Theism: Buddhist and vaidika
Concurrent with this rhetorical increase in the role of the king was the emergence of a new form of theism. Before discussing the form this takes in brahmanical discourse, it would be fruitful to trace the development of Buddhist ideology in this regard.
By Asoka’s time we find the construction of stupas - simple gravesites where ashes or relics of the Buddha or Buddhist monks are said to have been placed. These stupas became more complex by the second century bce, in some cases patronized by the increasingly affluent classes of artisans themselves, many of whom were Jains or Buddhists. These later stupas would have the form of a rotunda or “egg” (anda) with a walkway around it, up to four entryways with lintels carved with animals and symbols depicting Buddhist themes. The carvings on these entryways included motifs borrowed from the “folk” landscape: yaksis (voluptuous young maidens), for example, were depicted on the lintels entwined with vegetation - these figures were undoubtedly borrowed from agrarian representatives of goddesses associated with vegetation. Elephants were another such symbol - by now, representative of royalty, insofar as emperor/warriors rode elephants into battle, but also emblematic of the wild world of nature “domesticated” by the spirit of Buddhism.On top of these stupas one would find a caitya (a three-layered pillar) representative of the Buddha who was said to be resting in nirvana. It is important to note that at this stage, the Buddha was not depicted anthro- pomorphically. Rather, he was represented by symbols: the bodhi tree (where he is thought to have been enlightened); footprints (intimations of his path); a wheel (the wheel of dhamma and of life, emblematic of his first sermon); a turban (indicative of what had been renounced); a lotus (that which was “self-created” out of the “defilements” of existence); or a caitya, etc.
It was under the aegis of the Kusanas, and especially Kaniska (c. first or second century ce), a convert to Buddhism, that we find the Buddha represented anthropomorphically. Artisans were brought in from the Greco-Roman world who began to portray the Buddha first in very Mediterranean forms, but eventually in more indigenous ways. Buddha had come to be “divinized” as the epitome of light (as in the figure of Amitabha) perhaps under the influence of Zoroastrianism’s Ahura Mazda. A Buddhist pantheon had begun to emerge and at the top of the cosmos, much like a king, sat the Buddha. The Buddha gave warrant or privilege (“varan”), like the king, to his ministers - in this case to the bodhisattvas.The bodhisattvas indirectly helped people by serving as exemplars and providing common people with the opportunity to gain merit by venerating them. The emergent Buddhist “pantheon” now included various representations of buddhas and bodhisattvas depicted iconographically. In the meanwhile, by the third century ce, the thought of the great Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna had provided in the doctrine of sunyata, a rationale for the veneration of icons and bodhisattvas. Sunyata was the notion that nothing had its own being (svabhava); that is, nothing existed independently; samsara - the realm of the tangible world - did not have svabhava (its independent existence); nor did nirvana. It followed then that samsara was congruent to nirvana. Nirvana was evident in samsar^a; all apparent opposites were collapsed; buddhahood was innate in all things. concrete objects and symbols such as icons and representations of Buddha could symbolize the state of Buddhahood insofar as the phenomenal world was potentially a reflection of “ultimacy,” that is, Buddha. Buddhism had been more or less turned on its head - from an atheistic movement for the highly disciplined to a movement in which Buddhahood could be seen and venerated virtually anywhere.
We return now to the brahmanical response to this process.
Theistic brahmanism became increasingly visible by the third century bce. A number of elements stimulated this phenomenon; kings were powerful figures in their own right and became the patrons of specific deities who were represented as the celestial counterparts to the kings. Tribal folk groups and clans who were now part of the city and who had brought their indigenous deities with them were incorporated under the hegemony of the king by virtue of having their deities co-opted into the mythology of the emerging “high gods.” The brahmans were the mythmakers who told the stories of these gods’ emergence to power and of their exploits. They linked newer deities to the older gods of the Vedic period by equating them, by making them their genealogical heirs, or by ascribing them the weaponry of the older deities. As a result of this process, certain deities emerged to the status of a high god with full patronage of dynasties. Incidentally, a very similar process occurs today in cities on the subcontinent to which rural folk have brought their deities, which are, in turn, classicized by the brahmanized interpreters of the tradition.It is worth sketching in these stories of the deities briefly: Siva was one of these gods. The mythmakers linked the “Epic” Siva to the “Vedic” Rudra (both were red and strong), even though Siva apparently had a number of non-brahmanic roots. The Vedic Rudra was a relatively minor deity of storm and terror. By the late urban period we find Rudra-Siva to be a warrior par excellence, celestial counterpart to the warrior king. But because he was red Rudra-Siva was also linked mythically to the brahmanical sacrificial tradition of Agni, the personified fire. Moreover, some scholars claimed Siva to have been part of the Indus Valley (a somewhat dubious claim, to be sure), yet he was the god of outsiders, associated with cemeteries, forests, and nonurban places. In other depictions he was the yogin par excellence, the cosmic counterpart for the ideal person described in the literature of this period.
In short, Siva was the god of warrior king, brahmin sacrificer, forest dweller, yogin, etc. - a god for all people.In a similar way, Skanda emerged as a high god in the courts of the Sakas, Kusanas, and Guptas. The mythmakers linked him to Vedic images of youthfulness (kumara) and wisdom, and described him as the son of Rudra and Agni; yet, he apparently also embodied some six folk hero deities who were co-opted into his six heads. He also reflected the heroism of the postAlexandrian age (Alexander was known as Iskander in India) and in multiple ways reflected the character of the times. Skanda became the coalescence of all relevant forms of divinity.5
Visnu also became a high god during this period. Visnu was mentioned as a relatively minor deity in late Vedic literature, and is plausibly the most vaidika of these “rising” urban deities. However, it appears that other deities, presumably of clans or tribal communities, became associated with Visnu - names such as Bhagavan or Vasudeva, for example, may have such origins. By way of illustration, some scholars have suggested that Vasudeva, depicted iconographically by the Kusana period, represented the coalescence of two streams - one heroic, one brahmanic. In the city of Mathura, a heroic clan known as the Vrsnis practiced a form of ancestor worship. Their cultic practice and deity are thought to have been linked to the brahmanic practice of memorializing the dead in the rituals know as sraddha.6 In addition, it is also possible that the teriomorphic beings eventually depicted as incarnations or avataras (anglicized as avatars) of Visnu have their origins in tribal or folk culture - the tortoise, the boar, etc. may have had their origins as totemic deities, though this is clearly speculative.
What is more apparent is that the two major figures, eventually thought to be avatars of Visnu - namely, Krsna and Rama - had significant roles in this period. By the time Rama’s story was told in the Ramayana, he was at the least a folk hero and paradigmatic son, husband, warrior, etc., as well as a sacral king, at least as sacralized as other kings of the period.
As for Krsna, some scholars have suggested that his worship was connected to Mathura, a center of Buddhist art and culture, where he was cowherd and warrior.7 He was teacher par excellence in the Bhagavadgita where he was also the embodiment of the cosmos and the epitome of all attributes, cultural and geographic, in short, the personification of totality. In short, Krsna came to be seen as a vaidika alternative to the figure of the Buddha.All these deities were seen as personifications of brahman, and, in the later Upanisads, brahman was indeed depicted as personal deity. All of them were ascribed links to vaidika imagery, provided a model for different strata of society, served to link king to his people and to incorporate various communities of people into the urban complex. Not least important, they provided an alternative to Buddhist imagery, as they not only incorporated Buddhist ideology (teacher, virtuous attributes, etc.) but also went beyond the Buddha in accessibility, for, after all, Buddha did not come directly to people’s aid, whereas, Siva, Skanda, or Visnu would.
Goddesses were also a part of this theistic pantheon, but the goddesses of which we read in the classical texts of the period have not yet reached the status of high deity. For the most part, the goddesses of this period were of three types: 1) They were consorts to male deities, often benign, and only relatively powerful but always subservient to male deities. 2) They were mothers; however, divine mothers were usually mothers by adoption - the male gods remained the primary progenitors. 3) They were attendants, at the beck and call of such deities as Skanda, to attack or bring the forces of nature to play on particular situations.8 These goddesses were often the bearers of diseases or held the power of healing etc. It is probable the appropriation of goddesses into classical settings in this period represented the integration of agricultural village peoples into the purview of the citystate, but they may also have epitomized something of the role ascribed to women during this period - an issue to which we shall return later.
Devotionalism
Thanks in part to the emergence of “high gods” in the late urban period, devotionalism became a third way by which one could attain one’s ultimate destiny (after wisdom [jwana] and action [karma]). The term given to this religious practice was bhakti; the term bhakti was derived from the Sanskrit verb bhaj (“divide, distribute, share with or in, grant, partake with, enjoy, experience, possess, honor, love revere, worship”9). Bhakti, that is, was partaking of the deity; it was relishing, honoring, sharing the deity. Bhakti entailed wisdom inasmuch as one understood the deity to be brahman, the ultimate, the fullness of the cosmos. It was karma (action) insofar as it entailed acts which reflected this orientation. These acts usually took the form of ritual addressed to the deity, now housed in a temple (itself a microcosm) and represented iconographically. The icon/deity was treated as though it were a king. Whereas ritual acts and libations were addressed to the fire in the Vedic period and to the king in such rituals as the coronation ceremony (rajasuya), by the Gupta period, at least, such libations were addressed to the deity in the form of an icon. The use of iconography in worship was consistent with the understanding that brahman pervaded the entire universe and hence any material object could embody brahman. Further, an icon, beautifully carved, and sacralized by priests who ritually invoked the deity’s presence in it, was deemed an appropriate expression of divine accessibility.
The directing of ritual toward an icon was called devapuja (the worship of god). The term puja may have had indigenous origins, meaning literally “the doing of flowers”. In any case, this form of worship became the most popular way of expressing one’s religious orientations in circles with vaidika orientations. While few temples remain extant from this period, it is clear they have already combined several symbolic roles. They were congruent to the palace; its inner sanctum was homologous to the “egg” or dome of the Buddhist stupa;10 its “hallway” (mandapa) was analogous to the Buddhist vihara (where monks lived). In addition, the inner sanctum (garbhagrha) may have incorporated the imagery of a cave which served as early shrines in non-classical settings and as dwelling places for Jain and Buddhist mendicants.11 Like the palace, the temple was deemed homologous to the cosmos itself and, at least by the late Gupta period, its tower was deemed congruent to Mt. Meru, the mythical center of the universe, to the hiranyagarbha, the primal “golden reed,” and to the human torso, itself thought to be congruent to the “body” of the divinity. It is probable that, during this period, the ritual known as abhiseka was being used (though more evidence for the full-blown practice of this ritual came considerably later). Abhiseka (libations or bathing) was constituted of the pouring of certain materials on the icon, such as may have been earlier offered to the fire or to the king.
Devotionalism, in sum, seemed to be the coalescence of several strands that merged in the urban context: the sacralization of the king and the mythological elevation of the deity as his celestial counterpart; the bringing together of various cultural elements - vaidika, Buddhist, folk - designed to appeal to various communities; the use of artistic forms to express religious reality (on which more later); the possibility of participating in the “ultimate” in more accessible form, and thereby combining the paths of both wisdom and action.