Visvarupa - Report Vol. III Page 15

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Viśvarūpa

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Vaikuṇṭha-Viśvarūpa Vol. III

47. D. Ref.:

DREIKOPFIGER VIṢṆU (FRAGMENT)

Stein: 19 x 21.5 x 7.5

Chamba District -der genaue Fundort ist unbekannt- (Ravi-Tal), Himachal Pradesh [BhS Chamba]

47.1 DESCRIPTION

This piece is a damaged stone bust, the upper part of a three-headed Viṣṇu image having no fourth face on the back of the nimbus. Very few details are preserved on this fragment. The central face is obliterated, and the left side-face (which would have represented the profile of the Varāha-avatāra) is lost.

However, the triple-peaked crown, the large diamond-shaped ear-ornaments enclosing a smaller diamond surrounded by round gems or pearls, and above all the large abstract forms of the Narasiṃha profile, which are all in evidence on this fragment, are features of the wood-carving style exemplified by figures on the doorframe of the Śakti-Devī temple at Chatradhi (No.511 and also of the metal image in the Hari Rai temple at Chamba (No.42). It can be dated to the 10th century or slightly later. This fragment therefore provides evidence for the existence of multi-headed Viṣṇu images in the indigenous Ravi Valley style being produced in stone, as well as in wood and metal, at the time when images were also being made there in the Kashmiri style (No.46).

47.2 PRELIMINARY IDENTIFICATION

Stone bust, part of a three-headed VIṢṆU (probably intended as four-headed Vaikuṇṭha) made in the Chamba region in the 10th or 11th century, in the local Ravi-Valley style.

Nr. 47: Ravi-Tal

BhS Chamba

Visnu, Chamba Distt., Himachal Pradesh

48. D. Ref.:

DREIKOPFIGER VIṢṆU (FRAGMENT)

Stein: 21.5 x 23 x 12

Chamba District -der genaue Fundort ist unbekannt- (Ravi-Tal), Himachal Pradesh [BhS Chamba)

48.1 DESCRIPTION

This is a late bust of three-headed Viṣṇu. The chest and most of the central face are severely damaged. The profiles of Narasiṃha (right and Varāha (left) are preserved, along with the neck, part of the crown, and a fraction of the nimbus. The animal profiles slope downward in the Kashmiri manner, like the profile of Narasiṃha in No.47, and, despite a clear degeneration in the earlier style, signs of the abstract treatment of volumes in these animal-faces still linger. The crown was triple-peaked, and the nimbus was carved with a lotus design. The central face has elongated ears with large jewelled ornaments hung from the lobes. The neck is stretched and ringed (the late misunderstanding of the trirekha), and there is a small beaded necklace. The remains of a cruciform keyūra-ornament are seen on the left upper arm.

48.2 PRELIMINARY IDENTIFICATION

Stone bust of three-headed VIṢṆU, a late version of the l0th-century types (e.g. No.471 which were probably intended to represent the four-headed Vaikuṇṭha of Kashmir in the indigenous Ravi-Valley style of Chatradhi and Chamba (Hari Rai bronze). This piece appears to date from the 13th century or possibly later.

Nr. 48: Ravi-Tal

BhS Chamba

Visnu, Chamba Distt., Himachal Pradesh

49. D. Ref.:

DREIKOPFIGER VIṢṆU AUF GARUḌA

Holz: ca. 90 x 120

10 Hande

Vordere Giebelspitze, Lakkhnā-/Lakṣanā-Devī-Tempel, Bharmaur/ Brahmapura (Brahmor) (Budhal-Tal), Himachal Pradesh

49.1 DISCUSSION

This woodcarving, on a flat-based, trilobate slab of deodar wood, represents Viṣṇu seated on anthropomorphic Garuḍa. It has been erected behind a triangular frame with a large trilobate section cut away. This frame is erected on a separate wooden beam, carved with nine figures. The apex of the triangle is fitted into the gable-end of the temple, but the angle is more acute than the pitch of the roof: the intervening space has been inexpertly filled by the insertion of two long beams, of which that on the left is too short and has had to be supported on a wooden block. The trilobate shape of the cutaway in the frame does not exactly match the size or proportions of the somewhat smaller Viṣṇu panel. What appear to be loose pieces of wood can be seen in the gaps between the two apparently serving as ties or packing. It is doubtful whether the triangular frame is original to the temple, and the Viṣṇu panel is clearly also a separate piece that was inserted in to the frame later; both are presumably from other temples of the same pitched-roof style though of slightly different dimensions. Goetz suggests as much (1955: 66. 84-85, 101), theorizing that the metal Narasiṃha once stood in a wooden temple having the Viṣṇu panel on its facade.

In his book, The Early Wooden Temples of Chamba (Leiden 19 publishes mostly photographs taken by Ghulam Nabi, Jean-Philippe Vogel's photographer, during the latter's tours of the Chamba region between 1902 and 1908, as Vogel is careful to mention in his Foreword (ibid., ix), and as Goetz acknowledges, adding that many of Vogel's negatives had been lost in India during Partition (ibid., xiii), No close-up illustration of the Viṣṇu panel on the Lakṣaṇa-Devī temple appears, either in this book or in Vogel's work. although there are detail photographs of interior details such as pillar capitals. Goetz writes that he did visit Brahmor during a protracted stay at Chamba in 1939: this appears to have been his only visit to the village (ibid., xi), and his descriptions of the iconography of the images there were not published until some fifteen years later. On the other hand, all Vogel's notes, "especially detailed notes on Brahmor, Chatrarhi and Marul-Udaipur", were placed at Goetz's disposal (ibid.). Based presumably on his experience at Brahmor in 1939, Goetz emphasizes the difficulties in identifying the iconography of the figures on the facade, "for the snow and rain of thirteen centuries have utterly corroded even the resistant deodar wood, so that only the stronger fibers of the carved surface remain. Thus, from some distance the figures, deeply carved, appear quite distinct, but if one approaches in order to study the details, the definition becomes more and more indistinct" (ibid., 75). This is certainly true; and it applies not only to the doorframe and pediment, but also to the Viṣṇu panel ensconced high under the eaves of the gable. Nevertheless, his description of the doorframe is curiously vague as regards iconography. On the inner śākhā, he recognises one figure which "seems to represent a three-headed diva, another Vishnu with human, boar and lion head, and a third possible Sūrya"; while of the figures on the other rūpaśākhā, he claims that "they are so badly damaged that they can no more be recognized" (ibid., 76). It is difficult to explain why during his examination of this doorframe Goetz should have failed to notice such figures as six-headed Brahmā, Durgā with her lion, and Durgā Mahiṣāsurmardinī. They are identifiable despite the condition of the wood. These oversights unfortunately suggest that his apparently precise, yet erratic descriptions of the figure on the Viṣṇu panel -- which is awkwardly located, as severely eroded as the door-jambs, and always in poor light (since it faces north across the narrow valley, never receiving direct sunlight, and is overshadowed by the protruding eaves)) -- should be treated with a degree of caution. For many years, scholars have had only the rather poorly reproduced plate in the 1955 publication (PL.II), and Goetz's exceedingly sketchy description, at least partly based on Vogel's notes from the turn of the century (the notes, that is, of an excellent epigraphist, not of an art-historian), from which to assess the iconography of this temple facade. Krishna Deva's description of the Viṣṇu carving, for example, published as recently as 1991, appears to be based on an interpretation of Goetz's descriptions (Encyclopaedia of Temple Architecture II.2, Delhi 1991:100): "...a figure of 12-armed Viśvarūpa Viṣṇu seated on Garuḍa (a typical specimen of ninth-century Kashmir art)". Compare this passage with Goetz 1955:66 "At Brahmor the upper gable of the Lakṣaṇā Devī temple is a characteristic Kashmiri product", and 1955:77 "Viṣṇu, with three faces (boar, human and lion) amidst a mass of ringlets, once had twelve arms [sic]...", and 1953, repr.1969:134 "... Vishnu in his Kashmiri aspect as highest godhead three-headed and fourteen armed [sic], in a trifoliated arch in the best style of Martand and Avantipur".

I was able to study and photograph this Viṣṇu panel at Bharmaur at close quarters by standing on a ladder placed against the gable. On the proper right side of the face, below the crown rim and behind the ear, which is where the profile of the Narasiṃha-head would normally appear if present, only long coils of hair are to be seen, descending diagonally to the right shoulder. The head of Narasiṃha, however, is not placed there but higher, emerging from, the level of the rim of the crown; and the same applies to the Varāha-head on the proper left.

My observations do not confirm Goetz's view that this figure of Viṣṇu has twelve (according to his 1955 description) or fourteen (in his 1953 article, reprinted in 1969) arms. In my observations, there are ten arms. An iconographical comparison with another ten-armed Viṣṇu figure from Kashmir now becomes possible. The attributes of ten-armed Viśvarūpa on the 10th-century Devsar frame (No. 02 in this Report) are the following. Padma and śaṅkha are held in the two front hands, and two others rest on the heads of personified cakra and gadā. The remaining six attributes have to be divided into three pairs. These are khaḍga and khaṭvāṅga, sruk and pustaka, and two disks representing the sun and moon.

The Bharmaur wood-relief has the same number of hands, according to my observations, and in six of them Viṣṇu probably holds the same attributes (padma and śaṅkha, personified gadā and cakra, and the two disks). The remaining two pairs are different, although there is a possible similarity in one point, viz. that one of Viṣṇu's attributes is pared with what might be a Śaiva symbol: sword and khaṭvāṅga in the Devsar bronze, parasol and possibly the triśūla in the Bharmaur wood-panel.

The image as I observed it consists of the following elements.

49.1.1 DESCRIPTION

Viṣṇu is seated in pralambapādāsana above and behind anthropomorphic Garuḍa, who is flanked by two standing figures. The axis of the main central arch thus consists of Garuḍa surmounted by Viṣṇu, and the remainder of this arch is filled with the many arms and attributes of Viṣṇu, including two accompanying figures. This is flanked by two additional figures in graceful and energetic dancing postures, placed in the lobes of the arch.

Garuḍa is represented as a stocky but not corpulent figure with two arms and the tapering legs of a bird, a fold of cloth hanging between them. The arms are lowered, the forearms held out nearly horizontally with the hands supporting Viṣṇu's feet. The head is large and rounded, with protruding eyes: the beak-like shape of the nose is not detectable. The hair is arranged in a flat jaṭābhāra, bound across the middle and looping down at the sides. From the ears hang large vṛttakuṇḍalas, lying diagonally between the ear lobes and the shoulders. The plumage takes the form of long tail and wing feathers, spreading diagonally upward from behind his legs and hips, passing behind the two standing figures within the main arch, and extending out to the dancers at the extremities of the side-arches. Photographs taken from ground level do not show the majority of these details, because at that angle the edge of the beam below the panel obscures them.

Viṣṇu is seated behind Garuḍa's head with his knees splayed and slightly raised to the sides. The folds of the lower garment can be seen on the thighs, and its hem appears below the knees. The upavīta is shown hanging vertically from the left shoulder to the left thigh. The face is oval shaped, and the eyes are half or fully closed; the remainder of the facial features are damaged. The headband below the crown can be seen to consist of horizontal lines on the sides of the head, with short vertical incisions on its underside apparently representing the hairline. Some motif, now damaged, originally appeared at the centre of this band. Above it, the crown consisted of three oval elements with detailed ornamentation, now blurred and broken, on the central one. The ear lobes are long, with pierced slits from which ornaments of indeterminate shape but modest size hang down to the shoulders. Long braids or coils of hair hang diagonally from the crown rim, behind the ears, to the shoulders.

The question of the multi-headedness of the Viṣṇu figure has been settled on the basis of two sources: (1.) my own observations at Brahmapura, where I stood on a ladder at the height of the gable-panel, and (2.) a detailed study both of my own photographs and of the best available professional photograph, taken from the level of the courtyard, from the archives of the American Institute of Indian Studies in Varanasi. The large carved areas adjacent to the central face of Viṣṇu, although severely weathered, in that position can only represent side-heads. The profile on the proper left is shaped like the head of the Varāha, and is tilted upward as in the Mathura representations of three-headed Viṣṇu. The snout, eye, and whiskers can be seen. The larger object on the proper right is no longer recognisable beyond doubt as the head of a lion, but its size accords with the usually fairly massive depiction of the Narasiṃha face opposite that of the boar in the Mathura images. The upward angle of the Varāha-head suggests that this image of Garuḍa-mounted Viṣṇu, although in concept probably stemming Kashmiri iconography, still retains elements deriving from Mathura This could argue for an early date, but the connexion with Kashmir is against this. The retention of Mathura influence in the depiction of the side-heads could equally well be the result (a) of early stylistic factors being preserved for long periods in the isolation in the these remote mountain areas, or (b) of influence from the Gurjara-Pratīhāra areas of North India, chiefly Kanauj, where the upward angle of the side heads (in images of Viśvarūpa) was retained.

The attributes are somewhat better preserved and can be identified. The objects held in the most prominent positions, that is, in the hands raised on either side of the heads and crown, are the chatra or ātapatra (parasol) on the proper right, and either the tridaṇḍa (it has a pronounced V-shape, unlike the triśūla) or a miniature tree (since the three prongs are leaf-shaped) on the proper left. On either side of these, somewhat lower, there are two disks, representing the solar and lunar symbols that occur in the hands of Viṣṇu in Kashmiri art (cp. the Viśvarūpa at the apex of the Devsar bronze frame, No.02 above). Each is held by the lower rim in one of the hands raised behind the uppermost pair. Below these, there are two more pairs of arms. The upper two must have held the bow and arrow, since the curve of the bow, tightly coiled at the top, is clearly visible in the proper right hand; this is unusual, of course, the dhanus usually appearing in the left hand. The lower two arms are stretched downward to the sides, the left hand holding the disk, and the right holding the top of a ringed mace. These weapons, two of Viṣṇu's primary emblems, appear immediately above the heads of two small figures standing to either side, as Goetz describes (1955:77), and who therefore represent the personified weapons, disk and mace (Cakrapuruṣa and Gadā-devī). These figures lean backward to look up at the deity, as in the Viṣṇu compositions of both Kashmir and Himachal. Each raises the hand which is closer to Viṣṇu toward the face in the vismaya-mudrā, the other being lowered to hip-level and holding the long handle of a cāmara against the shoulder, the yak-tail hanging down over the elbow. Viṣṇu's remaining two hands, at the front, are lowered on to the thighs: the right hand appears to have held a round padma by the stalk, while the left lies palm-upward to support an indistinct object which was probably the śaṅkha. The image thus seems to have been ten-armed, holding the following symbols (numbered from front to back):

Right	Left
1. padma	śaṅkha
2. gadā(-devī)	cakra(-puruṣa)
3. dhanus	cāpa
4. disk	disk
5. chatra	tridaṇḍa / tree.

Reading these from front to back, the first two pairs of hands therefore hold the customary symbols of Viṣṇu (śaṅkha, padma, cakra, gadā), the third pair holds the customary weapons, bow and arrow, and the fourth pair holds the sun and moon symbols which are not unusual in the northwestern iconographic con text. But the brahman's parasol and the ascetic's forked staff, or tree, are unusual and specific to this image. Both could be emblems of Vāmana, the brāhmaṇa - Dwarf incarnation of Viṣṇu. In most sculpture the chatra is his customary attribute as a member of the priestly class, but in iconographic theory so is the staff, the daṇḍa (here, perhaps, the tridaṇḍa), which marks him as a sannyāsin, an ascetic who has renounced the world. The Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa (3.85.54d) describes Vāmana as daṇḍin, possessed of a staff, not defining which kind of ascetic's staff is intended, but making it his primary identifying attribute, since the parasol is not mentioned. In the description of the giant form of Viṣṇu which grew from the dwarf, in the next section of the same text (Vdh.3.85.55b-57b), the ascetic's staff is still included among the attributes of Trivikrama (daṇḍa: ibid. 56a), which may be of significance in identifying the figure on the Bharmaur wooden panel.

If this emblem is not a forked staff but -- in view of the leaf-like shape of the 'prongs'' -- a tree, on the other hand, then it would represent the pārijāta-tree which Kṛṣṇa, riding on Garuḍa, stole from Indra's heaven. This interpretation explains the presence of Garuḍa as Viśvarūpa's mount in the Bharmaur image. The story is told in Viṣṇupurāṇa 5.30.28ff., at the end of which Indra refers to the victorious Kṛṣṇa as Viśvarūpin (ibid., verse 78) -- the creator, destroyer, and sustainer -- to Suffer defeat at whose hands is no shame. In the sequel (Viṣṇupurāṇa 5.31.14- 20), the purāṇakāra ties in the Viśvarūpa aspect of Viṣṇu with Kṛṣṇa as the plunderer of Indra's heaven and the thief of the hypnotic pārijāta-tree. He terminates the Naraka story with an etymology of the name Viśvarūpa: Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa brings the women of Naraka to his city of Dvārakā, and marries them all. They number 16,100 and so Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa assumes this number of different forms (rūpa) at their respective weddings. During the nights at Dvārakā, Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa (here given the epithet 'begetter of the world', jagatsraṣṭā), sleeps in all their houses at once; thus it is as universal lover and husband that he bears the name "Universal Form" (Viśvarūpadharo hariḥ). The note of sensuousness introduced into the Brahmapura icon by the dancing figures placed in the side-arches might thus be explained. The image would therefore represent the gigantic form of Viṣṇu through the allusion to Trivikrama and simultaneously his universal form through the allusion to Kṛṣṇa the thief and universal husband in Indra's heaven and at Dvārakā.

It is clear that the image, without Lakṣmī has an intimate connection with the Vāmana-Trivikrama and Kṛṣṇa-Viśvarūpa incarnations, since the attributes of the Dwarf/Giant and of the Multi-formed Subduer of Indra are held up in the highest pair of hands. The side-heads of the Narasiṃha and Varāha incarnations iconographically conform to this identification, for the multi-headedness means that the image represents Viṣṇu either as Vaikuṇṭha in a magnified form, or as Viśvarūpa In view of the identification proposed above for the ten-armed Kashmiri figure from Devsar (No.02), which is also located at the apex of a large composition, and since the pārijāta-tree appears as one of the dominant emblems, I am inclined to think that Viśvarūpa was intended. This is not the destructive Viśvarūpa of the Bhagavadgītā, however, but Viśvarūpa the Universal Lover and Cosmic Creator.

The tendency in the iconography of Kashmiri Viśvarūpa to incorporate the powers of incarnations and other deities (in the Devsar Viśvarūpa, No.02, these are Hayagrīva, Śiva, and possibly Brahmā) is therefore seen at work also in this Bharmaur image, though only two Vaiṣṇava aspects, Vāmana-Trivikrama and Kṛṣṇa-Viśvarūpa, are involved here.

Iconographically, the Bharmaur image must be derived from Kashmiri iconography, and it can therefore not be dated earlier than the mid-9th century, when the Vaikuṇṭha icon was first established, and is probably considerably later, late 9th century at the earliest. The surviving evidence from Kashmir clearly suggests that the Viśvarūpa image, (10th century at Devsar) was derived from the Vaikuṇṭha image (9th century at Avantipura). This panel may not thus be as much as 200 years later than the doorframe below it (ca. AD 700).

49.2 PRELIMINARY IDENTIFICATION

The image represents ten-armed Viśvarūpa, the gigantic form of the cosmic god being implied by the incorporation of Vāmana-Trivikrama and Kṛṣṇa Viśvarūpa iconography, riding on Garuḍa. The icon is derived from imagery originating in Kashmir, but the specific iconographic formulation may be peculiar to Brahmapura.

Brahmapura, late 9th century.

49.3 LITERATURE CITED

J - Ph. Vogel, Antiquities of Chamba State, Part I, Inscriptions of the Pre-Muhammadan Period (ASI, NIS, vol. XXXVI). Calcutta 1911.

Herman Goetz "The Antiquities of Chamba State: An Art--Historical Outline. I", JUPHS NS. I.1-2 (=Lucknow 1953): 76ff. (Repr in Studies in the History and Art of Kashmir and the Indian Himalaya, Wiesbaden 1969: 127-142, esp. p.134).

Hermann Goetz, The Early Wooden Temples of Chamba, Leiden 1955: 66-68, 77, 84-85, 101.

Krishna Deva, "Hill Dynasties", Ch. 29 in Encyclopaedia of India Temple Architecture, vol.II.2 (North India, Period of Early Maturity, c. A.D. 700-900), Delhi 1991: Text volume 100.

Vr. 49: Bharmaur Brahmor (Brahmapura)

Laksana-Devi-Tempel, Giebelfeld

Visvarupa, Laksana-Devi-Tempel, Bharmaur, Himachal Pradesh

50 D. Ref.:

DREIKOPFIGER VIṢṆU

Holz: 40 x 18

Linke Seite der inneren rūpaśākhā am auberen Turrahmen, Lakkhnā- / Lakṣaṇā-Devī-Tempel, Bharmaur (Brahmor) / Brahmapura (Budhal-Tal), Himachal Pradesh

50.1 DESCRIPTION

The wooden doorframe at the entrance of the Lakṣaṇā-Devī' temple at Brahmapura in its present form has two rūpaśākhās (see DIAGRAM), constituting the third and fifth of a total of six Śākhās. The outer rūpaśākhā may not be original to this doorframe, as the uppermost figures have been shortened to accommodate the lintel. The inner rūpaśākhā, however, appears to be in its original position. The third deity from the base on the left-hand side of this represents three-headed Viṣṇu.

The figure stands in an ābhaṅga posture, with the hips deflected to the left and the torso to the right, on a high lotus-pedestal. An arch-shaped element above the head originally represented the foliage of a tree. The wood has been severely worn down by exposure to the weather, so that only the most deeply cut of the original forms remain. Nevertheless, the elongated, almost attenuated aspect of this figure derives essentially from the style itself.

Of the clothing, ornaments and attributes very little can now be seen. The vanamālā, of which only a fragmentary detail remains, between the right arms and the body, is shown with a central spine from which spring feather-like leaves; the outline of the garland below this point can be seen hanging straight down beside the right leg and looping sharply well below the level of the knees (it appears to pass behind the legs, which I presume to be a quirky effect of the weathering). A long garment seems to hang behind the legs and under the right arms, almost like a Buddhist robe, an effect that is heightened by the remains of a transverse line running from the left shoulder to the right side of the torso. A long staff or similar object seems to be held in one of the right hands; all other attributes are lost. The head is much elongated, as is the crown; both have suffered damage and no individual details remain. The crown appears to have been of the high triple-peaked variety, and tabs project to the sides at the level of the rim. Below them the long hair characteristic of Viṣṇu images is shown in two ridged layers, one falling straight down behind the ears, the other curving out over the shoulders. No doubt the weathering has simplified this but the strong impression remains of a heavy and formal coiffure somewhat resembling a judge's wig. The misshapen remains of what appear to have been large circular ear-ornaments hang beside the throat.

From behind the mass of hair, below the tabs of the crown, two small animal profiles, scarcely recognizable, project horizontally. They are so high above the line of the shoulders, and so far below the top of the crown, that their appearance is as startling as that of the very late images of Himachal in which these side-heads project from the sides of the crown (see No.45, 12th/13th century) is the Varāha-head of a damaged three-headed Viṣṇu moulded in relief on a terracotta plaque, of Gupta date, now in the Mathura museum (see T. S. Maxwell, Viśvarūpa, Delhi 1988: Pl.45); it has the same curious air of unreality, the same incised lines around the throat, and -- unusually for the boar-head in an early image -- it projects from the face of Viṣṇu at the same abrupt right-angle. (In Gupta art, the boar-head usually emerges from the junction between Viṣṇu's neck and shoulder at a forty-five degree angle, depicting the characteristic upward lunge of the Varāha as he rescues the earth from the ocean, which is how he is depicted in his cult images; the horizontality of the head on the terracotta plaque was probably caused simply by the exigencies of the square frame in which the Viṣṇu image is shown.) This single comparison does not, of course, prove an immediate connection between the terracotta art of Gupta Mathura and the early woodcarving of Brahmapura: but the close iconographical similarities between Gupta imagery and the earliest three-headed Viṣṇu sculptures of the Himachal region (see above, Nos.23 and 34 at Nirth and Prini in the lower Sutlej and upper Vyas valleys) do suggest that portable artifacts in terracotta or stone were carried into these Western Himalayan valleys from Mathura, and probably elsewhere, as early as the 6th and 7th centuries, and that it was these, rather than large-scale icons, which provided the models for the temple images carved in the local style from wood or stone. The peculiarities of the miniature art might then be expected to manifest themselves on an expanded scale in the northwest, as in the case of the lion and boar heads of this Viṣṇu.

It might be noted here that four of the six deities shown on the jambs of this rūpaśākhā are three- or six-headed (Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva, Skanda), indicating the early predilection in this sub-Himalayan region for the multi-headed forms of the north Indian gods. Some kind of selectivity was evidently being exercised in the early formation of Hindu temple-cults in these remote valleys, even if it was based merely on the assumption that deities with multiple heads were more powerful than others. Intense multiplication of a given feature is seen also in the repetition of auspicious motifs on the lintel crowning the inner rūpaśākhā (eight Vidyādharas bearing seven crowns) and on the facade, which has ten mithuna couples, elevan surasundaris as pillar-figures, ten gaṇas, and seven seated figures -- all in long colonnades, ranged one above the other. This intensity of multiplication is not normally seen in the figural sculpture on north Indian stone temples of the 6th and 7th centuries, where it is particular geometrical motifs which are more often repeated to build up architectural forms. In this context, it would perhaps be erroneous to assume that there existed at Brahmapura, Nirth and Prini in the 6th and 7th centuries a cult of three-headed Viṣṇu which had some specific religious significance of the kind that one would expect it to have in, say, Mathura of the 5th century or Avantipura of the 9th century. There is no evidence at all for the existence of an avatāra cult or a paṅcarātra doctrine influencing the iconography of the early wooden temples of the Ravi and Budhal valleys. The cultural cause behind this generalised predilection for multiple and multiplied forms in these vallyes is a matter which cannot be dealt with by art history, since we have no art-forms from this region which are earlier than the local versions of Hindu concepts from north India.

The suggestion in this weathered image that it represents Viṣṇu dressed in a Buddhist robe is equally difficult to explain. If the combination of such different iconographies is too bizarre to be the result of mere oversight, what was the intention behind it? If one regards the Buddhist robe purely as an emblem of asceticism, or at least of celibacy, its meaning here may become clearer. The appearance of erotic couples on the austere rock-cut architecture of Buddhist monastic buildings, the juxtaposition of sensuous and ascetic figures on Hindu temples, and the integration of chastity-symbolism with erotic imagery (the erect phallus of Śiva is the supreme example), all indicate the preoccupation of the Indian mind the earthly power or the senses and simultaneously with the spiritual power of the denial of the senses. Knowledge of one heightens the perception of the other's intrinsic potency. The symbolism of the Lakṣaṇā-Devī doorframe expresses this same ideology in its repeated depiction of gracefully entwined couples on the facade and the upright figures of isolated deities on the doorframe. The two worlds of power complement each other at the temple's entrance, the point of transition from physical to spiritual realities. The robe of Viṣṇu is thus probably to be seen as the robe of sannyāsa, the abandonment of the world of the senses, rather than specifically as the tricīvara of the Buddhist order. It may well be that the north Indian (and, from the 8th century onward, the Kashmiri) ability to embody spiritual ideals in sensuous forms was an aesthetic too sophisticated for the valley cultures of the Western Himalaya in the 7th century. On the other hand, they would have been able clearly to see the connection between celibacy and spirituality, a concept already known to them through the Buddhism emanating from Gandhara. Cloaking the body of a Hindu god in the robe of a Buddhist world renouncer would for them satisfactorily have symbolised the god's spiritual nature. We see the same emphasis on celibacy and asceticism in the unusual attributes of Viṣṇu on the panel at the apex of the facade (see No.49).

50.2 PRELIMINARY IDENTIFICATION

A three-headed form of VIṢṆU, based on north Indian (Mathuran) prototypes, created in Brahmapura in the 7th century in the local style, apparently with an element of borrowed Buddhist iconography.

LAKSANA DEVI TEMPLE, BHARMAUR

ICONOGRAPHY OF THE DOORFRAME

Upper lintel:

vidyadhara couples with floral crown in centre

Lower lintel: