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An Indian Image of Brahm

Author(s): Ananda K. CoomaraswamySource: Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Vol. 40, No. 239 (Jun., 1942), pp. 40-41Published by: Museum of Fine Arts, BostonStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4170838 .

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XL, 40 BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTSAn Indian Image of Brahma

THE largeseated figure1 of the Indian deityBrahma, recently received by gift from Mrs.

John D. Rockefeller, makes an impressive additionto the Museum's collections of Indian stone sculpture.The figure is of South Indian origin, and almostcertainly from a site in the Madras Presidency. Itbelongs to the tradition of the Pallava monuments ofwhich the outstanding examples (of the seventhcentury) are found at Mamallapuram near Madras,and to that of the succeeding Cola style, of both ofwhich schools the Museum possesses notable exam?ples, an image of Durga (published in the Bulletin,No. 148), and a seated figure of Siva. The newimage we are inclined to assign to the VijayanagarPeriod, about A. D. 1350-1 600 ; but because ofthe unbroken continuity of the tradition, which isstill followed, it is often very difficult to estimate thedate of particular figures of which the exact prov?enance is unknown, and the present example maybe as late as the Madura or Nayaka Period, ofwhich the most important monuments date from theseventeenth century; in this case it would be ap?proximately contemporary with the remains of atemple from Madura now exhibited in the Penn?sylvania Museum.2 In any case the new image isa magnificent realization of its hieratic theme, as canwell be seen from the accompanying detail of theleft face; it is in a perfect state of preservation; andfills a gap in our collections, both historically andiconographically.The God Brahma is well known as a memberof the "later" Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Siva, andVishnu, whose functions considered apart are thoseof Creation, Destruction and Preservation. All threeare sometimes represented side by side, seated onlotus flowers borne by a common stem which springsfrom the navel of Narayana.3 This conception isclosely related to that of the Trimurti, in which thefigures of Brahma and Vishnu are represented asemerging from the left and right sides of a standingfigure of S'iva. The details of the iconographydepend, in fact, upon the worshipper's point of view;the three divinities, proceeding from one another andparticipating in a common essence, are differentiatedonly according to their functions. In other words,there is no such thing as a Hindu "polytheism."The names of God correspond to his aspects (RV.V.44.6), and it is because of his abundance that,like St. Thomas Aquinas, "We do not say 'theonly God' since deity is common to several" {Sum.Theol, 1.31.2). We are told, in fact, that bypaying honor and worship to his trinitarian namesone rises higher and higher in the scale of being,but that when at last the names are denied, thenone reaches the "unity of the Person" (MaitriUpanishad, IV.6).It is not auite true, as has been sometimes asserted.

that there are no temples individually and independ?ently dedicated to Brahma, or that worship is paidonly to S'iva and Vishnu. It is true that Brahmatemples are very few and that there is no separatecult of Brahma in the sense that there is of S'iva andVishnu. I believe that the real reason for this is tobe seen in the fact that whereas there are no specifi?cally human representatives of S'iva orVishnu (unlessas "special incarnations"), whose domain is supra-terrestrial, it may be said that Brahma is daily anduniversally worshipped in the honor paid to Brah?mans, who are his living images {Altar ey a Brah-mana, VIII.26 etc.). At the same time it must notbe overlooked that "there exists (and should exist)no temple which has not got all three members ofthe Trinity, be it a S'iva's temple or Vishnu's. Theniche' on the northern wall of the central shrine ofthe Vishnu's or S'iva's temple should contain animage of Brahma and must receive daily pujd"j Itmay be added to this that representations of theworship of Brahma are to be found in all completesets of Ragmala paintings, in depiction of Kham-bavati Ragini; examples in the Museum collectionsare illustrated in the Catalogue of Rajput Paint?ings, Pis. IV and XXV.The "later" Trinity coincides with the earlierVedic Trinity according to the following scheme,enunciated in the Maitri Upanishad, IV. 6:

Aditya (Sun) Food Vishnu (Sky)Vayu (Spirit) Breath Rudra (Firmament)Agni (Fire) Time Brahma (Earth)These are the rulers of Sky, Air, and Earth, andare the "three forms of Agni," which he assumes tofill these worlds.3 It is primarily with this Agni, Fire,nosier Deus ignis consumens, and wup aelfaov ofHeracleitus, in his primary capacity of High Priestof the Sacrifice, that Brahma is to be identified.The word Brahma itself is the masculine form of the

neuter noun brahman, which as Brahma, in thegeneral sense of Vigor, Growth, Expansion, and"Word,"4 is the most abstract of the Indian namesof "God"; from the same word in the sense ofSacerdotium, lepareia,comes "Brahman" (Brahmin)as the designation of the priestly caste. Brahma, inother words, is in divinis a designation of the Personof the Spiritual Power, and humanly a designationof the High Priest who knows every detail of thesacrificialritual, but takes no active part, and especial?ly no vocal part, in its actual celebration, in whichthe other officiating Brahmans participate; the humanBrahma is, furthermore, the king's Spiritual Directorand Counsellor, just as is Agni Indra's Adviser indivinis. All this is essential to an understanding ofthe iconography, of which, as usual, every detail is

^cc. No.42.120.Height, .614m.;width,4 m.;depth,532m.2SeeBrown,W. N. A PillaredHall roma TempletMadura,India,Pennsylvaniauseum,ndOxford,940.3Coomaraswamy,. K., ElementsfBuddhistconography,935,Fig.17(an xampleromBurma).

xThat urmageccupied niche anbeclearlyeen romhefactthat herears relativelynfinishednd lattened,. e., in muchowerreliefhanhe est fthe igure.Thisaffordsgoodllustrationfthe actthat"frontality"nartsbynomeans lways "primitive"eature,utoften niconographicequirement;t is only orsuchComprehensorssMoseso "see heback fGod." Cf.Combaz, ., "La oi defrontalitedansasculpturendienne,"Rev.desArtsAsiatiques,II.1931.2Rao,T. A. G., ElementsfHindu conography,1.502.Correspondingothe"Triple ower" ftheoneChrist,eeBaynes,BruceCodex, p.64, 77.4"Inhebeginningor,asmostmediaevalommentatorsnderstood,t,in the irst rinciple)as heWord"John l).

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BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS XL, 41

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Brahma:profileview of left faceintelligible and significant. It will be seen that ourimage is four-faced and four-armed, and seated ona lotus pedestal (padmasana). Of the four arms,the upper right is in abhaya mudra, signifying "Donot fear"; the lower right holds a lotus, probably intoken of the essentially "playful" character of thedivine operation;1 the upper left holds a rosary(aksamala), implying the repetition of prayers, orrather incantations (another value of the word brah?ma = mantra); the lower left is empty, but by theposition of the fingers seems to imply the holding ofthe Book (pustat\a, i. e. the Vedas), or of theWater-vessel {kamandalu) often represented as dis?tinctive attributes of Brahma.Two distinctive features of this iconography areprefigured in the Rgveda, where Agni-Brhaspati-Vacaspati is "the Brahma of the Gods"; thus in

VI. 1 1.12 Varuna, proceeding as Agni the Priest"with his purifying ladle" (often represented as anattribute of Brahma in the later iconography) is al?ready "four-faced," while in 1.31.13 Agni, theBrahma of IV.9.4 and VII.7.5, is "of four-foldvision," rightly understood by the Commentator tomean "facing towards the four directions."1 Soalso the lotus-throne or support (characteristic alsofor the Buddha in his presentations at Amaravati asa pillar of fire) reflects the lotus-birth of Vasisjha(Agni) in RVVII.33.1 1 and Agni's lotus-birth inVI.16.13.Brahma, in short, is a representation of the deityin his specifically sacerdotal aspect.Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.

1SeeCoomaraswamy,. K., "Lila"nJAOS,61, 19412On he patialignificancefthe ouraces fGod ee P.Mus,"HasBrahmaouraces?",nJISOA,V, 1937.The ouraces ftheanthropomorphicmageorrespondlso othoseofa pyramidion,f.Speculum, IV, 1939,p. 72.