A Handbook of Indian Art/Section 2/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE TRIMŪRTI AND THE LESSER DEITIES
It must be understood that the images of Brahmā, Vishnu, and Siva already illustrated belonged to the original conception of these deities as separate powers, each one of which was taken by his own devotees to be the Supreme God and had his own appropriate form of temple—the Brahmā temple open on all four sides; the Vishnu temple with one door towards the east, the shrine roofed by a sikhara; the Siva temple with one door towards the west, the shrine roofed by a stūpa-dome. But there was also a theological doctrine of the triune nature of the Supreme, a trinity which the Buddhists expressed by the formula of the Three Gems, Buddha—Sangha—Dharma, collectively representing the cosmos; and the Brahmans by the Three Aspects of the Godhead, Brahmā—Vishnu—Siva, who jointly represented a trinity of spirit and a trinity of matter.[1]
The germ of the metaphysical concept is probably to be found in the three strides of Vishnu, or the three positions of the sun, which correspond to the Brahman's sandhyā, the spiritual exercises he performs at sunrise, noon, and sunset. When, by an inductive process of reasoning, Vedic philosophy established the theory of the threefold nature of divinity, the separate sun-gods Brahmā, Vishnu, and Siva came to be regarded as the Three in One through which the eternal unchangeable Brahman manifested itself in time and space, the unity of the Godhead being expressed by the name Ishvara, the Supreme Ruler, or Nārāyana, the primordial Being who lies under the cosmic waters during the Night of the Gods when all creation sleeps.
In spite of the countless gods and demi-gods which fill the Hindu pantheon, the belief in the underlying unity of the Godhead is common to all classes of instructed Hindus in the present day,[2] images being regarded as symbols of the manifold powers and aspects of divinity. The mystery of the Trinity is not often approached in Hindu temple sculpture. One of the few exceptions is the great temple of Elephanta, which has three entrances and a magnificent three-headed bust on a colossal scale occupying the principal shrine in the wall (Pl. LXVIII, a). The explanation of the three heads given by Dr. Burgess in his work on Elephanta which has hitherto been accepted by other writers is incorrect. The splendid photographs kindly placed at my disposal by M. Victor Goloubeff afford clear proof that the head in the right which Dr. Burgess took to be Vishnu is really a woman's head, and must be identified as Parvati, Siva's nature-force, taking the part of the Creator—a very appropriate idea for a temple dedicated to Siva.
The late Mr. T. A. Gopinatha Rao, in his admirable treatise on Hindu iconography, identified the Trimūrti of Elephanta with the five-headed form of Siva, or Mahēshamūrti. The reasons given are not, however, artistically convincing. It is difficult to understand Plate LXVIIIa
THE TRIMŪRTI, ELEPHANTA
Plate LXVIIIb
BUDDHIST TRIMŪRTI, NEPAL
The majestic central head of the Trimūrti seems, therefore, to be Vishnu, for it bears the three jewelled discs upon his tiara for his three steps across the heavens; the necklet of pearls for the planets which glitter in the firmament; and the golden collar with the five jewels, the cosmic elements—ether (pearl), air (sapphire), fire (ruby), water (emerald), and earthly matter (diamond). These are all distinctive symbols of Vishnu, and do not appear in Brahmā images. The third head leaves no room for mistake, for the frowning brows and protruding tongue, the cobra twined in the hair, the skull and the trefoiled foliage,[3] show clearly that it is Siva in his tāmasic or destructive aspect.
The Trimūrti in Mahāyana Buddhism is shown in the fine copper-gilt statuette from Nepal, of uncertain date, illustrated in Pl. LXVIII, b. It may have been brought from Bengal by Buddhist refugees in the stormy days of the first Muhammadan invasions, when the monasteries and temples in the sub-Himālayan districts, like those to the south of the Vīndhyan mountains, gave shelter to monks and craftsmen who escaped massacre or slavery. The traditions of North Indian temple metal-workers have been also preserved in Nepal to the present day, but owing to their inaccessibility the Nepalese monasteries and temples have not yet furnished as much material for the student of Indian sculpture as those of Southern India; but some fine images collected for the Government Art Gallery, Calcutta, are illustrated in my Indian Sculpture and Painting. The splendid temple lamps and sacrificial vessels of Nepal are better known, for they have long had an established place in the collections of curio-hunters.
THE LESSER DEITIES
Plate LXIXa
KUVERA, FROM GANDHĀRA
Plate LXIXb
KUVERA, FROM NEPAL
Plate LXXa
GANĒSHA
Plate LXXb
HANUMAN
Kuvera had his abode in the Himālayas, and was essentially a mountain gnome. In the Indian plains his place was taken by Ganēsha and by Hanumān. The former, otherwise known as Ganapati, or Vināyaka, is the King of the Ganas, or troops of minor devils who are under Siva's commands in the same way as the Buddha is said to have enrolled the hosts of the evil spirit, Mārā, in his service after he had foiled the tempter under the Bodhi-tree. Ganēsha probably was an aboriginal jungle deity brought into the Hindu pantheon as a son of Siva and teacher of wisdom. The quaint legend in the Purānas which accounts for his elephant's head and infant's body says that Parvati, when taking a bath, fashioned him from the scurf of her body and set him down to guard the entrance. He did his duty so valiantly that Siva himself could not gain admittance until he had cut off his head. Parvati insisted that her offspring should be restored to life, and as the child's head could not be found, Siva replaced it with that of the wisest of beasts. He thus was installed among the gods as the genial protector of households and the personification of common sense, whose aid should be first invoked in all worldly enterprises. He was also the scribe of the gods and the especial patron of authors, in which capacity he represented the traditional knowledge known as smriti, that which is remembered, as distinguished from sruti, the intimations of divine wisdom which come from God Himself and are given both to Brahman and Sūdra, the learned and the ignorant.
This quaint conception of worldly wisdom is one of the most popular of Hindu household gods, and is often carved over the entrance doorway. The temple sculptors succeeded in investing his grotesque figure with much monumental dignity and sphinx-like mystery, as will be seen in the fine sculpture from Java (Pl. LXX, a).
Hanumān, the monkey-god, doubtless another aboriginal totem raised to a higher plane of thought by Hindu teachers and made one of the heroes of the Rāmāyana, takes the same place among Vaishnavas as Ganēsha does among the devotees of Siva. He is Rāma's faithful ally and messenger, the symbol of loyal devotion to the path of duty (karma-marga), which neither reasons nor questions, whether it leads to death and glory on the battle-field, or only to the dull drudgery of common daily life.
This was the spiritual ideal which Chaitānya and other great Vaishnava teachers opposed to the philosophic "way of knowledge," arguing that, as the love of God transcends all the wisdom which man can acquire, so unselfish devotion to God's service, both in the higher and lower walks of life, is the surest way to salvation, or liberation of the soul. "Whatsoever I do, with or without my will, being all surrendered to Thee, I do it as impelled by Thee."
This bhakti, the spiritual link which joins man and beast, effaces distinctions of class or caste and makes all humanity free:
"The same am I to all beings: there is none hateful to Me, nor dear. They verily who worship Me with bhakti, they are in Me and I in them" (Bhagavad Gīta IX, 29).
The illustration Pl. LXXI, b, is from a bronze in the Indian section of the Victoria and Albert Museum.