An Illustration of Iconographic Contact between Karttikeya and Manjusri in China

April 25, 2009

Karttikeya-Manjusri (5th century AD). From Yun-Kang Caves, Shensi Province, China

by B.N. Mukherjeefrom Buddhist Iconography, pp. 138-141.

(Superscript numbers refer to end notes.)

An interesting male figure can be noticed by the side of the

entrance to one (no.8) of the caves at Yun-Kang (or Yungang) near

Datong in the province of Shensi (or Shanxi) in China. The main caves

are dated to the period of the Northern Wei Dynasty (c. 385-534 or 550 AD). Artistic activities began here in about 460 AD.1

The male figure in question sits to the front probably on a high stool,

resting his feet on a peacock sitting to the right and turning its face

towards him. It holds a ball in its mouth. The male figure is

five-headed. But it may be considered as six-headed if we concede the

possibility of conceiving a head at the back of the main one, which the

viewers cannot see in a panel of sculpture in relief. The male figure

has six arms. The two uppermost hands display the symbols of Sun and

Moon. The middle left hand grasps a bow and the lowest left hand

carries a cock held closely to the chest. The lowest right hand, which

shows a mudra, rests on the right thigh. The middle right hand

is broken; but it seems to have carried an arrow, since the

corresponding left hand holds a bow (Fig. 26).2

All these attributes and the mount tend to identify the male figure as an icon of Skanda or Karttikeya (or Kumara).3

The deity is indicated here as having six heads (five visible and one

invisible). Skanda is referred to as having six faces in different

texts.4

The appearance of a brahmanical deity in a Buddhist shrine in China

in the 5th century AD need not cause surprise. In another panel in the

very same cave we can notice a three-headed male seated on a recumbent

bull. The latter figure may be considered to represent Mahesvara.5

It may, however, be pointed out that peacock was associated also with bodhisattva Manjusri,6

who, according to Chinese Buddhist legend, was ordained by Gautama

Buddha to turn the Wheel of Law for the salvation of the Chinese.7

Wen-Shu-Shi-Ii (i.e. Manjusri) is said to have chosen the Wu-tai-shan

(i.e. Pancasirsha or Mountain with Five Peaks) in the province of

Shensi as the place of his manifestation.8 His activities

were believed in certain sources to have begun in the first century AD

In any case, Manjusri could have been well-known in Shensi before the

date of the Yun-Kang caves, in which the male figure under discussion

was sculptured.9 Manjusri, the God of Transcendent Wisdom,10

can indeed be considered to have a characteristic shared also by

Karttikeya as Brahmanyadeva or God devoted to sacred knowledge.11

That the deity of Buddhist pantheon established a syncretistic

relationship with the Brahmanical god is also indicated by such

appellation for Manjusri as Manjukumara.12 Manjusri is referred to as Kumarabhuta ('He who has become Kumara or a Kumara'), which expression may allude, among others, to Kumara Karttikeya.13 Again, Manjusri is also described, like Karttikeya or Kumara, as a Kumara and as 'having the appearance of a Kumara,14 Manjukumara, according to a dhyana in the Sadhanamala, carries (like the deity at Yun-Kang) a bow and an arrow.15 In some sculptures, Manjusri has five heads,16

which is at least the visible number of heads in the representation of

the deity at Yun-Kang. These data may indicate the feasibility of

accepting the latter as a syncretistic icon involving Karttikeya and

Manjusri.

The earliest iconic descriptions of Manjusri, indicating such syncretism, appears in the Arya-ManjuSri-mulakalpa,17 datable

to a post-Gupta period and so later than the date of the Yun-Kang

deity. In that case, we cannot deny the possibility of one of the

earliest contacts between Karttikeya and Manjusri having taken place in

the latter's traditional domain (viz., the province of Shensi) in or

before the latter half of the 5th cent. AD (to which period the

Yun-Kang icon can be dated).

It is difficult to determine the proportion in which Manjusri and

Karttikeya exerted influence on the Yung-Kang image. It has been found

in a cave associated with Buddhism. We also know of the relationship of

Manjusri with Siva (or Nilakantha) also represented in the same cave.

Several Siva lingas in Nepal are engraved with icons of Manjusri.18

However, it must be borne in mind that Siva is basically a brahmanical

deity. Moreover, it is not known whether a regular and close

relationship between Manjusri and Siva had been developed by the date

of the two Yung-Kang icons, i.e. by about the third quarter of the 5th

cent. AD Again, this type of relationship was most probably prompted by

the coalescence of the concepts of Karttikeya and Manjusri. It was only

natural that Manjusri, under the influence of Karttikeya, developed a

relationship with the father of the latter (according to a belief). It

has also to be noted that the Yung-kang image with a peacock is

carrying a cock, a well-known cognizance of Karttikeya.

Whether the image concerned is to be recognized as

Karttikeya-Manjusri or Manjusri-Karttikeya (or Manjukumara), it betrays

clearly the influence of the concept of Karttikeya. The related concept

was certainly older than that of Manjusri.19 The evidence of

the Yung-Kang icon indicates the familiarity of that area with the

concept of Karttikeya by about the 5th cent. AD

If Karttikeya was known in Shensi of the Chinese mainland in the 5th

century AD, he should have been a recognizable deity from a still

earlier period in Chinese Central Asia, through which area his cult or

iconic concepts could have reached from the Indian borderlands to

Shensi. That the direction of the travel of this concept was from the

Indo-Iranian borderlands to China via Central Asia is further indicated

by the appearance of a popular and earlier Iranian iconic feature like

the holding of the Sun and Moon symbols20 in hands in the representations of Karttikeya in Central Asia and China.

We have shown elsewhere21 that with the spread of

Buddhism in Central Asia and China, Karttikeya (or Mahasena or Kumara)

was gradually adopted as a minor guardian deity (sometimes having

demonic appearance) in the Buddhist pantheon. But the deity was popular

enough to make some impact on the iconography of an important Buddhist

divinity like Manjusri in Central Asia as well as in India.

NOTES

China Reconstructs, September 1982, Vol. XXXI, No.9, pp. 60 and 63; Hart Hurling, I. and A., Chinese Art, New York, 1953, p. 234. China Reconstructs, September 1982, Vol. XXXI, no.9. pp. 60 and 63. See also the Expedition, Summer, 1983, Vol. XXV, no.4, p. 45, where the bird is wrongly described as an eagle. Agni Purana, ch. 50, vv. 27-29; Matsya Purana, ch. 260, vv. 46-50. For an example, see the Agni Purana, ch. 50, vv. 27-29. Expedition, Summer 1983, Vol. XXV, No.4, p. 45. S. K. Saraswati, Tantrayana Art -- An Album, Calcutta, 1967, p. XIX and fig. 10. A. Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism, 2nd edition, reprint, Tokyo, 1962, p.110. Ibid. Ibid. Getty, op. cit., p. 110. One of the epithets of Kârttikeya is Sanatkumâra, meaning 'Son of Brahma'. In the Chhandogya Upanisad (VII,

26) Sanatkumara is referred to as the instructor of Narada in

Brahmavidya. The deity is shown in a panel at Ellora as teaching Siva

the significance of pranava (1. N. Banerjea, Development of Hindu Iconography, 2nd edition, 1956, pp. 255 and 363, fn. 1). B. Bhattacharyya, Sâdhanamâla, Vol. I, Baroda, 1925, No. 70, p. 151; Saraswati, op. cit., p. XVIII. Arya-Manjusri-mulakalpa, ed. T. Ganapati Shastri, pt. II, Trivandrum, 1922, pp. 253.304, 315, 332, 441,460. Bhattacharyya, op. cit., Vol. I, No. 70, p. 142. " Manju, according to certain authorities, may possibly be a Tokharian word corresponding to Sanskrit Kumara " (Getty, op. cit. , p. 110, fu. 1; E. Elliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol. III, p. 221). Ibid., no.76, p. 151; Saraswati, op. cit., p. XXII. Getty, op. cit., p. 113. T. Ganapati Sastri, op. cit., pt. II, pp. 317, 318. D. C. Bhattacharyya, Iconography of Composite Images, New Delhi, 1979, p. 42, fig. 34. Skanda-yaga (Atharvaveda-parisista, 20); Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1890, Vol. XV, p. 5; Patanjali's Mahabhasya on the Astadhyayi, v.

3, 99; Skanda-kumara and Bizaga (Visakha) on Kusana coins; reference to

the same deity as Karttikeya and Kumara in a Nagarjunakonda

inscription, Banerjee, op. cit., p. 143. For an example, see O.M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus, 3rd edition, London, 1964, p. 57; pl. XXXII, No.203. Our paper entitled " Karttikeya (Mahasena) in Central Asian Iconography " will be published shortly.

http://murugan.org/research/china_karttikeya.htm

April 25, 2009

Also see http://books.google.com/books?id=DbxE8zOuRbUC & pg=PA159 & lpg=PA159 & dq=Ma%C3%B1ju%C5%9Br%C4%AB+mulakalpa & source=bl & ots=ozJWFK9hAu & sig=Cv0rm_znr337GNtm2Mv714bHu1c & hl=en & ei=mrDySY2ICsGHkQXpsoHXCg & sa=X & oi=book_result & ct=result & resnum=1#PPA160,M1

April 26, 2009

photo did not come through

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kishore patnaik

; indiaarchaeology

Saturday, April 25, 2009 12:18 PM

An Illustration of Iconographic Contact between Karttikeya and Manjusri in China

Karttikeya-Manjusri (5th century AD). From Yun-Kang Caves, Shensi Province, China

by B.N. Mukherjeefrom Buddhist Iconography, pp. 138-141.

(Superscript numbers refer to end notes.)

An interesting male figure can be noticed by the side of the entrance to one (no.8) of the caves at Yun-Kang (or Yungang) near Datong in the province of Shensi (or Shanxi) in China. The main caves are dated to the period of the Northern Wei Dynasty (c. 385-534 or 550 AD). Artistic activities began here in about 460 AD.1 The male figure in question sits to the front probably on a high stool, resting his feet on a peacock sitting to the right and turning its face towards him. It holds a ball in its mouth. The male figure is five-headed. But it may be considered as six-headed if we concede the possibility of conceiving a head at the back of the main one, which the viewers cannot see in a panel of sculpture in relief. The male figure has six arms. The two uppermost hands display the symbols of Sun and Moon. The middle left hand grasps a bow and the lowest left hand carries a cock held closely to the chest. The lowest right hand, which shows a mudra, rests on the right thigh. The middle right hand is broken; but it seems to have carried an arrow, since the corresponding left hand holds a bow (Fig. 26).2

All these attributes and the mount tend to identify the male figure as an icon of Skanda or Karttikeya (or Kumara).3 The deity is indicated here as having six heads (five visible and one invisible). Skanda is referred to as having six faces in different texts.4

The appearance of a brahmanical deity in a Buddhist shrine in China in the 5th century AD need not cause surprise. In another panel in the very same cave we can notice a three-headed male seated on a recumbent bull. The latter figure may be considered to represent Mahesvara.5

It may, however, be pointed out that peacock was associated also with bodhisattva Manjusri,6 who, according to Chinese Buddhist legend, was ordained by Gautama Buddha to turn the Wheel of Law for the salvation of the Chinese.7 Wen-Shu-Shi-Ii (i.e. Manjusri) is said to have chosen the Wu-tai-shan (i.e. Pancasirsha or Mountain with Five Peaks) in the province of Shensi as the place of his manifestation.8 His activities were believed in certain sources to have begun in the first century AD In any case, Manjusri could have been well-known in Shensi before the date of the Yun-Kang caves, in which the male figure under discussion was sculptured.9 Manjusri, the God of Transcendent Wisdom,10 can indeed be considered to have a characteristic shared also by Karttikeya as Brahmanyadeva or God devoted to sacred knowledge.11 That the deity of Buddhist pantheon established a syncretistic relationship with the Brahmanical god is also indicated by such appellation for Manjusri as Manjukumara.12 Manjusri is referred to as Kumarabhuta ('He who has become Kumara or a Kumara'), which expression may allude, among others, to Kumara Karttikeya.13 Again, Manjusri is also described, like Karttikeya or Kumara, as a Kumara and as 'having the appearance of a Kumara,14 Manjukumara, according to a dhyana in the Sadhanamala, carries (like the deity at Yun-Kang) a bow and an arrow.15 In some sculptures, Manjusri has five heads,16 which is at least the visible number of heads in the representation of the deity at Yun-Kang. These data may indicate the feasibility of accepting the latter as a syncretistic icon involving Karttikeya and Manjusri.

The earliest iconic descriptions of Manjusri, indicating such syncretism, appears in the Arya-ManjuSri-mulakalpa,17 datable to a post-Gupta period and so later than the date of the Yun-Kang deity. In that case, we cannot deny the possibility of one of the earliest contacts between Karttikeya and Manjusri having taken place in the latter's traditional domain (viz., the province of Shensi) in or before the latter half of the 5th cent. AD (to which period the Yun-Kang icon can be dated).

It is difficult to determine the proportion in which Manjusri and Karttikeya exerted influence on the Yung-Kang image. It has been found in a cave associated with Buddhism. We also know of the relationship of Manjusri with Siva (or Nilakantha) also represented in the same cave. Several Siva lingas in Nepal are engraved with icons of Manjusri.18 However, it must be borne in mind that Siva is basically a brahmanical deity. Moreover, it is not known whether a regular and close relationship between Manjusri and Siva had been developed by the date of the two Yung-Kang icons, i.e. by about the third quarter of the 5th cent. AD Again, this type of relationship was most probably prompted by the coalescence of the concepts of Karttikeya and Manjusri. It was only natural that Manjusri, under the influence of Karttikeya, developed a relationship with the father of the latter (according to a belief). It has also to be noted that the Yung-kang image with a peacock is carrying a cock, a well-known cognizance of Karttikeya.

Whether the image concerned is to be recognized as Karttikeya-Manjusri or Manjusri-Karttikeya (or Manjukumara), it betrays clearly the influence of the concept of Karttikeya. The related concept was certainly older than that of Manjusri.19 The evidence of the Yung-Kang icon indicates the familiarity of that area with the concept of Karttikeya by about the 5th cent. AD

If Karttikeya was known in Shensi of the Chinese mainland in the 5th century AD, he should have been a recognizable deity from a still earlier period in Chinese Central Asia, through which area his cult or iconic concepts could have reached from the Indian borderlands to Shensi. That the direction of the travel of this concept was from the Indo-Iranian borderlands to China via Central Asia is further indicated by the appearance of a popular and earlier Iranian iconic feature like the holding of the Sun and Moon symbols20 in hands in the representations of Karttikeya in Central Asia and China.

We have shown elsewhere21 that with the spread of Buddhism in Central Asia and China, Karttikeya (or Mahasena or Kumara) was gradually adopted as a minor guardian deity (sometimes having demonic appearance) in the Buddhist pantheon. But the deity was popular enough to make some impact on the iconography of an important Buddhist divinity like Manjusri in Central Asia as well as in India.

NOTES

China Reconstructs, September 1982, Vol. XXXI, No.9, pp. 60 and 63; Hart Hurling, I. and A., Chinese Art, New York, 1953, p. 234. China Reconstructs, September 1982, Vol. XXXI, no.9. pp. 60 and 63. See also the Expedition, Summer, 1983, Vol. XXV, no.4, p. 45, where the bird is wrongly described as an eagle. Agni Purana, ch. 50, vv. 27-29; Matsya Purana, ch. 260, vv. 46-50. For an example, see the Agni Purana, ch. 50, vv. 27-29. Expedition, Summer 1983, Vol. XXV, No.4, p. 45. S. K. Saraswati, Tantrayana Art -- An Album, Calcutta, 1967, p. XIX and fig. 10. A. Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism, 2nd edition, reprint, Tokyo, 1962, p.110. Ibid.

Ibid.

Getty, op. cit., p. 110. One of the epithets of Kârttikeya is Sanatkumâra, meaning 'Son of Brahma'. In the Chhandogya Upanisad (VII, 26) Sanatkumara is referred to as the instructor of Narada in Brahmavidya. The deity is shown in a panel at Ellora as teaching Siva the significance of pranava (1. N. Banerjea, Development of Hindu Iconography, 2nd edition, 1956, pp. 255 and 363, fn. 1). B. Bhattacharyya, Sâdhanamâla, Vol. I, Baroda, 1925, No. 70, p. 151; Saraswati, op. cit., p. XVIII. Arya-Manjusri-mulakalpa, ed. T. Ganapati Shastri, pt. II, Trivandrum, 1922, pp. 253.304, 315, 332, 441,460. Bhattacharyya, op. cit., Vol. I, No. 70, p. 142. "Manju, according to certain authorities, may possibly be a Tokharian word corresponding to Sanskrit Kumara" (Getty, op. cit. , p. 110, fu. 1; E. Elliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol. III, p. 221). Ibid., no.76, p. 151; Saraswati, op. cit., p. XXII. Getty, op. cit., p. 113. T. Ganapati Sastri, op. cit., pt. II, pp. 317, 318. D. C. Bhattacharyya, Iconography of Composite Images, New Delhi, 1979, p. 42, fig. 34. Skanda-yaga (Atharvaveda-parisista, 20); Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1890, Vol. XV, p. 5; Patanjali's Mahabhasya on the Astadhyayi, v. 3, 99; Skanda-kumara and Bizaga (Visakha) on Kusana coins; reference to the same deity as Karttikeya and Kumara in a Nagarjunakonda inscription, Banerjee, op. cit., p. 143. For an example, see O.M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus, 3rd edition, London, 1964, p. 57; pl. XXXII, No.203. Our paper entitled "Karttikeya (Mahasena) in Central Asian Iconography" will be published shortly. http://murugan.org/research/china_karttikeya.htm

April 26, 2009

Namaste, KishoreJi

Thanks a lot for sharing.

With best wishes

Lluís

-

oddisilab

; indiaarchaeology

Sunday, April 26, 2009 5:13 AM

Re: An Illustration of Iconographic Contact between Karttikeya and Manjusri in China