries and trade, and on the other hand were
appearing signs of decline leading towards feudal conditions. Along with the
urban mercantile class which was prosperous and ranked high in social
circles, a new class of landed aristocrats was coming up towards the end of
the period on account of numerous land grants of the Gupta rulers and their
feudatories. Land, rather than cash was becoming the medium of grants and
rewards both in religious and secular spheres. Land grants to Brāhmaṇas
transferring revenue and surrendering police and administrative functions
to the donee weakened the position of the state and led towards partial
feudalisation.48
In this period of transition, when the upper classes—both the old
commercial class and the newly emerging landlords—had amassed wealth,
there was an overall development in the arts of the period—both visual and
literary. Terracotta art reached the highest technical perfection and
refinement in the Gupta period. A study of the Gupta terracottas (preserved
in the Bharat Kala Bhavan, Vārānasī) has shown that they have superfine
texture and do not have admixture of rice-husk in their clay. There is also an
absence of air-holes and grit in the clay.49 Again, for baking large-sized
terracottas such as the Gaṅgā and Yamunā of Ahicchatrā, there were large
cylindrical pits for special kilns ten to twelve feet in depth.50 Lepya- karma,
terracotta manufacture, was an extant technical term in the artistic
vocabulary of the period.51 Perfection in terracotta and other arts was
accompanied by the general improvement in techniques of metal working.
Iron tools of this period show considerable improvement. Knowledge in
iron technology had attained a high standard as seen from the Mehrauli iron
pillar of Candragupta. That the position of the artisan class had improved
can be inferred from the fact that they had to pay taxes now.52
Two distinct types of terracottas are seen in the Gupta period. The first
consists of the moulded and modelled (heads of) figurines and small
plaques used by individuals for household decoration or religious purpose.
The second consists of the large-sized figures and plaques used for
decorating temples and monasteries.
The first group seems to have catered to the tastes of the urban class, the
nāgarakas. In this group, most of the themes are secular, barring a few which
are religious, such as Naigameśa and Hara-Gaurī. We come across beautiful
and neatly produced heads of aristocratic men and women with varieties of
fashions in the coiffure which one can associate with the nāgarakas of
Vātsyayāna who flourished in this period. They are found from various sites
such as Vaiśālī, Rajghat, Bhitari, Bhita, Kauśāmbī, Jhusi, Śrāvastī,
Ahicchatrā, Mathurā, etc. At Bhita, marks of paint are still visible on
terracotta heads which indicate that they were often painted. The small
reliefs found from various sites consist of mithunas (Śrāvastī, Bhita, Rajghat,
Mathurā), kinnara-mithuna (Ahicchatrā), erotic scenes (Candraketugarh),
lady with pitcher (Pāṭaliputra-Kumrahar, Masaon), mother and child
(Vaiśālī, Bhita, Ahicchatrā), śālabha jikā (Pāṭaliputra- Kumrahar), etc.
Gaṇas and horse-riders are also found from numerous sites.
On the other hand, we have large-sized figures and plaques associated
with Brahmanical temples which were increasingly patronised by the newly
emerging feudal class and which reflect the Smārta-Paurāṇic ideology and
outlook. It is significant that the themes of epics which were known since at
least a thousand years, now received sudden prominence in visual arts.
Kṛṣna themes are seen in stone art from the Kuṣāṇa period and more widely
from the Gupta period in terracottas of Rajasthan (Rangamahal). The
Rāmāyaṇa scenes have been mainly found in terracottas from Śrāvastī in
Uttar Pradesh, Chausa and Ashad in Bihar and Barehat in Madhya Pradesh.
The Mahābhārata themes and Śaiva mythology are illustrated in terracottas
of Ahicchatrā. Along with religious subjects, there are also secular scenes on
plaques. For instance, the palace scene of Mathurā in which a woman is seen
in company probably of the Vidusaka. Most of the temples with terracotta
decoration are in ruins. We get only loose plaques which must have once
formed part of temple decoration. The extant temple of this period at
Bhitargaon near Kanpur gives us an idea of terracotta ornamentation of
temples.
Figure 5.5: A panel of the Bhitargaon temple
Source: ASI.
In comparison with the terracottas of the first group which are
sophisticated in outlook, the temple terracottas are more homely in
character, more intimately connected with the daily life of the people and
more playful in attitude. This is evident from scenes of the Bhitargaon
temple depicting; Viṣṇu Śeṣaśāyī or Gaṇeśa running away with the laḍḍus
while his brother is chasing him, or Śiva and Pārvatī in a family scene. The
same attitude pervades Rajasthan terracottas. On the other hand, spiritual
quality is captured in the Buddhas of Mirpur Khas in Sind and to some
extent of Devni Mori in Gujarat. Some of the large heads of Panna (Bengal)
and Ahicchatrā also reflect equipoise and self-composed disposition.
Decorating a temple with large figures and plaques must have involved
joint effort of several potters. A guild of potters rather than individual ones
must have been entrusted with the work of decorating temples and
monasteries. Again, the potters must have been in direct contact with their
patrons unlike the case of small, moulded terracottas which were produced
for the market.
The output of the small mould-made terracottas dwindled in the post-
Gupta period with the decline of urban conditions. The rise of local units of
production led towards self-sufficiency and minimised the exchange of
goods and trade. Trade was also affected by the Hūna invasions. Decline of
trade led to decay of towns which were the centres of crafts and commerce.
The Mṛcchakaṭika, about the fifth century CE, portrays the decline in
prosperity of the merchant Carudatta. In this play there is a trader of
Pāṭaliputra who, because of the reverse of fortune had to migrate and to
work as a shampooer in Ujjain. From the study of the archaeological
material it has been shown that Pāṭaliputra, Vaiśālī, Chirand, Rajghat,
Kauśāmbī, Śrāvastī, Hastinapura, Mathurā, Purana Qila and several towns in
Haryana and the Punjab which had thrived in the Kuṣāṇa age began to
decline in the Gupta period and almost disappeared in post-Gupta times.53
With the decline of towns, terracotta art lost its main clientele, the
nāgarakas. Money economy was already shrinking in the Gupta period.
There were numerous gold coins but copper coins used in daily transactions
were less in number. Coins were becoming scarce from the times of
Harsavardhana. The purchasing power of the people declined. The class
which could purchase terracottas in the market had almost disappeared.
With the decline of towns, artisans dispersed to the countryside. They
became village servants and received their share in kind and not in cash.
Instead of producing for the market, they now produced for the village, the
landlord, the Brahmanical temple or the Buddhist monastery which also
possessed villages in large numbers and were feudal in character.54 With the
donation of villages, artisans came more and more under the domination of
donors and had to perform forced labour. Their mobility was restricted to
maintain the self-sufficiency of local units.
There was no scope tor specialised production for the market. Terracotta
was no longer the art of the people but was used by landed aristocrats and
kings to decorate religious buildings and their own palaces on auspicious
occasions like marriage, as recorded by Bāṇa in the Harṣacarita. Terracotta
acquired the character of elite art and was preserved in feudal headquarters
and religious centres such as Paharpur (Bengal), Antichak (Bihar), Akhnur
and Uskar (Kashmir). The main period of terracotta production was over
with the decline of urban culture.
6
One organising principle that emerges from the study of the Simhala wall
is that of spatial geography; the artist appears to have arranged the episodes
of his story along one or other portion of the wall in terms of their
topographical relationships. The right third of the wall represents the
witches’ island and contains all events that occurred there, while the left
third is to be viewed as the palace of the king. The central area, containing
the conclusion of the story, as also earlier episodes relating to Simhala, is
space that belongs to Simhala. The upper zone contains Simhala’s home, the
central zone his coronation, while the lower area depicts the climactic
confrontation between Simhala’s army and the hordes of witches.
The second major narrative in Cave 17 that partakes of the nature of the
network is the well-known Vessantara Jataka, the various episodes of which
it is well-nigh impossible to mistake. The story unravels in a set of twenty-
five scenes along 45 feet of the left wall of the cave, directly opposite the
Simhala legend. Unlike the centralised placing of the climax seen in the
Simhala network, the vessantara story basically commences at the left and
moves gradually across the wall to the far right.35 Yet, its frequent
achronological and apparently random arrangement of episodes is curious.
For instance, the scene depicting the evil brahmana Jujuka asking Vessantara
for his children is placed high up on the wall above the doorway of the third
cell, while the actual gift of the children, with the pouring of water to
legitimise it, is placed at ground level beside that same doorway. The events
of the Vessantara story are, broadly speaking, arranged geographically, with
the left and right segments of the wall given over to palace scenes, and the
space between reserved for the events in banishment. The artist appears to
have conceived of the story in terms of thematic clusters which he placed at
an easily readable eye-level. To the right of doorway 1 is the gift of the ‘700s’
in which Vessantara gives away all his property; to the right of Doorway 2 is
the gift of the horses and the gift of the chariot, and higher up on the wall is
the gift of Madri; while to the right of doorway 3 are scenes relating to the
gift of the children. Most acts of giving (charity is the moral exemplified by
this tale) are in readily viewable locations; however, the gift of Madri and the
initial gift of the state elephant are placed above the level of the cell
doorways. The temporal displacement of the gift of Madri, to precede the
gift of the children, seems to be the result of the artist’s desire to place all
scenes connected with Madri in one place. The space to the left of doorway 3
contains various forest scenes revolving around Madri; the artist apparently
thought this to be the logical place for scenes of her donation.36
It would appear that in certain ways the artists painting Ajanta’s extensive
narrative networks failed to achieve narrative coherency. There are, for
instance, multiple points of entry into the story of Simhala, and thus too
many immediate options available to the viewer. If one walks around the
cave in the circumambulatory mode, such movement will bring us via the
conclusion of the story to its commencement. Assuming that
circumambulation had no relevance within a vihara, and that viewers
walked to the right Simhala wall immediately upon entering, they will first
view scenes on the witches island, then the conclusion of the tale, and finally
move to events in the king’s palace. Perhaps the artist’s intention was merely
to have viewers recognise the story and view its major episodes, rather than
follow its detailed denouement.
The principle of topographical location evident in these narrative
networks, or the ‘primacy of place over time’,37 is seen to be the guiding
principle in the large painted scrolls of the contemporary Rajasthani Pabuji-
ka-par tradition. John D. Smith’s study indicates that the central space of a
15 feet long par is occupied by the court of the protagonist, Pabuji; the left
and right extremes represent the territories of his chief enemies; while the
space between is occupied by the courts of various neighbours and allies.
Episodes 10 and 11 that follow each other in the temporal unravelling of this
extensive narrative are not located next to each other as they would be if the
artist had used the system of continuous narration. Instead, number 10 is to
the left of Pabuji’s court while number 11 is to the far right. Such a
placement is dictated by the geographical location of scene 10 in Patan, to
the west, and the succeeding scene 11 in Pushkar, to the east. Equally,
episodes placed next to each other may have no temporal connection, their
placement merely reflecting their occurrence in the same geographical
space. Scene 46 (news from Lanka presented to Pabuji), scene 59 (wedding
proposal presented to Pabuji, and scene 100 (enemy’s severed head
presented at Pabuji’s court) are temporally separated by considerable spans
of time; their contiguous placement reflects the fact that each occurred at
the identical location of Pabuji’s court. The topmost border of the par is
celestial space occupied by the various deities invoked during the course of
the story; their numbering reflects their temporal sequence in the legend of
Pabuji. While geographical space is tightly organised in the par tradition,
Ajanta’s Simhala legend, while making use of this principle, is less strictly
regulated by it. Within each of its three geographical areas, there exists a
network of movement in space and time.
Narrative networks are in many ways similar to synoptic narratives,
except for the major distinction that they are substantially larger and
considerably more complex. They possess a distinct validity as an
independent category. Synoptic narratives, as the very term used to describe
them suggests, may be viewed in their entirety and taken in (if not
comprehended) from a single viewpoint. Narrative networks extend across
an expanded span that does not allow the viewer to see the conclusion of the
tale at the same time as he views the beginning. The viewers’ experience of
the two modes is quite dissimilar.
Is it possible to see anything in common between visual narrative
networks and the stream-of-consciousness apparent in novels like James
Joyce’s Ulysses where a reader can go fifty pages without finding
punctuation? What was Joyce’s, or for that Gabriel Marquez’s intention in
the use of such a method? And more importantly, what is the effect of such a
narrative upon its audience? Verbally, one feels submerged in the events,
surrounded by the characters, and practically one of performers. Visually,
the effect is strikingly similar. Viewers are not given the choice of stepping
away at the end of one episode; before they realise it, they have already
entered into the following one. The viewer becomes a participant in the
narrative.
It is interesting to speculate on whether the lesser importance assigned to
the element of time in India’s visual narratives is partially due to the system
followed by much of its literary narrative in which plots contain sub-plots,
and stories are contained within stories. In the compendium of animal tales
and fables known as Hitopadesa, for instance, the story-line of each of its
four books is interrupted so often by the narration of other tales that
listeners and readers have often forgotten the original story and have
certainly lost track of its time sequence. Its first section titled ‘Acquisition of
Friends’ is basically the story of the friendship that developed between a
crow, a mouse, a tortoise, and a deer, but its narration is interrupted by the
presentation of six other stories,38 that make it difficult to keep track of the
temporal and causal sequence of the main legend! This system of literary
narrative, oral and written, was a standard pattern in India, and the great
Mahabharata epic, for instance, proceeds along similar principles. Popular
oral tellings and dramatised versions of various works take great satisfaction
in presenting their numerous sub-plots. Versions staged in villages and small
towns often introduce a character whose sole purpose is to ensure that the
action is frozen in order to introduce a sub-plot; frequently such characters
enlist the support of the audience in urging the narration of such sub-
stories.
This literary model of pan-Indian occurrence is also found in a
specifically Buddhist context. The very life story of the Buddha, as presented
in the Mahavastu text, is interrupted at regular intervals by none other than
the Buddha himself who narrates legends of his previous lives.39 In the later
Pali Jataka collection too, on occasion stories are stalled in order to narrate
another tale.40 Being part of a milieu in which stories, written, oral, or
dramatic, rarely proceeded in a direct and uninterrupted fashion, ancient
sculptors and painters may have attached little consequence to the
presentation of temporality in their visual narratives.
VIEWER-RESPONSE
A work of art may be viewed from two angles—artistic and aesthetic; the
artistic aspect may be said to refer to the product of the artist, while the
aesthetic aspect refers to the effect it produces upon the viewer.41 The aspect
of viewer-response would find easy and obvious acceptance in the Indian
context. For more than two thousand years, Indian aesthetics has
propounded the theory of rasa that revolves around audience participation.
Indian theorists spoke of nine bhavas or sentiments and of the
corresponding nine rasas or emotions that these should arouse in its
audience. The nine rasas are Shringara (erotic), Hasya (amusing), Karuna
(pathetic), Raudra (furious), Vira (heroic), Bhayanaka (fearsome), Bibhatsa
(odious), Adbhuta (wondrous), and Shanta (quiescent). The theory of rasa
was originally propounded for the performing arts of music, dance and
drama, but extended to painting and sculpture by the sixth/seventh century.
In the Chitrasutra, the painting section of the Vishnudharmottara Purana,
the rasas are discussed in relation to painting, with a postscript to the effect
that its analysis applies also to sculpture. While ancient authors, adhering to
aesthetic principles, narrated stories with a view to producing certain rasas
in their viewers, the rules governing aesthetic response cannot be fully
applied to ancient sacred art. Whether it be the believing Christian viewing
the miracle of the fishes and loaves, or the Buddhist devotee viewing the
multiplication miracle at Sravasti, the immediate response was not an
appreciation of aesthetic quality. Rather, the ancient viewer looked upon
sacred art primarily as a demonstration of religious legitimacy.
It is of interest to discuss the reception of religious visual narratives and
the viewer’s response to the manner in which tales are presented. The
situation is somewhat complicated by our uncertainty regarding the exact
audience for whom the narratives were intended. Equally complex is the
problem of the manner in which that audience was exposed to viewing the
narratives. Probing into both these issues is necessary if we wish to address
the motivation that lay behind the lavish portrayal of visual narratives at
India’s Buddhist monastic sites.
The many Buddhist pilgrims and a few non-Buddhist visitors attracted to
sites of religious and artistic importance constitute a significant section of
the audience towards whom the narratives were directed. In such a context,
it is obvious that visual narratives could serve as a powerful proselytising
tool. For instance, the numerous animal fables in their Jataka guise may be
seen as part of a desire to present popular material for easy reading by
viewers. Assuming an audience composed largely of laity who came to pay
homage to the relics of the Buddha, we may theorise upon the manner in
which viewers would be exposed to the narratives portrayed at a stupa.
Devotees would have followed the prescribed rite of circumambulation,
viewing the narrative reliefs slowly and at leisure as they made their repeated
rounds of a monument that was located in the open air. Certainly, reading
the imagery of a stupa, unlike reading a novel, should not be assumed to be
a single continuous activity. Having completed the ritual devotional act of
circumambulation, we may assume that pilgrims, while following the basic
clockwise circling of the stupa, would often read narratives at random,
concentrating on obvious locations like entranceways, and places pointed
out to them by a spiritual guide or by fellow pilgrims. The existence of such
monk-guides is corroborated by the Mulasarvastivadin Vinaya’s account of
the wheel of life painted on the porch of a monastery, where a monk is
assigned the task of explaining its significance to visitors.42
At the monastic caves at Ajanta, the problem of viewer-response is more
intricate. The narrative murals are located within viharas which are
primarily residential caves, even though each contains, in its back wall, a
shrine with a Buddha image. The rite of circumambulation may not have
held much meaning in such a cave. While it would be appropriate to pass
the monks, keeping them on your right, it would presumably have been
acceptable to walk directly to the shrine and then visit a monk, or an image,
at random. One may then set aside the mode of circumambulation when
considering the manner in which narratives unfold within Ajanta’s viharas.
Indeed, we have seen when considering the Vessantara Jataka on both sides
of a Sanchi architrave, that the circumambulatory mode has occasionally to
be abandoned even when viewing the reliefs that adorn a stupa.
A second problem at Ajanta pertains to the darkness that envelops the
interior of the viharas. Even the electric flashlights provided today in certain
caves by the Archaeological Survey of India do little more than light up a
limited section of a mural. When lit only by flickering oil lamps, it would
have required ‘strong eyes, great persistence and an excellent retentive
memory’43 to follow the narrative course. Like Trajan’s column, it is all there
though it is very hard to ‘see’ in its entirety. As a purely practical matter, one
wonders if any viewer was inclined to put in so much effort. Yet, the sense of
the narrative may have been clear to him through familiarity with the
subject. Perhaps identifying the story and gathering its general sense was all
that interested the viewer, or indeed was expected from him. Perhaps too, it
is in this context that one may best understand the thematic clusters in Cave
17’s treatment of the Vessantara Jataka. In a dimly lit cave where it is
impossible to view the entire narrative, clusters of episodes dealing with
various acts of giving becomes a logical way of presenting an extensive
legend. It is possible that the viewer was inducted into the experience of
understanding these ext ended narratives by a monk who held aloft oil
lamps and guided the viewer through the course of the narratives. In fact, it
seems near impossible for a viewer to manage without such direction. One
many perhaps surmise that the painted labels like ‘Sibiraja’ placed along a
king’s seat, or ‘Indrah’ beside a figure of that god, were added to serve as
prompts for the literate monk.
It is, however, a distinct probability that Ajanta’s painted narratives were
not intended exclusively or even primarily for public viewing. In view of
their location within residential viharas, it is plausible that the murals were
primarily to be experienced by the monastic community of Ajanta.
Certainly, the Sanskrit verses from Aryasura’s Jatakamala, painted alongside
two narrative murals in Cave 2, one telling the tale of Ksantivadin and the
other of Maitribala,44 would have been appreciated only by the highly
educated ecclesiastic. It seems unlikely that any monk would have translated
the verses for worshippers while guiding them through the accompanying
visual narrative. The narratives may have been addressed to the resident
monastics with the intention that they benefit from the Buddhist message of
these tales. Contemplating the fortitude displayed by ascetic Ksantivadin
who, when his limbs were torn apart, only blessed the king who passed the
order, may have served as an inspiration to the Ajanta monks and facilitated
their spiritual advancement. In this context, one may recall a passage in the
Mulasarvastivadin Vinaya where the Buddha instructs Anathapindaka on
the themes to be used to decorate monasteries. Specially noteworthy is his
admonition to the monks to beware of damaging the murals while washing
or lighting fires within the premises since the paintings would prove
effective aids to meditation.45 Here is a clear indication that visual narratives
were addressed to an ecclesiastic audience. In other words, Ajanta’s narrative
networks may indeed have been experienced by competent ‘readers’ and
hence functioned in the manner in which they were intended.
Apart from their significance for lay worshippers and monks, the visual
narratives are also closely linked with the patrons and donors active at a site.
Gifts to a religious establishment were always made for the accumulation of
merit that would serve the donor and his family, not just in this life, but
more importantly in the next birth. A gift to a Buddhist monastic
establishment would bring merit whether or not donors were themselves
Buddhist.46 While plans for the construction of a monastery were often in
the hands of an ecclesiastic, it would appear that its narrative decoration
often did not proceed according to a pre-planned programme; rather, stories
that were particular favorites of individual donors found a place upon
monuments to which they contributed. A section of the monument may
have been set aside for Jataka tales; yet if three individual donors requested
the same Jataka, the evidence of the three architraves at Sanchi devoted to
the Chaddanta story suggests that donors were indeed permitted to have
their way. Narratives may, in fact, be connected in multiple ways with
patrons. The frequent portrayal of the Vessantara story, with its emphasis on
generous gifting (and the negative portrayal of brahmanas), may be
considered in this context. If carved by order of the ecclesiastic community,
as may have been the case at the Sanchi stupa, the Vessantara narrative was
possibly intended to present an exemplary example to wealthy pilgrims,
hoping thereby to induce them to make donations to the monastery! On the
other hand, if ordered by a wealthy donor, as in Ajanta Cave 17, it may have
been the donor’s intention to set up a parallel between his own gifting and
that of the great Prince Vessantara. Certainly the patron’s desire for glory
was a significant motivation for Ajanta’s magnificent picture galleries that
were mostly dedications from the aristocracy. The decision to decorate a
cave with stories focussing on royalty, as evident in Ajanta Cave 1 for
instance, may have had more to do with the patrons’ prestige and their
desire for reflected glory than with consideration for either visiting pilgrims,
or the monks’ use and the monastic community’s dormitory needs.
A final reflection is that certain narratives were probably placed upon
monuments because they needed to be there for the value of the monument
itself, rather than for reading by monks, pilgrims, or patrons. It is likely that
carved or painted guardians were placed at entrances to stupas and
monasteries because such figures were considered propitious. Probably, it
was deemed equally beneficial for these sacred monuments to be decorated
with Jataka tales and life scenes of the Buddha. When one contemplates the
many narratives that are placed beyond the reach of easy observation by
pilgrim, monk or patron, it seems that this factor may not be discounted. A
case in point is provided by the plaques decorating the six inaccessible roof
terraces of the Ananda temple at Pagan in Burma. In the absence of
stairwells, neither pilgrims nor monks could view the complete set of 537
Jataka plaques adorning the three lower terraces, nor the 375 plaques
portraying the last ten Jatakas placed against the three upper terraces.
Clearly, the placement of these narratives was not motivated by the aspect of
viewing; rather, in the Burmese Buddhist scenario, Jatakas seem to have
been a necessary and efficacious part of decoration. One may cite also a
practice of comparable significance in the oral narration of the Hindu epic
Ramayana at certain ritual occasions. Instead of serving as a focus in itself,
the recitation serves as a background chant that is scarcely attended to in
any active fashion. Yet, the narration is needed to add to the validity and
significance of the occasion.47 It is likely that the visual narratives that form
the subject of this study were intended for a diverse audience, and that
several of the factors discussed above functioned in combination, resulting
in the rich decoration of the early Buddhist monuments of India.
7
The architectural ruins of Aihole and Pattadakal were first noticed and
photographed in the middle of the nineteenth century by Colonel Briggs.6
Meadows Taylor and James Fergusson published these photographs, but at
this time all that could be said about the temples was that these were pre-
tenth century CE structures.7 The connection with the dynasty of the
Chalukyas had yet to be established. In 1874, James Burgess visited Badami
and reported the story narrated to him by the villagers that the Jina image in
one of the caves was that of the raja, who had built the tank at the site.8 He
made an estampage of the inscription in Cave III and dated the record to
578 CE. Even though the caves and the temples at Badami were no longer
places of worship, Burgess records the annual pilgrimage at Banashankari, a
short distance to the south of Badami. A prominent structure at the spot was
a tank about 400 feet square, surrounded on all sides except the west by a
colonnade or covered walk.9
At Pattadakal, opposite the village of Katapur, Burgess mentions brisk
iron-smelting activity carried out by villagers as well as the continuation of
worship in the largest temple at the site. He also describes several megalithic
monuments termed ‘dolmens’ in the region, especially south-east of the
village of Aihole on a rocky hill, which we now know to be Meguti hill
(Fig.7.1). To the west of Aihole on rocky rising ground on the banks of the
Malaprabha, he refers to more such structures: ‘among a group of very old
temples in the same place is one raised on four unhewn pillars—but this
may have been the shelter of some bygone devotee’.10 This structure is in the
Galaganatha group of temples, which date stylistically to the second quarter
of tenth century CE.11 At the time of their discovery, however, the temples
had long been abandoned.
Henry Cousens visited Aihole and several other Chalukyan temples in
Dharwar district and focused his discussion largely on the Dravidian style of
architecture of these temples following Fergusson’s racial-religious
categorisation of architecture.12 Nevertheless, Cousens identified numerous
features that provided a unitary style to the temples, such as the use of
massive blocks of locally available sandstone, ‘an exuberance of lace-like
carving’, profusely decorated doorways, and the adoption of domical
ceilings. He suggested that the size of the temples was governed by the size
of the pillar, which was made of the most convenient length of block
available in the quarries.13 The temples were erected with no cementing
material and no clamps. Another significant observation related to the
sculpted panels was the fact that while the earlier temples carried narratives
from the epics, this practice was given up in the later tenth-eleventh century
structures, where the walls were decorated entirely with images of deities.14
Figure 7.1: Dolmen on Meguti hill, Aihole, in the vicinity of Jaina temple
Source: Author.
Within its (the old village of Aihole’s) crumbling walls, which enclose a
space little more than five hundred yards across, it has more than 30
ancient stone temples, all jostling one another for room. They are
embedded amongst closely-packed dwellings, and are as a rule,
desecrated and ruined, many having been converted into dwellings and
cowsheds . . . . Around the village, without the walls, are many more
dilapidated shrines, embosomed in prickly-jungle or standing uncared
for in outlying fields.15
This continued to be the state of affairs until the Ancient Monuments
Preservation Act was passed in 1904 under Lord Curzon, ‘to provide for the
preservation of ancient monuments, for the exercise of control over traffic in
antiquities and over excavation in certain places and for the protection and
acquisition in certain cases of ancient monuments and of objects of
archaeological, historical or artistic interest’; and this formed the basis of
interest in the monuments by the Archaeological Survey of India.
In the post-Independence period, research on the Aihole temples
continued, and scholars such as K. V. Soundara Rajan16 and M. Rama Rao
added several new dimensions to the study of the region.17 They questioned
earlier interpretations on the basis of fieldwork and adopted Sanskrit
terminology as cited in the Agamas and the Vastu Sastras. K. R. Srinivasan
further refined the analysis by Rama Rao, while continuing his methodology
of first-hand observation and reliance on Sanskrit treatises.18 Tartakov’s
research has not only defined the chronology of the temples, but has also
effectively shown the extent to which early beginnings impinged on
subsequent reflections in the context of the eighth century Durga temple at
Aihole. The temple’s apsidal form led James Fergusson to suggest that it was
a Buddhist structure subsequently appropriated for the worship of Siva and
by the 1860s the temple featured ‘as an inglorious, structural version of a
Buddhist caitya hall, appropriated by Brahmanical Hindus and buried under
rubble at a site of the ancient Chalukya dynasty’.19 As a result of subsequent
investigation and research not only on the plan of the temple, but also its
rich imagery, it is now evident that the Durga temple is one of nearly 150
temples built across 450 square km of the Deccan in the seventh-eighth
centuries CE, albeit the Durga temple is the largest and most lavishly
constructed monument dating to around 725–30 CE.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the focus was on a detailed
analysis of the sculptures at Aihole,20 a comparative study of the figurative
imagery of the temples,21 and a thorough analysis of the architecture of the
temples,22 as well as the scribes who have left inscriptions on the temples
walls and pillars.23 Adam Hardy suggested a different configuration for the
temples of north Karnataka by terming them as belonging to the Karnāta-
Drāvida tradition that flourished between the seventh and thirteenth
centuries, a period for which no Vastu Sastra texts survive from Karnataka.
In all about 200 temples are known: seventeen Early Chalukyan; thirty-one
Rashtrakuta, including those at Ellora and Sirval; 104 Later Chalukyan;
nineteen early phase, thirty-eight mature mainstream, forty-seven non-
mainstream, and seventy-two Hoysala.24 Following Stella Kramrisch, he
reiterated the adherence of religious architecture to underlying philosophic
principles as enshrined in the Upanishads, the ritual methodology of the
Brahmanas and the mythology of the epics.25
The architectural forms embody an Indian concept of manifestation of
the coming into concrete form of the divinity. But this symbolism of
formal structure is not entirely abstract, divorced from imagery.
Perhaps more than any other architecture, Indian temple architecture
notwithstanding a process of abstraction, which takes place, is
representational, made up of images. Temples make tangible the same
ungraspable truth that mythological and philosophical formulations, in
their own different ways, attempt to bring to human understanding.26
It would be worth analysing this principle through the temples at Aihole
characterised by diversity in architectural form. But to put this diversity in
perspective, we need to trace the location of religious architecture in
peninsular India and to especially analyse its oft-quoted link with the
political elite.
SOCIAL HISTORY
The period between the second–first centuries BCE and fourth century CE
was a period of creativity and experimentation as far as religious
architecture in the subcontinent was concerned. It was at this time that the
concept of the superstructure evolved and can be traced through several
formative stages as represented in reliefs from Bharhut, Sanchi, Mathura,
Ghantasala and Jaggayyapeta. A survey of the archaeological record
establishes the diverse nature of the sacred landscape in the early centuries
of the Christian era, with the Hindu temple coexisting with Buddhist and
Jaina shrines, memorial pillars and in many cases Iron Age burial structures.
Clearly these structures were sites of rituals and the performance of Vedic
sacrifices, but there is little evidence to support intervention by the royalty
or the establishment of temples as a result of royal generosity in this early
period.
It is also evident that the religious shrine did not emerge out of a void in
the sixth–seventh centuries CE, instead its beginnings may be traced to an
earlier period. Archaeological clearance work at Ambiger-gudi, Aihole
exposed a brick wall underlying the rear side of the sanctum of the stone
temple. The layer between the brick wall and the stone temple yielded
typical red ware bowls of the first–third century CE. Similar evidence was
also obtained in archaeological excavations at Pattadakal, where Rao
identified an underlying brick temple plan dated to third century CE based
on ceramic sequence, and suggested that it was a precursor to the earliest
stone temples of the Chalukyan period at the site.27 He further indicated
that a mound across the temple complex provided evidence of pre-chalukya
occupation in the area based on second-third century ceramics revealed in
the cutting.
Recent archaeological research has shown that the Malaprabha valley
formed a part of the larger settlement network in the Deccan in the early
centuries CE. The site of Cotta Chandor in Chandor district about 300 km
from Aihole towards the west coast was subjected to excavation for two field
seasons in 2002–04. The complete plan of a brick temple complex datable
from third to eleventh century CE was unearthed and five phases of
structural activity were identified. In the earliest Phase I, the temple was
cruciform in plan and this marks it out as perhaps one of the earliest
structures to adopt this plan of construction. Though three phases of
construction were identified, these were marked by continuity of religious
beliefs and in the last phase the sculpture of Nandi was added to the temple
complex.28
Vadgaon-Madhavpur is a forty-hectare site in the suburb of Belgaum,
which was discovered and excavated in 1945 by the Kannada Research
Institute, Dharwad, though the report has yet to be published, and again
from 1972 to 1977. A hexagonal stone pillar from the site carries an
inscription dated to first century BCE and records the performance of
Vajapeya and other sacrifices by a brahmana of the Kasyapa gotra. Based on
an analysis of ceramics from the site, three phases of occupation have been
identified dating from third century BCE to first century CE. The site has
yielded a rich hoard of coins and pottery, but relevant for this essay are the
find of two brick structures, one apsidal and the other consisting of a
spacious hall, which have been identified as religious in nature.29
The University of Mysore in collaboration with the State Department of
Archaeology excavated Banavasi near Sirsi in North Kanara district in the
1970s and unearthed an apsidal brick temple of the Satavahana period.30 A
number of mounds spread across one square km area along the river Varada
were explored and these yielded ceramics, such as Rouletted Ware and
Russet-coated Painted Ware, in addition to providing information on brick
structures. A square inscribed pillar bore the names of Kakusthavarman,
Santivarman and Mrgesavarman of the Kadamba dynasty and their victory
over the Pallavas.
Two brick temples were also excavated at Paithan in the Aurangabad
district of Maharashtra as early as 1937. The temples stand next to each
other, but their orientation is slightly different and there are also differences
in their plans and five separate phases of development that have been
identified. Subsequent excavations at the site have added to the information
available, but dating continues to be somewhat problematic, as much of the
information from the earlier excavations was not recorded. A broad time-
span of fourth to eighth centuries CE has been suggested for the two
temples.31
Another early temple site is that of Siddhapur, located on the right bank
of the Bhima, 56 km southeast of Solapur. Archaeological excavations
revealed two cultural phases, the first dated to first–third centuries CE and
the second to eleventh–twelfth centuries CE. A burnt-brick structure was
uncovered in the centre of the settlement, roughly rectangular on plan and
inside it a terracotta plaque of what has been identified as a syncretic image
of Lakshmi-Parvati was found along with a terracotta lamp and an incense
burner.32
Intense archaeological exploration at the confluence of the Krishna and
Tungabhadra rivers has brought to light a remarkable series of brick temples.
Two phases of structural activity marked the construction of temples at
Veerapuram in the Krishna valley. Mostly square on plan, these contained
pebble lingas and have been dated between the second to sixth centuries
CE.33 Similarly in Andhra, the earlier tradition of erecting memorials for the
dead re-emerged in the form of chhaya-stambhas or memorial pillars
coinciding with the advent of the temple.
Thus, by the fourth–fifth century CE, the temple had already emerged as a
well-defined unit positioned in proximity to water bodies, as also at
Nagarjunakonda, and it is within this changing sacred landscape in the
Deccan that the temples at Aihole need to be located. These temples are
situated along a north-south axis on the banks of the Malaprabha with
Meguti hill forming one end of the axis, past the caves and temples at
Ravalaphadi to Tarabasappa at the northern end. Among the three or four
small shrines in front of Ravalaphadi cave, the oldest is the west-facing
structure to the south.34 In the centre of the ancient town of Aihole stand
four structures: Gaudargudi temple or Lad Khan to the north-west;
Suryanarayana to the north; an ancient tank to the south, and Cakragudi
close to the southern edge of the tank.35 The presence of water bodies close
to Mallikarjuna temple at the foot of Meguti hill, Tarabassappa and
Huccimalliguddi is significant and is in keeping with the close association
between religious architecture, both Buddhist and Hindu, and the
community as evident from the archaeological record of shared agrarian
spaces at a range of other sites (Fig. 7.2).36
Figure 7.2: Bhutanatha group of temples at the edge of the tank, Badami
Source: Author.
The location of water bodies and temples indicates the beginnings of
temple construction on Meguti hill and its extension, the Ravalaphadi caves,
as well as in the centre of the village at Lad Khan where wells were dug for
the purpose of providing a source of water. The natural source, viz. the
Malaprabha river does not appear to have been a favoured early core area as
only one small temple in the Ramalinga group near the Malaprabha river,
viz., the Puspabhadra temple to the south of the village of Aihole dedicated
to the goddess Sri in the form of a lotus and oriented to the west to face the
river is dated to the first phase of construction.37
A characteristic feature of early religious architecture at Aihole is its
diversity in terms of religious affiliation and this is evident both from the
shrines at Siddhanakolla and the earliest constructions on Meguti hill. The
site of Siddhanakolla is located 2 km from the village on the Pattadakal–
Aihole road and includes a rock shelter at the site with a natural trough in
front, which collects and stores rain water. A Lajja-Gauri image is carved
inside the rock shelter, while two temples, i.e., Sangameshwar and
Siddeshwar of the Chalukya-Rashtrakuta period are located nearby. An
annual mela is held at the time of Sankranti when devotees come to the site
in large numbers and a modern temple has been built at the site.
The Jaina cave at Meguti hill at Aihole faces south-west and comprises a
garbhagrha, two side chambers, a common hall and a rectangular verandah.
Another two-storey Jaina shrine is located on top of the hill and bears an
inscription in Sanskrit on stone on the outside east wall. It mentions the
kings Jayasimha I, Ranaraga, Pulakesi I, Kirttivarma and Mangalisa (whose
horses were picketed on the shores of the oceans of the east and the west—
pūrva-paścima-samudratatositāśvah)—and Pulakesi II. The objective is to
record the erection of a stone temple of Jinendra by a certain Ravikirtti, the
composer of the eulogy who has attained the fame of Kalidasa and Bhairavi
by his poetry, during the reign of Pulakesi II in Saka year 507 (585–86 CE).38
The upper structure of the temple bears two inscriptions in Kannada, which
read Sri Rajakomara and Sri Bai.39 The temple walls are plain and there is an
absence of decoration on the pillars and door-frames as well.
On the northern slope of Meguti hill is a Buddhist vihara, which is part
rock-cut and part structural (Fig.7.3). It has an upper storey, and depicted
on the ceiling is a seated figure of Buddha, while scenes from the life of the
Buddha are sculpted on the door-jambs of the cave. A short seventh-century
inscription on one of the pillars of the ground floor mentions Mahendra of
the Pinthavadi (Pindapati) school and a disciple of Sthavira Ananda.40
Another rock shelter site is that of Bhadranayakana Jalihal, 3 km from
Pattadakal, which also has a spring and a water body in front. Inside the
natural cavern are several early Chalukya sculptures, such as a Saptamatrka
set carved in the wall, Ganesa, Siva, Parvati, Brahma, Visnu, Nandi, Vasuki,
Nagaraja, Lajja-Gauri, etc., while in front of the cave are eleven small
Chalukyan temples.
Figure 7.3: Buddhist vihara at Aihole
Source: Author.
Nine have an open porch and a vimana with tiered pyramidal
sculptures. One enshrines a standing Siva and Parvati with Nandi in a
style datable to 720 CE. The temples have no exterior niches. One of the
temples is interesting for its inscription by either its donor or builder. It
is referred to as a funerary shrine or karandaka (casket) bearing shrine
of Vikramaditya II who ruled from 733–45 CE. Nearby carved on a
boulder in a vertical rectangle that looks like a hero-stone are figures of
a seated king flanked by female cauri-bearers.41
The inscription from Gaudargudi temple dedicated to Durga Bhagavati
has been referred to earlier, thus making it one of the temples affiliated to
the goddess. The affiliation of other temples at Aihole is varied. For example,
in the Mallikarjuna temple, the floor of the garbhagrha, the pitha and the
linga are all carved from a single block of stone.42 The Durga temple is
among the largest Chalukya buildings and the most finished of all the
Chalukya temples (Fig. 7.4). The temple may have had a prakara, the pratoli
of which stands on the south. The north wall of the pratoli has a donative
inscription of the time of Vikramaditya II (733–45 CE), which records a gift
to a sun temple founded by a kumara, possibly a revenue officer. An undated
foundation inscription (recently discovered by Ramesh) states that the
kumara built this ālaya for Aditya. The characters of the inscription are no
later than 700 CE. On the north kapota face an engraved word ‘Jinālayan’ in
seventh–eighth century characters denotes a personal name, perhaps of an
architect, and does not denote a Jaina sanctuary as once supposed.43
Several phases of temple construction have been identified at Aihole
starting from the late sixth century, which continued until the twelfth
century with several renovations and additions. In the Durga temple, for
example, a step-well and a shrine were added in the later Kalyani-Chalukya
period (973–1198 CE), while Konti-guddi group received additional
structures in the Rashtrakuta period (757–973 CE). No stone temples were,
however, created at Aihole after the fall of the Kalyani Chalukyas at the end
of the twelfth century. Thus the early temples are distributed over an
extensive area and cover large parts of the Deccan uplands, while in the
middle of the first millennium CE there seems to be a concentration in the
Malaprabha valley. How is this concentration to be understood?
Ellora
Understanding the Creation of a Past
JAYA MEHTA
In his book Much Maligned Monsters, Partha Mitter highlights the Western
perceptions of Indian art, right from the end of the Middle Ages, to the
changed perceptions of the eighteenth century. Medieval texts like Marvels
of the East talked of Indian monsters, a notion inherited from diverse
classical sources like Pliny and Solinus. In these works, the Greeks
rationalised their instinctive fears in the invention of the monstrous races
that they imagined lived at a distance in the East, above all in India. The
Middle Ages thus received a large number of monsters from this source. The
concept of a monster was a means to describe what was not considered
natural or rational. Indian gods with their many arms were regarded as
monstrous because they looked unnatural and could not be rationalised.
With these stereotypes in mind, later European travellers took Indian gods
to be an example of multi-limbed pagan monsters known to exist in the
East. Indian gods thus acquired malevolent attributes in travel literature
after the Middle Ages.11
How would one then explain the totally contrasting appreciation of
Indian art and architecture from the eighteenth century? Mitter illustrates
the key factors behind this changed approach. The major backdrop to the
period was the development in Western aesthetics. The aesthetic movements
of the eighteenth century heralded a new awareness of non-classical
traditions, and the aesthetic notion of ‘sublime’ was placed on the same level
as beauty. The main features of sublime architecture like enormous size,
surrounding darkness, silence and solitude were all heightened in the Indian
cave architecture. This sense of awestruck wonder at the scale of conception
is evident in the fervent desire in travellers to take measurements, right from
the earliest times.12 The Western Indian caves thus came to be viewed as a
fine example of the ‘sublime’ and ‘picturesque’ nature of Indian architecture.
In my view, there would be yet another reason for the cave sites in Western
India to become a popular point of interest and study for the Europeans.
These sites also had a long history of exploration from the Portuguese times
onwards, as they were located around the first port of entry, that is, Bombay.
Thus, accessibility would be a major factor in making these sites get noticed
—more importantly—vis-à-vis other sites in Western India.
Mitter further illustrates the significant point of the nature of perceptions
towards Indian art and architecture at this point in time. Western analogies
and religious studies13 were utilised to classify Indian art and fit it into
Western art history. Elephanta was even identified as an antique Roman
temple14 and its Shiva Ardhanarisvara sculpture as the Amazon of classical
mythology.15 Mitter’s concern was to examine the issues linked to
colonialism and how these influenced the study of Indian art. At this point, I
would risk a digression by drawing attention to a very different later
nationalist vision of looking at Indian art. Tapati Guha-Thakurta studies the
way in which Orientalist and nationalist discourse in Calcutta at the turn of
the twentieth century tried to reconstitute a ‘great’ tradition for Indian art in
the past. Powerful equations emerged between ideas of ‘art’, ‘tradition’ and
‘Indian-ness’, as the image created of Indian art was integrally linked with
antiquity, religion and transcendental philosophy. Instead of the
longstanding image of the monstrous and barbaric, Indian art now receded
into the opposite pole of the abstruse and metaphysical.
The answer why the two issues raised both by Mitter and Guha-Thakurta
gain importance lies in the context of Burgess’s works. In the next section,
we look at how they reflected these issues. Do we look at his work as a
colonial enterprise or as reflecting sensitivity to its Indian context? How
much do the dynamics of religion and local identities enter his work? A
point very vital to notice regarding Burgess is that he was fully aware of the
travel accounts as well as the paintings of British artists describing Western
India. Of Elephanta, Burgess said in his Cave Temples of India: ‘The great
cave at Elephanta . . . has been so long known to Europeans, and has been
consequently so often described and so fully illustrated by Daniells and
others, that it is hardly necessary to say anything about it in the present
work.’16 As regards Ellora, Burgess is keenly aware of accounts of travellers
like Thevenot, Anquetil du Perron (1758), Sir Charles Malet (1794) and
Colonel Sykes (1820). He describes the twenty-four views published by the
artist Daniells, accompanied by plans by James Wales as ‘the most splendid
and accurate account of these caves, as a whole, which has yet been
published’.17 Burgess himself was an architect by training. Like the travellers
and painters, he was concerned with understanding architectural details.
Like the traveller, his focus was on the tremendous grandeur of the total
scale of conception and the wealth of exquisite details. Things which did not
fall into these categories were of minor importance to him. Of Kanheri,
Burgess remarks that the 109 separate caves were small and architecturally
unimportant though easy access from Bombay attracted Europeans visitors
to it for a long time.18 A similar approach is betrayed in his assessment of
the Jaina caves of Ellora.19 Archaeology, in fact, was in his view the history
of art, and he considered it his aim to provide a full illustration and history
of ancient and medieval architecture down to the decline of Muhammedan
styles.20
Equally significant was the impact of religious and epigraphic studies on
the work of Burgess. His focus on Buddhism was vitally linked to James
Prinsep’s discovery of the Brahmi script. In the joint volume Cave Temples of
India by Burgess and Fergusson, the latter wrote that when James Prinsep
deciphered the Asokan inscriptions:
The history of Buddha and of early Buddhism, which before had been
mythical and hazy in the extreme, now became clear and intelligible
and based on recognisable facts. The relation of Brahmanism and other
Hindu religions to Buddhism and to each other were now for the first
time settled, on a basis that was easily understood and admitted of a
logical superstructure raised upon it. When all this was done the
remaining task was easy. It only required that someone should visit the
various localities where the caves where situated, and apply, the
knowledge so amassed, to their classification (sic).21
It is these influences and ideas that need to be kept in mind while using
Burgess ’ archaeological reports. It was an influence of a variety of sources
and factors that conditioned his perceptions of Indian art and architecture.
The works of earlier European travellers and artists were a predecessor that
shaped his own understanding of the cave sites of western India. The
religious and epigraphic studies of his time were extremely influential in
shaping his ideas on the relation of different religions in India. The next
section discusses the positive as well as the negative aspects of his work and
his criteria of understanding Indian art.
Much before the Archaeological Survey of Western India was set up in 1873
and handed over to him, Burgess had already done extensive work on
western India.22 From 1886, he assumed the post of Director-General of the
Archaeological Survey of India, succeeding Alexander Cunningham. Yet,
unlike Cunningham, he placed added emphasis on architectural survey
probably due to his early training as an architect. Unlike Cunningham,
Burgess found hardly any time to take much active interest in excavation
and his method of bringing out results was also different. Instead of
publishing periodical reports of his discoveries at the time they were made,
he kept his materials with him till he could present a complete monograph.
Within fifteen years, starting from his Western Indian post, he produced
twenty volumes of which seven formed part of the Archaeological Survey of
India, New Imperial Series.23
The influence of the parameters of Western art history is evident in
Burgess’s belief in architectural style as a means to chronology. Such was his
focus on style that he considered it to be in both Europe24 and Asia as ‘. . .
infallible, yielding results that admit no dispute, and which are more
generally relied upon by antiquaries than those derived from any other
sources’.25 Rather than trusting inscriptional data, Burgess had faith in
tracing the development of styles as the true guide to chronology. Burgess
continued with the trend of an evolutionary framework in his
understanding of style: ‘Cave architectural features, as in all true styles, all
over the world change according to certain laws of progression’.26 To him,
architectural style was not only the reliable means of establishing
chronology in Europe but the standard criteria for Indian architecture as
well.
Along with this stylistic focus came his imposition of religious and
epigraphic studies onto the study of Indian art and architecture. Burgess
claimed that the peculiarity of the western Indian caves was in affording a
vivid illustration of the rise and progress of three great religions of India. He
said: ‘The caves show how Buddhist religion rose and spread and its later
form became corrupt. Consequently it was superseded by the nearly cognate
form of Jainism and antagonistic development of the revived religion of the
Brahmins.’27 As mentioned earlier, this focus on Buddhism had a lot to do
with Prinsep’s discovery of the Brahmi script. Architectural space was thus
understood in the light of a predetermined and fixed concept of Indian religion
[emphasis added]. Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jaina religions were posited
as distinct periods inimical to each other; their representation in caves was
sharply bracketed in terms of style and chronology.
Burgess’s treatment of religious art reveals a marked bias towards
Buddhist art as being the true representative of western Indian cave
architecture. In terms of both architecture and comparisons of Buddhist
paintings and Brahmanical sculpture, the accent is on the superiority of the
former. In stylistic terms, Buddhism was correlated to simplicity of sculpture
and paintings whereas Brahmanism was linked to ornate sculpture. Burgess
found Buddhist stories to be manifested through paintings, while
Brahmanism, which had no stories but single images, manifested itself in
sculpture. He remarked, ‘If paintings of Buddhist caves had existed fully,
they would afford illustration of history and mythology far more complete
than the limited scope of Brahmanical sculpture.’28 His focus on Buddhism
is also evident in his intensive study of the stylistic variations in Buddhist
sculpture and architecture at different sites.29
Burgess also pointed to the notion of diffusion of styles through conquest
by rulers. He attributed the change of style at Ellora’s Cave 10, Kailasa, to the
change of dynasty, that is, with the rise of seventh- century Rashtrakutas and
their king, Dantidurga. According to him, the Pattadakal temple at Badami
made during Dantidurga’s reign was identical in style, plan and dimensions
to the Kailasa temple at Ellora. This he took to be a confirmation of the fact
that Kailasa was made in his reign; maybe by the same architect.30 He thus
linked the notion of style to dynasty, the eclectic nature of inputs evident at
Kailasa notwithstanding.
Though Burgess essentially linked Indian art to notions of antiquity and
religion, he probed little to explore the aesthetics of Indian art, its unique
style and sensibility. He did not intend to go into the regional context and
understand how these examples of architecture met the needs of the
community. Instead, in 1905, Burgess was already complaining of
antiquarians like Coomaraswamy who, ‘first formed theories more
wonderful than natural and then tried to make facts and inscriptions
support them’.31 He continued to ignore Indian sources like texts and
traditional architects. Burgess’s assistant Henry Cousens attempted to use
Indian architectural terms to focus more precisely on the detailed structure
of a temple, something that was difficult with inept European terminology.
Burgess dismissed the effort on the grounds that ‘few of these terms are to be
found in our lexicons, and their precise forms can hardly be controlled out
of India’.32 The study of Indian architecture for Burgess was really for non-
Indians by non-Indians. E. B. Havell attacked Burgess and Fergusson in this
failure to approach Indian architecture from an Indian point of view. Havell
also rejected the sectarian division of styles and the persistent habit of
looking for foreign influences. While Burgess represented the dry
archaeological approach that focussed on documentation, Havell
exemplified the nationalist vision, which focused on an aesthetic
appreciation of Indian art that highlighted its unique and exclusive aesthetic
philosophy.33
Burgess’s contributions thus lay in the vast amount of documentation of
sites in Western India and his analysis of the development of Buddhist
iconography in different contexts. Yet, his imposition of religious studies
onto architectural space created notions of essentialism tied to community
and creed. Instead of viewing Indian monuments in their larger context, he
tied them down with unchanging conceptions of what was properly
‘Buddhist’, ‘Hindu’ and, ‘Jaina’. He did not take notice of the alternative that
styles spread as craftsmen moved from one regional workshop to another,
and instead stressed the simplistic notion that styles were diffused through
the interaction and conquests of rulers. His imposition of Western art
history parameters onto Indian art and architecture was evident in his
exclusive focus on comparison of styles. The colonial nature of his
undertaking was reflected in his lack of sensitivity to local texts and Indian
architectural terms. He thus reflects a very different approach from the
nationalist vision of art historians like A. K. Coomaraswamy and E. B.
Havell, whose concern was the community sponsoring the monument. Both
the positive and negative aspects of Burgess’s work are significant in their
impact on future studies of Indian cave sites. The next section will deal with
these issues in the context of one site, namely, Ellora. The aim shall be to see
how such issues that were a part of Burgess’s approach continue to influence
present studies on Ellora.
SITUATING ELLORA
Both the positive and the negative aspects of Burgess’s work have influenced
major approaches towards the study of Ellora. The primary archaeological
report of the Archaeological Survey of India on Ellora is by James Burgess,
and various scholars vouch for the accuracy of its factual data34 and its
comprehensive nature, despite the fact that Burgess’s proposed hypothesis
was later discarded. Burgess posited that the caves were excavated in a
sequence from south to north and that determined their chronology. This
represented a neat sequence where all the Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jaina
caves followed each other in excavation. Later scholars have corrected this
with a ‘fan theory’ in which early caves have been posited near the centre,
from where later excavations spread out.35 It is also vital to keep Burgess’s
aims in mind when he was writing the reports. As mentioned earlier, his
studies sought to chart the rise and fall of India’s three religions. This
application of religious studies onto architecture takes as its basis the
presumption of decline and notions of ‘essentialism’ tied to creed. This
limited context of looking at a monument resulted in a sectarian
understanding of Ellora.
These restrictive categories need to be abandoned in favour of notions of
regional styles cutting across communal lines [emphasis added]. Yet, scholars
like Soundara Rajan have limited themselves to a narrow, sectarian
understanding of Ellora. According to him, ‘The fact that even the Buddhist
caves at Ellora have a certain richness of detail and figure carving, would go
to show that their designers and architects were having their primary
tutelage under Brahmanical art undertakings, which is so different from the
sobriety and fluidity of architectural contours of Buddhist art.’36 That these
undertakings were a part of a larger regional art activity is not considered
here. More importantly, Soundara Rajan continues Burgess’s point of linking
the diffusion of styles to political dynasties. For him, the development at
Ellora after the Brahmanical phase is explained by ‘rulership (sic) of the area
which had the chance and circumstance of displaying its proven expertise in
rock art in the region’.37 In his book Cave Temples of the Deccan, he
illustrates the entire art activity in the region, and at Ellora, only in terms of
dynastic patronage of the Calukyas of Badami and the Rashtrakutas. The
basic approach behind these criteria of classification also shows Burgess’s
tremendous influence. Dynastic patronage at Ellora is proven through an
exclusive focus on the comparison of styles, notwithstanding the fact that no
epigraphic or inscriptional data links any other dynasty except the
Rashtrakutas to the site.
Most studies on Ellora are characterised by Burgess’s obsessive focus on
formal style, and scholars are continuously seeking to establish chronology
through it. Very few studies have tried to look at alternative approaches such
as criteria other than style and an understanding of the local context and
associations. Instead of Burgess’s dry archaeological approach of
documentation, the focus needs to be on the connection between the
monument and community for whom it was created. Scholars like G. H.
Malandra and Michaela Soar represent a shift in this direction. Michaela
Soar investigates the local myths and associations at Ellora by studying the
local mahatmya. This results in the very significant understanding of the
age-old goddess tradition of the region that became an important part of all
the religious sects of the region. G. H. Malandra illustrates a shift in
understanding through the use of approaches other than style to examine
Ellora’s larger network.38 These findings represent a qualitative shift away
from the assumptions of British archaeologists like Burgess and studies after
him that followed his approach.
In this attempt to move away from previous standard conceptions of
Ellora, we require a fresh outlook towards the site. It is vital to keep in mind
that apart from a few sites like Mathura, we do not have sites where three
different religions are represented. Instead of narrow and insular approaches
of looking at only the Buddhist, Brahmanical or Jaina caves at Ellora, it
would be better to examine the shared culture at Ellora. In what ways could
this shared culture of Ellora be defined? Firstly, this would be in terms of the
location shared by the three religious sects. The natural landscape of Ellora
is marked by the vital characteristics of a tirtha, with its mountains, forests
and pools. The site also had tremendous sanctity due to its association with
the river goddess as pointed out by the mahatmya. The local mahatmya
points to the sacred associations with the site for the Brahmanical sect.
Though we do not have similar texts for the other two religious sects,
excavation of the caves indicates that it was an important spot for the
Buddhists and Jains as well. This sacredness of association with Ellora is very
evident in the fact that three such different religious sects desired to fit into
one landscape. The second interesting aspect of this shared culture lies in the
goddess tradition, which cuts across all religious styles. The strength of the
local goddess tradition is visible in the concerted effort of all religions to
include the representations of the goddesses in their imagery. Even Burgess
remarked that the singularly striking feature of the Buddhist sculpture at
Ellora vis-à-vis other Buddhist sites is the presence of numerous female
deities.39 Similarly, five sets of Saptamatrikas are found in Brahmanical caves
14, 21, 22, 16-B and 16 and indicate their concentrated development as a
theme. The Jaina caves also depict many Jaina goddesses like Ambika,
Indrani and Saraswati. The preponderance of female deities is striking as a
common point among all religious styles. This fact points to a strong
following of the local goddess tradition in the area. In order to involve these
communities and their local associations, the goddess tradition was
incorporated into all the religions represented at Ellora [emphasis added].40
Also important to notice is that local text itself points to the multiple
levels of associations of the site. The local mahatmya of the Skanda Purana
seeks to extol a Sivalaya Tirtha, yet alludes continously to the sanctity of the
local river goddess Ila. Michaela Soar indicates the nuances of these
associations. She points out that the origins of the river Ila is attributed to
two reasons—one as being born from the goddess and the other from the
local king. The story linking the origin from the goddess points to the local
goddess tradition being appropriated into the mythology of Saivism. The
second reason for the origin of the river Ila was that it was brought forth by
the king, Ila, just as Bhagirath brought Ganga. Thus, the goddess was
brought into the mythology and tradition of kingship. She also highlights
the second point explained by the text, that is, the establishment of the city
of Elapura by a king of the same name. According to this a mythical king Ila
enters the Sivalaya Tirtha and renames it after his own name, after adopting
the local worship of the linga and gifting land to brahmanas and holy men.
The important point here is that he is keen to take over the earlier allegiance
of the site to the goddess, and he adopts the local name of Ila, the local
goddess and the river.
Thus, apart from the religious affiliations as indicated by Ellora’s
architecture, I would like to draw attention to how the text points to several
layers of narratives relating the identities and associations of various interest
groups to Ellora. The important point raised by J. E. Cort that communities
express different sense of identities by allegiance to different deities is very
significant in this context.41 The multiplicity of associations to the site of
Ellora point to the probability of communities expressing multiple forms of
allegiance to the deities represented. The goddess tradition and the
subsequent religions would thus be a part of a shared culture space at Ellora
even for the interest groups coming to the site [emphasis added].
We now turn from the multiplicity of associations to probe the shared
culture in the architectural space of the site. T. V. Pathy has demonstrated
the need to see the architectural interactions among the Buddhist, Hindu
and Jaina cave temples at Ellora. In terms of architecture, he underlines the
development of the cruciform plan in both Buddhist and Brahmanical caves.
The Buddhist cave Tin Taal also demonstrates the transition where cells are
substituted for sculpture, like in the nearby Brahmanical Dasavatara cave.
Interestingly, the facade of the Dasavatara cave is identical to that of the
Buddhist Don Taal and Teen Taal caves. Even Burgess noted that
Brahmanical caves like Cave 27 show strongly Buddhist cave features.42 The
Jaina cave Indra Sabha presents an interesting phenomenon. Its ground plan
resembles that of Kailash while its upper floor is similar to Buddhist plans
like that of Caves 2 and 3.43 Similarly, features like cushion capitals, the
ghatopallava motif on pillars and the vidyadharas are motifs in all religious
cave styles. In terms of sculpture, apart from the common representation of
female goddesses, scholars have also pointed to borrowings in imagery.44
Thus what we see at Ellora is a lot of imitation, replication and sharing of
a common vocabulary of art. These are not three distinct cave styles
developing in isolation from each other or representing a contestation.
Scholars like Soundara Rajan seek to amplify the contestation aspect by
pointing to the way the Brahmanical authorities appropriated Dasavatara,
which had been a Buddhist cave. Yet, one needs to bear in mind that the
Buddhist structures of this cave remain unaltered. These include the vihara
in the open court, the entire ground floor and even various Buddhist pillars
and pilasters on the upper Brahmanical floor. In case of contestation and
appropriation, the Buddhist features of the cave could have been easily
demolished. Instead, all have been allowed to coexist—it is possible that the
Buddhist cave was left incomplete.
All of the above examples strongly suggest that different religious sects
shared a space and had local associations with it. It is very probable that they
shared between them the allegiance and patronage of various communities.
Instead of routinely attributing patronage of the site to ruling dynasties, we
need to recognise the role of wider interest groups. There is a clear lack of
inscriptions to determine Ellora’s patrons. It is only the Brahmanical cave
Kailasa whose patronage is directly linked to the Rashtrakuta king,
Krishnaraja I, through a Baroda copperplate. Yet, Kailasa as a structure
displays an extremely eclectic nature of styles. It does not cater to any one
taste and reflects various idioms.45 Even on Kailasa’s patronage by
Krishnaraja I, Gary Tartakov suggests he was probably responsible only for
the cave’s inauguration.46 With the help of examples from various texts,
Tartakov proposes that the patron who conceives a project and lays the first
brick gets the credit for it, whether he completes it or not. As regards other
caves, Rashtrakuta patronage has often been further extended to the Jaina
caves. Yet the Jaina caves contain no references to royalty but to individual
donors.47 More importantly, the imagery of the seventeen Bahubali figures
in the Jaina caves of Ellora suggests a north-south network. M. N. Tiwari
and K. Giri argue that though the Bahubali cult was popular in the south, it
is only later in the ninth century that his images acquired the status of the
Jina in the north.48 This process of Bahubali images of the north acquiring
attributes of the Jina is first noted in Ellora. It is thus from here that the cult
and imagery travelled up north.
The important point here is Ellora’s proximity to the trade route on which
Ajanta lay, linking the cis- and trans-Narmada zones. This ancient trade
route passed via the ranges of Ajanta and Balaghat, the centres of
Daulatabad, Aurangabad and Jalna to touch the Godavari at Nanded. This
was an important trade route since very ancient times,49 linking the
Godavari valley with political centres like Ujjayini and Vidisha. That Ellora’s
network also included the east is demonstrated by G. H. Malandra through a
comparison of Buddhist iconography at Ajanta, Ellora, Sirpur and
Ratnagiri.50 Ellora must thus not be understood in terms of locally limited
sects or dynastic equations. Instead, it is clearly important to dwell on its
wider network as a religious centre, sacred site, and centre of art activity. It
demonstrates linkages with the north, south, and east through iconography,
inscriptions and architectural data. As a thriving centre surviving on not just
royal patronage, the role of the pilgrims and a wider network became
immensely important.
Certain other issues regarding Ellora not addressed here but making
important points of enquiry are about its architectural space. The various
overlaps among religious styles must be inspected more carefully in terms of
their relation. In this regard, the paper ‘Sharing, Intrusion and Influence’51
by Gary Tartakov and Vidya Dehejia seeks to refine the uncritical
vocabulary often used to discuss stylistic continuities. The point is that
instead of using vague terms like ‘influence’, more specific terms need to be
utilised in different contexts.52 It would help immensely to analyse Ellora’s
space with such a critical vocabulary to gauge the relations of the
communities involved. Another approach, which is required, is to analyse
the placement of images. Devangana Desai has done this very effectively in
the case of Khajuraho.53 An attempt has been made to grasp the meaning
and context of the images through the study of the placement of divinities
and their configurations in the architectural scheme of the temples. Perhaps
such an exercise in the case of Ellora could provide more fruitful results
than the repeated focus on the sectarian affiliations of the cave sites.
The important point is to grasp what the site meant to the interest groups
involved, which influenced the course of its creation, preservation and
renovation. Not only did building activity continue at Ellora from the fourth
to the tenth century CE, later texts continued to associate it with different
groups. The local mahatmya of the Skanda Purana from the area also points
to the multiple claims to the site. Not only is there a strong tradition of
worship of the river goddess, it is reiterated as a Shiva shrine and the local
king seeks power by association with both. P. V. Ranade54 points to texts
from the thirteenth century CE as well as local Marathi folk tales55 that
further illustrate interesting associations with the site. The thirteenth-
century text Lilacharita mentions the visit of a saint, Sri Chakradharswami,
to Ellora in 1268 CE. It gives a fanciful account of the strange deities of the
place that take form of spirits and creatures. Interestingly, the authorship of
the caves is ascribed to a carpenter, Kokas.56 Kokas is also found in the text
Kathakalpataru of Krishna Yajnavalki (c. 1470–1535 CE), which is the
earliest Marathi legend on the excavation of the Kailasa cave. It narrates the
story of a king, Yelurai, who is struck by a disease due to the sins of his past
birth. His queen vowed that if her husband was cured she would not eat till
she saw the pinnacle of a Shiva shrine made. When the king got
miraculously cured he got a carver called Kokas Vadhai from Paithan, who
with his 7,000 artisans erected the tower of Kailasha within a week. The
carver is then said to have created other caves; and the settlement of Yelura
thus came about due to the efforts of King Yelurai. It is interesting to note
the persistent reference in both texts to the carver Kokas Vadhai who, as
Ranade points out, is a legendary figure of Indian literature found in many
Jaina texts and is epigraphically recorded in the central Indian inscription of
1155 CE.57 The important point is that till as late as fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, there were claims and counter claims to the creation of the site.
These texts thus point to continued associations with Ellora and its
creation. That it continued to figure in the popular imagination of regional
communities illustrates the multiplicity of connections with it. An
important digression needed at this point is the study of four Western
Indian temples done between 1996 and 1998 by John E. Cort, L. A. Babb and
Michael W. Meister.58 Instead of clear-cut continuities of caste and
community patronage, the temples present a different picture. The Sacciya
Mata temple in Osian, for example, had for long been tied to the origin
narrative of the Osval community, since Sacciya goddess was described as
their kuladevi (associated with their ‘home village’). But the author’s
research indicated that the Osian temple was largely in the hands of Bhojak
priests, and patronage had been more from local Bhatti Rajputs, Mahesvaris
and other castes than from non-local Osvals. The Dadhimati Mata temple in
Goth-Manglod presented a similar case. It had presumably always been
worshipped by the Dahima brahmana who lived in the regions around the
villages Goth and Manglod, between which the temple is located. But
research indicated it was ritually important to Bidyasar Jats, and its control
may have been in the hands of non-Dahima brahmana priests until early
twentieth century. Also, the construction of pilgrim rest houses and various
other facilities by Mahesvaris, Khattis, Svarnkars and other castes at the site
indicates that members of these castes attached importance to the
Dadhimati temple.
These temple studies present cases of continuous contestations of
patronage, worship and control. These multiple claims involve differing
understandings of the relationships between the deity and castes, between
worshippers and worshipped, between the donor and the donated. The
temple site thus means very different things to different communities and
serves to redefine their past and renegotiate their present. Michael Meister
points to the life a monument has after its making, and argues that the
monument forms a ‘series’ as it interacts with different contexts through
time. It is imperative to look at Ellora as such a series that interacts with
different communities in time. In terms of the shared culture of architectural
space at Ellora and the text and tales associated with it till a later period, we
see several layers of narratives relating the identities and associations of
various interest groups to Ellora. The monument would thus be a part of
multiple identities of communities involved, and the community concerned
would re-invent each association. It is vital to weave the monument into the
lives of the community without which it continues to have no meaning. This
is only possible by connecting Ellora to a larger network with the interest
groups coming to it, and examining their multiplicity of associations with
the site. Through this, we can examine Ellora not as a static monument
linked to one period or a singular dynasty but a fluid entity that constantly
grew as a ‘series’ as it interacted with many communities over time. In this
understanding of the site we need to re-look at a whole series of associations
with Ellora prior to Burgess’s reports. The local texts and Marathi literature
present an Ellora that is vividly alive in the minds of the local community.
This relation and continuity is lost with Burgess and the subsequent trend of
documentation.
The important point is that we are not just looking at the art historical
remains at a site. By divorcing the gamut of associations made with the site
over time, we lose much of the dynamism of these architectural remains.
The essay has thus sought to move beyond strategies of research and
documentation established by Burgess and to enlarge the scope by including
a study of local myths and legends as well as the reinvention of sites over
time. It is only through this different dimension to the study of architecture
that we can answer vital historical questions regarding the interaction of the
monument and the community.
9
He who paints waves, flames, smoke, and streamers fluttering in the air,
according to the movement of the wind, should be considered a great
painter. VDhP 43.5.28
Painting is the best of all arts, conducive to dharma, pleasure, wealth,
and emancipation. It gives the greatest pleasure, when placed in a
house.VDhP 43.5.38
This essay was first published in Studies in History, vol. 9, no.1, n.s.,
1993, pp. 43–70.
I am grateful to Kumkum Sangari, Neeladri Bhattacharya and the
anonymous referee of this paper whose comments on an earlier draft
were extremely useful in revising it.
There are certain special characteristics in the Jatakas, the most striking
being the unique use of time and the handling of many levels of narration,
with the establishment of links between the various levels. Each Jataka story
is divided into four parts: the main story from which the title of the Jataka is
usually derived is preceded by an introductory story that is set in the
Buddhist present, that is, the age of the Buddha. It is called the
paccuppannavatthu, or the story of the present, and recounts where and in
what circumstances the main story was told by the Buddha. Then follows the
main story, which is called the atitavatthu, or the story of the past. It always
begins by mentioning the place and the period when the events took place,
and is often set in a stock mythical past, located in the reign of King
Brahmadatta of Banaras. It often begins with the phrase, ‘once upon a time
in the reign of King Brahmadatta’ the Bodhisattva (the Buddha in his
previous incarnation) was born as such and such. It then proceeds to
introduce other characters in the narrative. The Buddha himself is thus more
or less always involved, either as an actor or as a witness, in the events of the
atitavatthu, and it is he who recounts the tale of the past. At the end of this
narrative there is a verse, which is the essence and sometimes the moral of
the story; finally, there is a linking of the stories of the past and the present
through an identification of who is who among the major characters in the
two narratives, called the samodhanam, and is attributed to the Buddha.14
Multiple levels of the narrative are made possible within the larger
framework of karma, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, plus the Buddhist
notions of the cyclical and therefore incalculable nature of time. These also
enable each Jataka story to move with ease from the world of animals to the
world of gods and demons, respectively, and return once more to the world
of men.
The linking together of different time-frames, different regions, and
different animal and human characters within a single narrative is a unique
achievement of the Jatakas, making it possible for them to contain a
simultaneity of forms. There is a mythical quality to the narrative as it
evokes a timelessness or immeasurable units of time, and the long durations
of past existences in heaven and hell; these go alongside a more realistic
delineation of human existences on earth. As Feer has pointed out in his
study of the Jatakas, the chronology within the Jatakas is made possible
through a succession of existences extending over a great number of years
and kalpas.15 Each kalpa, which is only one day in the life of Brahma,
comprises a colossal number of years which the Buddhist imagination has
some difficulty in filling with events.16 The narrative structure of the Jatakas
is a modest way of doing so. For example, in one Jataka, the Bodhisattva is
described as spending seven full kalpas in the heaven of Brahma before
fulfilling all his existences in the world of men. In the interim, a long period
is spent in the Himalayas. In another Jataka, the Buddha is born as a yaksha
500 times, then as a dog 500 times, with an interval between the two series
of existences of 100,000 years in hell. The totality of the past adding up to an
incalculable number of existences, fulfilling immense periods of kalpas, is
preserved in memory and not in historical time, and is punctuated with
formulaic descriptions of ‘when I resided in the forest of Brahma’, for a
mythical existence, and ‘once again when I am’, for an earthly existence.17
This unique handling of time makes the narrative structure more
interesting, but also more complex, and added to the problem of ensuring
firm control over the ‘correctness’ of meaning to be derived from the
narrative by the ‘receiver’.
The possibility of staving off the authority of the powerful with deviousness
rather than defiance is also played out in some of the narratives. The lower
orders use Brechtian cunning to try and get rid of their oppressors. One
account tells how the harassed servants of a cruel mistress, who beat them
for the slightest reason, use the first opportunity to get rid of her. Once,
while the mistress is bathing in the Ganga, a storm breaks out and everyone
scampers away. Finding themselves alone, the attendants say to themselves,
‘Now is the time to see the last of this creature’; they throw her into the river
and hurry off.67 Similarly, the cruel son of a king orders his servants to bathe
him in the middle of the river and bring him back. The servants take him in,
but midstream they talk amongst themselves and say, ‘What will the king do
to us? Let us kill this wicked wretch here and now. So in you go, you pest!’, as
they fling him into the water.68 It is significant, however, that these accounts
do not refer to defiance of all forms of authority and oppression, but only of
a ‘cruel’ mistress or a ‘wicked’ prince. I have already referred to stories of
loyalty; so, taken together, these stories seem to define the limits of
authority, rather than interrogate authority itself. They depict forms of
authority that are acceptable and others that are not. At the same time, the
narratives also set the limits and legitimate bases of defiance and subversion.
In the Jatakas, the poor desire entry into the world of the well-to-do.
Almost invariably, entry into this ‘other’ world is gained through a beautiful
nymph-like woman of the upper class.
A barber lived at Vesali shaving and hairdressing for the royal household,
for the king and queen, princes and princesses. A true believer, he listens to
the Buddha’s discourses from time to time. One day, he takes his son with
him to the palace. The young fellow, seeing a Lichchhavi girl, all dressed up
fine and grand like an apsara (nymph), falls madly in love with her. He says
to his father: ‘There is a girl—if I get her I shall live, but if I don’t there’s
nothing but death for me.’ He does not touch a morsel of food and lies down
hugging the bedstead. His father says to him: ‘Why son, don’t set your mind
on forbidden fruit. You are a nobody, a barber’s son. This Lichchhavi girl is a
highborn lady. You’re no match for her. I’ll find you someone else, a girl of
your own place and station.’ But the lad does not listen to him; others try to
pacify him but cannot. So he pines and pines away, and lies there till he dies.
Then the father performs his obsequies and after the first edge of grief has
worn off, goes to see the Buddha. The Buddha tells him, ‘This is not the first
time he has perished by setting his heart on what he must not have; he has
done this before.’ He then relates to the barber the jackal and lioness story
(which I have cited before), and, at its conclusion, the layman is suitably
elevated: he moves to the first step in the four stages to salvation.69
The narrative in this story ends by reiterating that social space cannot be
transgressed: true wisdom lies in understanding and accepting this
inevitability. For those who do transgress (like the young son), desire will
lead to death.
Another story dealing with desire leading to the transgression of social
space introduces a third element in the development of the plot and its
ultimate resolution.
The son of a dasi is brought up along with the son of her master, so he
picks up writing and other skills, grows up to be ‘fairspoken’ and ‘handsome’,
and is employed as a private secretary in the master’s household. The young
man, however, fears that his comfortable situation can only be temporary
and that, at any time, he could revert to the status of the other servants, be
beaten, imprisoned, branded and fed on slaves’ fare. He then thinks that the
way to secure his future is to pass himself off as the son of his master with a
merchant friend of the latter who lives far away, marry his daughter and live
happily ever after. The young man carries off the deceit and settles down
with the merchant’s daughter in great style. He is soon found out by his ex-
master but, by falling at his feet, he manages to beg the master to keep his
secret. He also manages to keep the secret because the master forgives him
after making sure that the young man ‘behaves’ himself with his wife, who
was finding it difficult to satisfy his finicky food requirements.70
A key problem for the young man in the narration is the need to conduct
himself publicly in a slave-like manner with his ex-master; this is required of
him in the presence of someone who knows his ‘true’ station. Others who
are not in the know of his secret, including his father-in-law, have thus to be
given some kind of explanation for his humble behaviour in the presence of
his ex-master, who is supposedly his father.
Another version of the same story ends with the dream crashing; the
truth is revealed by a parrot who is sent out in search of the impostor. The
parrot succeeds in locating him because the runaway slave’s lack of breeding
becomes apparent; unlike the others, who are born into wealthy and genteel
households, with whom he is sporting in a boat party, the slave is not used
to drinking milk containing a strong drug (customary among the gentlefolk
to avoid the cold). He spits out the drink on the merchant’s daughter’s head.
This ends his runaway days; he is hauled back to his old master where,
according to the narrative, ‘once more he has to put up with slaves’ food’.71
The three major elements in this second version thus are deceit, discovery
and a return to the original status. Also, it is significant that the two versions
deal with relations between the classes differently. While in the first the
problem of social distance is circumvented by an elaborate ruse, in the
second servility is so deeply internalised that it is impossible to carry off the
deceit. Ultimately breeding shows: no amount of education or training can
effectively erase it.
Desire may only be latent, as in the story of Nanda, the household servant
of a gahapati. Nanda holds the key to the knowledge of the whereabouts of
his young master’s assets left for him by the dead father. When the young
master tries to get Nanda to reveal the treasure, and the master and servant
reach the spot where the treasure is buried, there is a dramatic development.
As Nanda stands on the treasure there is a reversal of the master-servant
roles and Nanda addresses the master with authority: ‘You servant of a dasi’s
son, how should you have any money here?’ This happens repeatedly each
time the dasa stands on the spot where the treasure is hidden, and each time
he reverts to his normal servile mien when they return home. Finally the
young master is advised to assert his power. There is a recognition that the
spot on which the reversal takes place is the spot where the treasure is
buried, so the young master must pull down the dasa from his perch, dig
down, remove the family treasure and then make the dasa carry it back
home for him.72 There is no actual transgression of the social space in this
narrative, only a temporary reversal; at best a latent desire, a psychological
transformation and, perhaps, a recognition on the part of the dasa, as well as
the propertied, that the key to power and control over others lies in control
over wealth. This is evident from the servant’s appropriation of the mode of
address of the high when he has symbolic physical control over the treasure.
What is significant in this narrative is that when the story begins the
ageing gahapati considers the dasa a more reliable trustee of his property
than his wife. The subversive potential of the wife is recognised, but not that
of the dasa. It appears that the lower classes are not perceived as a threat; the
threat comes from one who is right inside the home. The dasa’s gesture of
holding on to the treasure is unexpected and is described as akin to one who
is possessed. It comes as a total surprise to all, even, maybe, to the dasa
himself.
A question may be asked at this point. Was the subversive potential of the
lower classes not recognised in the Jatakas because this might reflect
disharmony? Or was it that the bhikkhus shifted the possible confrontation
of social groups, even at the level of representation, on to another plane in
the Jataka narratives? On the basis of other narratives, the latter appears to
be a possibility. I shall argue that direct confrontation between the high and
the low is represented in the Jatakas only on the intellectual plane, and it is
only at this level that the confrontation is permitted a resolution in favour of
those who occupy the lower rungs of the social hierarchy. The early
Buddhist texts often dwelt on the theme of the brahmana’s claim to high
status based on inherent criteria, which of course was contested by the
Buddha, as I have stated earlier.73 Nevertheless, social hierarchy based on
different criteria was recognised by the Buddha in the social world.74 It was
only in the world of the sangha that the principle of equality was recognised,
and upheld.75 Confrontation between the high and the low, or the brahmana
and the dasa, was not only to be represented but also had to be resolved in
favour of the lowly within the space created by the Buddhists through their
constant interrogation of the brahmana’s claim to social and intellectual
supremacy.
In the Setaketu Jataka, a famous teacher has a brahmana pupil who is very
proud of his high-caste status. One day he sees a chandala (untouchable)
and, fearing that the wind after striking the chandala’s body might strike his
own and pollute him, he cries out, ‘Curse you, you ill-omened Chandala, get
to leeward’, and goes quickly windward himself. The chandala, however, is
too quick for the brahmana and stands to windward of him; clearly defying
the brahmana in doing so. The chandala then offers to do as the brahmana
says if he can answer his question. In making this offer, he is clearly carrying
his contest with the brahmana into the intellectual arena which is
supposedly the basis for the brahmana’s social supremacy. The brahmana is
so confident of his intellectual powers that he agrees to answer the question
that the chandala puts to him in the presence of an audience. However, the
brahmana fails to answer the question and the chandala then forces the
proud brahmana to get down on his knees and humiliates him in full view of
the gathering of pupils.76
A more tempered version of an intellectual confrontation between a high-
caste brahmana and a poor dasi girl is found in a different genre of Buddhist
texts, the Therigatha. This text contains a collection of verses composed by
women who had joined the Buddhist monastic organisation. Verses
attributed to Punna, who had been a dasi in her lay existence and had
hauled water for the family of her master, query a brahmana bathing in icy
cold water in the river about why he subjects himself to such misery when
he has the option not to do so (this is an option she does not have). Says
Punna:
Drawer of water, I (go) down to the stream
Even in winter in fear of blows,
Harassed by fear of blame from mistresses,
What, brahmin, fearest thou that ever-thus
Thou goest down into the river?
Why with shivering limbs dost (thou) suffer bitter cold?
The brahmana explains that he bathes in the icy cold water in order to wash
off his sins, to seek release from his ill deeds. Punna’s response then is:
Nay now, who, ignorant to the ignorant,
Hath told thee this: that water baptism
From evil karma can avail to free:
Why then the fishes and the tortoises
To frogs, the watersnakes, the crocodiles
And all that haunt the water
Straight to heaven will go.
Yea, all who evil karma (deeds) work . . .
Thieves, murderers—so they but splash themselves
With water, are from evil karma free;
Evil thou hast wrought, they’d bear away
Thy merit too, leaving thee stripped and bare
To bathe and shiver here
That even that, leave thou undone,
And save thy skin from frost.77
Punna, by thus arguing, establishes her intellectual superiority and
succeeds in making the brahmana understand that there is no easy
absolution from evil actions. She also establishes her moral superiority by
declining to accept a robe that the brahmana offers her as a token of his
esteem. In this too she scores a moral victory over the brahmana whose
caste is associated in the Buddhist texts with the unashamed pursuit of
material gains from others in the form of dakshina (sacrificial fee) or dana
(gift). Even in her poverty and misery Punna, in a quiet and dignified
manner, resolves the intellectual confrontation between the low and the
high. But while she establishes her intellectual and moral superiority over
the high-caste brahmana who stands at the apex of society, Punna manages
to simultaneously sidestep the social confrontation inherent in the
interrogation of the brahmana’s system of beliefs.
Punna’s confrontation with the brahmana is thus a contrast to the
chandala story; it remains confined to the intellectual plane. In the chandala
story there is a very interesting shift. It begins with a social confrontation:
the chandala uses his polluting power as an effective weapon of harassment.
This is followed by an intellectual confrontation in which the chandala
outwits the brahmana and then humiliates him—thus carrying the
confrontation back to the social plane. The chandala, humiliated in everyday
life, now has the humiliator in his power. In Punna there is a mature
intellectual interrogation of the beliefs and rituals of the brahmana. With
simplicity and dignity, using reason rather than abstruse philosophy, Punna
shows up the shallowness and ridiculousness of the brahmana’s beliefs, who
ends up looking comic rather than wicked or villainous; he is certainly no
figure of authority having monolithic control upon people’s minds. Punna
may be a lowly dasi having no control over her time and labour, but she has
retained through the sheer drudgery of her existence an inner space, a
common sense, which no amount of hegemonic control can reach or
destroy.78 Seen through Punna’s eyes, Brahmanic ideology itself hardly
appears hegemonic but, rather, weak and tenuous in terms of effective
control.
The major problem in the narrative of Punna is to locate how much of her
statement is the voice of the dasi without the mediation of the bhikkhu/
bhikkhuni; or does the text represent the voice of the bhikkhuni put into the
mouth of Punna, the dasi? The fact that the verses are contained in the
Therigatha, and not the more popular Jatakas, might account for the
generally restrained speech and more subdued handling of the intellectual
confrontation between the high-status brahmana male and one who, as a
dasi, represents the lowest rung in the social ladder; Punna’s low status is
compounded by her gender subordination. Or is Punna’s voice a bit of both,
that is, the voice of a dignified bhikkhuni verbalising the ‘commonsense’
perception of a dasi? We are back to the grey area of the relationship of
popular culture to the culture of the learned.
In this context, it is significant that the general Buddhist critique of
Brahmanical hierarchy and intellectual arrogance coalesces with the popular
criticism of the Brahmanical elite tradition in the Jatakas, of which there is
much evidence in the high Buddhist literature. However, the popular
criticism of Buddhist monks for not upholding the renouncer tradition with
sufficient rigour is represented in the Vinaya Pitaka, the text for the monks,
as an occasion for the Buddha ruling for more rigorous behaviour. Such
concerns hardly make an appearance in the Jatakas. Here, popular criticism
is judiciously and selectively woven into the Buddhist critique of
Brahmanical misconduct. The attempt at maintaining control over the
various levels of the narratives is at all times apparent in the way the themes
are handled.
To sum up, we may draw attention to certain issues that arise in this
reading of the Jatakas. First, in these narratives the low-status groups are
released from their roles as objects of the rules, attention and focus of the
elites, and acquire a subjectivity. They think, act, laugh, weep, subvert and
resist as much as they fall in line, but even as they do so, they retain a degree
of autonomy from the consciousness and perceptions of those who represent
high culture. In fragments one can see elements of a popular vision of the
world from below, but since the narratives are as much the creation of men
who share, in part, the values of the upper classes, the representations of the
subjectivity of those at the bottom end stop short of complete coherence.
The texts ultimately succeed in imprisoning them once more in the
anonymity and obscurity from which the Jatakas had momentarily rescued
them. Once the purpose of the appropriation is achieved, the narrative itself
is often cut short without telling us what happened to the key characters
with whom we have begun to identify. We are left with a faint glimpse of
what it was like to be at the bottom end of society.
To return to the theme of the relationship between the Jatakas and other
Buddhist texts, we can attempt to highlight the nature of the appropriation
or utilisation of different elements in the interaction between the culture of
the people and the culture of the bhikkhu. Albeit loose in structure and a
dilution of the specific philosophical content of Buddhism, the stories are
cast within its overarching world view. They present Buddhist ethics in a
popular idiom and style. In the narratives about women, the overlaps
between the two visions make possible a fairly well-synchronised
representation. The fear of women’s sexuality, which was probably widely
shared by all categories of men, is put to excellent use in bringing home to
the bhikkhus, and to the pious, the inherent danger that women represent.
Through the use of popular idiom, the rigours of enforcing chastity upon
bhikkhus are mediated successfully. But there are areas of tension too
between the values of the bhikkhus and the values of the common folk, as in
the narrative of the poor man who is executed for stealing flowers and his
dying regret about not being able to attend the festival with his wife, which
leads him, according to the bhikkhus, to hell. Thus, while the people might
see pleasure, even when momentary, as a strategy for survival, the bhikkhus
reinscribe it as the path to moral degeneration. Similarly, in the story of the
water-carrier, the festival episode is pushed aside, the woman disappears
from the story and the spotlight shifts to the narrative dealing with the
other-worldly concerns of the bhikkhus.
The Jatakas also retain the notion of social hierarchy prevalent among the
Buddhists (where there were rich and poor according to differing access to
the means of production, and high and low status according to the nature of
work pursued) and, at the same time, provide for the playing out of the
dreams and fears of the lower classes (without, however, allowing
transgressions to go beyond permissible limits). The moral world of the
Buddhists is reaffirmed, especially since the narratives simultaneously limit
the playing out of social transgressions and yet permit, or even encourage,
the countering of the brahmana’s hegemonic control over ideology through
transgressions originating in the intellectual arena. All this is achieved while
retaining a popular genre of storytelling, and letting the text give out a
multiplicity of meanings at the same time: ambiguous, subversive and
reaffirmative.
11
scholarly circles has been to interpret its contents in the light of historical
contexts external to it, such as monarchy, courtly culture and patriarchy,
which are seen to be directly expressed in the theme, treatment and
characterisation of the play. The primary constitutive factor in the formation
of the play has been understood to be royal patronage, and for this reason it
is believed to be elite literature, addressed to the court and mirroring its
ideology.
This essay suggests that the primary perspective in which the play needs
to be located is internal to the Sanskrit textual tradition. In other words,
before interpreting the play it is necessary to defer to its genre, kāvya, and to
the rules and functions of the latter that may have informed its composition.
It is also necessary to investigate assumptions about the social location of
kāvya—not only questions about who wrote them and for whom, but also
who got to watch their performance, where they were performed, and
indeed, where the text locates its plot, or the interior locale. Taking cues
from the indigenous Sanskrit rhetorical literature like the Nāṭyaśāstra
(henceforth NS), and examining aspects of language use in kāvya plays, this
essay raises questions about how we have been looking at classical Sanskrit
literature. It also urges a greater appreciation for the critical apparatus of
kāvya vis-à-vis the court, as also for its not-inconsiderable social interface.
This essay is thus not about a text called the Śākuntalaṃ, but about a
textual genre, a sub-genre of which the Śākuntalaṃ is one example. This
distancing from a play in order to study it is deliberate—and purposive. For,
locating a work of literature in its generic context makes sense not only from
a literary-critical perspective but from a historical perspective as well. Social
historians have often brought assumptions to the interpretation of the
Śākuntalaṃ that could benefit from reappraisal in the light of other
contemporary works, or aspects of the literary movement that the play was a
part of. Given that it is difficult in any case to ascertain the specific
background of early Indian texts, the less we confine our inferences to a
single text and the more we broaden our view to encompass, say, the whole
genre, the more sound the basis on which we can attempt conclusions.
The genre in question is the Sanskrit kāvya. In keeping with the usage in
Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra and Bhāmaha’s Kāvyālaṁkara, the earliest extant
works on rhetoric and poetics,1 kāvya includes not only poetry
(sargabandha or mahākāvya) but drama (nāṭya), tale (kathā), and biography
(ākhyāyikā). The Śākuntalaṃ, as observed above, is a nāṭaka, one of the ten
types of plays the Nāṭyaśāstra enumerates. A nāṭaka is defined as the five-or
ten-act play par excellence with a well-known (prakhyāta) story taken from
tradition or history (itihāsa).2 It is no surprise then, and well-known, that
the Śākuntalaṃ bases itself on a plot found in the Mahādbhārata. But it is a
retelling said to have marked and historically significant differences in
thematic detail and characterisation from the older version. The
conventional view is to attribute the differences to a changed historical and
ideological context from Vyāsa to Kālidāsa, so to speak. The change is
supposed to be the full development of courtly culture under the Guptas,
representing the high point of monarchy, Brahmanism, and patriarchy in
concert—ideologies which are believed to have worked their way into
literary compositions through royal/elite patronage.
It is tempting but not foolproof, however, to read so direct a translation of
socio-political context into literary content. Based on my own study of more
than two dozen kāvyas, this essay goes into some of the problems this
approach presents. Further, drawing closely on the defining indigenous text
the NS, it queries some set notions about kāvya, which have had
implications for understanding the social location of the genre, and willy-
nilly shaped our interpretation of texts like the Śākuntalaṃ.
The influential approach to interpreting kāvya literature for historical
purposes regards it as ‘courtly literature’ ‘intended for the royal court’, or
‘class literature’ composed by poets who are no more than ‘housebirds’ of
patricians.3 Focused on the question of patronage, this view emphasises
‘who creates the form and who orders it’ as the key to understanding
literature.4
There is no doubt that artistic forms like kāvyas, that evidently require a
great degree of learning and leisure to compose, would have been patronised
or cultivated by affluent individuals and groups. This would mean primarily
the king or ministers of his court on the one hand, and wealthy magnates
(the śreṣṭhῑs and sārthavāhas) on the other. some historical examples are
available of these categories of patrons and authors. The ‘evidence’, though
not substantial by way of information, certainly serves to confirm the
picture of upper class patronage. Elite patronage of kāvyas, however, can be
interpreted in different ways. I believe the significance of elite or ‘court’
patronage, as it is generically called, lies in both its contribution to and
partaking of the prestige that Sanskrit kāvya acquired as classical literature.
True to classicism, kāvya inaugurated enduring literary standards by taking
the cultivation of language and theme to unprecedented heights and
exuding an appeal that was rooted in scholarship, yet chiefly aesthetic. For
the cultural elite to back this powerful and promising creative literary trend
would have been natural and fashionable. Their association with it, in turn,
would have fortified its status as belles-lettres.
The other interpretation of ‘court literature’ is the one I earlier cited,
which suggests that kāvyas are the expression of dominant ideologies asserted
through patronage. While this cannot be ruled out, there are difficulties in
accepting this as forming exclusively the constitutive knowledge of kāvya
literature. In its focus on material creation, this perspective has the effect of
restricting our sense of the meaningful possibilities of a text. It tends to
reduce kāvyas to pre-textual imperatives (like the patron’s needs or the
author’s class affiliation), which is to ride roughshod over intricate and
intuitive literary processes of signification. It runs against the idea of
interpreting literature on its own terms, and tends to deny autonomy and
critical agency to the author.
There is also a latent collapsing of ‘patron’ and ‘audience’ in this
understanding. This is not justified, at least and especially for the plays
among the kāvya repertory, for they were performed at festivals, among
other occasions, as the NS tells us, plausibly in public places like temples and
city squares.5 Indeed, Bhavabhūti’s Mālatῑmādhava spells out its audience
and the occasion thus: ‘A large conclave of men residing in different quarters
(nānādigantavastavyo mahājanasamājaḥ) has gathered here in connection
with the festival of Lord Kālapriyanātha and I (the presenter) am ordered by
the assembly of the learned (vidvajjanapariṣada) to entertain them by the
performance of some new play.’6 It may be observed that the audience and
the sponsors are clearly distinguished. Similarly, Vijayā’s Kaumudῑmahotsava
alludes to the autumn ‘public festival’ (sarvajanasāmānyamahotsava) as the
occasion on which it is performed, while Kālidāsa’s Mālavikāgnimitra refers
to the ‘spring festival’ in the same context.7 Interestingly, Bāṇa’s Harṣacarita
has vividly described festivals as occasions when the high and low mingle.8
On the theoretical side, types of plays like the vῑthi (‘street play’), bhāṇa
(erotico-comic monologue) and prahasana (farce), with their lively,
irreverent, often bawdy content, are suggestive of general lay audiences.
Moreover, the NS explicitly describes drama as ‘the fifth Veda for all classes
of society’ (vedaṃ pañcamaṃ sārvavarṇikaṃ).9 Far from envisaging, as it is
often claimed it does, a purely learned and cultured, connoisseurial
audience,10 this text speaks of the presence of various categories of
spectators in the assembly: the superior, the inferior, and the middling
(uttamadhamamadhya); in fact, there is an explicit reference to ‘fools’
(mūrkha) and children in the audience!11 It is true that the NS first
prescribes a long list of qualities like high birth, good character, proficiency
in music, prosody, and all the śāstras, a sensitive nature, etc. for a spectator.
But this is only an ideal, as the text goes on to realistically observe: ‘All these
various qualities are not known to exist in any single spectator’. It also
distinguishes spectators (prekṣaka) from ‘assessors’ (prāśnika), who are the
experts, like the actor, prosodist, grammarian, musician, courtesan, etc. who
are called in to judge controversial performances during dramatic
competitions.12 Indeed, the NS's final take on the matter of audience is that
‘different are the dispositions of women and men, young and old, who may
be of the superior, middling and inferior type, and on such dispositions (the
success of) drama rests’.13 The Mālavikāgnimitra echoes this when it says:
‘Drama is the one entertainment for a variety of people with very different
tastes’ (nāṭyaṃ bhinnarucerjanasya bahudhāpyekaṃ samārādhanaṃ).14
Thus, the audience (and, therefore, the materialising context) for the plays
was most likely to be mixed—and not necessarily literary or even literate. By
this last observation I draw attention to the highly visual component of
theatre in early India. Language was considered but one means among
several others equally symbolic. Thus, enactment through dialogue or
speech (vācika) was only one out of four modes of histrionic representation
(abhinaya) mentioned by the NS. The other three were gestural (āngika),
including movements of the face, limbs and body; sartorial and make-up
(āhārya); and significatory (sāttvika), including tears, horripilation, etc.15
Even as ‘words were the body of the dramatic art’, the latter three ‘clarified
the meaning of words’.16
Indeed, the words were to be sung or recited to a variety of metres, so that
together with the importance of body movements, the central role of music
and dance in any play is indicated. Altogether then, dramatic performances
had a very large element of pantomime and spectacle: not for nothing was
drama known as dṛśyakāvya (visual kāvya). This should qualify the
assumption that literacy and learning were prerequisites for the
comprehension and consumption of this kind of kāvya, even if they were for
its creation. Note also that those who performed the plays—the actors and
actresses (naṭa, naṭῑ)—were traditionally regarded as belonging to low class
and caste. That they still did justice to these plays and presumably to the
laborious instructions of the NS, underlines the largely oral character of the
theatrical enterprise to which formal literacy may or may not have been
relevant.
The point then is that aspects like venue, audience and pantomimic
nature of the performance of texts like the Śākuntalaṃ suggest that the
context of consumption of these works—as I like to call it—unlike the
context of production or patronage, cannot be assumed to be confined to
aristocratic circles. It could have been distinctly non-elite or mixed. And this
must have shaped the reception of ideas and representations in plays, which
reception can, in turn, be expected to have influenced/informed the intent
and content of the compositions, especially parts that were critical of
authority, bringing out its often illegitimate doings, as well as revealing the
contradictions and contraventions in relations like gender. In this
connection, note that the functions or goals of kāvya as set out in the
rhetorical literature include entertainment (creating delight—prῑti, harṣa,
vinoda), which underlines the centrality of the audience to drama, and
instruction (upadeśa), which points to both the communicative and critical
goals of the genre.
However, I do not argue for seeing kāvyas as a direct part of anything
approximating mass culture, if we can even speak of such a category for
early India. One reason for this is that kāvya includes not only drama but
also poetry and prose, some of which, notoriously like the kādambarῑ,
undoubtedly gets a great deal more complex and dense, both structurally
and linguistically, and would have been proportionately less accessible, than
the plays. The other, more important reason for withholding any sweeping
suggestion as to the social location of this literature is that intriguingly little
is definitely known about literary transmission and linguistic practice in
early India.
This may not be immediately obvious from the reams of serious
scholarship on the history and sociology of languages in India. Or from
well-established views about the ideology of languages like Sanskrit, which is
believed to have been not a spoken language but an esoteric language of
learning and ‘in particular the language of the brahmin caste and of its
religion’, while Prakrit is deemed a popular tongue, ‘the language of the
masses’.17 It can be seen how this view both feeds into the courtly assessment
of kāvya and proceeds from it.
Specifically, one may note the related, popular theory that in the plays,
Sanskrit is spoken only by men of high status while lowly characters and
women speak Prakrits.18 This, it is maintained, reflected the reality of the
elite language/popular tongue divide in early India. In other words, a
hierarchy is assumed to exist in the way Sanskrit and Prakrit are mutually
deployed, and this is believed to correspond to socio-economic hierarchy.
This is such a persuasive interpretation that the fact that there are telling
exceptions drops quite from view. For example, the vidūṣaka or the jester
and hero’s companion is a brahmana, but always speaks in Prakrit.
Merchants and courtiers are also required to do so.19 On the other hand,
parivrājikās or female ascetics use Sanskrit, even though queens usually do
not and courtesans may, while children—even when male and high-caste—
speak only Prakrit. Indeed, the section on use of languages in the NS attests
to the large number of characters and situations that can be seen as
exceptions. The grounds for allocating languages range from
characterisation, ethnicity and vocation of protagonists to regional phonetic
peculiarities of audiences, as well as blanket considerations like ‘special
times and situations’ or ‘reasons and needs’.20 Clearly, kāvya’s understanding
of the use of Sanskrit and Prakrit was a self-conscious one, and so too its
choice to be bilingual (or rather, multilingual) in the first place; but the logic
was apparently not as simple or stock as reflecting social status.
This is reinforced by the fact that, as several Sanskritists have pointed out,
the Prakrits in kāvyas are very much literary, not ‘popular’, dialects—as
cultivated, standardised and universalised as Sanskrit.21 At the same time,
the term that Patañjalῑ down to Bhartṛihari and other grammarians use for
Sanskrit—‘bhāṣā’ or spoken language—shows that Sanskrit, in its turn, may
well have been generally known and actually used, though its correct usage
may have been within a restricted circle. Scholars have cited extensive usage
to this effect, even though a majority of others may not agree.22 The point is
simply that when this is seen together with the confusion over Prakrit, we
cannot say with certainty what was indeed the spoken tongue(s) in early
India. The Kāvyādarśa, one of the most influential theoretical works on
kāvya composition, is understood to refer to both Sanskrit and Prakrit as
‘śṣṭta’ or (grammatically) disciplined/systematised.23 They were both (as well
as Apabhraṁsha) regarded as languages of kāvya composition, and were
used as such in actual practice, for example, compositions like the
Setubandha, Haravijaya and Gāthāsaptaśatῑ in Prakrit, so that no literary
privilege is inherent in the choice of the languages.24 The kāvyādarśa does
describe Sanskrit as ‘daivῑ vāk' or divine speech but this seems to have been
on account of it being perfected speech ‘worked out by the sages’
(anvākhyātā maharśibhiḥ).25 The choice of language seems to have been
more a matter of genre and metre used.26
Moreover, the fact that they were employed in the same play shows that
Sanskrit and Prakrit must have belonged to a common speech community.
A mutual intelligibility for the two on the part of the audience must be
assumed.27 One may also note the NS’s instruction that a play should
‘contain no obscure and difficult word and be intelligible to country people’
(gūḍhaśabdārthahῑnaḥ janapadasukhabhogyaṃ).28 Together, these
observations make a case for not only reviewing the supposed subalternity
of Prakrits but rethinking Sanskrit as a rarefied language and literary culture
of little wider reach or relevance,
Certainly, most of the main characters and plots of kāvyas comprise what
would be called an elite line up. But in that case, labelling the texts as elite
literature does not tell us anything more than what the texts already tell us.
Instead, it may mislead one into the expectation that received codes of high
culture or behaviour will be confirmed. As I have tried to show in my book,
this is a gross assumption for a highly sophisticated literature such as kāvya:
the texts do not always appear committed to reproducing power structures
and hierarchies determined by caste, wealth, gender, ritual authority, and
political institutions like monarchy, but instead critique them at every turn.
Limitations of space do not allow examples here, especially of the stinging
critique of the acts of the monarch in the Śākuntalaṃ and several other
kāvyas like the Mālavikāgnimitraṃ, Mṛcchakaṭikaṃ, Daśakumāracaritaṃ,
Mālatῑmādhava, Vāsavadattā, and so on. Suffice it to say that there is a need
to separate the literate and ornamented form of kāvya from the concerns and
vantages of at least some of the texts, which could extend to the underdog,
the menial, the criminal, the rebel, even the feminist, and so on.29 Hence the
‘courtly’ label should not obscure the polyphonic and critical apparatus of
the texts: the social limits of kāvya do not deny its elite origin but were not
identical with it.
At the least, then, the label ‘elite’ or ‘courtly’ for kāvya could do with some
qualifying. As high class or caste, linked with an emphasis on patronage, I
believe it is helpful, but not as much as it is leading;30 as meant for the
intelligentsia, it can have potential. While it can be argued that the two
almost always overlapped in early India, the latter allows for the attribution
of a discerning voice to the kāvyakāras. And it is this voice more than
anything else which gives to this body of literature its rightful place as a rich
historical document.
12
O Fmost
ALL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF A NATION, THE ONE that is
conducive to the cultivation of the art of minstrelsy is perhaps the
Heroic Age. The age itself seems to have been a transitory period. But within
the short space of time conditions were usually favourable to the minstrels.1
The kings and chieftains vied with one another in their generosity to the
minstrels and bards: partly as a means to get their own fame sung and
perpetuated. In the event, the royal support proved beneficial for the art.
Under these ideal conditions ‘it attained a perfection which has not since
been equalled’.2 However, this high development was not a sudden
achievement. It was the result of generations of artistic effort, itself sustained
by a tradition, the origin of which can be seen only dimly. As might be
expected, minstrelsy was a specialised discipline at this stage, instructing
and exercising its practitioners over a period with a view to perfecting their
art. One is afforded a glimpse of these things in the poems. In one sense this
art was the metrical expression of the imagination of a group through the
medium of individuals.
Early Tamil poetry mentions many types of bards or minstrels. The most
important ones amongst them were pāṇar, kūttar, porunar, viṟaliyar, pulavar,
and akavunar. There existed differences among these types of bards, both in
their way of life and in the nature of their craft. But all evidences point to the
fact that they were oral bards. In fact, nowhere in the texts of the extant
poems is writing mentioned in the context of the making of a poem or a
song. Besides this negative evidence of writing not being mentioned in the
poems, the various adjectives qualifying the poems and bards themselves
conclusively denote oral composition. The bards always mention the singing
of songs. It is either the tongue or the mouth that is spoken of as the
medium of the poems. We may cite two examples. Lamenting the death of
an unknown hero, a bard says ‘having established his fame far and wide, he
now lives in words that come from the mouths of the bards whose tongues
are well trained’.3 In describing the court of the learned men that helped a
king a bard says ‘the assembly of the nobles with well-trained tongues’.4
These descriptions show us that the predominant mode of learning and
expression was oral in character. Viewed in the context of the vestigial
remnants of mantic wisdom which the heroic bards had inherited, this
repeated statement about oral composition and oral transmission of
knowledge becomes very clear. With these preliminary comments, we may
now examine the different kinds of minstrels mentioned in the poems.
THE PĀṆAR
The pāṇar were minstrels who sang their songs to the accompaniment of the
yāḻ, ‘lute’. In medieval times the word came to denote a lower caste. But in
the early poems not only do we note the absence of the caste system, but also
find that the pāṇar were held in high esteem as a vocational group. In a
poem enumerating the names of excellent flowers, food, gods, and other
things, a bard speaks of the pāṇar as one of the four noble clans. In passing,
it is interesting to note that another ancient clan—the paṛaiyar,
‘drummers’—enumerated under the category in the same poem was also
degraded in the caste hierarchy of latter times.5 Out of it arose the modern
usage of the word ‘pariah’. In the heroic poems the pāṇar are seen to be
singers par excellence though often in chronic poverty. Derived from the
word pāṇ is the word pāṇi, meaning ‘beat, time, melody, music, song’, etc.6
Later, traditions classify these minstrels into three groups: ‘vocalists’, ‘singers
with the lute’, and ‘singers with the begging-bowl’. In the heroic poems we
see the minstrels who sing to the accompaniment of the lute. The instrument
was of two kinds: the ‘little lute’ and ‘large lute’. The minstrels were called
‘singers with the little lute’ or ‘singers with the large lute’, according to the
instrument they adopted for their recitals. This is evidenced by such
expressions as ‘your left hand supports the sweet-tuned little lute, well set
with twisted strings that look like golden twines’7 and ‘you play the large lute
constructed in harmony with the prescribed rules’.8
That the lute seems to have been a favourite instrument in that age is also
proved by Tolkāppiyar’s reference to it under the category of Karupporuḷ,
which literally means ‘seed topics’, but has the wider meaning of the various
objects—gods, flora, fauna, occupation, music, and the like—associated with
the five physiographical regions. Another fact mentioned by the
Tolkāppiyam and also documented by several poems gives us a glimpse of
the social position of these minstrels: they were, as it were, intermediaries
between the heroes and heroines in their love affairs and domestic quarrels.
To that extent they must have had easy access to the inner houses of rich
families. It has been seen that a bard like Kapilar was respected sufficiently
by Pāri to have been entrusted at his death with the care of his two
daughters. But Kapilar was a court bard who lived in the company of his
patron for several years. The pāṇar were mostly wandering minstrels,
travelling in groups from one place and patron to another in search of
largess. These wandering minstrels are often compared to ‘bats which seek
the trees with ripe fruits’.9 In fact, the poems clearly suggest that hunger and
starvation cohabited with them. One poem says that King Kōpperuñcōḻaṉ
was an enemy to the hunger of minstrel families.10 Likewise, Nalaṅkiḷḷ i is
praised as the destroyer not only of his foes, but also of the hunger of his
bards.11 A description in theMaturaikkānci indicates that these minstrels
lived on the outskirts of the cities in small settlements. The suburbs of
Maturai and Pukār had minstrel ‘colonies’. Being professionals, they do not
seem to have been engaged in any other activity. However, a few references
in the poems show us some of them trying to fish in rivers with rods.12 A
young girl of the minstrel family is said to barter fish for jewellery.13
They travelled about all over the lands in groups. The repeated reference
to the ‘very large body of kinsfolk’ travelling with the minstrel calls for some
comment. The wife of a pāṇaṉ was called pāṭiṉi or pāṇicci, ‘woman minstrel’.
It is probable that she sang with her husband or mimed and danced to
songs.14 It is not clear what the very large group of kinsfolk did as far as the
performances were concerned. But the youths in the troupe appear to have
been travelling with a purpose: they were apprentices, doing odd jobs for
their elders as well as learning the art of minstrelsy. One poem says that
while a minstrel and his female companion were presented with gifts by a
king, youthful boys sang the glories of the battlefields with tender words and
their hearts full of joy.15 The context clearly suggests the inexperienced but
pleasant singing by young minstrels who were probably at the stage of
apprenticeship. It is also plausible that these minstrels belonged to
vocational groups organised on the basis of clans.
THE PORUNAR
Porunar were also minstrels whose exact identity is not easy to ascertain.
The word itself means several things: ‘a warrior, a person who plays on the
small drum, a person who is compared to another, an incomparable one, an
enemy’.16 It is also the proper name of a minor chieftain.17 The word root
poru means among other things, ‘to fight’ and ‘to resemble’.18 From this root
is derived the noun porunaṉ, ‘a warrior’ and ‘a person who is compared to
another’. These two meanings seem to provide the clue to its signification of
a minstrel or bard. The usage of the word meaning bards, in
contradistinction to its connotation of warriors, is clearly brought out in a
poem.19 The word porunaṉ is qualified adjectivally by a negative relative
participle porā, literally ‘fighting-not’ or ‘non-combating’. Hence the
expression means ‘non-combating warrior’, i.e., ‘war-bard’ who travelled
with warriors. We are told by Naccinarkkiniyar that the bards were of
different kinds: those singing of ‘ploughed fields’, battlefields, etc. In the early
poems now available to us there is no example of bards singing in praise of
ploughed fields. But there are faint signs of it. One of the expressions used
for praising persons or things is the optative polika, ‘may [it] prosper’. The
verb poli means ‘to flourish, prosper, abound, increase, live long and
prosperously’.20 The meanings of its cognates in the other Dravidian
languages strongly suggest that its primary meaning has agricultural
implications: e.g., Malayalam polikka, ‘to measure corn heaps, paying the
reapers in kind’, etc. Furthermore, in the bardic poetry itself we have a few
specimens of expressions which indicate that there was a practice of hailing
paddy fields, rain, and fertility.21 We may cite an instance from the Paripātal,
which incidentally contains apostrophes to the river Vaiyai. People dropped
in the river conches, crabs, prawns, and fishes made of gold, with chants of
‘viḷaikal! polika!’. It is clear that these objects were intended to promote
fertility.22 What is relevant to us here is the fact that the same form of
expression is used in praising the bounty of kings in battlefields.23 It is likely
that these expressions were but parts of a larger group that was commonly
used for the purpose of hailing, praising, and invoking natural
phenomena.24 Another indirect evidence that points to the prevalence of
such bards, and thereby ‘agricultural’ poems, is the presence in the heroic
poems of a few detailed and elaborate similes drawn from the fields—
particularly the scene of the harvest festival. The Tolkāppiyam and the
Purapporul Veṇpāmālai have noted them.25 The scholiasts, too, have pointed
out that these similes are analogous to harvest rituals. In fact, the analogy is
so complete that one could without difficulty reconstruct the harvest ritual
from the descriptions. From the foregoing evidences, we may not be wrong
in inferring that the bards impersonated the people they were singing of. It
is also probable that when they sang of the ploughed fields, they dressed up
and appeared like farmers; similarly, their role on the battlefield made them
appear like soldiers. In other words, they impersonated soldiers. Only such
an explanation—tentative though it may be—would clarify the meaning of
the word porunaṉ as a person comparable to another. This aspect of the life
of the war-bards is made still clearer by the fact we know that they
accompanied the warriors to the battle fronts, stirring them up with their
martial songs. Here again it may be said that they were singing, like
warriors, of the exploits and glories of their forefathers. This would have
made the identification very close.
Perhaps the principal factor that characterised these bards—
distinguishing them from the other types of minstrels—was their closeness
to the princes and chiefs. As has already been noted, they formed part of the
retinue of kings both at home and in war. In this sense they may properly be
called war-bards. Compared to the minstrels their life was relatively secure
and stable. Probably they also wandered less than the others. A poem
referring to a group of war-bards makes this point abundantly clear:
I am the leader of the war-bards living in the cool and fertile Cōḻa
country, mighty in power and flooded with goods brought back from
enemies’ ships defeated on the seas. We are the privileged war-bards of
Nalaṅkiḷḷi, chieftain of steeds bedecked with head-jewels that swing to
and fro. We do not sing about others; nor do we wish to receive gifts
from anyone else. We always sing the glories and praise the victories of
him our lord . . . .26
Similar sentiments are expressed by other war-bards claiming special
patronage from one king or another.27
The considerable security of livelihood at the courts of kings was perhaps
not given to every war-bard. Consequently, we also see groups of itinerant
bards. The festivals held in various parts of the country attracted them. A
war-bard is thus addressed in a poem:
O bard! you are wise enough to quit rich, great, wide-placed hamlets at
the end of the festivals, not caring for the post-festival food. You have
the knowledge to seek new places holding festivals.28
If the lute was the primary instrument of the minstrels the taṭāri or kiṇai,
‘small drum’, was the basic accompanying instrument of the bards. This
difference in the type of instrument may be said to indicate some difference
in their respective arts too. The lute is a stringed instrument producing a soft
and mellifluous music; the drum produces a rough and ‘martial’ effect. This
being so, it is not surprising that the bards have contributed a good deal to
heroic literature. Like the minstrels, these bards, too, operated in groups. A
group consisted of whole families, including the kinsfolk. The
Poruṇarārruppatai presents a picture of a large bardic ‘family’ on the
move.29 Among them, too, the young ones cultivated the art of bardism by
listening to the elders and by practice. We have a reference to young
apprentices singing in the court of the great Karikālaṉ. ‘Hearing my pupils
who stand beside me sing his praise, he sent for us and we greeted him with
due respect.’30 It is not possible to determine the exact number of pupils or
apprentices accompanying a leading bard. All that one can say is that they
are invariably mentioned in the plural.
THE KŪTTAR
Kūttar were a type of minstrel who danced as well as sang. Kūttu means
‘dance, dramatic performance’, etc.31 In earlier times it covered ritual dances
as well. But different rituals had different names for their dances. In the
heroic poems kūttar seem to be dancers-cum-actors, who performed some
sort of choral dramas. The themes were probably drawn from heroic and
love stories. Kūttar and āṭunar are synonyms. There were also other words
with minor differences in meaning, of which we shall speak shortly. In
general, there does not seem to be much difference between the pattern of
life of these ‘dancers’ and that of the minstrels and the bards. Whatever
differences existed concerned the nature of their art. Naccinarkkiniyar has
something interesting to say on their art and life: ‘The kūttar have no caste
distinctions; their dance [acting] expresses the eight types of [basic]
sentiments and all the implications of the mind.’ The subject of sentiment is
treated by Tolkāppiyar in ‘the chapter on the physical manifestation of
sentiments’. Perhaps, the most laconic definition of the subject is found in
Ceyiṛṛiyam—the lost book on ancient dance and drama—quoted in
fragments by medieval glossators and scholiasts: ‘The experience of the
subject, made apparent to the viewers, is what the wise-ones called the
physical manifestation.’ From what Naccinarkkiniyar has pointed out, the
dancers must have been professionals, acting and singing, or rather
performing, choral dramas. As for Naccinarkkiniyar’s comment on their
social position, it is likely that in his time they did not form a caste like, for
instance, the pāṇar. But we do know that like the minstrels and the
‘drummers’ they, too, had by this time become degraded in the social
hierarchy. The degradation was so far complete as to associate them with
drunkenness and immorality. As for the word kūtti, the feminine of kūttan,
it acquired the meaning of a prostitute.32 It is probable that the kūttar were
not organised on any social basis, although it has been suggested that they
might have had corporate organisations like guilds.33 Furthermore, it is
likely that, while the cultivation and continuation of poetry had become a
highly specialised art of certain clans and families, dancing continued to be
more free and popular with greater emphasis on communal aspects. The
frequent references in the poems to large groups of men and women
dancing in public places on festive occasions would also tend to suggest that
dancing was popular from early times. In any case, in Tamil literary
tradition, these dancers were considered a type of minstrels, the reason
perhaps being that their performance included a good deal of singing. In the
same way as most of the singing of all types of bards was accompanied by
one instrument or another, dancing too was linked with singing. Moreover,
it is difficult to separate song, dance, and music in the early phases of their
development; earliest drama combines song, dance, and impersonation
[emphasis added].
It is not possible to know, in the present state of our knowledge, details
about the choral dramas they performed or had in their repertoire. None of
them have survived.34 The extant heroic poems are in the Akaval metre, best
suited for narration and declamation rather than for intricate singing or
dancing. The kali and pari metres certainly throw some light on the
development of choral lyrics, but their relation to choral drama is yet to be
determined. Hence, we should be correct in assuming that the heroic poems
had a separate development, at least as far as the metre was concerned. The
lyrical and musical aspects of the songs of the dancers are indicated by
recurrent references to various types of paṇ, ‘melody type’, and palliyam,
literally ‘many instruments’, meaning an ‘orchestra’.35 This composite nature
of the ‘dramatic’ art of the dancers necessitates the co-ordination of different
talents: consequently a troupe of dancers is considerably large. As Dr M.
Varadarajan remarks, the variety and complexity of themes, too, might have
required a large number of actors.36 Here again we may not know the
precise number of artists that made up an average troupe. From various
descriptions of them we get some idea of the instruments they used. It was
suggested that the lute and the small drum were the primary
accompaniments to the pāṇar and the porunar respectively. It is here
suggested that the muḻavu, ‘drum’ of a medium size, was probably the basic
instrument used by the dancers to keep the time measure or beat. In several
poems this drum is given the first place when the various instruments of
dancers are mentioned or enumerated.37 A similar procedure may be
observed in the case of the lute, whenever the minstrels are described. We
may cite two examples of the use of muḻavu: ‘The melodious well-strapped
drum is used by the actresses on the dancing floor.’38 ‘The dancing girls with
bright foreheads danced keeping time to the tuneful lute and paste-smeared
drum.’39
Various instruments were used by all kinds of minstrels, but the dancers
seemed to have used the most. A poem says,
the lute, medium-sized drum, one-sided drum, hautboy, flute, and
many other instruments, were carried in bags by them.40
Another poem says that the wife of a dancer, herself a danseuse, had a one-
sided drum, medium-sized drum, and a flute.41 The bard Vañparaṇar
describes some instruments of these dancers. Impersonating a dancer and
addressing the accompanists, he says, ‘0 danseuse! I shall sing a song; you
apply the paste to the muḻavu; you set the tune in the lute; you play the
elephant-trunk-shaped hautboy; you play the ellari;42 you play the ākuḷi;43
you gently tap thepatalai on one side.’44 Referring to a group of dancers
carrying many well-tied bags full of musical instruments, a bard compares
them to jack trees studded with fruits.45 It is from such references that we
gather that they had an orchestra playing for their performances. The
accompaniment of an orchestra of different instruments is itself an evidence
of the elaborateness of the dance form. There appear to have been two kinds
of orchestra: the big and the small. The orchestra continued to become more
complex, and by the time of the Cilappatikāram there were as many as
thirty-one types of drum, besides other instruments.46 Likewise dancing,
too, had developed to a fine art.47 The music had already developed many
melodies. One poem refers to twenty-one melody types and the scholiast
gives details about them.48 Elsewhere, the dancers are said to sing the
melodies of kuṟiñci and marutam, two of the four major melodies.49
Like most of the other minstrels the dancers, too, were itinerant
entertainers, constantly seeking new patrons and audiences.50 It is probable
that they enjoyed a great deal of popular support, since they performed in the
common-grounds of villages [emphasis added]. These grounds were called
maṉṟu or maṉṟam.51 It is said that their presence in the village common-
grounds made the people mirthful, and their departure was most regretted.
It made the place empty and lifeless.52 The frequent reference to public
dancing clearly proves the fact that it was a general means of enjoyment and
had social significance too. The regular place of their performance was
called āṭukaḷam,53 literally ‘dance-field’, like ērkhaḷam, ‘ploughed field’,
pōrkkaḷam, ‘battlefield’, etc.; kaḷam also means floor.54 It has been seen that
the ritual dancing-floor was called ‘the floor of the frenzied dance’. It is likely
that a non-religious or secular dance floor was termed just ‘dance floor’. The
dancers also frequented festivals, where they would find a ready audience.
The borderline between dance and acrobatics is admittedly difficult to draw,
and, not surprisingly, some of these dancers appear to have performed rope-
dancing as well. A simile refers to ‘a dancing girl who feels much exhausted
dancing on a tightrope to the music played by high-pitched, tuneful
orchestra’.55 Elsewhere, reference is made to a dancing girl performing on
the tightrope to the accompaniment of many instruments.56 On these
occasions they travelled in groups. Expressions like ‘very large body of
kinsfolk’, ‘the relations’, ‘the large family of dancers’, etc., illustrate this fact.
Festivals, games, and encampments of soldiers had a natural attraction for
them.57 A bard praises the Cēral country as an extensive fertile land, holding
festivals where the kūttar danced with their drums.58 Several poems record
the fact that, besides kings and nobles, even ordinary people patronised these
dancers. There are suggestions of their travelling some distances to watch
dance performances. Groups of people in the agricultural tracts, who had
worked hard dumping hay and sand to prevent the river banks from
overflowing, returned to their places (homes) after attending the festival
where pleasant dance-drums resounded in the old settlements.59 At the end
of the working season, when the ploughs are idle, when there is no rain and
the sky is clear; when the moon is bright and full, the streets are lit in rows
and garlands are hung, the people join in merrily to celebrate the festivals.60
All this makes it quite clear that dancing was extremely popular. As just
observed, the common people too amused themselves by dancing. Four
types of dancing have been distinguished: folk dances, ritual dances, demon
dances, and war dances. As has been aptly remarked, dancing was closely
connected with every incident in the lives of the people.61 It may be noted in
passing that there is reference to performance of puppet-plays dealing with
religious themes.62
Among the dancers, too, the young ones travelled along with their elders,
learning the art by imitation and practice. Like young apprentices among the
other types of minstrel, they did odd jobs like carrying the musical
instruments, etc. They also sang on some occasions.
The dexterous youths carrying tight bags holding all the instruments
needed for the performances—melodious muḻavu, patalai, and others,
along with the long flute made by piercing the joints in the bamboo—
sing the glory of god.63
Another poem states that the shoulders of these youths had scars as a result
of carrying many bags or poles.64 According to the descriptions, they carried
their things in bags hanging on staffs over their shoulders.
THE VIṞALIYAR
The viṟaliyar were female dancers and singers. The word is always explained
as the feminine of kūttar and porunar. No doubt they were the wives of these
dancers and bards. But they seem to have lived and functioned as artistes in
their own right, and not merely as the talented wives of dancers and bards.
As has been pointed out earlier, the Tolkāppiyam recognises them as an
important class of minstrels. So does the Purapporul Veṇpāmālai, which says
that a viṟali sings the praise of mighty kings.65 The word is probably derived
from viṟal meaning ‘victory, strength, excellence’, etc. We may suspect here
an analogy with the word porunar, which denotes bards impersonating
victorious warriors, that is ‘war-bards’. It is suggested that these women
dancers or singers dealt with heroic and martial themes. What has been said
while arguing the case for the probable development of the meaning of the
word porunar may mutatis mutandis be applied here. Medieval
commentators have attempted to explain the word by an etymology which
seems to be doubtful. They equate the word viṟal with the Sanskrit satva,
meaning physical expression of sentiments. Thus they would explain
viṟaliyar as ‘women capable of physical expression of sentiments’. While the
description may be correct, the derivation is open to question. The word
satvam is an intruder in Tamil dramaturgy and cannot be postulated for this
period. One has to explain the word in the light of its ancient meaning. It
may be argued that, while dancing and singing was undoubtedly their
profession, they were called viṟaliyar because of the heroic themes they
performed—the victories and glories of princes and chieftains. And if it may
be argued that preceding the heroic songs there existed magical and ritual
literature, then they may be said to have sung and danced the glory of gods
too. There is some evidence pointing to primitive ritual dances in which
female dancers (demonesses) celebrated the victory of the youthful
Murukaṉ over evil Avuṇar, ‘Titans’. They are said to sing and dance on the
‘victorious battlefield’. The Tirumurukārruppatai has described the scene in
some detail.66 Thus, we may be correct in concluding that these artistes were
female singers and dancers who largely, and at any rate originally, dealt with
the theme of ‘victory’, either of gods or of men.
The sweet voice of these dancers and their knowledge of music is
especially mentioned in the poems.67
The sweet voiced danseuse sings and dances in harmony with the small
lute with a black handle, on which is played the marutam melody. The
songstresses who know how best to do their duty, praise first the
almighty god in accordance with age-old tradition; then they sing new
songs and praise the king.68
Here we clearly see that though they were basically classified as dancers their
virtuosity in music is especially mentioned. It is not surprising since they
were artistes performing choral dramas.
Like the other types of minstrel of that age they were also great wanderers.
The ‘guidance’ poems purporting to guide minstrels to patrons of art and
literature deal with female dancers too. Many poems describe their travels
and experiences. They carried their instruments.69 They travelled across
forests and arid lands.70 There is some suggestion that they also visited
battlefronts and military camps. In a poem addressed to a danseuse, a
minstrel suggests that they visit the Pāṇṭiyaṉ king, Peruvaḻuti, at the
battlefield, where he has had a thundering victory.71
As far as the musical instruments were concerned, there does not seem to
have been any difference between the male and the female dancers. Like
others, they carried their yaḻ, ākuḷi, patalai,72 flute, and muḻavu.73 Along
with their unquestionable talent for dancing, their excellent singing is often
singled out and mentioned. Their voice at times resembled the sound of the
lute.74 Their physical beauty and cultivated charm appear to have enhanced
their art. In most references to them, their long, twisted, dark plaits, pleasing
smile, bright forehead, painted eyes, slender waist, white teeth,75 and other
features and significant details are vividly described.76 These qualities and
features were complementary to their singing and dancing. In later times
they became courtesans and concubines, and by medieval times had been
reduced to harlots or prositutes, with all the attending associations of
immorality and depravity. Among the factors that created an unfavourable
climate for the bards, singers, and other artistes, must be included the strong
puritanical attitude of the Jainas and Buddhists, who treated them as
emblems of immorality.77
The female minstrels were highly respected in early Tamil society, and
their contribution to poetry and music is considerable. In the extant works
we have more than twenty women minstrels and about 140 poems attributed
to them. It has long been recognised that women minstrels have played an
important role in early Tamil poetry. And it was from their ranks that many
rose to eminence. Perhaps no better example exists than the case of Auvaiyār
—undoubtedly a great woman minstrel whose range included the whole of
Tamil literature.78 In a poem singing the praise of Atiyamāṉ Añci she
identifies herself as a danseuse.
Along with the dancers are mentioned these three types of artistes. It has
been observed that they are synonymous with kūttar. No doubt in the
poems they are treated like them. But an examination of the words would
show that the first two, at least, connote instrumentalists. The word kōṭiyar is
derived from kōṭu, ‘blowing horn’.79 The horn of animals is perhaps its
primary meaning. Thus, strictly the word would mean ‘those blowing the
horn’. Dancers blew the horn during rituals. This is clearly seen in the
Tirumurukārruppatai: during the worship when Murukaṉ is invoked, many
tuneful instruments are played. While the dancing-arena resounds with
sweet music and frenzied dances, numerous horns blow and harsh bells
ring.80 Elsewhere in the same song, the priest-dancer plays the flute and
blows the horn and sounds other minor instruments. Thus, we see that the
horn was used during ritual dancing. It is not possible to trace back how the
people blowing the horn came to be identified with regular dancers. But the
meaning is quite clear. It might, of course, go back to a stage when music
and dance were undifferentiated.
The word vayiriyar is derived from vayir, ‘bamboo, bugle’.81 Hence
vayiriyar are buglers or trumpeters. In the Tirumurukārruppatai a vayir is
mentioned as one of the instruments played to greet Murukaṉ. ‘In Alaivāy,
towards which Murukaṉ travels fast in accordance with his usual practice,
celestial drums sound; bugles blare loud; white conches call.’82 In most
instances vayir is mentioned together with vaḷai, ‘conch’. They are also said
to sound loud in battlefields.83 Here again, as in the poems, we do not know
how exactly the ‘buglers’ came to be identified with the dancers. The sweet
sound of a bugle on the dance floor is referred to in a simile in a love song.84
The buglers seem to have played the drum too. The thunder of rain clouds is
compared to the sound of their drums.85 In another song their singing is
praised as faultless.86 This shows that besides playing the instrument and
dancing they also used to sing.
The derivation of kaṇṇuḷar is not clear. The word is not found in A
Dravidian Etymological Dictionary. The Tamil Lexicon gives the meaning as
actors, dancers, masqueraders, and filigree workers.87 But its treatment of
this word would seem inadequate, in that it falls back on the Cilappatikāram
for explaining the word’s meaning. Visvanatha Pillai gives the meaning of
the word as ‘artificers, persons in masquerade’.88 Likewise he gives the
meaning of kaṇṇuḷ (kūttu) as ‘a masquerade ball’. Unfortunately he does not
cite any authority for such a derivation. Apparently he translates it by
splitting it, kaṇ, ‘eye’ + uḷ, ‘inside’ = ‘eyes inside’, thus concluding that
kaṇṇuḷar were dancers covered by masks. Ingenious as if may seem, the
interpretation cannot be accepted. Naccinarkkiniyar suggests yet another
etymology: ‘Since they “capture” the eyes of those who look at their art, they
are called kaṇṇuḷar.'89 In deference to the celebrated commentator, the least
that can be said of his explanation is that it is a classic instance of folk-
etymology. It appears that the word had undergone a radical change of
meaning by the time of the post-Heroic epic Cilappatikāram, in which it is
used in the sense of talented painters or filigree workers.90 Naccinarkkiniyar
himself in his commentary takes the word to mean dancers.91 In view of the
unsatisfactory nature of the etymologies, it is perhaps better to reserve
judgement on the meaning of this word.
It is reasonable to assume that there were at a very early date subtle
differences between these apparent synonyms. They are synonymous to the
extent that they all denote dancers. But from stray comments here and there
in the works of medieval commentators we are made to understand that
they meant different types of dancers. For example, Aṭiyārkku Nallār in a
gloss in his great commentary on Cilappatikāram says that the kaṇṇuḷar
performed the Cāntikkūttu—a type of primitive ritual dance.
Naccinarkkiniyar says that there were many types of dance, like animal
dance, forest dance, pole dance, and others. But what is of interest to us is
the fact that they were not merely dancers but also singers. On reaching the
centre of a village or settlement, the ‘buglers’ sang along the streets flanked
on both sides by houses. Later they also danced.92 Commenting on the word
‘buglers’ the annotator of Paripāṭal says that it connotes singers and dancers
endowed with a knowledge of faultless music.93 From about the eighth
century CE, when lexicons like Tivākaram came to be compiled, these words
along with their Sanskrit equivalents in literary usage were grouped together
as synonyms. Under the heading ‘dancer’ Piṅkalantai has the following:
‘Nāṭakar, Nirutar, Naṭar, Kaṇṇuḷar, Kōṭiyar, Vayiriyar, and kūttar'.
THE AKAVUNAR
Like the word akavunar, the word pulavar is used less frequently in the
poems. But of all the synonyms that were current in the early period, this
alone survived through the centuries right into modern times. The standard
word for a poet in modern Tamil is pulavaṉ—just as it was in the early
poems. The word is derived from pulam, ‘sense, sensation, knowledge,
wisdom’, etc.105 Pulavar means ‘wise men, the learned’. Pulavar is another
word that indicates the fact that the ideas of wisdom, knowledge, and
learning were considered inherent in the person of the poet. Both early
poetry and medieval commentaries treat the word as signifying wise men,
implying poets [emphasis added]. This dual meaning of the word has
survived to this day.
That the ancients used the word with absolute reverence is proved by its
application to God Murukaṉ, who is described as ‘the wise one knowing the
lore’, ‘lion among the wise ones’, and ‘the incomparable wise one’.106 Such
descriptions are not fortuitous. It has already been stated that the wise ones
and diviners were believed to receive their powers by propitiating Murukaṉ.
Hence it is but logical that he should be described as the fountain of all
learning and mantic wisdom. It is also of some significance that through all
the ages, Tamil literary and religious traditions have enshrined the belief
that he was the ‘prince of poets’. The commentary on Iraiyanār Akapporul
places him among the presiding bards in the First Academy (Caṅkam or
Sangam). The late medieval poet Kumara Kuruparar (c. 17 CE) echoes the
same belief when he sings, ‘O Prince Bard of Caṅkam Literature’. It has
already been observed that in earlier times the Tirumurukārruppatai was
also called Pulavarāṛṛuppatai, which means that a devotee of Murukaṉ
advises another on the ways and means of obtaining the god’s blessings.
Owing to this the poem has become the liturgy of the devotees of Murukaṉ.
All these evidences unavoidably point to one fact; poets have always been
associated with profound learning and wisdom, which was originally largely
religious in character, and connected with the cult of Murukaṉ.
A perusal of the poems and the contexts where reference is made to the
poets shows us the high esteem in which they were held in society [emphasis
added]. This is in contrast to the treatment of other types of minstrels who
give the impression of being patronised as mere entertainers and
encomiasts. The respective words speak for themselves. Pāṇar, ‘singers’,
porunar, ‘war-bards or impersonators’, kūttar, ‘dancers’, viṟaliyar, ‘female
dancers’. It need not be emphasised any more that by being termed ‘wise
men’ pulavar automatically became a distinct category of poets. These poets
did indulge in the art of eulogy which was characteristic of their age. Yet
their position and respectability must have spared them the professional
need to live by flattering patrons. Unlike the professional minstrels, pulavar
are not associated with music or dance. They also seem to be distinct from
the akavunar, by the fact that they do not carry a staff or wand. In other
words they had no specific and distinguishing symbol or property. Their
hallmark was wisdom. It is to be presumed that this gave them greater
freedom over their vocation.
In a poem of ‘character’ referred to earlier, in another context, it was
pointed out that King Neṭuñceḷiyaṉ cherished the praises of poets. In the
course of his oath the king says,
If I break this oath, let the poets honoured by the whole world, chief
among whom is the well-informed and wise Marutaṉ of Māṅkuṭi, quit
me and my kingdom as unworthy of their songs.107
It is evident that they were highly respected for their wisdom and
judgement of men and matters, which was also of considerable use and
value to the monarchs. The activities of Kapilar substantiate this. The poem
quoted above has often been cited as evidence for the existence of schools of
poets who were attached to one master poet.108 This implies a form of
discipleship on the part of junior poets, which is in accordance with the
nature of bardic training. It has also been argued that such schools of poets
eventually developed and merged into the Literary Academy modelled
largely on the Buddhist and Jaina Saṅghas.109 Such developments are
probable. But what may be pointed out here is that even such relatively
‘sophisticated’ schools of poets are analogous to the other types of minstrels
and bards who learnt their art from older singers and often functioned as
groups.
These and other evidence related to them throw some light on the
organisation and function of poets. For whatever characteristics they had in
common with the other types of minstrels their preoccupation with learning
and perhaps the exclusive knowledge of certain treatises and lores set them
apart as sophisticated men. This, it may be said, gradually enabled them to
become the acknowledged masters of all studies. For example, in the
Tolkāppiyam, the stock phrase invoking the authority for the rules described
and prescribed in it is ‘thus say the wise ones’. Other noun-epithets of similar
meaning in the same work clinch this point: ‘treatise-learned poets’,
‘eminently-learned poets’, ‘poets knowing the ancient sayings’. Though they
are stock phrases, the meaning is quite clear: the poets had become eminent
teachers. Perhaps because of the aura attached to them, their words drew
greater attention than those of other types of minstrels. While the encomia
of the others were considered pleasantly laudatory, those of poets were
considered learned; and, if we may use the word, more ‘spiritual’. A poem in
praise of the Cōḻa prince, Nalaṅkiḷḷi, illustrates this.
I have heard it being told that, those whose fame is praised by the wise
ones, shall at the end of their lives, have the privilege of travelling in the
self-driven vehicle in the sky.110
CLASSIFICATION OF MINSTRELS
A. K. RAMANUJAN
I NIndian
THIS ESSAY, MY THEME IS NOT FOLKLORE IN GENERAL, but
folklore within the context of Indian studies, using Kannada and
Tamil examples from my field notes. I wish to do several things: (1) give a
state-of-the-art report on the field of Indian folklore; (2) clarify some
notions and add some, and (3) generally ask and answer questions about
what the study of folklore, as a subject matter and as a discipline, would do
to some of the notions of humanists and social scientists about Indian
civilisation.
When some years ago I first approached this subject—the place of folklore
in the study of Indian civilisation—I heard a little sceptical voice from my
past say ‘Folklore? Who needs folklore? Old wives’ tales and peasant
superstitions, who needs them?’ As you know, the past never quite passes.
We may hear that voice again. Here, I am going to take that question literally
and answer it.
WHY FOLKLORE?
For starters, I for one need folklore as an Indian studying India. It pervades
my childhood, my family, my community. It is the symbolic language of the
non-literate parts of me and my culture. Even in a large modern city like
Bombay or Madras, even in Western-style nuclear families with their 2.2
children, folklore is only a suburb away, a cousin or a grandmother away.
One of the best folk plays I have seen was performed in the back streets of
Madras city by terukkuttu troupes. When a friend of mine in Bangalore, the
capital city of Karnataka state, said to me, ‘How can you collect folklore in a
big city?’, I asked him to try an experiment. He was a professor of Kannada,
and he had a composition class that afternoon at his college. I asked him to
set a composition exercise to his class of urban students. Each of them
should write down a folktale they had heard and never read. That evening,
my friend sought me out excitedly to show me a sheaf of forty tales his
students had written down for him in class from memory.
I shall not speak here of Indian urban folklore, for wherever people live
folklore grows—new jokes, proverbs (like the new campus proverb, ‘To xerox
is to know’), tales and songs circulate in the oral tradition [emphasis added].
Similar to chain-letters, Murphy’s Law, and graffiti, folklore may also
circulate on paper or on latrine walls.1 You don’t have to go to Pompeii to
see graffiti. Verbal folklore, in the sense of a largely oral tradition with
specific genres (such as proverb, riddle, lullaby, tale, ballad, prose narrative,
verse, or a mixture of both, and so on), non-verbal materials (such as
dances, games, floor or wall designs, objects of all sorts from toys to outdoor
giant clay-horses), and composite performing arts (which may include
several of the former as in street magic and theater)—all weave in and out of
every aspect of living city, village and small town. What we separate as art,
economics and religion is moulded and expressed here. Aesthetics, ethos
and worldview are shaped in childhood and throughout one’s early life by
these verbal and non-verbal environments. In a largely non-literate culture,
everyone—poor, rich, high-caste and low-caste, professor, pundit or
ignoramus—has inside him or her a large non-literate subcontinent.
In a south Indian folktale, also told elsewhere, one dark night an old
woman was searching intently for something in the street. A passerby asked
her,
‘Have you lost something?’
She said, ‘Yes, I’ve lost some keys. I’ve been looking for them all
evening.’
‘Where did you lose them?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe inside the house.’
‘Then, why are you looking for them here?’
‘Because it’s dark in there. I don’t have oil in my lamps. I can see much
better here under the street lights,’ she said.
Until recently many studies of Indian civilisation have been done on that
principle: look for it under the light, in Sanskrit, in literary texts, in what we
think are the well-lit public spaces of the culture, in things we already know.
There we have, of course, found precious things. Without carrying the
parable too far one may say we are now moving inward, trying to bring
lamps into the dark rooms of the house to look for our keys. As often
happens, we may not find the keys and may have to make new ones, but we
will find all sorts of things we never knew we had lost, or ever even had.
INDIAN REGIONAL LANGUAGES
Four centuries ago, just a century after Vasco da Gama landed on the west
coast of India, just decades after Gutenberg had printed his first Bible in
Europe, Christian evangelists had begun to study our mother tongues,
compile dictionaries, make grammars and even print them in India. Yet,
until recently, Sanskrit almost exclusively represented India to most people
in the West.
In America, it was only about twenty-five years ago* that universities
began to study Indian regional languages. At least three or four major
languages, such as Tamil, Hindi and Bengali, began to appear in course
listings. Both linguists and anthropologists went to these language- regions,
studied the languages in the field and wrote about the texts and the cultures.
These languages are only a minute fraction of those spoken in the
subcontinent. In the 1971 census more than 3,000 mother tongues were
recorded with the names of the speech varieties that the speakers said they
spoke. Linguists have classified and subsumed these speech varieties, or
dialects; under 105 or so languages which belong to four language families.
Of these 105 languages, ninety are spoken by less than 5 per cent of the
entire population; sixty-five belong to small tribes. Including Sanskrit,
fifteen of the languages are written, read and spoken by about 95 per cent of
the people. We, in universities outside India, have just begun to study a few
of these fifteen languages.
The literatures of these fifteen, some of which have long histories, are just
beginning to be taught and translated. Literature in a language like Tamil
goes back 2,000 years, and in several others, like Bengali and Gujarati, at
least 800 years. In addition to these literatures there are oral traditions,
riddles, proverbs, songs, ballads, tales, epics and so on, in each of the 3,000-
odd mother tongues that we have classified under the 105 languages. It is
true, as they say, a language is a dialect that has acquired an army, but all
these myriad dialects carry oral literature, which is what I call folklore. One
way of defining verbal folklore for India is to say it is the literature of the
dialects, those mother tongues of the village, street, kitchen, tribal hut, and
wayside tea shop. This is the wide base of the Indian pyramid on which all
other Indian literatures rest [emphasis added].
We have valued and attended only to the top of the pyramid. Robert
Redfield, the Chicago anthropologist who influenced Indian anthropology
in the 1950s and 1960s, said, ‘In a civilization, there is a great tradition of the
reflective few and there is a little tradition of the largely unreflective many’.
That is a famous formulation that deserves to be infamous. Traditionally
Indians also make a distinction between mārga, ‘the high road’, and desi, ‘the
byway, the country road’, in their discussion of the arts. The ‘Great Tradition’,
with capitals and in the singular, said to be carried by Sanskrit, is pan-
Indian, prestigious, ancient, authorised by the cultivated and carried by what
Redfield calls ‘the reflective few’. The ‘Little Tradition’, or traditions in the
plural, are local, mostly oral, and carried by the illiterate (the liberal would
call them non-literate) and the anonymous ‘unreflective many’. Redfield
himself and Milton Singer later modified these notions and others have been
critical of them. They were seminal at one time, especially because they
urged anthropologists not to ignore the ‘texts’ of a culture in favour of
‘fieldwork’.
CULTURAL PERFORMANCES AS TEXTS
In the view being developed here, even what’s called the Great Tradition is
not singular but plural—it is a set of interactive pan-Indian systems,
Brahmānism, Buddhism, Jainism, with tantra and bhakti interacting
variously with these. To be comprehensive we should add Islam,
Christianity, et cetera, and modernity itself as the other active systems that
participate in this give-and-take.5
Let’s examine briefly the idea that some traditions are pan-Indian and
some are not. Sanskrit and Prakrit, though they have a pan-Indian
distribution, still originate in particular regions; Sanskrit itself, though
trans-local and apparently a-geographic, has varieties of prounciation that
can be identified as Bengali, Malayali or Banarasi.6 Nor are the so-called
‘Little Traditions’, especially folk traditions, necessarily or usually confined
to small localities or dialectal communities. Proverbs, riddles, and stories,
and tunes, motifs, and genres of songs and dances are not confined to a
region, even though they may be embodied in the non-literate dialects and
may seem to be enclosed in those mythic entities called self-sufficient village
communities. It is well known that folklore items, like many other sorts of
items in cultural exchange, are autotelic, that is, they travel by themselves,
without any actual movement of populations [emphasis added]. A proverb, a
riddle, a joke, a story, a remedy, or a recipe travels every time it is told. It
crosses linguistic boundaries any time it is told. It crosses linguistic
boundaries any time a bilingual tells it or hears it.
Neighbouring languages and regions have, therefore, a large stock of
shared folk materials. Collections, for instance, have been made of the
proverbs shared by the four Dravidian languages. Similar ones can be made
for other genres and for other neighbouring language areas, and indeed for
the whole subcontinent. A proverb such as ‘It’s dark under the lamp’ (dipada
kelage kattale, in Kannada) has been collected in Kannada and in Kashmir,
at two ends of the Indian subcontinent. The sentence is the same in each
place, but it means different things. The reference is the same, but the sense
is different. In Kannada it means that a virtuous man, like a lighted lamp,
may have dark hidden vices. In Kashmiri, I am told, ‘It’s dark under the
lamp’ has a political sense—that a good-natured king may have evil
counsellors. This is, of course, characteristic of cultural forms. The signifiers,
of which even the so-called structures and archetypes are instances, may be
the same in different periods and regions, but the signification may go on
changing. You cannot predict the one from the other. For the meaning of a
sign is culturally and contextually assigned. A sign requires an assignment.
Not only do folklore items—arising and current in apparently narrow
incommunicable corners and very localised dialects—travel within the
country or culture area, they are also part of an international network.
Archer Taylor’s English Riddles7 gives us current English riddles and their
centuries-old written variants, as well as variants from Africa, India, and the
New World. One can collect today, as I know from experience, oral tales
from illiterate women in Kannada villages that are similar, motif for motif,
to the tales of the Greek Oedipus or to Shakespeare’s King Lear or All’s Well
That Ends Well.
Here we begin to glimpse a paradox: where the so-called pan-Indian
Hindu mythologies of Viṣṇu or Śiva, or the great classics like the
Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyana are unique to India, folklore items such as
proverbs and tales participate in an international network of motifs, genres,
types, and structures—using them all, of course, to say something particular,
local, and unique. One arrives at the paradox that the classics of a culture,
like the well-wrought epics or plays and poetry, are culture- bound forms,
but large portions of the so-called ‘Little Traditions’ are not. The latter
mould and express the values and concerns of the culture nonetheless. Their
forms, their signifiers, however, are not ethno-centred.
One has to resort to subterfuge and theoretical acrobatics to compare the
Sanskrit Mahābhārata and the Greek Iliad or invoke ancient Indo-European
structures (such as the tripartite division of priest, warrior and service
classes) as Dumezil8 does. But the comparison of Cinderella tales from
China to Peru begins with transparent structural resemblances and may end
with significant contrast between one culture’s assignment of meanings and
another’s.9 Unfortunately, comparatists have not paid attention to Indian
folklore and folklorists have usually stopped at identifying types, rarely
going further to ask questions of cultural significance. Detailed comparative
studies of particular proverbs, tales and so on, for which there are well-
attested comparative materials, are called for and would greatly enhance our
understanding of what is specifically Indian or Tamil or Bengali. Because
some of these tales, for example, can be identified in European languages,
classical Sanskrit and in our mother tongues, we can arrive at a most useful
three-way comparison between what is Indian and what is Western; and
within India, between what is Sanskritic and what is characteristic of a
regional culture and a mother tongue—and of course the dialogues and
exchanges among these. Such triangulations, if replicated for several tales,
would give us a body of unique comparative data and analyses.
Folklore also raises and makes us face other central questions; for instance,
questions regarding the differences and relations between written and
spoken media in Indian oral culture.
The relations between oral and written traditions in any culture are not
simple oppositions. They interpenetrate each other and combine in various
ways. Each of us produces more oral materials in our lives than written. We
begin our lives in an oral universe, learn our mother tongues orally first and
imbibe our culture through it. As adults, on any day or occasion, we say
much more than we write. Talk surrounds us and we talk to ourselves, not
only to others, not always even silently, and often we do not even stop when
we fall asleep. Our dreams are filled with speech. Yet, writing is more
permanent; it takes us out of a face-to-face communication and can reach
people far away and centuries later, in ages unborn and accents yet
unknown, as Shakespeare would say. In Sanskrit, a written letter is called
akṣara, ‘imperishable’. Written traditions live surrounded by oral ones and,
are even carried by oral means. As in many other languages, in Kannada the
word for writing (bare) is the same as that for drawing; and until recently to
read meant to read aloud. I have heard of a grand-uncle who would say he
could not read a novel because he had a sore throat. So, too, to write meant
to write down. Writing was an aide memoir, a mnemonic device, for
materials to be rendered oral again. Speech lies dormant in writing until it is
awakened again by one’s own or another’s voice, like these words on this
page as you or I read them.
Sometimes it is thought that the so-called classical texts are fixed and the
so-called folk-texts are constantly changing. Similarly, writing is thought to
be fixed and speech constantly changing. One often identifies the ‘classical’
with the written and the ‘folk’ with the oral. But, for India, we should
distinguish between three sets of independent oppositions. We may then
proceed to examine, complicate and dissolve them. The three are classical vs.
folk, written vs. spoken, fixed vs. free or fluid. The classical, the written and
the fixed do not necessarily belong together [emphasis added]. A text like a
Veda is fixed but was not written down until two thousand years after its
composition. The Vedas were esoteric and credited with magical properties
that would devastate anyone who mispronounced them. They were
transmitted orally but rigorously in elaborate teaching systems from guru to
disciple. Pundits and Vedic experts had what Narayana Rao calls ‘oral
literacy’; they used an almost entirely oral medium, but were learned in
grammar, syntax, logic, and poetics. Their literacy was, as it were, imbued in
their bodies. We speak of a learned man having all his text in his throat,
kanṭhastha; when one is ignorant, one is called ‘a fellow who has no letters in
his belly’ or a nirakṣarakukṣῑ.
Although such oral literacy produced texts that were carefully preserved
verbatim, allowing little change, a text like an epic story in the written
tradition of the Rāmāyaṇa seems to allow endless variations. Hundreds of
versions exist, written, sung, danced and sculpted in South and Southeast
Asian languages. Though I would insist that each of these many tellings
should be treated as a separate (often fixed) text, it is still remarkable that the
orally transmitted Vedas should be remarkably fixed and the written
Rāmāyaṇas should take such liberties with the story and should be almost as
fluid as an oral folktale. The contrast will become clear when we compare
the great Indian epics with the great Western texts. Imagine a Shakespeare
play or Homers Odyssey having as many widely differing versions in
different ages and languages. We cannot jump from this to the paradox that
in India the oral is invariably fixed and the written is what is fluid. The fixed
and the fluid, or what should be called fixed-phrase and free-phrase forms,
exist in both written and spoken texts.
Language like other communication systems, depends on both fixed or
invariant forms, and free or variant ones. Without the one the system would
not be stable; without the other it would not be capable of change,
adaptation, creativity. Our ordinary language is full of fixed forms, not only
in terms of underlying structures at every level, but even in lexical
combinations. To give just one example, idioms like ‘he kicked the bucket’
cannot be changed for tense, article, or number. Any variation such as ‘he is
kicking the bucket; he is kicking a bucket; they are kicking buckets; he has
been kicking the bucket for a week now’ would all be ungrammatical, mean
other things, and be seen as funny. In language, as we move from phonology
to syntax, we become freer and freer in combinatory possibilities. Still, some
things are not subject to variation and not open to innovation. Not even
Shakespeare or Kalidasa, acknowledged masters and not servants of their
languages, can make a new pronoun or add a tense to the language. When
writers like Joyce try to take such liberties, they achieve such specialised
effects that they require glossaries and notes, and explication quickly
becomes a cult and a cottage industry.
In discourse too different genres allow different degrees of fixity and
freedom. Where the written form is only a mnemonic, a score to be
performed orally, it is used freely for improvisation. The texts of a Yakṣagāna
performance or a Kathakali performance are hardly a few pages long, but an
actual performance may take a whole night. The text of a song may be only a
few lines long, but when sung may take an hour, and usually does. On the
other hand, orally transmitted texts have fixed components, formulae,
refrains, obligatory descriptive passages, and traditionally defined motifs
and narrative structures. Different genres have different proportions of
these; for example, a proverb is an entirely fixed-phrase form within a
speech community. One can play on its fixity to produce new effects as wits
like Oscar Wilde, did: ‘Nothing succeeds like excess’, or ‘Work is the curse of
the drinking classes’, or my favourite, ‘All’s well that ends’. In a joke,
everything may be free, but the punchline may be fixed—to garble it would
be to muff the joke. A folksong would have practically every word fixed,
except performance elements like the number of repetitions, or the way a
phrase is broken to accord with the musical phrase. A folktale told by a
grandmother in the kitchen may have nothing at all fixed in the phrasing,
only the design of the story and the sequence of motifs. Yet it may have fixed
phrases, like ‘Open Sesame’ in the story of Ali Bābā—a phrase that his
brother treats as a free phrase, with disastrous results. The Vedas are an
extreme case of a 4,000-hymn cycle fixed in oral transmission, as if it were
inscribed (as secret codes are in spy stories) in the transmitter’s memory.
Furthermore, oral and written forms in a culture often wish to be like
each other, like the two sexes, male and female, each envying what the other
has. Yet each defines and marries the other. In the oral forms, in folklore,
many devices such as refrains, formulae and memory-training exist to give
the relative permanence of writing. From time to time, in writing traditions,
writers wish to return to the freshness of speech and imitate it, as in modern
Indian (and other) poetry. Flaubert, master of the written word who waited
for days, for the mot juste, is the exemplar of the opposite end of the oral
arts, where to hesitate is to be lost. Yet it was Flaubert who said that style
should be adjusted to the rhythms of respiration.
In all cultures, and especially in the Indian, the oral and the written are
deeply intermeshed in another way [emphasis added]. If we distinguish
composition and transmission, as Ruth Finnegan10 reminds us we should,
we find that in the history of a text, oral and written means may alternate. A
work may be composed orally but transmitted in writing, as Vyāsa said he
did with Gaṉeśa as his scribe. Or it may be composed in writing, as
Kumāravyāsa (Vyāsa junior) said he did in Kannada, but the text kept alive
by gamakis or reciters who know it by heart and chant it aloud. There are of
course texts, such as proverbs and tales, that are usually composed orally
and orally transmitted, many of which never get written down. And texts,
like newspapers—written, printed and silently scanned or read—may never
go through an oral phase. Thus, over a long history, a story may go through
many phases. An oral story gets written up or written down in the Jātakas or
the Pañcatantra. Then (as W. Norman Brown tried to show in a famous
paper) the written text may reach other audiences who pick up the story and
retell it orally, maybe in other languages, and then it gets written down
somewhere else, perhaps starting another cycle of transmissions. That is one
kind of cycle; another may be entirely oral and may run parallel to the oral-
written complex. Many of the differences in our classsical texts like the
Mahābhārata recensions, may be due to the way the texts do not simply go
from one written form to another but get reworked through oral cycles that
surround the written word. Western critical methods, based entirely on an
examination and reconstruction of written texts, made the critical editions
of Indian texts possible. But they may not be suitable for a reconstruction of
the Mahābhārata at all. For methods of Western textual criticism aim at
making tree-diagrams, relating one written version to another,
demonstrating that one came directly from another, reaching back to a
single Ur-text. Texts like the Mahābhārata may not have a reconstructable
Ur-text at all, enmeshed as they were in oral traditions at various stages of
their composition and transmission.
In a folktale told about Aristotle in Europe and about a philosopher in
India, the philosopher meets a village carpenter who has a beautiful old
knife, and asks him, ‘How long have you had this knife?’ The carpenter
answers, ‘Oh, this knife has been in our family for generations. We have
changed the handle a few times and the blade a few times, but it is the same
knife.’ Similarly, the structure of relations may remain constant, while all the
cultural details change, as in a folktale that goes on changing from teller to
teller. Any fixity, any reconstructed archetype, is a fiction, a label, a
convenience.
Thus anyone concerned with written texts has to reckon with the oral
materials that surround it. This contrasts strikingly with modern America,
where the end of any formal oral communication is a written text. You speak
in Congress so that your speech may be read into the Congressional Record;
everything anybody says in a court is typed up; and at the end of what is
supposed to be spontaneous conversation on a TV talk show, you get the
message, ‘Send three dollars to such and such and you can get the transcript
of this show.’ And finally the most popular TV game show, Wheel of Fortune,
has to do with spelling words and phrases. Every letter is cashed into dollars,
every phrase into furniture and a trip to Hawai’i. In a culture like the Indian,
however, and certainly in villages and certain communities to this day,
writing lives within the context of oral traditions. Even newspapers are read
aloud. If you have been near any primary school in a small town or even in
Madras, you would hear the pupils a mile away, for the classes recite their
lessons in a loud chorus. Not only the alphabet and the multiplication tables,
but every major religious or literary text like the Rāmāyaṇa is memorised
and chanted aloud. As Philip Lutgendorf11 has shown in a Chicago doctoral
dissertation, Tulsidas’s Rāmcaritmānas is the focus of cults, festivals, formal
and informal recitations, tableaus and oral forays into interpretations of the
most wide-ranging and ingenious kinds. The author and the text themselves
are the subject of innumerable tales. Every text like that creates a textual
community held together by oral traditions as well as written ones. Scholars
are just now realising that this interweaving of the oral and written is true of
the Quran and the Bible as well.12 But the Indian examples have needed no
pointing out, except of course to scholars like ourselves. As a proverb in
Kannada says, ‘Why do we need a mirror to see a blister on our hands?’ Yet,
we seem to, for we believe in the mirror of writing, or even better, the mirror
of print.
Oral traditions thus enlarge the range and they complicate and balance the
texts we know [emphasis added]. Yet we ignore the oral. Take mythology, for
instance. At present, in all our anthologies of Hindu mythology there is not
one folk myth. Every text is from the Sanskrit, though myths occur in Tamil
and Bengali and every other language. They even occur in scores of written
texts like the sthalapurāṇas, which David Shulman has studied,13 or the ma
galakāvyas which Edward Dimock14 has written about. In the oral tradition,
that literature without letters (eluta eluttu), there are hundreds more. As Alf
Hiltebeital’s work on Draupadi eloquently demonstrates,15 they complement
the Sanskritic myths and epics in important ways. Oral traditions give us
alternative conceptions of deities that balance and complete, and therefore
illuminate the textual conceptions. For instance, the goddesses of pan-
Indian mythologies, like Lakśmi and Saraswatῑ, rise out of the sea churned
by the gods and the antigods; Pārvatῑ is the daughter of the King of
Mountains. They are consort-goddesses; their shrines are subordinate to
those of their spouses, Viṣṇu or Śiva. Their images are carefully sculpted to
the fingertips. They are usually saumya or mild and docile. They preside over
the normal auspicious cycles of life, especially marriage, prosperity and
such.
But look at the village goddesses and see how different they are. Their
myths tell us of ordinary human women who were cheated into marrying
untouchables, or raped by a local villain, or killed and buried by cruel
brothers. Out of such desecrations they rise in fury, grow in stature to
become figures that span heaven and earth, with powers of destruction that
terrify the village into submission, sacrifice and worship. Theirs are not
myths of descent or avatāra, but of ascent from the human into divine
forms. They become Boundary Goddesses of the village, give it their name,
or take their names from the village. While the Sanskritic Breast Goddesses
(as I call them because they give us their breasts) receive vegetarian offerings
of fruit and flowers, these village goddesses require animal sacrifices and a
sprinkling of blood of their devotees. The Tooth Goddesses represent the
other side of the mother (as stepmothers do, in folktales), who punish, afflict
people with plague and pox, and when propitiated heal the afflicted. They
are goddesses of the disrupted lifecycle, deities of crisis; they preside over
famine, plague, death, and madness. Their images are often pots and pans,
faceless stones, sometimes only a severed head. They dwell outside the
village boundaries and are brought in only for special worship, often in
times of crisis. Without them, life is not complete, nor is the Hindu view of
the divine.
The goddess Kāli, as the sanskrit texts present her, is a sankritised version
of hundreds of village goddesses all over the country and certainly partakes
of their fierce aspects. Yet, in the Sanskrit Purāṇas (encyclopaedias of Hindu
myths) and myths based on all of them, Kāli is created by the gods pooling
their weapons and powers and let loose on the Buffalo Demon whom the
male deities cannot destroy. The emphases, details, and major themes of the
village mythologies are quite different. The village Mariyamman goddess
arises out of human deception and tragedy. If the Breast Goddesses are
consorts to their male spouses, the Tooth Goddess is often a virgin and, if
married, she tears her villainous male consort to pieces. He is later
symbolically offered as a buffalo or goat sacrifice to her images. The Consort
Goddesses are auspicious, consecrated. The village goddesses are
ambivalent, they afflict and heal.16
Such a conception of divinity is not confined only to female deities.
Consider the village gods, such as Muttuppattan. He is a brahman who falls
in love with a cobbler chieftain’s daughters, marries them, skins and tans
cowhides, eats cow’s flesh, dies in the battle defending his village against
robbers, and becomes a god to whom his community of cobblers makes
offerings (kodai) of gigantic leather sandals. It is one of the most moving
long poems of south India. Until recently no record or translation of this
tragic story was available. Now Stuart Blackburn has made an effective
translation of it.17
I use the word tragic advisedly. It is customary to speak of Indian
literature as having no genre of tragedy. In the Sanskritic tradition (by which
I mean both works in sanskrit and sanskritised works in our regional
languages), it is true there are no tragedies in the Greek or shakespearean
sense, though some plays of Bhāsa may be exceptions. It is significant, I
think, that his plays were unearthed in south India in areas where dance
dramas like Kathakali developed, dramas that do not flinch from gory
scenes, and where also the more tragic aspects of the Mahābhārata are fully
enacted. Our sense of our literature and its possibilities would change if we
included oral epics like the Tamil villuppattus and the Tulu paddanas18 in
our studies. (Fortunately, a book of essays on Indian oral epics has just been
published.)19 Oral epics embody a theory of emotion different from that of
rasa, explore ranges in the emotional spectrum like shame, terror, fury and
disgust that are not usually explored in the Sanskrit poems and plays
[emphasis added]. And how can we, mere mortals, do without them?
The oral traditions offer us also a different view of the female from the
views found in the written texts. When the Rāmāyaṇa is sung by the
Tamburi Dāsayyas of Mysore, the centre of attention is Sῑtā, her birth,
marriage, exile, sufferings, and final disappearance into Mother Earth. In the
Tamil story of Mayili Rāvaṇan, set in a time after Rāma has defeated the ten-
headed Rāvaṇa, a new thousand-headed Rāvaṇa arises to threaten the gods,
and this time Rāma cannot handle it. It is Sῑtā who goes to war and
demolishes the impossible demon.20
In the Upanisadic creation myth, the Primordial Person or Puruśa is
alone, needs a companion, and splits into male and female, for he is
originally the same size as a man and a woman put together. Then the male
pursues the female and unites with her, creating mankind. She runs from
him, saying, ‘I was born out of you, I cannot unite with you’, and becomes a
cow. He becomes a bull and unites with her, creating cattle. Then she
becomes a she-goat, he a he-goat; they unite and create goats. And so on
down to the ants.
But see what happens in an oral, folk purāṇa sung ceremonially on
Mādeśvara hill (Karnataka) every year by several bardic groups during the
festival devoted to this hero/saint/god called Mādeśvara.21 The purāṇa
begins with a creation myth.
The Primordial Goddess is born three days before everything else. She
grows up very quickly, attains puberty, and wants a man to satisfy her.
Finding no one around, she creates out of herself Brahmā, the eldest of
the gods, and asks him to grow up quickly and sleep with her. But as he
grows up and she urges him on, Brahmā says, ‘You are my mother. How
can I sleep with you?’ She gets angry, calls him a eunuch, and burns
him down to a heap of ash with the eye of fire in the palm of her hand.
The next day, she creates Viṣṇu, who is very handsome. She cannot wait
for him to grow up and satisfy her. But he too will not sleep with his
mother. So, in a rage, she burns him down to a heap of ash. On the
third day, she creates Śiva, and urges him to grow up and become her
lover. He too has misgivings until she says, ‘Look around and see what
happened to your brothers who refused me.’ He turns around and sees
the two heaps of ash that were once his brothers. He sizes up the
situation and says to his mother, ‘All right, I will do as you say. You
want me to be your husband, don’t you? Do you not want your
husband to be at least equal to you? Don’t you want to teach him all
your skills and give him your powers?’ The Mother Goddess,
Ammavaru, is delighted and says, ‘Of course, I want you to have
everything’, and teaches him all her magic arts and bestows on him all
her powers. Then Śiva, now grown up, says, ‘Let us dance. You must do
whatever I do. Let us see who is better.’ They whirl around in a fantastic
cosmic dance together, each mirroring the other, until suddenly, Śiva
puts his hand on his head in a dance movement. His mother, following
him, puts her hand on her own head and the eye of fire in her palm
begins to burn her. As she burns, she curses Śiva, ‘You, you refused a
woman. May one half of your body become female, may you never get
rid of her!’ That is how Śiva came to be the lord whose one half is
woman. Then as his mother burned down and became a heap of ash,
the eye of fire that lived in her hand came to Śiva and said it had
nowhere to go. So he took it and slapped it on his forehead. That’s how
he got his third eye.
After his mother had gone up in flames, Śiva looked around and
found the two heaps of ash that were once his brothers. With his newly
learned powers, he revived them. Now the three gods, Brahmā, Viṣṇu,
and Śiva, said to each other, ‘There is work to do. We must create the
worlds.’ One of them said, ‘How can we create without women?’ Then
Śiva sees the third heap of ash that was once their mother, divides it
into three smaller heaps, and gives them life. Out of these portions of
their mother’s ash, come Lakśmi, Saraswatῑ, and Pārvatῑ, the three
consorts of the Hindu trinity, who then marry them. Creation begins.
In the Sanskritic myth, the male gods create the goddess and give her
their powers. In the foregoing myth it is exactly in reverse. She gives Śiva his
powers. In the Sanskritic myth it is the father figures that lust after the
daughters. Here the female too has her share of sexual desire, made explicit.
She is cheated out of her powers by the male god who uses them to destroy
her. Furthermore, her sons still end up marrying portions of their mother—
both Jung and Freud would be interested in that. But the male gods marry
her only after fragmenting and domesticating her into a nice tame
threesome—feminists would be interested in that. This is a way of looking at
male/female power relations very different from anything we know from the
better-known written texts.
I could go on to talk about alternative views of the gods, karma and
chastity, as well as why tales themselves are told. Since I have talked about
them elsewhere, I shall content myself with giving you some short examples.
The gods in the Purāṇas and the heroes in the epics have bodies without
bodily functions: they are not supposed to sweat, urinate, defecate or pass
wind. They do not blink their eyes nor do their feet touch the ground. But in
folk traditions, they have bodies, they are embodied, localised,
domesticated. In the place legend of Gokarṇa (which I heard from Girish
Karnad), Rāvaṇa prays to Śiva and receives from him the boon that Śiva,
with all his goblin attendants, should go with him to Laṇkā. Śiva gives him
the boon, but does not really wish to go. He tells Rāvaṇa that he can carry
him as a linga all the way, but that he should not put it down anywhere until
he reaches Laṇkā. Rāvaṇa agrees. When he gets to Gokarṇa, he must answer
the call of nature. He cannot hold the sacred linga in his hands while he
takes a crap, can he? So he puts it down, and the linga begins to grow
downwards and take root. Rāvaṇa hurries back and tries to twist it out of the
earth, but he is not able to. That is how Gokarṇa has a linga and they say
that, if you dig under it, you will find that it is twisted. Aldous Huxley once
complained that, even for a realistic novelist like Tolstoy, the heroines never
go to the bathroom nor do they menstruate. In the village oral traditions,
they do. Gods like Gaṇeśa, heroes like Bhῑma, demons like Rāvaṇa, or even
poets like Vyāsa cannot help going to the bathroom, and goddesses like
Ganga and Gauri menstruate. As the bhakti poem says:
Bodied, one will hunger.
Bodied, one will lie.
O you, don’t you rib and taunt me again for having a body:
Body Thyself for once like me and see what happens,
O Kamanatha!
Devara Dāsimayya22
Folklore that is in many ways close to bhakti traditions, gives to them and
takes from them, sharing genres, motifs and attitudes, and seems not only to
ask the gods to embody themselves, but actually envisions them as having
bodies with all the needs and ills that flesh is heir to.
Folk renditions of the pan-Indian epics and myths not only bring the gods
home, making the daily world mythic, they also contemporise them. In
village enactments of the Rāmāyaṇa, when Sῑtā has to choose her
bridegroom, princes from all over the universe appear as suitors. In a north
Indian folk version, an Englishman with a pith helmet, a sola topi, and a
hunting rifle regularly appears as one of the suitors of Sῑtā. After all, since
the eighteenth century the English have been a powerful presence in India
and ought to have a place in any epic ‘bridegroom choice’ or svayamvara.
In a Karnataka performance,
Rāma is exiled, and as he takes the little boat on the river Sarayu to go
to the jungle, all of Ayodhyā follows him in tears. He bids them farewell
from his boat, making a short speech: ‘O brothers and sisters, please go
home now. I take leave of you now, but I will be back in fourteen years.’
Then he leaves, and wanders through the forests. Sῑtā is abducted by
Rāvaṇa, Rāma gathers the monkey army, kills Rāvaṇa, and returns
victorious with Sῑtā. When he arrives at the spot where he had bid his
people farewell fourteen years earlier, he sees a group standing there,
their hair grown grey, their nails long and uncut, their feet rooted to
the banks of the Sarayu. He asks them who they are. They say, ‘O Rāma,
you forgot us when you took leave. You bade farewell only to the men
and women, calling them brothers and sisters. We are the eunuchs of
Ayodhyā. We have waited for you here all these fourteen years.’ Rāma is
very touched by their devotion and, feeling guilty at his negligence,
gives them a boon: ‘O eunuchs of Ayodhyā, may you be reborn in India
again and rule the country as the next Congress party!’23
I can go on forever, detailing what happens to karma or chastity in the
oral tales, retelling the bawdy tales of the villages about clever women who
cheat on their husbands and get away with it, unlike all the chaste women of
the epics who never cheat or the unchaste ones who are chastened by their
infidelity like Ahalyā. But I think I have said enough to argue the essential
relevance of folklore to Indian studies and the alternative view and systems
folklore carries. Folk materials also comment continually on official and
orthodox views and practices in India. So I wish to end with a satiric tale
about kings, gurus and disciples, the legal process, belief in rebirth, and the
very logic of karma that looks for causes in infinite regress. I shall tell it
without any further comment than that here, if we listen, we can hear the
voice of what is fashionably called the subaltern—the woman, the peasant,
the non-literate, those who are marginal to the courts of kings and offices of
the bureaucrats, the centres of powers.24
In the kingdom of foolishness, both the king and the minister were idiots.
They did not want to run things like other kings. So they decided to change
night into day and day into night. They ordered everyone to be awake at
night, till their fields and run their businesses only after dark; and they
should all go to bed as soon as the sun came up. If anyone disobeyed, he
would be punished with death. The people did as they were told for fear of
death. The king and the minister were delighted at the success of their
project.
A guru and a disciple arrived in the city. It was a beautiful city, it was
broad daylight, but there was no one about. Everyone was asleep, not a
mouse stirring. Even the cattle had been taught to sleep. The two strangers
were amazed by what they saw and wandered around till evening, when
suddenly the whole town woke up and went about its daily business.
The two men were hungry. Now that the shops were open, they went to
buy some groceries. To their astonishment, they found that everything cost
the same, a single duddu (a small coin)—whether they bought a measure of
rice or a bunch of bananas, it cost a duddu. The guru and his disciple were
delighted. They had never heard of anything like this. They could buy all the
food they wanted for a rupee.
When they had cooked the food and eaten, the guru realised that this was
a kingdom of fools and it would not be a good idea for them to stay here.
‘This is no place for us. Let us go’, he said to his disciple. But the disciple did
not want to leave the place. Everything was cheap here. All he wanted was
good cheap food. The guru said, ‘They are all fools. This will not last very
long and one cannot tell what they will do to you next.’
But the disciple would not listen to the guru’s wisdom. He wanted to stay.
The guru finally gave in and said, ‘Do what you want. I am going’, and he left.
The disciple stayed on, ate his fill everyday, bananas and ghee and rice and
wheat, and grew fat as a streetside sacred bull.
One bright day a thief broke into a rich merchant’s house. He had made a
hole in the wall, sneaked in, and as he was carrying out his loot, the wall of
the old house collapsed on his head and killed him on the spot. His brother
ran to the king and complained: ‘Your Highness, when my brother was
pursuing his ancient trade, wall fell on him and killed him. This merchant is
to blame. He should have built a good strong wall. You must punish the
wrong-doer and compensate the family for this injustice.’
The king said, ‘Justice will be done. Do not worry’, and at once summoned
the owner of the house.
When the merchant arrived, the king asked him questions
‘What is your name?’
‘Such and such, Your Highness.’
‘Were you at home when the dead man burgled you house?’
‘Yes, my lord. He broke in and the wall was weak. It fell on him.’
‘The accused pleads guilty. Your wall killed this man’s brother. You have
murdered a man. We have to punish you.’
‘Lord’, said the helpless merchant, ‘I did not put up the wall. It is really the
fault of the man who built the wall. He did not build it right. You should
punish him.’
‘Who is that?’
‘My lord, this wall was built in my father’s time. I know the man. He is an
old man now. He lives nearby. ’
The king sent out messengers to bring in the bricklayer who had built the
wall. They brought him tied hand and foot.
‘Yes there, did you build this man’s wall in his father’s time?’
‘Yes, my lord. I did.’
‘What kind of wall is this that you built? It has fallen on a poor man and
killed him. You have murdered him. We have to punish you by death.’
Before the king could order the execution, the poor bricklayer pleaded,
‘Please listen to me before you give your orders. It is true I built this wall and
it was no good. But that was because my mind was not on it. I remember
very well a harlot who was going up and down that street all day with her
anklets jingling and I could not keep my eyes or my mind on the wall I was
building. You must get that harlot. I know where she lives.’
‘You are right. The case deepens. We must look into it. It is not easy to
judge such complicated cases. Let us get that harlot wherever she is.’
The harlot, now an old woman, came trembling to the court.
‘Did you walk up and down that street many years ago, while this poor
man was building this wall? Did you see him?’
‘Yes, my lord. I remember it very well.’
‘So you did walk up and down, with your anklets jingling. You were
young and you tempted him. So he built a bad wall. It has fallen on a poor
burglar and killed him. You have killed an innocent man. You will have to be
punished.’
She thought for a minute and said, ‘My lord, wait, I know now why I was
walking up and down that street. I had given some gold to the goldsmith to
make some jewellery for me. He was a lazy scoundrel. He made so many
excuses, said he would give it now and he would give it then and so on all
day. He made me walk up and down to his house a dozen times. That was
when this bricklayer fellow saw me. It is not my fault, my lord, it is that
damned goldsmith’s.’
‘Poor thing. She is absolutely right’, thought the king, weighing the
evidence, ‘We have got the real culprit at last. Get the goldsmith wherever he
is hiding, at once!’
The king’s bailiffs searched for the goldsmith who was hiding in a corner
of his shop. When he heard the accusation against him, he had his own story
to tell.
‘My lord’, he said, ‘I’m a poor goldsmith. It is true I made this harlot
woman come many times to my door. I gave her excuses because I could not
finish making her jewellery before I finished the rich merchant’s orders.
They had a wedding coming, and they would not wait. You know how
impatient rich men are!’
‘Who is this rich merchant who kept you from finishing this poor
woman’s jewellery, made her walk up and down, which distracted this
bricklayer which made a mess of his wall, which has now fallen on an
innocent man and killed him? Can you name him?’
The goldsmith named the merchant and he was none other than the
original owner of the house where the wall had fallen. Now justice had come
full circle, thought the king, back to the merchant. When he was rudely
summoned back to the court, he arrived crying. ‘It is not me, but my father
who ordered the jewellery! He is dead! I am innocent!’
But the king consulted his minister and ruled decisively, ‘It is true your
father is the true murderer. He is dead but somebody must be punished in
his place. You have inherited everything from that criminal father of yours,
his riches as well as his sins. I knew at once, even when I set eyes on you that
you were at the root of this horrible crime. You must die.’
And he ordered a new stake to be made ready for the execution. As the
servants sharpened the stake and got it ready for final impaling of the
criminal, it occurred to the minister that the rich merchant was somehow
too thin to be properly executed by the stake. He appealed to the king’s
common sense. The king too worried about it.
‘What shall we do?’ he said, when suddenly it struck him that all they
needed to do was to get a man fat enough to fit the stake. The servants were
immediately all over town looking for a man who would fit the stake, and
their eyes fell on the disciple who had fattened himself for months on
bananas and rice and wheat and ghee.
‘What have I done wrong? I am innocent. I am a saṃnyāsi! he cried.
‘That may be true. But it is the royal decree that we should find a man fat
enough to fit the stake’, they said, and carried him to the place of execution.
He remembered his wise guru’s words: ‘This is a city of fools. You do not
know what they will do next.’ While he was waiting for death, he prayed to
his guru in his heart, asking him to hear his cry wherever he was. The guru
saw everything in a vision. He had magical powers; he could see far and he
could see the future as he could see the present and the past. He arrived at
once to save his disciple who had gotten himself into a scrape again through
love of food.
As soon as he arrived, he scolded the disciple and told him something in a
whisper. Then he went to the king and addressed him
‘O wisest of kings, who is greater? The guru or the disciple?’
‘Of course the guru. No doubt about it. Why do you ask?’
‘Then put me to the stake first. Put my disciple to death after me.’
When the disciple heard this, he caught on and began to clamour.
‘Me first! You brought me here first! Put me to death first, not him!’
The guru and the disciple now got in a fight about who should go first.
The king was puzzled by this behaviour. He asked the guru, ‘Why do you
want to die? We chose him because we needed a fat man for the stake.’
‘You should not ask me such questions. Put me to death first.’
‘Why? There is some mystery here. As a wise man you must make me
understand.’
‘Will you promise to put me to death, if I tell you?’ said the guru. The king
gave him his solemn word. The guru took him aside, out of the servant’s
earshot, and whispered to him, ‘Do you know why we want to die right now,
the two of us? We have been all over the world but we have never found a
city like this or a king like you. That stake is the stake of the god of justice. It
is new, it has never had a criminal on it. Whoever dies on it first will be
reborn as the king of this country. And whoever goes next will be the future
minister of this country. We are sick of living the ascetic life. It would be nice
to enjoy ourselves as king and minister for a while. Now keep your word, my
lord, and put us to death. Me first remember.’
The king was now thrown into deep thought. He did not want to lose the
kingdom to someone else in the next round of life. He needed time. So he
ordered the execution postponed till the next day and talked in secret with
his minister. ‘It is not right for us to give the kingdom to others in the next
life. Let us go up the stake ourselves and we will be reborn as king and
minister again. Holy men do not tell lies’, he said, and the minister agreed.
So he told the executions, ‘We will send the criminals tonight. When the
first man comes to you, put him first to death. Then do the same to the
second man. Those are orders. Do not make any mistakes.’
That night, they went secretly to the prison, released the guru and
disciple, disguised themselves as the two and, as arranged beforehand with
their loyal servant, were taken to the stake and promptly executed.
When the bodies were taken down to be thrown to crows and vultures the
people panicked. They saw before them the dead bodies of the king and the
minister. The city was in confusion.
All night they mourned and discussed the future of the kingdom. Some
people suddenly thought of the guru and the disciple and caught up with
them as they were preparing to leave the town unnoticed. We people need a
king and a minister, said someone. Others agreed. They begged the guru and
the disciple to become their king and their minister. It did not take many
arguments to persuade the disciple, but it took long to persuade the guru.
They finally agreed to rule the kingdom of the foolish king and the silly
minister, on the condition that they would change all the old laws. From
then on, night would again be night and day would again be day, and you
could get nothing for a duddu. It became like any other place.
chandala an outcaste
natya drama
pratoli doorway
prekshaka spectator
sthapati architect
varttana modelling/shading
vinoda entertainment
these headings Plato included poets, painters, musicians, archers, weavers, potters, carpenters, etc. See
p. 31 in this volume.
2. The main exception would be where craftsmen were also donors, as at the stupas in Sanchi,
Sannathi and Bharhut. Names of artisans inscribed on their work of art as autograph exist but are rare.
For some examples see Carol Radcliffe Bolon, ‘Evidence for Artists of the Early Chalukya Period’ in
Making Things in South Asia: The Role of Artist and Craftsman, ed. Michael W. Meister, Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania, Department of South Asian Studies, 1988, pp. 52–66.
3. For the author’s critical role in Sanskrit literature, see Shonaleeka Kaul, Imagining the Urban:
Sanskrit and the City in Early India, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2010, pp. 1–38. For Tamil literature, see
David Shulman, ‘Patrons and Poets in Tamil Literature and Literary Legend’ in The Powers of Art:
Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 89–
119.
4. See p. 30 in this volume.
Traditional or ‘Normal’ View of Art, London: Luzac & Co., 1946, p. 87.
7. See p. 73 in this volume.
10. See p. 140 in this volume. Similarly, the Heliodorus Pillar at Besnagar, originally a Vaishnava pillar,
came to be worshipped as Khamba Baba by local tribals who were oblivious of the contents of the
second century BCE inscription on the pillar.
11. ‘Interpretive community’ is a notion drawn from reader-response literary theory as formulated by
Stanley Fish, and cited in Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999, p.
8.
12. This dichotomy was presented in Niharranjan Ray’s seminal thesis, Maurya and Post-Maurya Art:
A Study in Social and Formal Contrasts, Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research, 1975.
13. See p. 145 in this volume.
15. For a recent set of essays, see Akira Shimada and Jason Hawkes (eds.), Buddhist Stupas in South
Asia: Recent Archaeological, Art-Historical, and Historical Perspectives, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2009.
16. A recent work, Michael Rabe’s The Great Penance at Mamallapuram: Deciphering a Visual Text,
Chennai: Institute of Asian Studies, 2001 suggests that early South Asian artistic and literary modes of
representation, or visual and literary cultures, share a great deal in common, down to the employment
of rhetorical techniques like shlesha or pun, which could be used in both fine literature like kavya and
monumental sculpture like the monolithic relief at Mahabalipuram. This had already been suggested
by Devangana Desai in her ‘Puns and Intentional Language at Khajuraho’ in Kusumanjali—New
Interpretation of Art and Culture: C Sivaramamurti Commemoration Volume, ed. M. S. Nagaraja Rao,
Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1987. pp. 383–87.
17. The fact that the aim was certainly to aid the practice of viewing is supported by the additional
evidence of inscriptional labels on a large number of friezes at Bharhut and Sannathi, though not at
Sanchi, which named the story or character depicted. See Vidya Dehejia, ‘Questioning Narrativity and
Inscribed Labels: Buddhist Bharhut, Sannati, and Borobudur’ in Sacred Landscapes in Asia: Shared
Traditions, Multiple Histories, 2007, ed. H. P. Ray, Delhi: India International Centre and Manohar, pp.
285–307. It is also supported by the occurrence of analyptic insertions of ‘flashback’ scenes in the very
midst of a different but connected line of narration. Also see Dehejia’s essay in this volume.
18. Vidya Dehejia, Preface in Discourse in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives in India, Delhi:
Archaeology and Text: The Temple in South Asia, ed. H. P. Ray, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009,
pp. 25–28.
20. For example, the Paharpur copper plate inscription refers to the donation of a piece of land by a
brahmana, Nathasharman, and his wife to a Jaina vihara of the panchamahastupanikaya founded by
Nirgrantha shramanacharya of Varanasi, for the worship of the arahats. Quoted by A. K. Narain,
‘Religious Policy and Toleration in Ancient India’ in Essays on Gupta Culture, ed. B. L. Smith, Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1993, p. 43. Similarly, a brahman woman, married to a devout brahman, gifted a
Buddhist chaitya hall at Kuda. Quoted by Dehejia, ‘The Popular and Collective Basis of Early Buddhist
Patronage’, in The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller, Delhi: OUP,
1992, p. 40. The Satavahana rulers and their wives made gifts to Buddhist viharas even as they
described themselves as ‘the sole brahmanas’ (ekabahmana) and the performers of Vedic sacrifices.
Then, within the one dynasty, some Kushana kings were Shaiva, some Vaishnava, and others
promoters of the Buddhist creed. Similarly, was Harshavardhana a Shaiva or a Buddhist? Narain
concluded that ‘in ancient India, religion was more personal than institutionalized’ in ibid, p. 49.
21. John E. Cort believes that communities express different sense of identities by allegiance to
different deities. See Cort, ‘Communities, Temples, Identities: Art Histories and Social Histories in
western India’ in Ethnography and Personhood—Notes from the Field, ed., Michael Meister, Jaipur:
Rawat Publications, 2000, chapter 5.
22. Devangana Desai, Erotic Sculpture of India: A Socio-cultural Study, New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill
Publishing Company, 1975, p. 30. A. K. Ramanujan’s unmatched essay, ‘Is There an Indian Way of
Thinking?: An Informal Essay’ discusses several principles and behaviour which, he argues,
characterise Indians, in The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, ed. Vinay Dharwadker, Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 34–51.
23. G. Buhler observed, with reference to the multi-faith site of Mathura, that a sectarian distinction
among the artisans cannot be established and it is possible that the same set of artists were
commissioned to create the stone work related to different sects—Buddhist, Jaina and Hindu. Cited in
R. N. Mishra, Ancient Artists and Art Activity, Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1975, p. 15,
note 61. Mishra reiterated the continuity regarding Brahmanical and Buddhist textual traditions on
architecture. See ibid., pp. 8, 11–12.
24. Desai, Erotic Sculpture of India, p. 3.
25. See M. Somathilake, ‘Understanding the Painted Jatakas in Ancient India and Sri Lanka’ in Sacred
Landscapes in Asia: Shared Traditions, Multiple Histories, ed. H. P. Ray, Delhi: India International
Centre and Manohar, 2007, pp. 309–25.
26. Kapila Vatsyayana has spoken eloquently of the underlying unity of the Indian arts. See her
‘Aesthetic Theories underlying Asian Performing Arts’ in Sacred Landscapes in Asia: Shared Traditions,
Multiple Histories, ed. H. P. Ray, Delhi: India International Centre and Manohar, 2007, pp. 22–23.
27. Natyashastra XXVII.57, 61, cited in Kaul, Imagining the Urban, p. 24, note 57.
28. Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Inherent to the multiplicity of tellings is the act of
questioning, which occurs both within the narrative at the hands of characters, and as external
listeners or readers respond to the Ramakatha. See Richman, ‘Questioning and Multiplicity within the
Ramayana Tradition’ in Questioning Ramayanas: A South Asian Tradition, ed. Richman, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2001, pp. 1–21.
29. K. Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968, pp. 135–86.
32. Kailasapathy actually spells out three types of bards. The third is an intermediate category of sorts,
the akavunar, who were declaimers and narrators. See p. in this volume.
33. Kailasapthy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, pp. 63–69.
Ramanujan, p. 429.
35. Stuart H. Blackburn and A. K. Ramanujan, Introduction in Another Harmony: New Essays on the
Folklore of India, eds. Stuart H. Blackburn and A. K. Ramanujan, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986,
p. 30.
36. Ramanujan, ‘Two Realms of Kannada Folklore’, in The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, p. 490.
37. Susan Wadley, ‘The Katha of Sakat: Two Tellings’ in Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore
of India, eds. Stuart H. Blackburn and A. K. Ramanujan, Delhi: Oxford university Press, p. 196.
38. Blackburn and Ramanujan, Introduction, Another Harmony, p. 11.
39. Ramanujan, ‘Where Mirrors are Windows: Toward an Anthology of Reflections’ in The Collected
Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, p. 31. The balancing could occur in the form of a control/release dialectic
between the classical and the folk. See Another Harmony, pp. 15–21.
40. Stuart Blackburn and Alan Dundes, Introduction to section on folklore in The Collected Essays of
A. K. Ramanujan, p. 349.
Chapter 1
1. Quintilian IX. 4. 117. Cf. Plato, Republic 601 B.
2. Cited with approval by Herbert Read, Art and Society, 1937, p. 84 from A. N. Whitehead, Religion in
the Making.
3. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theolologica, I–II. 57. 3 c (art is an intellectual virtue); 5. 4. AD I
(beauty pertains to the cognitive, not the appetitive faculty).
4. Charles S. Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic, 1928, p. 3. ‘A real art of speaking, which does not
lay hold upon the truth, does not exist and never will’ (Phaedrus 261 A); cf. Gorgias 463–65, 513 D,
517A, 527 C, Laws 937 E, etc.
5. E. F. Rothschild, The Meaning of Unintelligibility in Modern Art, 1934, p. 98. A ‘purple passage’!
7. Gorgias 503 E.
8. Symposium 205 C.
9. Statesman 259 E, Phaedrus 260 E, Laws 938 A, etc. Whenever Plato disparages the mechanical arts it
is with reference to the kinds of work that provide for the well-being of the body only, and not at the
same time spiritual food; he does not connect culture with idleness.
10. Republic 342 B, C. What is made by art is correctly made (Alcibiades 108 B). It will follow that
those who are in possession of and governed by their art and not by their own irrational impulses
which yearn for innovations, will operate in the same way (Republic, 349, 350, Laws 660 B): ‘Art has
fixed ends and ascertained means of operation’ (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I–II. 47. 4 ad
2 and 49. 5 ad 2). It is in the same way that an oracle, speaking ex cathedra, is infallible, but not so the
man when speaking for himself. Similarly, in the case of the guru.
11. Republic 369 B, C, Statesman 279 C. D., etc.
assigns to every man the work for which he is naturally fitted). None of the arts pursue their own
good, but the patron’s (Republic 342 B, 347 A), which lies in the excellence of the product.
16. Timaeus 47 D, E. Cf. Laws 659 E, on the chant.
18. SāhityaDarpana III. 2–3. Cf. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Transformation of Nature in Art, 1935,
pp. 48–51
19. Sophist226, Phaedrus 227, 243 A, B, Phaedo 66, 67, 82 B, Republic 399 E, Aristotle, Poetics VI. 2,
etc.
20. Laws 840 C.
21. Phaedo 67 D, E.
24. The aesthetic man is ‘one who is too weak to stand up against pleasure and pain’ (Republic 556 C).
If we think of impassibility (not what we mean by ‘apathy’, but a being superior to the pulls of pleasure
and pain, cf. Bhagavad Gītā II. 56) with horror, it is because we should be ‘unwilling to live without
hunger and thirst, etc., if we could not also suffer the natural consequences of these passions’, the
pleasures of eating and drinking and enjoying fine colours and sounds (Philebus 54 E, 55 B). Our
attitude to pleasures and pains is always passive, if not indeed masochistic.
It is very clear from Republic 606 that the enjoyment of an emotional storm is just what Plato does
not mean by a katharsis; such an indulgence merely fosters the very feelings that we are trying to
suppress!
A perfect parallel is found in the Milinda Pañha; it is asked, of tears, shed for the death of a mother
or shed for love of the Truth, which can be called a ‘cure’ (bhesajjam), i.e. for man’s mortality, and it is
pointed out that the former are fevered, the latter cool, and that it is what cools that cures.
25. Jaiminīya UpaniṣadBrāhmaṇa III. 30. 2 and 39. 2, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad III, 7.3 f., Chāndogya
28. Republic 399–404. Cf. Laws 656 E, 660, 797, 798, etc.
29. Laws 659 E.
32. Art is iconography, the making of images or copies of some model, whether visible (presented) or
invisible (contemplated), (Republic 373 B, 377 E, 392–397, 402, Laws 667,669, Statesman 306 D,
Cratylus 439 A, Timaeus 28 A, B, 52 B, C, Sophist 234 C, 236 C, cf, Aristotle, Poetics I. 1 f.). In the same
way Indian works of art are called counterfeits or commensurations (anukṛti, tadākārata, pratikṛti,
pratibimba, pratimāna) and likeness (sārūpya, sādrśya) is demanded. This does not mean that it is a
likeness in all respects that is needed to evoke the original, but an equality as to the whichness and
whatness, or form and force of the archetype; it is this ‘real equality’ or ‘adequacy’ that is the truth and
the beauty of the work (Laws 667, 668, Timaeus 28 A, B, Phaedo 74 f.). We have shown elsewhere that
the Indian sādṛśya does not imply an illusion but only a real equivalence. It is clear from Timaeus 29,
29 that by ‘equality’ and ‘likeness’ Plato also means a real kinship and analogy, and that it is these
qualities that make it possible for an image to ‘interpret’ or ‘deduce’ (Skr. ānī) its archetype.
33. ‘The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s, must be beautiful.’ (G. H. Hardy, A
Mathematician’s Apology, 1931). See Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Why Exhibit Works of Art? 1943, ch.
IX.
34. Philebus 5.1 C.
36. Laws 670 E; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1. 91. 3 and I–II. 57.3 ad 2.
38. Republic 395–401, especially 395 C, cf. 401 B. f., 605–607 and Laws 656 C.
Whenever the sacrificers are at a loss, they are required to contemplate (cetayadhvam), and the
required form thus seen becomes their model. Cf. Philo, Moses II, 74–76.
46. Republic 377, 402, Laws 667, 668, Timaeus 28 A, B, Phaedrus 243 A, B, Republic 328 C (misuse of
‘Must I consent to leave, as a desirable spectacle for posterity, an image of an image?’ Cf. Asterius,
Bishop of Amasea, circa 340 ce ‘Paint not Christ: for the one humility of his incarnation suffices him’
(Migne, Patrologia Graeca XI. 167). The real basis, of the Semitic objection to ‘graven images’, and of
all other iconoclasm is not an objection to art (adequate symbolism), but an objection to a realism
that implies an essentially idolatrous worship of nature. The figuration of the Ark ‘according to the
pattern that was seen upon the Mount’ (Exodus XXV, 40) is not ‘that kind of imagery with reference
to which the prohibition was given’ (Tertullian, Contra Marcionem II, 22).
48. Timaeus 28 A, B, cf. Note 33. The symbols that are rightly sanctioned by a hieratic art are not
conventionally but naturally correct (Laws 657 A). One distinguishes, accordingly, between le
symbolisme qui sait and le symbolisme qui cherche. It is the former that the iconographer can and must
understand; which he will hardly be able to do unless he is himself accustomed to thinking in these
precise terms.
49. The realities are seen ‘by the eye of the soul’ (Republic 533 D), ‘the soul alone and by itself ’
(Theatetus, 186, 187), ‘gazing ever on what is authentic’ (Timaeus 28 A, cf. Phaedrus 253A), and thus
‘by inwit (intuition) of what really is’ (Philebus 59). Just as in India, where it is only when the senses
have been withdrawn from their objects, only when the eye has been turned round (āvṛtta cakṣus),
and with the eye of gnosis (jñāna cakṣus), that the reality can be apprehended.
50. The contemplative actus primus (Skr. dhĩ, dhyāna) and operative actus secundus (Skr. karma) of the
Scholastic philosophers.
51. ‘One man is able to beget the productions of art, but the ability to judge of their utility or
harmfulness to their users belongs to another’ (Phaedrus 2744 E). These two men are united in the
whole man and complete connoisseur, as they are in the Divine Architect whose ‘judgments’ are
recorded in Genesis I. 25.31.
52. Laws 667; for a need as first and last cause, Republic 369 B. As to ‘wholesomeness’ cf. Richard
Bernheimer in Brynmawr Notes and Monographs IX, 1, pp, 28, 29, ‘There should be a deep ethical
purpose in all of art, of which the classical aesthetic was fully aware . . . . To have forgotten this
purpose before the mirage of absolute patterns and designs is perhaps the fundamental fallacy of the
abstract movement in art.’ The modern abstractionist forgets that the Neolithic formalist was not an
interior decorator but a metaphysical man who had to live by his wits.
53. Laws 668 E, 669 A, B, 670 E.
55. Philebus 61 B f.
57. Republic 519, 520, 539 E, Laws 644, 803, 807. Cf. Bhagavad Gītā III. 1–25, Cf. Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy, ‘Lila’, in Journal of African and Oriental Studies, XXVIII, 1941 and ‘Play and
Seriousness’, Journal of Philosophy, XXXIX, 1942.
58. Deuteronomy VIII. 3, Luke IV. 4, John VI. 58.
59. R. R. Schmidt, Dawn of the Humans Mind [Der Geist der Vorzeit (Translated by R. A. S.
hardly flattering to those whose admiration of the industrial system is equal to their interest in it.
Aristotle defines as ‘slaves’ those who have nothing but their bodies to offer (Politicus 1254 b 18). It is
on the work of such ‘slaves’, or literally ‘prostitutes’ that the industrial system of production for profit
ultimately rests: their political freedom does not make of chain-belt workers and other ‘base
mechanics’ what Plato means by ‘free men’.
61. Republic 395 B, 500 D, Cf. Philo.
63. Republic 370 C. cf. 374 B, C. 347 E, 406 C, etc. Professor Paul Shorey had the naiveté to see in
Plato’s conception of a vocational society ‘an anticipation of Adam Smith’s division of labour’ (Loeb
Library Republic, p. 151, note B). Actually, no two conceptions could be more contrary. In Plato’s
division of labour it is taken for granted that the artist is not a special kind of man, but every man a
special kind of artist; his specialisation is for the good of all concerned, producer and consumer alike;
Adam Smith’s benefits no one but the ‘manufacturer’ and salesman. Plato who detested any
‘fractioning of human faculty’ (Republic 395 B) could hardly have seen in our division of labour a type
of justice (see note 17). Modern research has rediscovered that ‘workers are not governed primarily by
economic motives’ (see Stuart Chase, ‘What Makes the Worker Like to Work?’, Reader's Digest,
February 1941, p. 19)
64. Chuang Tzu as cited by Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China, 1939, p. 62. It is
not true to say that ‘the artist is a mercenary living by the sale of his own work’ (F. J. Mather,
Concerning Beauty, 1935, p. 240). He is not working in order to make money, but accepts money (or
its equivalent) in order to be able to go on working at his living; and I say ‘working at his living’
because the man is what he does.
65. ‘A man attains perfection by devotion to his own work . . . by his own work praising Him who
wove this all . . . . Whoever does the work appointed by his own nature incurs no sin.’ Bhagavad Gītā
XVIII. 45 f.
66. Republic 395 C.
68. H. J. Rose in Greek Mythology (Second Edition), 1933, p. 11. Mr Greenberg, in the Nation for April
1941, tells us that ‘the modern artist derives his inspiration from the very physical materials he works
with’. Both forget the customary distinction of spirit from matter. What their statements actually mean
is that the modern artist may be excited, but is not inspired.
69. Laws 892 C.
72. John VIII. 28, cf. V. 19, 31 and VII. 16, 18 (‘He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory’). A
writer in Parnassus, for May 1941, speaks of the female nude as Maillol’s ‘exclusive inspiration’. That is
mere hot air: Renoir was not afraid to call spade a spade when he said with what brush he painted.
73. Purgatorio XXIV, 51–54.
76. Timaeus 60 C. 90 A.
80. Plato’s doctrine of inspiration is not ‘mechanical’ but ‘dynamic’: in a later theology it became a
matter for debate in which of these two ways the Spirit actuates the interpreter.
81. ‘The madness that comes of God is superior to the sanity which is of human origin’ (Phaedrus 244
D, 245 A). Cr. Timaeus 71 D–72 B, Laws 719 C and Maitri Upaniṣhad VI 34–-7. ‘When one attains to
mindlessness, that is the last step.’ The subject needs a longer explanation: briefly, the supralogical is
superior to the logical, the logical to the illogical.
82. Ion 534, 535.
83. ‘What we call “chants”, which are evidently in reality “incantation” seriously designed to produce
in souls that harmony of which we have been speaking’ (Laws 659 E, cf. 665 C, 656 E, 660 B, 668, 669,
812 C, Republic 399, 424, Theatetus, etc.). Such incantations are what are called in Sanskrit mantras.
84. The whole purpose of contemplation and yoga is to reach that state of being in which there is no
longer any distinction of knower from known, or being from knowing. It is just from this point of
view that while all the arts are imitative, it matters so much what is imitated, a reality or an effect; for
we become like what we think most about; ‘one comes to be of just such stuff as that on which the
mind is set’ (Maitri Upaniṣad VI, 34).
85. ‘To become like God so far as that is possible is to “escape”’ (Theatetus 176 9); ‘We all, with
unveiled face, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image . . . .
Looking not at the things which are seen and temporal, but at the thing which are not seen and are
eternal’ (II Corinthians III, 18 IV. 18), ‘This likeness begins now again to be formed in us’ (St.
Augustine, De Spiritu et Littera 37). Cf. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, ‘Traditional Conception of Ideal
Portraiture’, Why Exhibit Works of Art?
86. Timaeus 90 D.
89. See ‘Ornament’, in the Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought, London:
betakes himself to “the Woman” (Vāc); a son like himself is born of her’ (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, IV.
1. 6). The son is Agni, bṛhad uktha, Logos.
93. Rgveda Saṁhitā X, 32. 2 (śreyānsaṁ dakṣaṁ manasā jagṛbhyāt); BṛhadDevatā II. 84. The
cf. ‘the Asura’s gibberish’ (III, 2. 1. 23). It is because of the dual possibility of an application of the
Voice to the statement of truth or falsehood that she is called the ‘double-faced’, i.e ‘two-tongued’ (III,
2. 4. 16). These two possibilities correspond to Plato’s distinction of the Uranian from the Pandemic
and Disordered Aphrodite, one the mother of the Uranian or Cosmic Eros, the other, the ‘Queen of
Various Song’ and mother of the Pandemic Eros (Symposium 180, 187, Laws 840 C).
95. Republic 399 E.
97. Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, III. 2. 4, 1–6 and 16–22, cf. III. 2. 1, 19–23.
98. Saṁkhyānam is ‘reckoning’ or ‘calculation’. We have seen that accuracy is the first requirement for
good art, and that this amounts to saying that art is essentially iconography, and to be distinguished
by its logic from merely emotional and instinctive expression. It is precisely the precision of ‘classical’
and ‘canonical’ art that modern feeling most resents: we demand organic forms adapted to an ‘in-
feeling’ rather than the measured forms that require ‘in-sight’.
99. Aitareya Āraṇyaka III. 2. 6, sa chandobhir ātmānaṁ samadadhāt, Aitareya Brāhmaṇa VI. 27
reaches the world of heaven’ (Paṇcaviinsanśa Brahmana V. 3. 5). Phaedrus 247 C corresponds to Pa
caviinśa Brāahmaṇa XIV. 1. 12, 13 ‘Those who reach the top of the great tree, how do they fare
thereafter? Those who have wings fly forth, those that are wingless fall down’; the former are the ‘wise’,
the latter the ‘foolish’, cf. Phaedrus 249 C. ‘It is only the philosopher’s discriminating mind that is
winged.’ For the Gandharva (Eros) as a winged ‘maker’ and as such the archetype of human poets cf.
Ṛgveda Saṁhitā X. 177. 2 and Jaiminiya Brāhmaṇa III. 36. For ‘metrical wings’, Pa cavimśa Brāhmaṇa
X, 4. 5, XIX. 11. 3, Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa III. 13. 10, Atharva Veda Saṁhitā VIII. 9. 12. The
metres are ‘birds’ (T. S. VI. 1.6. 1; P. B. XIX. 11. 8).
101. Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka VIII. 10.
102. Bhagavad Gītā II. 50 yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam. If yoga is also the ‘renunciation’ (sannyāsa) of
works (BG. V. 1, VI. 2), this is only another way of saying the same thing, since this renunciation is
essentially the abandonment of the notion ‘I am the doer’ and a reference of the works to their real
author whose skill is infallible: ‘The Father who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works’. John XIV, 10.
103. Śāṅkhāyana Āranyaka VII. 5. 7; cf. Phaedo 61 A, B.
104. What is meant by vidyā s opposed to avidyā is explicit in Phaedrus 247. ‘All true knowledge is
concerned with what is colourless, formless and intangible (in Skr., avarṇa, arūpa, agrahya) . . . not
such knowledge as has a beginning and varies as it is associated with one or another of the things that
we now call realities, but that which is really real’ (Skr. satyasya satyam). Cf. Philebus 58 A.
105. Sānkhāyana Āraṇyaka XIV
106. Chāndogya Upaniṣad 1. 6. 7 f. Cf. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, ‘Sunkiss’ in Journal of African and
Daśarūpa I. 12–14.
108. Timaeus 22 B, C.
discovered in a Mesolithic assemblage at the site of Chandravati near Abu in Rajasthan. This artifact is
a microblade core about 50 mm long, with a rhomboid design engraved on it. The core was found by
V. A. Sonavane during an exploration conducted by the University of Baroda. (Personal
communication, Dr V. A. Sonavane, Dept. of Archaeology, University of Baroda.) Incidentally, these
intricate design patterns are almost like a signum of Mesolithic art and are highly uniform in all
paintings of this period on the Indian subcontinent.
Design patterns in southern Deccan Mesolithic art are so similar to those found in central India
that one is surprised to find this uniformity spanning such a great distance. I have found similar
designs in the Henanegala Galge of Sri Lanka. I believe that this reflects a specific mental condition of
society common to all those whose patterns are similar. From this uniformity I gather that the socio-
economic background of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers on the Indian subcontinent was, except for
differences due to specific ecological situations, quite the same.
2. Exceptions to this observation are the Mesolithic paintings in the area around Badami where eyes
on animals as well as human beings are very prominently depicted. Also, in the Mesolithic art of the
Vindhya region there are a few exceptions to this general observation. In Kathotia there are two
extremely fine drawings of rhinos, in which both their eyes are in a twisted perspective, that is, side by
side. In Pachmarhi there are a few historic depictions of people in which both eyes are shown,
although the head is painted in profile. These depictions closely resemble the leather shadow puppets
of Andhra Pradesh.
3. The horned boar is also found in the frescoes of Chatal Hujuk in Anatolia, and as in Indian
manner. The only difference between the sexes is that the breasts of the women have been indicated.
Both men and women have a line composed of multiple minute lines running down the middle of
their equally slender bodies. This line cannot be mistaken for the spine for there are similar designs on
the legs as well. The Mesolithic animal depictions in the same area show an X-ray style and body
patterns similar to those we know of in central India.
5. At least thirty species of trees and plants in the forest (of Bhimbetka) have edible flowers, fruit and
seeds, and several plants have edible roots and tubers. Among the former the more important are:
This is evident from the fact that, in living memory, tribals have opposed the introduction of certain
types of technology because they actually harmed their mental equilibrium. For instance, Red Indians
opposed the felling of trees or the introduction of the iron plough—for they held that these wounded
the earth which they considered their mother.
Chapter 3
1. H. C. Beck, Classification and Nomenclature of Beads and Pendants, York, PA: George Shumway
Pakistan’ in Pakistan Archaeology, 24, 1990, pp. 68–176 and J. F. Jarrige, ‘Excavations at Mehrgarh-
Nausharo’, Pakistan Archaeology, 10–22, 1986, pp. 62-131.
4. R. S. Bisht, ‘Further Excavations at Banawali: 1983–84’ in Archaeology and History, eds. B. M. Pande
and B. D. Chattopadhyaya, Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, pp. 135–56 and ‘A New Model of the
Harappan Town Planning as revealed at Dholovira in Kutch: A Surface Study of its Plan and
Architecture’ in History and Archaeology, ed. B. Chatterjee, Delhi: Ramanand Vidhya Bhawan, 397–
408., and K. T. Hedge, V. H. Sonawane, D. R. Shah, K. K. Bhan, K. K. Ajitprasad and S. P. Chardnan,
‘Excavation at Nagwada—1986 and 1987: A Preliminary Report’, Man and Environment, 12, 1988, pp.
55–65.
5. J. M. Kenoyer, M. Vidale and K. K. Bhan, ‘Contemporary Stone Bead Making in Khambhat India:
1991: 331–85.
7. M. R. Mughal, ‘Further Evidence of the Early Harappan Culture in the Greater Indus Valley: 1971–
9. K. N. Dikshit, ‘Late Harappa in Northern India’, in Frontiers of the Indus Civilization, eds. B. B. Lal
and S. P. Gupta, New Delhi: Books and Books, 1984, 253–70, Kenoyer, ‘The Indus Tradition’, and J. G.
Shaffer, ‘The Indus Valley, Baluchistan and Helmand Traditions: Neolithic Through Bronze Age’ in
Chronologies in Old World Archaeology (Third Edition), ed. R. Ehrich, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1988, pp. 441–64.
10. Shaffer, ‘The Indus Valley, Baluchistan and Helmand Traditions’.
11. J. M. Kenoyer, ‘Shell Working Industries of the Indus Civilization: An Archaeological and
13. For e.g., P. R. S. Moorey, ‘Materials and Manufacture in Ancient Mesopotamia: The evidence of
16. J. M. Kenoyer, ‘Shell Working Industries of the Indus Civilization: A Summary’, Paléorient, 10, 1,
perspective from Recent Excavations at Mehrgarh’, South Asian Archaeology 1979, ed. H. Hartel,
Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, pp. 93–114; J. F. Jarrige and R. Meadow, ‘The Antecedents of Civilization in
the Indus Valley’, Scientific American, 243, 2, 1980, pp. 122–33, and B. Barthelemy de Saizieu, ‘Le
cimetiere neolithique de Mehrgarh (Balouchistan Pakistanais). Apport de l’analyse factorielle’,
Paléorient 16, 1, 1990, pp. 23–43.
18. Mackay, Further Excavations at Mohenjodaro; Marshall, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization,
civilization.
20. B. McCarthy and P. Vandiver, ‘Ancient High-strength Ceramics: Faience Manufacture at Harappa
(Pakistan), ca. 2300–1800 BC’, in Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology 2, eds. P. Vandiver, J. Druzik
and G. Wheeler, Pittsburg: Materials Research Society, 1990, p. 2.
21. M. A. Halim and M. Vidal, ‘Kilns, Bangles and Coated Vessels: Ceramic Production in Closed
Containers at Mohenjodaro’, in Interim Reports, vol. I, eds. M. Jansen and G. Urban, Aachen: RWTH-
IsMEO, 1984, pp. 63–97.
22. Dales and Kenoyer, ‘Preliminary Report on the Third Season of Work at Harappa, Pakistan’.
23. J. F. Jarrige, ‘Excavations at Mehrgarh: Their Significance for Understanding the Background of the
Harappan Civilization’, in Harappan Civilization, ed. G. L. Possehl, 1982, New Delhi: Oxford and IBH
Publishing Co., pp. 79–84.
24. J. F. Jarrige, ‘Les Cites oubliees de l’Indus’, Introduction in Les Cites oubliees de l'Indus, in ed. J. F.
Jarrige, 1988, Paris: Musee National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet, pp. 13–37.
25. Ibid.
27. C. Jarrige, ‘Terracotta Figurines from Nindowari’ in South Asian Archaeology 1981, ed. B. Allchin,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 129–35 and ‘Les figurines humaines du
Baluchistan’ in Les Cites oubliees de l'Indus, ed. J. F. Jarrige, 1988, Paris: Musee National des Arts
Asiatiques Guimet, pp. 65–70.
28. Mackay, Further Excavations at Mohenjodaro, pl. LXXXV, pp. 5, 10.
29. J. F. Jarrige, ‘Les Cites oubliees de l’Indus: Introduction’ in Les Cites oubliees de l'Indus, ed. J.-F.
31. Ibid., C, f.
33. Dales and Kenoyer, ‘Preliminary Report on the Third Season of Work at Harappa, Pakistan’.
34. R. E. M. Wheeler, ‘Harappa 1946: The Defenses and Cemetery R-37’, Ancient India 3, 1947, pp. 58–
130.
35. M. R. Mughal, ‘Harappa—1966 (Cemetery R 37)’, Pakistan Archaeology, 5, 1968, pp. 63–68.
36. Dales and Kenoyer, ‘Preliminary Report on the Third Season of Work at Harappa, Pakistan’.
37. A. Samzun, ‘La chalcolithique ancien a Mehrgarh’ in Les Cites oubliees de l’Indus, Paris: Musee
39. C. Jarrige, ‘Terracotta Figurines from Nindowari’ and ‘Les figurines humaines du Baluchistan’.
40. Marshall, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, pls. CXLVII, A, CXLIX, CLI, A, pp. 519–24;
Mackay, Further Excavations at Mohenjodaro, pl. CXXXV, pp. 19, 22 and pl. CXLI, p. 61, and M. S.
Vats, Excavations at Harappa, Delhi: Govt. of India Press, 1940.
41. Marshall, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, vol. III, pl. CXLIX, p. 4.
43. Marshall, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, vol. III, pl. CLI, A.
46. Marshall, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization and Mackay, Further Excavations at
Mohenjodaro and Chanhu-Daro Excavations 1935–36, New Haven, CN: American Oriental Society,
1943.
47. Kenoyer, ‘Shell Working Industries of the Indus Civilization: An Archaeological and Ethnographic
Perspective’.
Chapter 4
1. As there is a great deal of literature on various aspects of Aśoka’s inscriptions and his dhamma, this
article will refer only to those writings that are directly relevant to the arguments being made.
2. The Delhi-Meerut pillar is not in situ and has had a rather eventful history which includes
dismemberment and reconstitution. Nevertheless as it stands today, its inscriptions cover an area
roughly between 18 and 21 feet above the base. I have not seen all of Aśoka’s pillar and rock
inscriptions and can only go by those that are situated in Delhi—the Delhi-Topra and Delhi-Meerut
pillars, the Rock Edicts at Bahapur or Srinivaspuri, and the replica of the Girnar rock at the National
Museum. My colleague, Mr P. S. Dwivedi tells me that he has seen the Kalsi rock and that he did not
find it possible to read the top-most lines of the set of edicts while standing at the base. He adds that
the average ancient Indian could not have been significantly taller than he is.
3. This is a point that has been recognised by several scholars including Gerard Fussman, ‘Central and
Provincial Administration in Ancient India: The Problem of the Mauryan Empire’, The Indian
Historical Review, vol. XIV, nos. 1–2, July 1987 and January 1988, p. 59. We are talking here about
modes of transmission, not routes of transmission of the edicts, about which scholars such as
Fussman, K. R. Norman, and U. Schneider have put forward their hypotheses.
4. E. Hultzsch (ed.), Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. I: Inscriptions of Aśoka, (New Edition)
Edict V in connection with the specific occasions on which Aśoka declared a ban on the killing and
selling of fish, on the killing of animals in the elephant- park and in the fishermen’s preserves, on the
castration of bulls, he-rams, boars and other animals, and the branding of horses and bullocks (ibid.,
pp. 126. 128; II. 11–19). Hultzsch points out that the Caturmāsīs were certain full moon days of each
of the three seasons (summer, rains, and winter) (ibid., p. 128, fn.1). D. C. Sircar concurs, elucidating
that the Caturmāsīs refer to the full moon day of the months of Aṣāḍha, Kārttika, and Phālguna,
which were regarded as auspicious days. He also suggests that the Tiṣya constellation was perhaps
considered auspicious by Aśoka because he was born under it (D. C. Sircar, Inscriptions of Aśoka,
second revised edn., Delhi, 1967, pp. 80, 85).
6. sotaviya
7. The priority of the Major Rock Edicts over the Pillar Edicts is clear from the chronological
references in the inscriptions. While the Major Rock Edicts contain chronological references ranging
from the eighth to the thirteenth years after the abhiṣeka, Pillar Edicts I, IV, V, and VI state that they
were inscribed twenty-six years, and Pillar Edict VII twenty-seven years, after the consecration. The
Greek-Aramaic Minor Rock Edict found at two places near Kandahar in Afghanistan is dated ten
years after the abhiṣeka. This lends credence to the contention that the Minor Rock Edicts are among
the earliest of Aśoka’s inscriptions. As for the inscriptions in the Barabar hills, the one in the Sudama
Cave, which records the dedication of the Nyagrodha cave to the Ājīvikas is dated twelve years after
the abhiṣeka, while the inscription in the Karna Chaupar Cave refers to the dedication of this cave for
the stay of ascetics when nineteen years had elapsed since the abhiṣeka (op. cit., p. 65). The Nigali
Sagar and Rummindei Pillar inscriptions refer to events that occurred fourteen and twenty years
respectively after the abhiṣeka. All these dates are to be understood as references to expired, not
current, years. For a comprehensive catalogue of the various Aśokan inscriptions and their contents,
see F. R. Allchin and K. R. Norman, ‘Guide to the Aśokan inscriptions’, South Asian Studies, vol. I,
1985, pp. 43–49.
8. V. S. Agrawala has discussed in detail the rich and many-faceted symbolism of the various parts of
the Aśokan pillars, with particular focus on the Sarnath pillar (The Wheel Flag of India: Cakra-dhvaja
[Being a History and Exposition of the Meaning of the Dharma-Chakra and the Sarnath Lion Capital],
Varanasi, 1964). John Irwin has also explored various aspects of the symbolism of the Aśokan pillars
in a four-part series of articles ‘Aśokan Pillars: a reassessment of the evidence’, Burlington Magazine,
vol. CXV, 1973, pp. 706–28; vol. CXVI, 1974, pp. 712–27; vol. CXVII, 1975, pp. 631–43, and vol.
CXVlIl, 1976, pp. 734–53. See also John Irwin, ‘Buddhism and the Cosmic Pillar’, in Orientalia losephi
Tucci Moriae dictata. Edenda curaverunt, eds. Gnoli and L. Lanciotti, Serie Orientale Roma, vol. II,
Rome, 1987, pp. 635–60.
9. Whether some of the pillars are pre-Aśokan, as lrwin has argued, or were installed by him in the
there is some debate regarding the Risṭikas and Pitiṇikas, who perhaps can be placed in the southern
region between the Godavari and Krishna rivers (see B. M. Barua, Aśoka and his Times [Second
Edition], Calcutta, 1955, pp. 83-87).
11. For the various differences in details between the Aśokan and Persepolitan pillars, see Niharranjan
Ray, Maurya and Post-Maurya Art, New Delhi, 1975, pp. 24–26.
12. I am indebted here to the ideas that Margaret Cool Root has put forward regarding Achaemenid
art (The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art: Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of Empire,
Leiden, 1979).
13. S. P. Gupta (The Roots of Indian Art, Delhi, 1980) has dealt in great detail with various elements of
Mauryan art. While he accepts West Asian influence on certain motifs employed in Mauryan art, he is
at pains to emphasize how these motifs were ‘lndianized’. What is being suggested in this paper is not
an ‘Indianization’ of individual artistic elements but the uniqueness of the artistic and epigraphic
whole. Also, I do not agree with what Gupta has to say about the nature of the difference between
Achaemenid and Aśokan kingship.
14. Agrawala, The Wheel Flag of India, p. 54.
15. Gupta, The Roots of Indian Art, pp. 311–12. We may take note of the peacock engraved below
ground-level on the Lauriya-Nandangarh pillar and the peacocks and fish executed at a similar level
on the Rampurva pillar (Ibid., pp. 23–24); but we will not include these motifs in our discussion as
they were not meant to be seen.
16. Gupta, The Roots of Indian Art, pp. 126–27.
18. See Vibha Tripathi and Ajeet K. Srivastava, The Indus Terracattas, Delhi, 1994, pp. 130–40. Also,
Sir Mortimer Wheeler, The Indus Civilization (Third Edition), Cambridge, 1968, pp. 101–04.
19. Gupta, The Roots of Indian Art, p. 5
22. Irwin, ‘Aśokan Pillars: A reassessment of the evidence—iv: Symbolism, Burlington Magazine, vol.
25. A. Foucher, The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and other essays in Indian and Central-Asian
Archaeology, Paris, London, 1917, p. 21. In the same place, while discussing symbols on coins,
Foucher suggests that the lotus symbolises the birth of the Buddha, representing the lotuses that,
according to tradition, sprang up beneath his first seven steps.
26. Gupta, The Roots of Indian Art, p. 43.
27. See Jean Przyluski, ‘Le Symbolisme du Pilier de Sarnath’, Linossier, vol. II, 1932, pp. 481–98.
29. On the other hand, one could simply see the lion as an imperial symbol used by Aśoka, whether he
31. See Sir John Marshall, Alfred Foucher and N.G. Majumdar, The Monuments of Sanchi, 3 vols, 1st
edn, London, 1940; reprint edn, 1983, plates 12a and 12b, 74, 3a and 5a, 95. The convention of this
sort of pillar apparently continued into the Gupta period, because the pillar of that age at Sanchi,
while stylistically different, is similar in terms of composition (shaft, inverted lotus, addorsed lions,
dharmacakra) to the pillars cited above. It may be added that the pillars depicted in the Sanchi reliefs
are frequently flanked by individuals in a pose of veneration, indicating that they were among the
important symbols of the Buddhist dhamma at the time.
32. Marshall, Foucher and Majumdar, The Monuments of Sanchi, vol. I, pp. 48–49.
33. For a hypothesis on the rationale that underlay Aśoka’s dhamma and the relationship between
dhamma and the Mauryan state, see Romila Thapar, Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Oxford,
1963, chapter V.
34. This is Minor Edict No. IV in D. C. Sircar’s classification.
36. Bühler cited in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, ed. Hultzsch, p. 17, fn. 2.
37. D. C. Sircar, Inscriptions of Aśoka, p. 42. Lines 10–11 of the Ahraura edict read as follows: ‘. . . esa
sāvane vivuthe[na] [du]ve sapaṁna-lati sati aṁ maṁ[c]e Budhasa salīle alodhe [ti] . . . ’
38. Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, p. 50.
41. It may be noted that the elephant appears in two other contexts that may be assigned to the
Mauryan period. The first is at Dhauli, where the forepart of an elephant is sculpted out of rock. The
second is on the bas relief carved on the recessed portion of the arch of the doorway of the Lomas
Rishi cave in the Barabar hills, which depicts four pairs of elephants advancing towards stūpas. These
caves were associated with the Ājīvika sect.
42. An exception is A. Ghosh’s paper ‘The Pillar of Aśoka: Their Purpose’, East and West, New Series,
vol. XVII, nos. 3–4, pp. 273–75. Ghosh argues that although the evidence is not conclusive, the
Aśokan pillars seem to have marked sites of Buddhist stūpas or shrines constructed under the
direction of Aśoka.
43. Thapar, Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas.
44. The shift from rock to pillar seems to have happened by the twenty-first year after the abhiṣeka,
50. Ibid.
51. F. Kielhorn, ‘Delhi Siwalik Pillar Inscriptions of Vīsaladeva; the Vikrama year 1220, Indian
54. The text of the short inscriptions is given by Alexander Cunningham in Vol. 5 of the
Archaeological Survey Reports (‘Report for the year 1872–73’), pp. 143–44.
55. Prasad, Sanskrit Inscriptions of Delhi Sultanate, pp. 19–20, 32, 41–42.
56. These details are given in Cunningham’s Tour Reports Made During the Years 1862–65, vol. 1, pp.
309–11.
57. The details that follow are based on Cunningham’s account in ibid., pp. 298–301.
58. Ibid., p. 300.
60. Harry Falk, ‘A Neglected Pillar of Aśoka’, South Asian Archaeology, vol. I, 1995, pp. 429–38.
61. A. C. L. Carlleyle, ‘Report of Tours in Gorakhpur, Saran, and Ghazipur in 1877–78–79 and 80’,
the Aśokan pillars continues into the present time is suggested, for instance, by the notice of a
sandstone pillar (probably Aśokan) at Bhagalpur, which is locally known as ‘Bhīm-kā-Chharī’ (Dilip
K. Chakrabarti, R. N. Singh and Krishnanand Tripathi, ‘Notes on the Archaeology of the Sarayupar
Plain, Eastern Uttar Pradesh’, South Asian Studies, vol. XIII, 1997, p. 290).
63. Cunningham, Tour Reports Made During the Years 1862–65, p. 67.
64. A few other examples of what may be parts of Aśokan pillars being worshipped in present times as
Śiva lingas are given in S.P. Gupta, The Roots of Indian Tradition, p. 27.
Chapter 5
1. See also S. P. Gupta, ‘Sociological Interpretation of Ancient Indian Terracottas’, Proceedings of the
level of Hastinapur. (Ancient India, nos. 10–11, 1954–55 pl. XLII, p. 86). The chronology of the late
level of the PGW has now been revised to circa 800–400 bce. The late levels of PGW and early levels
of Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) exist side by side at several sites. (D. P. Agarwal, The
Copper Bronze Age in India, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1971, pp. 84ff, 102). If this is the
case, the animal figurines of Hastinapur fall within the early phase of the period under discussion.
3. A. Ghosh, The City in Early Historical India, Shimla, 1973, p. 71.
4. Moti Chandra, ‘Architectural Data in Jain Canonical Literature’, Journal of the Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 26, 1951, p. 71 and U. N. Ray, Pracina Bharatiya Nagara tatha Nagara-
Sannivesa’ (Hindi) Gopinath Kaviraj Abhinandana Grantha 1967, pp. 447ff.
5. M. M. Singh, Life in North-Eastern India in Pre-Mauryan Times, Delhi, 1967, pp. 236ff.
6. R. S. Sharma, Sūdras in Ancient India, Delhi, 1958, pp. 180–81 and A. Bose, Social and Rural
Economy of Northern India (cir. 600 BC–200 AD), Calcutta: Motilal Banarsidass, 1945, vol. II, pp. 206–
07.
7. Agarwal, The Copper Bronze Age in India, pp. 102, 108.
9. IAR, 1955–56, P. 22, pl. XXXII-A and B. P. Sinha and L. A. Narain, Pataliputra Excavation, 1955–56,
14. IAR, 1960–61, pl. LIX. The report does not indicate the date of the figurines.
15. Sinha and Narain, Pataliputra Excavation, p. 41, pl. x.
16. IAR, 1960–61, p. 5, IAR 1968–69, p. 6 and Dilip Chakrabarti in the Journal of Economic and Social
18. Niharranjan Ray in The Age of Imperial Unity, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, p. 533.
24. Devangana Desai, Erotic Sculpture of India, A Socio–Cultural Study, New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill,
pp. 10–12.
25. IAR, 1954–55, p. 15, pl. XXVI-A.
29. B. P. Sinha and S. C. Roy, Vaisali Excavations 1958–62, Patna: Directorate of Archaeology, 1969, pl.
XL–2 & 4.
30. IAR, 1964–65, pl. XXXVI 1& 15. pp. 42–43.
31. C. R. Sharma, Excavation at Kausambi (1957–59), Allahabad: Institute of Archaeology, pl. 44–53
40. G. Yazdani in the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, 1941, pl. XII, XIII a
& c.
41. H. D. Sankalia, ‘The Nude Goddess or “Shameless Woman” in Western Asia, India and South-
43. W. Van Ingen, Figurines from Selcucia, University of Michigan, 1939, p. 27.
44. V. S. Agrawala in Ancient India, no.4, pp. 125ff, pls. XXXVIII, XXXIX and B. B. Lal in Ancient
46. R. S. Sharma, Light on Early Indian Society and Economy, Bombay: Manaktalas, 1966, p. 78.
47. R. S. Sharma, ‘Decay of Gangetic Towns in Gupta and Post-Gupta Times’, Indian History Congress,
49. S. K. Srivastava’s article in Chavi, Bharat Kala Bhavan, Banaras, Golden Jubilee Volume.
50. Niharranjan Ray in The Classical Age, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, p. 556.
51. Moti Chandra in the Bulletin of the Prince of Wales Museum, no.7, 1959–62.
frequently quoted date of 483 bce. See H. Bechert (ed.), The Dating of the Historical Buddha, pt. 1,
Gottinger, 1991.
3. The exact number is undetermined although 550 is frequently cited.
4. The number of paramitas varies in different sources. The most usual number is six or ten.
5. Kurty Weitzmann, ‘Narration in Early Christendom’ in Narration in Ancient Art, Special Issue of
7. See for instance ch. 5 of Wallace Martin, ‘Narrative Structure: A comparison of Methods’ in Recent
archaeological material in the study of the Buddhist religion. See his ‘Archaeology and Protestant
Suppositions in the Study of Indian Buddhism’ in Koichi Shinohara and Gregory Schopen (eds.),
From Benaras to Beijing: Essays on Buddhism and Chinese Religion, Oakville: Mosaic Press, 1991, pp.
1–23.
9. For the uncertainty regarding the date of this text, see Gregory Schopen, ‘On Avoiding Ghosts and
Social Censure: Monastic Funeral in the Mulesavastivada Vinaya’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 20,
1992, pp. 1–39, p. 36, n. 69.
10. See Angela F. Howard, ‘in Support of a New Chronology for the Kizil Murd Paintings’, Archives of
12. Ibid.
13. Eve Ray, ‘Documentation for Paithan Paintings’, Artibus Asiae, XI, 1978, pp. 239–82.
14. See Victor Mair, Painting and Performance, Chinese Picture Recitation and Its Indian Genesis,
19. For a discussion on the nature of early patronage see Vidya Dehejia, ‘ The Collective and Popular
Basis of Early Buddhist Patronage’ in Barbara Stoler Miller (ed.), The Powers of Art: Patronage in
Indian Culture, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 35–45. See also Gregory Schopen, ‘Monks,
Nuns, and ‘Vulgar’ Practices: The Introduction of the Image Cult into Indian Buddhism’, Artibus
Asiae, 49, 1988–89, pp.153–68.
20. See Dehejia, Discourses in Early Buddhist Art, Appendix 1.
21. While I would agree with Schopen (‘An Old Inscription from Amaravati and the Cult of the Local
Monastic Dead in Indian Buddhist Monasteries’, 313f) that monks at several sites supervised
construction, we shall see that inscriptional and thematic evidence from Bharhut and Sanchi Schopen
indicates the absence of a narrative programme.
22. Two more architraves at Sanchi are devoted to the narration of the Chaddanta Jataka; while one of
them repeats the monoscenic mode, though less imaginatively, the other uses the mode of continuous
narration to present four episodes of the story.
23. Meyer Schapiro, Words and Pictures: On the Literal and Symbolic in the Interpretation of a Text,
25. Susan Huntington in, ‘Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems: Another Look’, Ars Orientalis,
22, 1992, pp. 111–56 prefers to identify this architrave as a later celebration in honour of horse
Kanthaka. In such an interpretation, there is no indexical sign of the Buddha’s presence, and the
parasol merely honours horse Kanthaka himself.
26. Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Translated by Jane Levin), Ithaca:
29. Joanna Williams, ‘From the Fifth to the Twentieth Century and Back’, College Art Journal, 1990,
pp. 363–69.
30. In my preliminary article on the subject (‘On Modes of Narration in Early Buddhist Art’, The Art
Bulletin, 72, 3, 1990, pp. 374–91) I described this mode as linear; it seems to me, however, that the
term sequential is preferable. The mode has sometimes been referred to as cyclical narrative.
31. This is not an incomplete life cycle; rather it is the life–story as narrated in the Lalitavistara text
which commences in the Tushita heavens and ends with the first sermon.
32. I use the word synoptic in a wider sense than A. M. Snodgrass, Narration and Allusion in Archaic
Greek Art, London, 1982 (The Eleventh J. L. Myres Memorial Lecture), who excludes from his
synoptic category those scenes with a repetition of the protagonist.
33. Brilliant, Visual Narratives, p. 18.
34. Dieter Schlingloff, Studies in Ajanta Paintings, New Delhi, 1988, pp. 408–12.
35. See Dieter Schlingloff ’s plan of the Vessantara wall in Ajanta Handbuch der Wandmalerien, vols.
vignettes from the initial stages of the Vessantara story, and wondered if their placement in the
veranda was intended to draw worshippers into the cave to view the complete denouement of the tale
(V. Dehejia, ‘On Modes of Visual Narration in Early Buddhist Art’ and ‘Narrative Modes in Ajanta
Cave 17’, South Asian Studies, 7, pp. 45–57). However, Dieter Schlingloff has recently identified these
scenes as pertaining to the story of Kalodayin, one of the messengers sent by king Suddhodana to
request the Buddha to visit his home town, as contained in the Mulasravastivadin Vinaya (personal
communication). Schlingloff ’s Ajanta-Handbuch der Wandmalereien will contain identifications of all
the murals, together with line drawings, and notes on the textual sources drawn upon by sculptors.
37. John D. Smith, The Epic of Pabuji: A Study, Transcription and Translation, Cambridge: Cambridge
story 2 but is himself interrupted by one of story 2’s characters narrating story 3. Having found our
way back to the mouse, the story moves on but is put on hold by the mouse who tells story 4. The
main story inches along; the tortoise relates story 5; the mouse brings in story 6; and finally the main
legend comes to a conclusion.
39. Remarking that a particular situation had occurred previously, the Buddha repeatedly narrates
stories of previous lives. Thus at the Great Departure, the Buddha narrates the legend of the courtesan
Syama to illustrate that he had left Yashodhara on previous occasions (The Mahavastu, translated by J.
J. Jones, Sacred Books of the Buddhists, 3 vols., London: Luzac and Co., 1949–56, 161 ff.). When king
Suddhodhana refuses to believe that his son has died of excessive penance, the Buddha narrates the
Syama Jataka to illustrate that on a previous occasion too, Suddhodhana had refused to believe his son
dead (ibid., 199 ff.). To illustrate that he had previously fallen into the hands of Mara but had been
able to escape, the Buddha narrates a tortoise Jataka (ibid., 232ff.).
40. See E. B. Cowell, The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births. For instance, the Maha-
panada Jataka (number 264) is interrupted by the story of Surici which is also given independently as
Jataka 489. Similarly the Mittavinda Jataka (number 369) is in fact a fragment of Jataka 41. Other
examples exist.
41. See Wolfgang Iser, ‘The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach’, in Reader-Response
Criticism, ed. J. Tompkins, Baltimore, 1980, pp. 50–69. I have applied Iser’s comments on reader-
response to literature, to viewer-response to art.
42. I am grateful to Gregory Schopen for drawing my attention to J. Przyluski, ‘La Roue de la Vie a
45. ibid.
46. This is suggested by a donation to a chaitya hall at Kuda by a brahmana woman (H. Luders, ‘A List
of Brahmi inscriptions from the Earliest Times to ad 400’, Epigraphia Indica, vol. X, 1912 and a Nasik
inscription in Vihara 3 of Queen Ealasri, mother of the ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni whose donatory
inscription speaks of her son as a peerless brahmana and as one who prevented the intermingling of
the four castes (V. V. Mirashi, The History of the Satavahanas and Western Kshatrapas, Bombay, 1981,
pp. 41–49).
47. I am indebted to V. Narayana Rao (verbal communication) for this observation.
Chapter 7
1. H. Cousens, The Chalukya Architecture of the Kanarese Districts, Calcutta: Government of India,
1926, p. 21.
2. Michael W. Meister and M. A. Dhaky (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture, ‘South
India: Upper Dravidadesa’, New Delhi: Oxford University Press and American Institute of Indian
Studies, 1986, pp. 28–31.
3. Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.), Sacred Landscapes in Asia: Shared Traditions, Multiple Histories, New
James Burgess (Indian Architecture) and R. Phene Spiers (Eastern Architecture), London: J. Murray,
1910, pp. 39–40, 302.
5. Himanshu Prabha Ray and Sudha Ravindranath, ‘The Archaeology of Ritual Spaces: Satellite
7. Meadows Taylor and James Fergusson, Architecture in Dharwar and Mysore, Madras: Asian
10. James Burgess, ‘The Dolmens at Konur and Aihole’, Indian Antiquary 3, 1874, p. 308.
and ‘Temples of Aihole and Pattadakal’, in The Chalukyas of Badami, ed. M. S. Nagaraja Rao,
Bangalore, 1978.
17. M. Rama Rao, Early Calukyan Temples of Andhra Desa, AP Government Archaeological Series, 20,
19. Gary M. Tartakov, The Durga Temple at Aihole: A Historiographical Study, New Delhi: Oxford
21. Aschwin Lippe, ‘Some Sculptural Motifs on Early Chalukyan Temples’, Artibus Asiae, XXIX, no. 1,
1967, pp. 5–24; Aschwin Lippe, ‘Early Chalukya Icons’, Artibus Asiae, XXXIV, no. 4, 1972, pp. 273–
330. Carol R. Bolon, Early Chalukyan Sculpture, Ph.D. Thesis, university of pennsylvania, 1981.
22. George Michell, Early Western Calukyan Temples, London: AARP, 1975; George Michell, ‘Temples
24. Adam Hardy, Indian Temple Architecture: Form and Transformation, New Delhi: IGNCA, 1995, p.
4.
25. The idea of the temple as a symbol of manifestation was put forward by Stella Kramrisch, The
4.
27. S. R. Rao and M. S. Nagaraja Rao (eds.), The Chalukyas of Badami (seminar papers). Bangalore:
1989, p. 456.
30. Indian Archaeology–A Review,, 1970–71, p. 29.
31. D. Kennet and J. V. P. Rao, ‘Two Early Historic Brick Temples at Paithan in Maharashtra’, South
Laxmi-Parvati at Siddhapur, District Solapur, Maharashtra’, Man and Environment, XXIX, no. 2, 2004,
p. 117.
33. I. K. Sarma, The Development of Early Saiva Art and Architecture, New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan,
1982, p. 18.
34. Meister and Dhaky, Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture, p. 22.
36. Himanshu Prabha Ray, ‘Introduction: The Archaeology of Sacred Space’, in Archaeology as History
in Early South Asia, eds. Himanshu Prabha Ray and Carla Sinopoli, New Delhi: Indian Council for
Historical Research and Aryan Books International, 2004, pp. 350–75.
37. Meister and Dhaky, Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture, p. 64.
38. J. F. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, V, 1876, no. XIII, pp. 67–76.
39. S. Rajasekhara, Early Chalukya Art at Aihole, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1985, p. 119.
43. Meister and Dhaky, Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture, pp. 49–52.
44. ‘De-urbanisation was therefore a feature of the first or classic phase of feudalism marked by a
subject peasantry and a dominant class of landlords in conditions of languishing trade and
predominantly agrarian economy. It inaugurated an era of closed economy in which the needs of
landed intermediaries were met locally without the effective intervention of traders whose functions
were reduced to the minimum.’ R. S. Sharma, Urban Decay in India, New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal, 1987, p. 184.
45. R. N. Nandi, Social Roots of Religion in Ancient India, Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi and Co., 1986.
46. ‘Several temples were built outside the main Gupta-Vakataka domain, e.g., in Gujarat, Bengal,
Assam and Punjab. Building of temples away from the main centres and land grants to brahmanas in
uncleared territories led to dissemination of knowledge of agriculture, calendar and technology and
boosted agrarian expansion. It accelerated the Sanskritisation process in tribal areas and remote
villages. The Ramayana and Mahabharata appeared for the first time in temple art at Nachna,
Deogadh, Gaddhwa, Paunar and other sites’, D. Desai, ‘Social Dimensions of Art in Early India’,
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Gorakhpur, 1989–90, p. 31.
47. R. S. Sharma, Indian Feudalism c. AD 300–1200, New Delhi: Macmillan, 1965.
48. ‘The rapid growth in the number and networks of temple centres, whose origins certainly date to
pre-Gupta times, become understandable when we begin to appreciate how closely they were linked,
as were gifts and land grants to Brahmins (brahmadeyas and agraharas) with the formation of
subregional and regional kingdoms and their legitimation, consolidation of their resource bases, and
the forging of linkages for social integration across communities.’ B. D. Chattopadyaya,
‘Historiography, History and Religious Centers’, Gods, Guardians and Lovers, eds. Vishakha N. Desai
and Darielle Mason, New York, Ahmedabad: The Asia Society Galleries in association with Mapin,
1993, p. 42.
49. Vijay Nath, Puranas and Acculturation—A Historico-Anthropological Perspective, New Delhi:
53. J. F. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, XIX, 1890, pp. 7–20.
56. J. F. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, VI, 1877, pp. 72–75.
57. J. F. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, XIX, 1890, p. 10.
58. J. F. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, X, 1881, p. 167.
59. J. F. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, VIII, 1879, pp. 237–45.
62. J. F. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, 1881, pp. 162–165, nos. XCIX and C.
66. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, VIII, 1879, pp. 287–88.
67. Meera Abraham, Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of South India, New Delhi: Manohar, 1988, p. 43.
69. V. V. Mirashi, ‘The Inscriptions of the Silaharas’, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, 6, New Delhi:
1980, p. 70.
72. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, X, 1881, p. 62, no. LXXXV.
73. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, X, 1881, p. 62, no. LXXXVI.
74. Carol Radcliffe Bolon, ‘Reconstructing Galaganatha’ in Kusumanjali, ed. M. S. Nagaraja Rao,
76. Carol Radcliffe Bolon, ‘Two Chalukya Queens and their commemorative temples’in Royal Patrons
and Great Temple Art, ed. V. Dehejia, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 1988, p. 62.
77. Gary M. Tartakov, ‘Interpreting the Inscriptions of Mahakuta Art Historically’ in Indian
Epigraphy: Its Bearing on the History of Art, eds. Frederick M. Asher and G. S. Gai, New Delhi: Oxford
& IBH, 1985, pp. 139–40.
78. Fleet, ‘Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions’, Indian Antiquary, X, 1881, pp. 102–04.
Press, 1977.
2. V. Dehejia and P. Pal (eds.), From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India, 1757–1930,
4. P. Chandra, On the Study of Indian Art, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983, p. 69.
5. Desai points out that the Jaina and the Hindu temples of Khajuraho have a cognate architectural
style and have sculptures of celestial beings and decorative designs that are common to both. D. Desai,
The Religious Imagery of Khajuraho, Mumbai: Franco-Indian Research Pvt. Ltd., 1996, p. 13.
6. K. Deva, Temples of India, Delhi: Aryan Books International, 1995.
8. J. G. Williams, The Art of Gupta India, New Delhi: Heritage Publishers 1983, p. 3.
9. Chandra points out that in Karnataka, where there is plenty of inscriptional evidence of hundreds
of temples erected in the Hoysala kingdom during the reign of the Hoysalas, not more than half a
dozen owe their origin to the ruling monarchs. P. Chandra, On The Study of Indian Art, p. 71.
10. M. Meister, ‘Ethnography, Art History and the Life of Temples’, in Ethnography and Personhood—
Notes from the Field, ed. M. Meister, Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2000.
11. J. H. van Linschoten, who came to India in 1583, comments on Salsette’s frightening impression:
‘By the town of Bassaym . . . there Iyeth an Island called Salsette. There are two of the most reknowned
Pagodes, . . . the images there in cut out of the [very] rockes of the same hill, with the most fearfull
[formes and] shapes . . . all the chambers . . . are all full of carved Pagodes, of so fearefull, horrible &
devilish formes [and shapes] that it is [an abomination to see].’ A. C. Burnell, The Voyage of J. H. van
Linschoten, London, 1885, p. 289.
12. The Italian Gemelli Careri (1700) was the first traveller to make a serious study of Kanheri’s
dimensions. Similarly, Thevenot, in his limited hours, gathered approximate measurements of the
main building and sculptures at Ellora. He also managed to supply a detailed account of the general
design of Kailasa temple, by analysing each of its three main architectural parts. S. N. Sen, Indian
Travels of Thevenot and Careri, New Delhi, 1949, p. 171. Dr G. E. Gemelli Careri, Giro del Mondo, III,
Naples, 1700.
13. Colebrooke’s articles on Hindu philosophy in Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society I, 1827 and
15. Joao do Castro took the Shiva Ardhanarisvara image with a single breast to be the Amazon of
classical mythology and the identification remained firmly embedded in eighteenth century literature
for a long time. Dom Joao de Castro, Primeiro Roteiro da Costa da India desde Goa ate Dio. (Segundo
MS. Autographo, ed. Diogo Kopke, Porto, 1843, pp. 65–81).
16. J. Burgess and J. Fergusson, Cave Temples of India, Delhi: Oriental Book Reprint Corporation,
1880, p. 55.
17. Ibid., p. 368.
19. According to Burgess, the Jaina caves except those near Kailasha were not remarkable for beauty
or magnificence.
20. Ibid., p. 21.
22. By 1873, Burgess had compiled an extensive inventory of principal monuments in Bombay, Sind,
Berar, Central Provinces and Hyderabad, a monograph on Elephanta, and three portfolios of
photography dealing with the Satrunjaya temples, the monuments of Somnath, Junagadh and Girnar
and the ancient architecture of Gujarat and Ahmedabad. Ancient India, vol. 9, Bulletin of the
Archaeological Survey of India, 1953, p. 21.
23. The tremendous amount of documentation undertaken by Burgess is evident in his list of
monographs: Report of the First Season's Operations in Belgaon and Kaladgi Districts (1874); Report on
the Antiquities of Kathiawad and Kachh, being the Result of the Second Season’s Operations of the
Archeaological Survey of Western India 1874–75 (1876); Report on the Antiquities in the Bidar and
Aurangabad Districts, in the Territories of His Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad, being the Result of the
Third season’s Operations of the Archaeological Survey of Western India 1875–76 (1878); Report on the
Buddhist Cave Temples and Their Inscriptions, being part of the Result of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth
seasons Operations of the Archaeological Survey of Western India 1876–77, 1877–78, 1878–1879 (1883);
On the Muhammedan Architecture of Broach, Cambay, Dholka, Champaner and Mahmudabad in
Gujarat (1896); Memorandum on the Antiquities at Dabhoi, Ahmedabad, Than, Junagadh, Girnar and
Dhank (1875); Memorandum on the Remains at Gumli Gop and in Kachh, etc. (1875); Provisional Lists
of Architectural and Other Archaeological Remains in Western India, including the Bombay Presidency,
Sindh, Berar, central Provinces and Hyderabad (1875); Notes on the Antiquities of the Talukas of Parner,
Sanganner, Ankole and Kopargaum, with Revised Lists of Remains in the Ahmadnagar, Nasik, Puna,
Thana, and Kaladgi Zilas (1877); Notes on the Bauddha Rock-Temples of Ajanta, their Paintings and
Sculptures, and of the Paintings of the Ragh Caves, Modern Buddha Mythology, etc. (1879); The Cave
Temples of India (1888, co-author James Fergusson); Inscriptions from tile Cave Temples of Western
India, with Descriptive Notes, etc. (1881, co-author Bhagwanlal Indraji); Lists of the Antiquarian
Remains in the Bombay Presidency, with an Appendix of Inscriptions from Gujarat, Compiled from
Information Supplied by the Revenue, Educational and Other Government Offices (1885), and The
Architectural Antiquities of Northern Gujarat, More Especially of the Districts Included in the Baroda
State (1903, co-author H. Cousens).
24. According to Burgess, ‘the new trend in Europe was to go by architectural features, and it was
allowed to supersede all evidence in ascertaining the age of medieval/classical building . . .’, Burgess
and Fergusson, Cave Temples of India, p. 182.
25. Ibid., p. 184.
29. Burgess traces the evolution of the Buddhist caitya façade from Bhaja, Karle, Ajanta to Ellora.
Ellora Cave 10, i.e., the Visvakarma caitya is pointed by Burgess as showing the development of the
evolution of the caitya from the wooden fronted ones at Bhaja, to the stone fronted ones at Karle, to
the elaborate façade at Ajanta. In Ellora the caitya loses all these external features in its exterior as the
great horseshoe-shaped window of earlier times is contracted into the triple Venetian window. J.
Burgess, Report on the Elura Caves and Brahmanical and Jaina Caves Temples in Western India,
Archaeological Survey of Western India 5, reprint, Delhi, 1970, Ch. 3, p. 9.
30. Burgess and Fergusson, Cave Temples of India, p. 450.
31. J. Burgess, ‘Sketch of Archaeological Research in India During Half a Century’, Journal of the
33. With Havell’s books titled, Indian Sculpture and Painting (1908) and The Ideals of Indian Art
(1911), the New Orientalist discourse steered clear of the Eurocentric point of view that played up the
factor of Hellenic influence and dismissed all Hindu iconography as barbaric.
34. According to Deepak Kannal, Burgess’s study of Ellora represented a pioneering work whose
identification of reliefs seldom goes wrong or the dates prove absurd. He states that if factual data were
criteria of judgment, even a century later we have not added, anything very significant to this report
barring few amendments. D. H. Kannal, Ellora: All Enigma in Structural Styles, Delhi: Books and
Books Publishers and Distributors, 1996, p. 9.
35. W. Spink, ‘Ellora’s Earliest Phase’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Banaras, I, 1975, pp. 11–22.
36. K. V. Soundara Rajan, Keynote Address in R. Parimoo, D. Kannal and S. Panikkar (eds.), ElIora
Caves: Sculpture and Architecture, Delhi: Books and Books Publishers and Distributors, 1988, p. 37.
37. Ibid., p. 33.
38. For examining Ellora, Malandra turned to the Ajanta inscription between caves 26 and 27. Instead
of focussing on the style of the inscriptions, i.e., its triangular headmarks, she deciphered important
names which helped compare with records found further east in Vidarbha. This was unlike the
connections made by historians with north, west and south. In this way it was possible to question
tradition regional distinctions regarding Ellora and Ajanta. G. H. Malandra, ‘Ajanta to Ellora: Back
Again’ in The Art of Ajanta—New Perspectives, eds. R. Parimoo, D. Kannal, S. Panikkar, J. Poduval and
I. Sharma, New Delhi: Books and Books Publishers, 1991, pp. 440–50.
39. Burgess points that at Ellora, unlike at Kanheri and Ajanta, devis, and saktis figure more
frequently. At both Ajanta and Kanheri the Buddha is represented without any supporters or only
with two; at Ellora he is represented with six, eight, or ten of the Bodhisattvas, whilst devis figure
much more prominently here. He links this kind of representation to the mythology of the Yogacharya
school of Buddhism. J. Burgess, Report on the Elura Caves and the Brahmanical and Jaina Caves
Temples in Western India, p. 3.
40. M. Soar, ‘The Tirtha at Ellora’ in Ellora Caves: Sculpture and Architecture, eds. R. Parimoo, D.
Kannal and S. Panikkar, Delhi: Books and Books Publishers and Distributors, pp. 82–84.
41. Cort points out that a community’s religious associations might be in terms of allegiance to varied
deities or sacred centres of worship. The members of a caste could express allegiance to a mythic
kuladevi (associated with their home village) and to a different, goddess for marriage. J. E. Cort,
‘Communities, Temples, Identities: Art Histories and Social Histories in western India’ in Ethnography
and Personhood-Notes from the Field, ed. Michael Meister, Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2000, ch. 5.
42. In his description of Brahmanical Cave 27 at Ellora, Burgess states ‘. . . the arrangement of
separating the hall from the verandah by a wall pierced by three doors and two windows is more in
keeping with the plan of a Bauddha cave than any of the other Brahmanical caves at Ellora’. Burgess
and Fergusson, Cave Temples of India, p. 41.
43. T. V. Pathy, ‘Architectural Interactions Amongst the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain Cave Temples at
Ellora’ in Ellora Caves: Sculpture and Architecture, eds. R. Parimoo, D. Kannal and S. Panikkar, Delhi:
Books and Books Publishers and Distributors, p. 364.
44. K. V. Soundara Rajan suggests that the imagery of Shiva as Lakulisa, where he sits on a lotus with
two rows of adhopadma and urdhuapadma petals, the stalk of which is supported by a pair of nagins,
is usually depicted in Buddhist representations owing to Buddha’s relationship with nagas. The stance
of Lakulisa in the yogasana pose also corresponds to that of Buddha. K. V. Soundara Rajan, Cave
Temples of the Deccan, p. 119.
Ratan Parimoo also points to the similarity between the yogesvara Shiva
in the Kailasha mandapa and that of the meditating Buddha in Cave 12. R.
Parimoo, ‘Some Problems of Ellora from the Point of View of Buddhist
Caves’ in Ellora Caves: Sculpture and Architecture, eds. R. Parimoo, D.
Kannal and S. Panikkar, 1988, ch. 9.
45. Deepak H. Kannal points out that though the vocabulary of the Kailasha is south Indian, space is
treated in a Deccan fashion with its temple on a high plinth like most north Indian structures. Its
inner space of mandapa and garbhagriha also differ from the Kailasanatha and Virupaksha temples
that it is frequently compared with. The Calukyan and Pallava idioms are also evident in both Kailasa
and in structures prior to Kailasa. D. H. Kannal, ‘The Regional Lineages and Possible Masters at
Kailasanatha Temple of Ellora’ in Ellora Caves: Sculpture and Architecture, eds. R. Parimoo, D. Kannal
and S. Panikkar, 1988, p. 260.
46. G. Tartakov, ‘The Pratima Pratishthapanam in the Kailasa', Kusumanjali–New Interpretation of
Indian Art and Culture, ed. M. S. Nagaraja Rao, Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1987.
47. Amongst these individual donors are a Chakresvara of 1235 CE, who is noted under the
Parsavanath figure at Jagannath sabha cave. In the Jain Indra Sabha Cave an inscription under the
Santinatha figure refers to Sohila, a brahmacarin as its patron. Another statue in the cave is referred to
as made by Sri Nagavarma. J. Burgess, Report on the Elura Caves and the Brahmanical and Jains Caves
Temples in Western India, pp. 50–51.
48. M. N. Tiwari and K. Giri, ‘Images of Bahubali in Ellora’ in Ellora Caves: Sculpture and Architecture,
eds. R. Parimoo, D. Kannal and S. Panikkar, Delhi: Books and Books Publishers and Distributors,
1988, pp. 335–39.
49. It is evident from the Suttanipata Gatha of the fifth century that this route was very popular. The
disciples of the Buddhist monk Bavari, reaching Asaka, situated in mid-Godavri valley, proceeded to
Pratisthana and from there to Mahishmati and Ujjayini, and reached Vidisa. M. Chandra, Trade and
Trade Routes in Ancient India, New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1977, p. 24.
50. Malandra, 'Ajanta to Ellora: Back Again’.
51. G. Tartakov and V. Dehejia, ‘Sharing, Intrusion and lnfluence’, Artibus Asiae, 45, 1984, pp. 267–
345.
52. The three new terms suggested are: (1) Sharing: When two works draw upon a common or shared
artistic tradition. (2) Influence: When one cultural form changes other cultural forms. (3) Intrusion:
When something not previously present enters into local patterns, through local intervention, or
exogenous borrowing. Ibid.
53. D. Desai, The Religious Imagery of Khajuraho.
54. P. V. Ranade, ‘Echoes of Ellora in Early Marathi literature’ in Ellora Caves: Sculpture and
Architecture, eds. R. Parimoo, D. Kannal and S. Panikkar, Delhi: Books and Books Publishers and
Distributors, ch. 4.
55. Ranade refers to the contemporary folk tale that circulates amongst villagers living around Ajanta
and Ellora. The genesis of the monuments is described as follows: Long, long ago on a full moon
night, devis, devanganas, apsaras, gandharvas and kinnaras visited Sahyadri Mountain. Some of these
who came to Ajanta and Ellora were so enchanted by the scenic beauty that they played and danced
there the whole night. They forgot Indra’s instruction to be home before sunrise. When day broke they
were still playing on the cliffs and ridges of Ajanta and Ellora. Indra’s curse and divine folly resulted in
the transformation of these celestials into stone images. Ibid., p. 108.
56. Ibid., p. 108.
Goth-Manglod, and Ranchorray in Khed, J. E. Cort, ‘Patronage, Authority, Proprietary Rights, and
History’ in Ethmography and Personhood—Notes from the Field, ed. M. Meister, Jaipur: Rawat
Publications, 2000, p. 166.
Chapter 9
1. Part 3, 46, 1–19; page references are to Venkatesvara Press edition (Bombay, 1923).
4. E. Washburn Hopkins, Great Epic of India, New York: C. Scribner’s, 1901, pp. 58–84.
5. F. E. Pargiter, Dynasties of the Kali Age, Oxford, 1913, Introduction, pp. XIII, XVI.
8. Mahā-Umagga-Jātaka, p. 212.
9. Sārattha-Pakāsinῑ, Siamese edition, part 2, p. 398, Cf. B. M. Barua’s, History of Pre-Buddhistic Indian
Philosophy, p. 110; ‘Maskari-Gósala’s Early Life’, Calcutta Review, June 1927, pp. 364–66.
10. Benares ed., pp. 32, 44.
11. Mūdrārāklaṣa, Act 1, Cf. Harṣa-Carita, Nirṇaya Sāgar: Press Edition, V, p. 153, quoted and
14. Citralakṣaṇa, translated by Berthold Laufer, Dokumente der indischen Kunst, Leipzig: Otto
17. Edited by Sarat Chandra Das (Calcutta, 1901); cf. Laufer, Dokumente, p. 186.
18. ŚRa 4.46. 145–46, Greek tradition, agreeable only to an appreciation of the naturalistic aspect of
art, has it that painting began with the outlining of a man’s shadow (Pliny the Elder, Natural History,
35–45).
19. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 7 (1875). The BṛS (Translated by H. Kern), pp. 93–97.
22. A photo taken before restoration of one of the female figures painted on the rock of Sigiriya shows
Saṁyutta-Nikāya, part 3, p. 152, where the Buddha has incidentally mentioned the following
vegetable substance used by the dyers or painters for preparing dyes or colours: (I) resin (rajanā),
lac(lākhā), turmeric (haliddā), indigo (nῑlῑ), and madder (ma jeṭṭhi).
24. ŚRa 46.119–30.
25. Cf. K. P. Jayaswāl, ‘A Hindu Text on Painting’, Modern Review, 33: 734.
26. For the preparation of vajralepa, see BṛS 57, Abhilaśitārtha Cintāmani 86 ff., and ŚRa 131–33.
27. For the preparation of the wall underneath the vajralepa cover. Cf. VDhP 3.40.1ff. and ŚRa 41–42.
35. The Viṣṇudharmottara declares the rules for painting as valid also for sculpture, which either may
be hollow or massive (chapter 43); worth noticing as an example of hollow sculpture is the use of skin,
coated with clay and painted over. Hollow figures must have stood among other places also on the
stage, where images of gods, demons, yakṣas, elephants, horses, deer, and birds were to be made of
clay, wool, cloth, leather, or iron (27, 3).
xv; The Jataka, ed. E. B. Cowell, London, 1957 (henceforth Jataka), p. viii.
2. Jataka, I, p. ix.
3. Ibid.
4. Sukumar Sen, Origin and Development of the Ramayana Legend, Calcutta, 1977, p. 16.
5. Jataka, I, p. X.
7. Uma Chakravarti, ‘Renouncer and Householder in Early Buddhism’, Social Analysis, 13, 1983, pp.
70–83.
8. Natalie Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, 1975, p. 122.
9. Jataka, I, p. ix.
10. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, London, 1978, p. 70.
11. K. Meenakshi, ‘Old Indo-Aryan to Middle Indo-Aryan’ in Aryan’ in Situating Indian History, eds.
13. Ibid., p. x.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., p. 33; A. L. Basham, Wonder That was India, Calcutta, 1963, pp. 274–75.
18. Stuart Blackburn and A. K. Ramanujan (eds.), Another Harmony, Delhi, 1986, p. 11.
19. Roger Chartier, ‘Intellectual History or Socio-cultural History? The French Trajectories’ in Modern
European Intellectual History, eds. D. La Capra and S. L. Kaplan, New York, 1982, pp. 34–37.
20. Michel de Certeau, quoted in ibid., p. 37.
21. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, London, 1980.
23. Brenda E. F. Beck, ‘Social Dyads in Indic Folktales’ in Blackburn and Ramanujan, Another
31. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
38. Dialogues of the Buddha, III, translated as Dialogues of the Buddha by T. W. Rhys Davids, London,
1977, p. 211.
39. Jataka, I, pp. 773–75.
44. Uma Chakravarti, ‘Conceptualizing Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class
and State’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XXVIII, no. 14, 3 April 1993.
45. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism, New York, 1916, p. 154.
63. Dilip Menon, ‘The Moral Community of the Teyyattam: popular culture in late colonial Malabar’,
66. Hans Medick, discussion at a seminar in the Department of History, University of Delhi,
November 1987.
67. Jataka, I, p. 156.
77. Therigatha, translated by C. A. F. Rhys Davids as Psalms of the Sisters, London, 1945, pp. 116–19.
78. I use common sense here not in the Gramscian sense but in its lay meaning. Punna’s ability to cut
through the layers of knowledge is an indication of her resistance to the world vision of the brahmana,
preventing it from eventually becoming embodied as common sense in the Gramscian sense. See
Joseph V. Femia, Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness and the Revolutionary Process,
Oxford, 1987, p. 132.
Chapter 11
1. A. K. Warder dates the Nāṭyaśāstra (henceforth NS) to circa second century ce and the
kāvyālamkāra to the fourth or fifth century ce. Indian Kāvya Literature, vol. I.: Literary Criticism,
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989, pp. 21, 82.
2. Warder, Indian Kāvya literature, pp. 128–136.
3. Romila Thapar, Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories, New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1999, pp. 10, 16;
D. D. Kosambi and V. V. Gokhale (eds.) The Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa, vol. II, 1957, Harvard Oriental
Series, vol. 42, Harvard: Harvard University Press, p. xlvi.
4. Thapar, Sakuntala, p. 8.
5. The reference to festivals as occasions for the performance of plays is from NS IV 269. This is also
the opinion of J. A. B. van Buitenen, (van Buitenen, transl., Two Plays of Ancient India, Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1971, p. 26); Warder (Indian Kāvya Literature, pp. 13, 123); Manmohan Ghosh (Ghosh,
transl., The Nāṭyaśāstra ascribed to Bharata muni, vols. I–II, Revised Second Edition, Calcutta:
Manisha Granthalaya, 1967, vol. I. pp. xlix, li); and A. B. Keith (Keith, The Sanskrit Drama in Its
Origin, Development, Theory and Practice, London: Oxford University Press, 1924, pp. 370–71). In the
Kuṭṭanῑmataṃ, 792 Samarabhata witnesses a musical play at the temple of Lord Śiva in Varanasi. Cited
in Warder, Indian Kāvya Literature, vol. IV, p. 575.
6. Mālatῑ. I. Prologue, p. 2. Bhavabhūti’s Mālatῑmādhava (Text and Translation by M. R. Kale, Third
Kavi, vols. I–IV, Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1934. The Nāṭyaśāstra ascribed to Bharata muni.
10. For example, Edward C. Dimock, Jr. (in Dimock Jr., Edwin Gerow, C. M. Naim, A.K. Ramanujan,
Gordon Roadarmel, J.A.B. van Buitenen, The Literatures of India: An Introduction Chicago/London:
University of Chicago Press, 1974, p. 45 writes: ‘. . . the theatre deliberately limits its audience to the
educated and refined, . . . [and] rouse[s] in the audience a symphony of moods beyond the
uneducated sensibilities of the uncultured’. For another instance, see Thapar, Sakuntala, p. 46; van
Buitenen in Dimock, Gerow et al, The literatures of India, p. 93. van Buitenen also writes: ‘The
prevalence of Sanskrit and the variety of Prakrits that were used demanded of the audience an
enormous erudition, and it was at the erudite and cultured spectator that the play was aimed’ (ibid., p.
113). Please note that this is an understanding largely based on the concept of sahṛdaya that occurs
only in late works on rhetoric. It indicated a spectator ‘with heart’, i.e. emotionally refined—at best, the
ideal spectator at whom the rasa theory of dramatics was aimed. In contrast to these scholars, taking a
minority stand, Warder observes in connection with the social milieu of the Kavya as described in the
NS and the Kamasutra that: ‘“classical” literature is not opposed to “popular” and has usually sought a
mass audience’ (in A. L. Basham (ed.), A Cultural History of India, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1975, p. 175).
11. NS XXVII 57, 61; XXVI 126.
16. NS XV 2. A reading of the NS reveals how costumes and make-up were far from mere props in
early India’s understanding of histrionic representation. Chapter XXIII tells us the great deal about
characterisation and mood and plot that was conveyed by carefully calibrated conventions regarding
colour of clothing and face-paint, ornaments, hairstyle, masks, etc. Chapters VIII to XIII make exactly
the same point vis-à-vis gestures and expressions, ranging from gaits to glances. Thus, the NS XXIII 3
comments: ‘Different types of dramatis personae indicated first by their costumes and make up,
accomplish representation without much effort by means of gestures and the like’ [emphasis added].
17. T. Burrow in Basham, A Cultural History of India, p. 162.
18. Burrow in Basham, A Cultural history of India, p. 165; Thapar, Sakuntala, p. 78; Hans Henrich
Hock, and Rajeshwari Pandharipande cited in Jan E. M. Houben, ed., Status and ideology of Sanskrit,
Leiden/New York: E. J. Brill, 1996, p. 160; Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early
Medieval India, First south Asian edition, New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2006, p. 81.
19. NS XVIII 49.
20. NS XVIII.
21. Keith, The Sanskrit Drama in Its Origin, Development, Theory and Practice, p. 74; Sheldon Pollock
in Sheldon Pollock (ed.), Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 62–63; Dimock in Dimock, et al., The Literatures of India, p. 12.
22. Houben cites several pieces of evidence in favour of Sanskrit as a language which was spoken and
not only written, Houben, Status and Ideology of Sanskrit, pp. 166–73. However, while the jury is out,
this is probably not what the majority of scholars believe. Pollock (in Houben, Status and Ideology of
Sanskrit, p. 198), for example, is very clear that Sanskrit was never the language of the home or even
the court, and Dimock in Dimock, et al., The Literatures of India, pp. 7, 11 would agree (‘it was always
a second language even for those who belonged to the rarified group of highly educated knowers of
Sanskrit’).
23. Kāvyādarśa I, p. 3. This verse does not actually name Sanskrit and Prakrit (and Apabhramsha) but
refers to ‘the three kinds of speech in which the world’s affairs are conducted’. This has commonly
been interpreted as referring to the three languages mentioned.
24. Ibid. I, p. 32; Pollock, Literary Cultures in history: Reconstructions from South Asia, p. 61.
26. Ibid. I, p. 37 says that the sargabandha or mahākāvya is in Sanskrit, the skandhaka etc. (sic) in
Prakrit, and the osara etc. (sic) in Apabhramsha, while drama is mixed (miśrakaṃ). The skandhaka
and osara were distinguished by the metre they used, and are not common among the texts that have
come down to us.
27. The way these have been defined or distinguished in traditional works on poetics suggests to me
that Sanskrit and Prakrit may in fact have been not different languages as much as different forms of
linguistic or speech practice (vācaṃ, bhāṣā): Sanskrit, that which is shown to be rigorously worked out
and systematised (anuśiṣṭa, anvākhyātā); Prakrit, that which is also disciplined (śiṣṭa), derived from
Sanskrit with or without changes (tadbhav, tatsaṃ), and assimilated partially from local speech (deśῑ).
Of course, I am no linguist and a provocative statement such as this would call for detailed
investigation and argumentation relating to the structure of these languages, which is beyond my
brief. But this is my impression of Kāvyādarśa I, pp. 3, 33 and NS XVIII 3. The NS (XVIII 30) also
speaks of Sanskrit and Prakrit as the two ways (dvividham) of recitation (pāthya) in the ‘common
language’ (Ghosh’s translation of the word jātibhāṣa) which relates to the four castes
(jātibhāṣāasrayam caturvarṇyasamāśrayaṃ). For a discussion of Sanskrit as the hyper- and Prakrit as
the hypo-varieties within the same language, known as diglossia, see Houben in Houben, Status and
Ideology of Sanskrit, pp. 158–80.
28. NS XVII 121.
29. See Shonaleeka Kaul, Imagining the Urban: Sanskrit and the City in Early India, Delhi: Permanent
recent Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India (2006). Departing from the tendency
to reduce literature, or art more generally, to a legitimising force for the ruling class, the book sees
Kāvya aesthetics as documenting practices constitutive of relationships between the king, the harem,
and courtiers, and as ‘assisting the education of elites in a mannered system of emotions and
dispositions central for the maintenance of formal relationships at court’ (p. 23). His presentation and
comparison of the material is fresh and persuasive, but the fact remains that Kāvyas are still being
viewed in terms of fulfilling an overwhelmingly political function/agenda. In its exclusively court-
centric perspective, Ali sometimes over-reads the presence of the court in the themes and
terminology of the texts, going so far as to characterize the Nāṭyaśāstra as a book of ‘courtly aesthetics’
(p. 171). His work has the merit of bringing in the urban context of the cultural dispensation he talks
about—only to entirely subordinate the city to the court: in refined matters social and cultural, ‘the
ways of the town mirrored those of the court’ (p. 61); the ways of the latter formed ‘an acculturative
mechanism’ (p. 22) and ‘seeped into the city’ (p. 23). Clearly, the court is seen as the source of cultural
ideals associated with the city. No matter that the ideas and practices in a text like the Kāmasūtra, so
central to Ali’s discussion, are designated by the text as ‘urban’ (nāgaraka) rather than anything else!
Of course, Ali would argue that urban and urbane were synonymous with courtly, but to so privilege
the royal world may be to foreclose exploration of the myriad institutions and influences early
urbanism represented.
Chapter 12
1. K. G. Sesha Aiyar, Cera Kings of the Sangam Period, London, 1937, p. 147.
14. Cf. J. R. Marr, ‘The Eight Tamil Anthologies with special reference to Purananuru and
Patirruppattu’, thesis approved for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London,
1958, pp. 439 f.
15. Patirruppattu (henceforth PrP) 40: 22–26; 41: 6.
24. Such songs have survived to this day. Any folk-song collection in Tamil or Malayalam would have
polippattu, ‘song in praise of abundance’. Cf. HMV LP Record, Folk Songs of South India (ECLP 2259).
25. Purapporul Veṇpāmālaṅ (henceforth PPVM) v. 159.
33. I. Shekhar, Sanskrit Drama: Its Origin and Decline, Leiden, 1960 p. 88.
34. The heroic poems contain stray references to the costume and make up of dancers. Cf. PN 29: 22–
23.
35. PN 336: 6; CPA 125; Kurincippattu (henceforth KP) 193; AN 138: 9, 301: 20, 382: 4; MPK 268.
Three poems in the anthologies—PN 64, Kuruntokai (henceforth KT) 178 and 203—are attributed to
persons whose names seem to have some connexion with an orchestra: e.g., Netumpalliyattan, ‘he of
the big orchestra’. Obviously it is not a proper noun, but an appellative noun.
36. ‘History of Tamil Drama’, in Bharatiya Natya Sahitya, Govinda Das Commemoration Volume, 1956,
pp. 421–22.
37. An interesting instance of the survival of muḻavu among the dancers in Malabar is pointed out by
Dr. C. Achyuta Menon, ‘The Histrionic Art of Malabar’, Annals of Oriental Research of the Madras
University iv, pt. i, 1939, p. 15.
38. PPA 55–56.
39. PN 104: 12–13; MPK 2–3, 143; MK 605; PrP 41: 1–5, 56: 2.
44. PN 152.
46. N. Chengalvarayan, ‘Music and Musical Instruments of the Ancient Tamils’, QJMS, n.s. xxvi
(1935), 85 f.
47. Cilappatikāram (henceforth Cil) 3: 14 and comm.
51. The word connotes either an open–air ground or some common house or building. In any case
they served many purposes: cattle grazing ground, village theatre, village assembly hall, women’s
gathering place, etc. Cf. Studies, pp. 224 f.
52. AN 301: 23–25. Cf. PN 29: 24.
53. Connected with it is āṭumakaḷ , a woman of the dancing community. Cf. NT 95: 1–2.
55. KP 192–5.
61. S. Vithiananthan, ‘The Pattuppattu—a historical, social and linguistic study’, thesis approved for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London, 1950, p. 194; Studies, pp. 290 f.
62. PN 33: 16–17.
74. MK 219.
75. PN 139: 4.
78. Cf. M. S. H. Thompson, ‘The Auvai of the Sangam Anthologies’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental
categories: (1) stringed instruments, (2) wind instruments, and (3) percussion instruments. For details
and subdivisions, see P. Sambamoorthy, ‘Catalogue of the Musical Instruments Exhibited in the
Government Museum, Madras’, Bulletin of the Madras Government Museum, New Series iii, pt. 3,
1931.
80. TMA 243–6.
84. AN 378: 8.
96. Cf. Manusmrti, x. 11; also N. K. Sidhanta, London, 1929 The Heroic Age of India, pp. 63 f.
are denoted by the same word or synonyms. Ta. kol, cenkol; Gk. rhabdos, kerykeion. Cf. J. E. Harrison,
Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 44–47.
105. DED, s.v. 3563, p. 288.
109. Ibid.
110. PN 27:7–9.
111. Cf. G. Murray, A History of Ancient Greek Literature, p. 3 and London, 1902 A. S. Mackenzie, The
117. The many dialogue songs in the Kaliltokai abounding in dramatic qualities might be said to
120. PN 162.
122. Tolkāppiyam, Porulatikāram, Ceyyuliyal, sutra (henceforth Tol. Porul. Ceyyul., cū) 393.
123. Cf. A. C. Chettiar, Advanced Studies in Tamil Prosody (Third Edition), Annanalai Nagar, 1957, p.
125. Vithiananthan, ‘The Pattupattu’, p. 128. Cf. M. Winternitz, History of Indian Literature, ii. 475,
where he says that it was among the merchant class in particular that the Jains found their most loyal
lay adherents; also D. D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, p. 158.
126. DED, s.v. 850, p. 75.
131. DED, s.v. 1677, p. 136; also the word kilavi, ‘word, speech, language, utterance’ (ibid.). The verb
kila, ‘to speak’ (i.e., ‘to be heard’). In both the bardic corpus and the Tol. kiḷavi means ‘poetical
utterances’, a fact which points to the oral and auditory nature of the literature of the early period. On
the ‘concept’ of utterance in oral poetry see A. B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, pp. 25 f.
132. PN 53: 12.
135. v. 163.
137. Studies, p. 5; K. A. N. Sastri, Studies in Chola History and Administration, Madras, 1932, p. 9.
138. PN 99. 2.
140. MK 61.
141. PN 9: 10.
Corpolivkual, pp. 125–53. Cf. P. T. S. Iyengar, History of the Tamils, (henceforth HT), pp. 495 f.
144. Marr, ‘The Eight Tamil Anthologies’, pp. 285, 292.
147. GL 1, p. 2.70.
148. M. I. Finley, ‘Myth, Memory, and History’, History and Theory, iv, no. 3 1965, p. 283.
155. GL 1, p. 276.
156. e.g. Iṉṉa nārpatu and Juiyavainārpatu are actually verse catalogues of painful and unpleasant,
and delightful and pleasant things and deeds respectively: see K. Zvelebil, Archiv Orientalniri xxv
(1957), 56–82; xxvi (1958), 385–426.
157. PN 158:1–6.
160. KP 61–95.
169. MK 55.
171. TMA 257–76. This factor must have contributed to the poem becoming a liturgy.
173. The notable part played by Jain monks in the literary and grammatical developments in Tamil
has been noted by every writer on the subject. One need only recall the important historical events of
the establishment of a Dravida Sangha at the capital of the Pantiya country by the Jain monk Vajra
Nandi in 470 CE. See Studies, pp. 21 f.; HTLL, pp. 14, 58, 61 ff.; Winternitz, History of Indian Literature,
pp. 428, 595.
174. The Tamil word palli means, among other things, a Jaina temple or hermitage, and a school. This
p. 15.
Chapter 13
1. Alan Dundes and Carl R. Pagter, Work Hard and You Shall be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the
6. J. F. Stall, Namburi Veda Recitation, vol. 5 of Disputationes Reno-Trajectinae, ed. J. Gonda, Hague:
Mouton, 1961.
7. Archer Taylor, English Riddles from Oral Tradition, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.
9. A.K. Ramanujan, ‘The Indian Oedipus’ in Oedipus: A Folklore Casebook, ed. Alan Dundes and
Press, 1989.
15. Alf Hiltebeital, The Cult of Draupadi: Mythologies from Gingee to Kuruksetra, Chicago: University
Oral Epics in India, eds. Stuart Blackburn, et al., Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
19. Stuart Blackburn and A. K. Ramanujan, eds., Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore of
India, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. See also Brenda E. F. Beck, Folktales of India,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982 and Gene H. Roghair, The Epic of Palnadu: A Study and
Translation of Palnati Vinula Katha, a Telugu Oral Tradition from Andhra Pradesh, India, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982.
20. David Shulman, ‘Battle as metaphor in Tamil folk and classical traditions’ in Another Harmony:
New Essays on the Folklore of India, eds. Blackburn and Ramanujan, 1986.
21. A. K. Ramanujan, ‘On Folk Puranas’, Conference on Puranas, University of Madison, Wisconsin.
24. I have said little about Indian oral tales, though I end this paper with an example. See Beck,
Folktales of India for a recent, wide selection with anthropological notes, and Kirin Narayan,
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching, Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989 for a fresh contextual study of tales in religious teaching.
25. This tale, reproduced here in translation from my forthcoming book of Kannada folktales, is also
told in many other regions and languages of India. The Stith Thompsen index of international tale
types (1961) identifies it as 1534 An Innocent Man Chosen to Fit the Stake. This tale has so far been
recorded only for India, and twenty-one variants have been recorded in Kashmiri, Kannada, Tamil,
Marathi, Hindi, Garhwali, and so on.