Dificultades en Lectura

The figures called Tobatsu Bishamonten wear a cross-belt on the chest. It is worth pointing out the cross-belt taking into account that Lokapala iconography has traditionally taken a ruler’s image. This is because the cross-belt was an attribute of the ideal King Rāma in India.199 The earliest image of Rāma identified with an inscription in Brāhmī letters, dated to the fifth century, wears the cross-belt (fig. 2.33). This attribute,

hannavīra in Sanskrit,200 is “intended to hold other attributes e.g. a quiver behind the

198 _{There are letters in barbarized Greek encircling the king: PAO NANO PAO BAZ∆HO OPA O; and} on the reverse there is a Siva naked from waist upwards, holding a wreath and trident. (Egerton, A Description of Indian and Oriental Armour : Illustrated from the Collection Formerly in the India Office, Now Exhibited at South Kensington, and the Author's Private Collection, with a Map, Twenty-Three Full- Page Plates (Two Coloured), and Numerous Woodcuts, with an Introductory Sketch of the Military History of India, p. 12.)

199 _{Phyllis Granoff is the only person who has paid attention to this ornament. Yet she focuses only on arcs,} not the whole gear, and explains them as depictions of the sun and moon, which, in turn, are similar to the pendants on the chest of the Persian rulers represented on Sassanian silver vessels. See Phyllis Granoff, p. 146. However, the arcs appeared on the form of the cross-belt developed later. The original form has only a disc at the point at which the belt is crossed. Therefore Granoff’s perspective on the origin and function of this gear is different from mine.

200 _{This is also interpreted as follows: “flat disc, worn on the chest and said to symbolize the warlike} qualities of Krishṇa and Lakshmaṇa.” (Robert Elgood, Hindu Arms and Ritual : Arms and Armour from India 1400-1865 (Delft: Eburon, 2004), p. 238.) However, ‘flat disc’ here only refers to a disc at the place where the belt is crossed. The meaning of hannavīra is unclear, and textual evidence about Rāma’s wearing hannavīra has not yet been discovered. P. Pal, Rāma, āma, and the Archer Type of Gupta Coins," in Investigating Indian Art : Proceedings of a Symposium on the Development of Early Buddhist and Hindu Iconography, Held at the Museum of Indian Art Berlin in May 1986, ed. Wibke Lobo Marianne Yaldiz, and Museum für Indische Kunst (Germany) (Berlin: Museum für Indische Kunst : Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1987), p.264. There are many Rāma images wearing this gear with a few variations, and holding a bow, from the fifth to seventh centuries. See Anand Prakash Gaur, Rama in Ancient Indian Sculpture (Delhi: B.R. Pub. Corp., 2006), plates 8-30.

９４

shoulders,”201 as the above Rāma image shows. There are a few warrior images from Gandhara that wear this gear, indicating that it was actually used in real life. However, an earlier example of a similar cross-belt, worn by a Yakshini, or a tree-spirit, on a Bharhut pillar in the second century B.C.E., shows the attribute as an ornament or as a symbol of divinity rather than as something functional (fig. 2.34). The cross-belt worn by Persian rulers who have a quiver girding on their horses also exhibits the fact that the belt is not for the quiver (fig. 2.35). Thus it can be assumed that the gear was chosen to symbolize the ideal kingship of Rāma and Sasanian rulers some hundred years later than the date the Yakshini imagery was created. I think this kind of cross-belt could also be an origin of the ornament called yingluo 瓔珞 “jade or pearl necklace”for Bodhisattvas, as seen in images from Central Asia and East Asia (fig. 2.36).

It is easy to encounter Vaishravana images wearing the cross-belt. While this attribute was never worn by Lokapalas in India, there are Lokapala images wearing the cross-belt on the chest in Central Asia. For example, a Lokapala is represented on the inner wall of a passageway in cave 30 of the Senmusaimu森木賽姆grottoes in Xinjiang, China, which is dated to the fourth or fifth century (fig. 2.37). Here iconography is shared with Indian Lokapalas: he has a naked upper body and is wearing a loincloth, an ornamented headdress, bracelets, and armlets, and in his right hand holds a weapon that looks like a mace. He holds his left hand with palm upward at his chest. The fact that an Indian-type Lokapala is wearing the cross-belt suggests that the idea of applying the gear

201 _{Gosta Liebert, Iconographic Dictionary of the Indian Religions : Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Studies} in South Asian Culture (Leiden: Brill, 1976), p.60.

９５

for Lokapala began in Central Asia; the fact that the fairly early image of Lokapala in Central Asia shows the same features as the Indian Lokapala also seems to propose that the new iconography of the deity was created in Central Asia.

It is interesting to note that in Central Asia the cross-belt was worn by Lokapalas and also other deities. Lokapalas wearing the cross-belt wear armor or dhoti, but other deities wearing the cross-belt only wear armor.202 For example, there are two deities represented in the main chamber of cave 172 of the Kizil Grottoes in Xinjiang, China (fig. 2.38). These deities are identified as Lokapalas or Vajrapani.203 They are on the left and right portions of the icon niche in the rear wall of the chamber; each wearing distinctive armor. They are seated across from each other and are holding the same implements in their opposite hands, making their pose symmetrical: the left deity is wearing simple armor and sandals, holding a vajra in his right hand and a vajramushti in his left hand;204 the right deity is attired in quite elaborated armor, holding a vajra in his left hand and an unidentified implement in his right hand. This cave is dated to the mid-sixth century to mid-seventh century. A Surya image dated to the fourth or fifth century in the

202 _{However, Lokapalas made in China do not wear the gear; only the figure called Tobatsu Bishamonten} does. This suggests that the Chinese postulated the gear as an attribute of the typical image.

203 _{Yeoung-ae 임영애 Im, "Seoyeok Kucha Jiyeok Geumgang Yeoksa-Ui Teukjing-Gwa Gue Uimi 서역} 쿠차 지역 금강역사의 특징과 그 의미 (Characteristics and Meaning of Vajrapani in Kucha, Central Asia)," in Misulsa-Ui Jeongnip-Gwa Hwaksan 미술사의정립과확산 (Establishment and Distribution of Art History) ed. Hangsan An Hwi-jun gyosu jeongnyeon toim ginyeom nonmunjip ganhaeng wiwonhwoi (Seoul: Sahwoe pyeongnon, 2006). She takes the left image as an example of Vajrapani wearing a lion skin on his head (p. 338), and the pair of images as an example of a pair of Vajrapani (p. 341).

204 _{The implement that the deity is holding in the left hand has not been identified. I would like to identify} it as vajramushti, ‘diamond fist,’ a knuckleduster-like weapon, the embodiment of warrior virtue. For the detail of it, See Elgood, Hindu Arms and Ritual : Arms and Armour from India 1400-1865, 266 and fig. 17.1. There are no such Vajrapani images wearing the cross-belt, but this weapon seems like an attribute of Vajrapani rather than of Lokapala, judging from later iconography of Vajrapani, which has features of martial artists.

９６

Senmusaimu Grottoes (fig. 2.23) and Naga king images dated to the late seventh century in caves in Kizil also wear a cross-belt, as seen earlier (fig. 2.25).

Rāma, the hero of the great Indian epic āmā ana, was a model for “the Gupta emperor as a divine archer” because he was “the greatest archer and the ideal king in Indian mythology.”205 In sculpture Rāma clenches his left hand at his chest and raises his right hand, signifying reassurance. Even though his right hand does not reach upward, the implication of the act clearly recalls imagery of cakravatin, the ideal of Buddhist kingship, which always bears this gesture. Rāma is also holding a bow, another of his attributes, in his left hand. The reason that the archer image was chosen is that the bow is the most important weapon of the king. A poem of Kālidāsa, an ancient Indian poet, shows this: “Bowman” is used as a synonym for “king.” The fact that the bow also has political meaning has been inferred from Kālidāsa and also the epic Rāmāyana.206 By the Gupta period, representations of Rāma were common in art. In the coins of Indian Kings minted during the Gupta period, between the fourth and sixth centuries, there are kings portrayed as archers. This portrayal was created during the reign of Samudragupta (r. c. C.E. 335-76). It became the standard type for most Gupta rulers.207 Gupta emperors,

205 _{Pal, Rāma, āma, and the Archer Type of Gupta Coins, p. 264.} 206 _{Rāma, āma, and the Archer Type of Gupta Coins, p. 262.}

207 _{Rāma, āma, and the Archer Type of Gupta Coins, 261. Their effigies are classified into twenty types,} including archer type. Archer type Sumadragupta coins are coin numbers 37 through 40 in Gupta and Srivastava, Gupta Gold Coins in Bharat Kala Bhavan, pl. III.

９７

successors of Sumadragupta, followed the archer type (fig. 2.39); but on the obverse of their gold coins they also used their portraits in various attitudes and postures.208

A bow and arrow are attributes of one among the four Lokapalas in East Asia. Masaaki Matsuura focuses onwarrior images hold a bow and an arrow in the scene of the ‘Great Departure.’ He believes this figure is Vaishravana.209 However, bow and arrow are not attributes of the Tobatsu-type Vaishravana in East Asia. They were taken as attributes of one of the four Lokapalas, usually the King of the South, later in Tantric texts and East Asian Buddhist arts, maybe because these attributes are symbols of an ideal kingship. Rāma had been deified and was regarded “as the most ideal ruler of the past” and “an ideal man, a paradigm of noble conduct that should always be emulated.” For this reason, he would have been the model for the Gupta rulers.210 Imagery of Rāma as the ideal king and ideal man seems to be reflected in Vaishravana iconography, and later on in iconography, images of Lokapala as the Gupta ruler took the Rāma image.

The cross-belt as an iconographic element suggests that the authorities responsible for creating new iconography for Lokapala or other deities must have been particularly conscious of the tradition in which Lokapalas took a ruler-like appearance.211 “All the

208 _{A female figure with various attitudes, attributes, and mounts is seen on the reverse of all the twenty} types of Gupta gold coins, except one type. These goddesses are classified into nine groups. For more detail, see Gupta Gold Coins in Bharat Kala Bhavan, pp. 11-15.

209 _{Masaaki Matsuura 松浦正昭, Nihon no Bijutsu:Bishamonten 日本美術: 毘沙門天像 (Vaishravana}

Image), (T ky : Shibund 至文堂, 1992).

210 _{Pal, Rāma, āma, and the Archer Type of Gupta Coins, p. 263.}

211 _{There are more examples of protective gods wearing armor and its cross-belt on wall paintings in caves,} Xinjiang area. And the real king in armor is also represented as wearing the cross-belt. However, the Mara image from “the Subjugation of Mara” on the upper portion of the rear wall in the main chamber of cave 110 in Kizil wears the armor in which deities are clad, but does not wear the cross-belt (Xinjiang Weiwu'er Zizhiqu wen wu guan li wei yuan hui 新疆ウイグル自治区文物管理委員会; Baicheng Xian

９８

Vedic texts stress that the duty of the king is to protect his people,” and “the king and the Kshatriya are constantly to practice with arms.”212 Even Buddhist legend tells us that the prince Siddhartha practiced with arms, in particular in archery. The function of ancient Indian kings was similar to that of Lokapala, and their practice with arms recalls the appearance of Lokapala. It is probable that iconographic elements such as armor, bow, arrow, spear, and cross-belt were an ideal choice for the symbolic emblem for

Vaishravana and finally Lokapala, the guardian deities. As mentioned above, Indian Kings were meant to be represented like gods (with the one exception of hair in

Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa, the manual of art).213 This might be because kings in India were regarded as the great cosmic man, mahapurusha, beyond human beings. The following statement in the Purāṇa implies that kings were regarded as sages with

auspicious marks: “All kings should be (made) endowed with the marks of Mahapurushas and all sovereign rulers should be (made) with webbed hands and feet.”214