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Hindu Divinities

by Ilona Deak-Ebner Ellinger

139 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0634; ISBN 1-55369-821-5; US$18.00, C$23.38, EUR15.20, £10.60

Hindu Divinities explains the religious art of India to the interested layperson with illustrations, and simple language that explaines what it all means.

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about the book      about the author            catalogue info

About the Book     This book is beautifully illustrated with drawings of Indian Art by the author. The text gives the reader a good understanding of the symbols and iconography of Hindu Art, which can be very confusing at times.

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About the Author THE AUTHOR     Daughter of the celebrated Hungarian painter, Lajos Deák-Ébner, Ilona Deák-Ébner Ellinger was born in Budapest in 1913. She received her Master's degree at the Royal Hungarian Art College in 1936. From 1936 to 1938 she studied at the Royal Swedish Art College in Stockholm. She came to the U. S. In 1942 and studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. (1942-43). She received her Ph.D. in Archeology from Johns Hopkins University in 1946.     From 1943 until 1974 Dr. Ellinger was the Chairman of the Art Department of Trinity College in Washington D.C.. She spent a school-year as a Fulbright Professor in 1963 - 1964 in Lahore, Pakistan at which time she developed a keen interest in Hindu mythology and art after visiting India. From 1974 until 1985 she was a professor, and now professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.     She published several papers on oriental art, and exhibited paintings and graphics on shows in Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Woods Hole, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and elsewhere. Her extensive travels took her through Europe, the Near East, and many East Asian countries. Dr. Ellinger lives in Stony Brook, NY.

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Excerpt

INTRODUCTION: A BRIEF HISTORICAL OUTLINE

    The earliest traces of civilization on the Indian peninsula exist along the Indus River and its tributaries.¹ About sixty settlements have been found, each located upon a body of water, as were the towns and cities of other ancient cultures (Egypt and Mesopotamia), so that the river could be used as a highway for communication and commerce. This Indus Valley civilization has been dated as starting between 3000 - 1500 B.C. Its inhabitants were the Dravidians, whose descendants still live in the South of India.
    Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were the two largest of the ancient settlements.² Both ruins show traces of a well-developed community, with brick houses, some of whose walls are still standing. Streets, wells, sewers and foundations of what must have been public buildings have survived as well. The artifacts found indicate that the main sources of livelihood of the inhabitants were agriculture and animal husbandry. The people de pended on the yield of the soil and the reproduction of their domesticated animals. Most likely, they also hunted. It is natural, therefore, to find that fertility figures are their foremost cult objects.(fig.1) Mother goddesses of baked clay abound, bejeweled and with complicated headdresses, probably votive figures to propitiate the Earth-Mother. Their feminine charms are well developed, and sometimes they hold a child to the breast. (fig. 2) They were obviously created as a tribute to motherhood. There are male figures too, though not as many, and some phallic symbols, forerunners of the Shiva-lingam, which even today is a much revered cult object in India.
    Among animal representations the humped bull is especially frequent, again a well-known fertility symbol.(fig. 3) The rough models of bullock carts, plows, and chickens might have been toys. The steatite seals, however, are real works of art, with masterfully modeled animals, domestic as well as wild. There are bulls, elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses and, most remarkable of all, animals surrounding a three-faced human figure sitting in what looks like the yogic position. It probably is the deity from whom the Hindu god Shiva developed.
    This early period reflects a peaceful existence, depending on the fertility of the soil, watered by the rains and nurtured by the life-giving rays of the spring sun. Male and female fertility in nature took on the shape of man and woman in art, creating the cult statues of this early period, the divinities of the Dravidians.
    This peaceful existence did not last. Around 1500 to 1000 B.C., in successive waves, a group of related tribes were on the move, from the North to the West, South, and East. They came from still undetermined locations and dispersed westward to what became Aryana (present-day Iran); another group extended its influence as far west as Eire. To the East they descended on the Indus Valley. They rode fleet-footed horses; some traveled in chariots; they possessed weapons unknown to the Dravidians and easily subdued the cities along the rivers of the Punjab. They brought with them their own concept of metaphysical 3 divinities, mainly the embodied powers of nature. Their priests composed hymns, which were chanted when performing sacrifices. These anthems were made in a highly advanced poetic technique, and were handed down to following generations by oral tradition so carefully that they are still used today at weddings, funerals, and daily religious observances with never a word changed. Eventually they were written down, in the sixth or fifth century B.C., and compiled under the collective title of the Vedas, a term meaning knowledge. There are 1028 such hymns known to us, and their poetic language is so beautiful that I cannot resist quoting one, the hymn to the goddess Ratri, the personification of night. It bears comparison to the poetry of Keats' Sonnet to Sleep, which was set to music by Benjamin Britten in his Serenade for Tenor. Horn. and Strings (Opus 31).

HYMN TO NIGHT⁴

The goddess Night arrives in all her glory,
Looking about her with her countless eyes,
She, the immortal goddess, throws her veil
Over low valley, rising ground and hill,
But soon with bright effulgence dissipates
The darkness she produces; soon advancing,
She calls her sister Morning to return,
And then each darksome shadow melts away.
Kind goddess, be propitious to thy servants
Who at thy coming straightway seek repose,
Like birds who nightly nestle in the trees.
Lo! men and cattle, flocks and winged creatures,
And e'en the ravenous hawks, have gone to rest.
Drive thou away from us, O Night, the wolf;
Drive thou away the thief, and bear us safely
Across thy borders. Then do thou, O Dawn,
Like one who clears away a debt, chase off
This black yet palpable obscurity,
Which came to fold us in its close embrace.
Receive, O Night, dark daughter of the Day,
My hymn of praise, which I present to thee,
Like some rich offering to a conqueror.

These hymns were chanted.

    While the invading Aryan (meaning 'noble') tribes apparently subdued the Dravidians, who became their serfs, the two cultures eventually merged, and the metaphysical Aryan divinities mingled with the firmly rooted local deities of fertility. A beguiling, nubile, terracotta figurine comes from Mathura, the home of a vibrantly vital folk art.(fig 4a) It is from the Shunga Period, 2d C.BC, but she could very well represent a modern entertainer, very sexy in her miniskirt, wonderfully elaborate headdress and oversized mod earrings. She wears a string of bells around her ankles, just like Indian dancing girls of today. Like a cheerleader for Motherhood, this votive figure seems to encourage fertility. Yet while the representation of the fertility figures continues and with time, develops into a highly artistic imagery of sensuous Yakshis(fig. 4b) and virile Yakshas, the Vedic divinities were represented by words only, not by Images.
    The Brahmanas are prose commentaries on sacrificial rituals and date from the first half of the first millennium B.C. Brahma is the Sanskrit word for a sacred rite, magic spell, or universal spirit, and the priests who knew these formulas were called the Brahmans. The concept of the four Varnas (colors) were developed by them dividing Indian society into: the Brahmana, the priestly scholarly caste or class; the Ksatrya, the warriors or leaders; the Vhaishya, the traders and farmers; and the Sudra, the serfs who did all the manual labor and were not considered Aryans. Below these four castes were the Candalas, the untouchables 5, who did not belong to any caste whatsoever, and who did the most demeaning, dirty, but necessary tasks. Once born into a caste there was no possibility of a person changing his birthright. Social intercourse, and especially marriages, adhered strictly to the social order.
    The Upanishads are 108 expositions, in question and answer form, which established the foundations of Hinduism. Upanishad means "session," and refers to a dialogue between a student and a guru. The Upanishads were composed in about the 8th to 6th centuries B.C. This reflected a quest for knowledge, a search to understand the universe. The Brahman is the universal spirit equated with Atman, the self. The Ultimate Truth is the Atman Brahman, an all-encompassing, transcendent Reality or Being, containing beatitude, goodness, beauty, cosmic and infinite but also comprehending Man as Being or Becoming, and including every human being. The concept is both universal and finite. Every finite human contains the Atman Brahman in himself and is part of the cosmic infinite.
    Through innumerable rebirths (samsara) born into a predestined fate (karma) determined by past actions, and dutifully following the prescribed moral law (dharma), the Hindu aspires for release from rebirth (moksha) and absorption into the Absolute. The Vedas, Brahmanas and Upanishads are considered "revealed" literature with a sacred, unchangeable content. The Puranas are legends or stories "remembered" and are of a later date, 300 to 750 A.D. In this period, Hinduism first became overshadowed by the gentle teachings of Buddhism.
    In 536 B.C. a son was born to a prince of the Sakya tribe. After a childhood stifled by luxury, he left his home to spend six years in ascetic practices. Realizing that this was still not a satisfactory life, he reentered the world, but not to resume his past luxurious lifestyle. Trying to find the remedy for all the human suffering that surrounded him, he cultivated special virtues and expounded his philosophy to his followers in sermons. The name of this princeling was Siddharta Gautama, also called Sakyamuni, the Sage of the Sakyas. After seven weeks of meditations, he reached illumination and henceforth was called the Buddha, meaning the "enlightened one." He is considered the Historical Buddha. After 45 years of teaching he achieved nirvana, a state similar to moksha(release) in its orthodox meaning. The Sanskrit word nirvana means "blowing out", extinction of self and absorption into the universe. He told the mourning disciples who gathered at his bedside, "Look into thyself, for thou art the Buddha," meaning that we all can become enlightened if we work to achieve it. Since Buddhist morality rejects the caste system, many persons adopted the new faith. However, its flowering came when one of the Maurya kings, Ashoka, adopted it and encouraged his subjects to follow suit. He sent missionaries all over the Indian Peninsula, even to far away Southeast Asia. They carried relics far and wide to strengthen the faith of the followers. When Siddharta was cremated, so legend tells, instead of ashes a handful of pearls remained. These were distributed and each put into a Stupa, built in the shape of a hemispherical mound, originally a royal tomb, which in Buddhism became endowed with cosmic symbolism. These stupas were stuccoed, inlaid, and often gilded or painted. The gateways of the fenced enclosure surrounding a stupa were decorated with sculpture.
    For the first few centuries of Buddhism, Sakyamuni was represented by symbols only.(fig. 61) A lion indicated his royal birth and was placed atop the huge columns erected by Ashoka, on which were carved the king's edicts recommending the new faith. The wheel symbolizes Buddha's teaching; footprints, and also the empty throne, his presence; the lotus his purity; the trident, as well as the three umbrellas that form the pinnacle of the stupa, his life, his teaching, and the community of his disciples. Besides these symbols the fertility figures of the past were freely used as a decorative element together with humans and beasts in adoration. The most beautiful combination of this evolution is to be seen on the torana of the Great Stupa at Sanchi.
    Alexander the Great penetrated the Indian peninsula from the Northeast after he defeated the Achaemenid ruler Darius III, between 332 and 330 B.C. While his presence in India was brief, his influence was considerable. He established satrapies, leaving in charge his generals, who had been married to local princesses. Eventually, after his death, the Greco-Bactrian kingdom continued a commercial and cultural exchange with the West. During Ashoka's patronage of Buddhism, embassies from the West were encouraged, as the account of Megasthenes, Greek ambassador at the Maurya court in Patalipura, testifies.
    When Hinayana or Theravada Buddhism gave way to the less severe Mahayana form, with its promise of enlightenment for everyone and the possibility of staying in heaven in splendor, Buddhist art began to represent the historical Buddha in human form. By this time the Kushan kings, a tribe of Indo-Scythians, had descended from the north and ruled the territory between the Oxus and Jumna rivers. As foreigners, they could not belong to the caste system, so they became enthusiastic Buddhists. It is a bone of contention whether the representations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, who, like angels and archangels help humanity to attain heaven, were first represented in human form at the Kushan winter capital of Mathura, or in the ancient Bactrian kingdom called Gandhara, in the northwest. Gandharan art shows a very strong Greco-Roman influence in the treatment of drapery, hair, and even facial characteristics, while the Buddhist art of Mathura reflects the vigor of the yakshas, the spirits of fertility, indigenous to the country. During the reign of King Kanishka, Mathura, the ancient city of Muttra on the Jumna river became the artistic center where the techniques of native art continued to flourish. On the other hand the art of Taxila, in the Gandhara region and on the trade route to Greece and Rome, shows traces of foreign workmanship and the predominant style of classical civilization.
    It was in the Gupta Period (320 to 600 A.D.), so named after the Emperor Chandragupta who was crowned at Pataliputra in 320, that Buddhist art reached its golden age. And it was also in the Gupta Period that Hinduism, somewhat eclipsed by Buddhism for a while, attained a renaissance. The Gupta emperors were Hindus, and during their reign Hindu temple architecture developed, in order to shelter the cult image of the divinity to which the particular temple was dedicated. The hitherto un-representable metaphysical divinities became transformed into anthropocentric cult statues, at first probably influenced by Buddhist sculpture, but ultimately developing, by the Indian national genius, into the glorious assemblage of Hindu gods and goddesses who populate its caves and temples.
    Since India was never united until the time of the British Raj, regional styles appeared in Orissa, in the Deccan, and in the Dravidian south. The Gupta style as a classical norm gave way to epic grandeur in bold relief producingstrong contrasts in light and shadow effects as at Elephanta and Ellora on the Deccan plateau in the 7th and 8th centuries during the Rastrakuta dynasty. At Mahabalipuram this epic style reached its height in the naturalistic human and animal figures of the Descent of the Ganges, a "fresco in stone" carved in the seventh century for the Pallava rulers. The later styles became heavier and more sensuous, and often the mechanical repetition led to increased artificiality. It was the time of the great temples, however, and they were populated with innumerable images of the vast Indian pantheon. The cult statue of the god to whom a temple is dedicated is contained in the inner sanctum, a small, dark room filled with incense and offerings, the so-called "Womb" or "garba griha." The rest of the architecture of the temple is enlivened by rows of divinities, enshrined in niches all over the temple and its adjunct structures. These teach, tell stories, and make the visit to the temple an important part of Hindu life.

1 Sir John Marshall, director of the archaeological Survey of India discovered this ancient civilization in 1923
2 See Chapter 2 in Rowland, B. The Art and Architecture of India, Penguin 1967.
3 See Finegan, J., The Archeology of World Religions, chapter 3, "the Vedic Period."
4 Sir Monier Moonier-Williams, "Vedic Hymns," The Universal Anthology, ed. by Garnett, R., L., Brandt, A. 1899.
5 Mahtam Gandhi took up their cause and called them the Harijans, meaning the 'chosen of God."

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Catalogue Information

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