During the first millennium ce , Hindus in India developed a complex and conspicuous set of religious practices and institutions, centered on the worship of physical images or icons. These images were treated as theophanies, that is, as material embodiments or supports for the tangible presence of the Hindu gods. Images could be placed in small domestic shrines, in village temples, or in massive palatial stone temples, often built by ambitious kings to signal their claims to sovereignty. Whether in a small home shrine or a great royal temple, the images were to be venerated as the divinities they were believed to be. In this religious culture, Hindu texts articulated iconographic protocols for the fabrication of images, proper procedures for the consecration of images as worthy receptacles of the divine, ritual etiquette for worshiping the divine icons, and rules for the construction and maintenance of public temples as divine homes or mansions, as well as systems of theology within which these actions were suitable and necessary. Here I will call this religious culture of practice and knowledge temple Hinduism (Davis 1995 : 27–31).
Considering the importance of these religious practices in classical and medieval India (and continuing to the present day, in many respects), it is surprising that discussion of them in the Dharmaśāstra literature is quite sparse. If the Dharmaśāstra authors view dharma as “the totality of duties which bears upon the individual” in that individual’s particular social situation (Lingat 1973 : 4), then one would expect them to weigh in on matters of image worship and temple construction, and to bring these topics within the code of dharma they sought to articulate. However, key works of Dharmaśāstra like the smṛtis of Manu and Yājñavalkya, composed in the early centuries ce as the image-based religious practices were becoming prevalent in Northern India, remain virtually silent on the subject. “Ironically,” observes Patrick Olivelle (2010a : 193), “even though a temple locates the visible presence of the divinity on Earth, yet the temple is conspicuous by its absence or insignificance in the legal literature of ancient India.” What is the reason for this orthodox reticence?
The religious culture of temple Hinduism that emerged in classical and early medieval India was a significant departure from the earlier program of Vedic sacrifice. The Brahmin authors and transmitters of the Dharmaśāstra literature were, above all, loyal to the Vedic tradition. The emergence and rise of image-related religious practices in the early centuries ce provoked a tension within the class of orthodox Brahmin religious specialists. Some disdained them, while others actively entered into the new ritual culture. Heinrich von Stietencron (1977 : 131–2) described this tension in dramatic terms, as a schism in the Brahmin class. Orthodox Brahmins began a “bitter feud” with the Brahmins who participated in temple practices. This tension is reflected in the Dharmaśāstra treatment of the topics of images and temples.
My aim in this chapter is to trace the discourse pertaining to Hindu images and temples within the Dharmaśāstra genre. This is not a general history of Hindu image worship or temple Hinduism. I will consider both sides of the Brahmanical ambivalence toward images within the literature. First, I will look at the iconophobic orientation, as found in texts such as the Dharmaśāstra of Manu. Then, I will examine those orthodox iconodules within the Dharmaśāstra ambit who engaged with and articulated programs of image-related practice. These include several “supplements” to the Gṛhyasūtras, one notable Dharmaśāstra, some Purāṇas, and the compilations or digests (nibandha ) of Dharmaśāstra teachings. Finally, I will give a brief description of non-Vedic genres of prescriptive religious literature, such as the Vaiṣṇava Samhitās and the Śaiva Āgamas, that embraced more fully the religious culture of temple Hinduism.
The Dharmaśāstra is a Vaidika discipline of knowledge. The social, legal, and religious instructions within the Dharmaśāstra genre rest on the preeminent authority of the Veda.
Historically, the Vedas presume and outline a ritual program of sacrifice (yajña ). Sacrifice, it is said, involves three principal elements: the substance (dravya ) to be offered, the deity (devatā ) to whom the offering is made, and the giving up or abandonment (tyāga ) of the substance to the deity. In practice, Vedic sacrifice involves offerings of substances made into a sacrificial fire, which conveys the offerings to the gods, who remain invisible or distant. The offerings are accompanied by the recitation of mantras, oral passages of the Veda, which are considered to have sacred potency.
Within the Veda, a certain amount of anthropomorphic imaging of the deities is present. The hymns of the Ṛg Veda speak of Indra’s hands and eyes, Agni’s mouths, and so on. But, this does not indicate that the Vedic religion made use of anthropomorphic icons. As P. V. Kane (1927–8: II: 207) concludes, “one can say without much fear of contradiction that the religious practices among the higher strata of the Vedic Aryans did not include the worship of images in the house of in temples.”
Yet there is clear and abundant evidence that, outside this orthodox “Vedic Aryan” world of practice, many other ritual cultures were prevalent in India. Best known are the developing religious practices of the Jains and Buddhists. Dharmaśāstra authors regularly dismiss these communities as nāstika , “atheist.” But, the Gṛhyasūtras also acknowledge others. They refer to devakula, devāyatana , and devāgāra , terms that designate “homes of the gods.” These appear to be early shrines or temples, usually located outside villages or towns, housing images representing devas , Hindu deities. The Gṛhyasūtras generally counsel their audience of pious Vedic Brahmins to show respect toward these shrines, but they never recommend any direct ritual participation. By the first century of the Common Era, religious icons meant for veneration were beginning to make their presence in Northern India inescapable. 1 From then on, the religious culture of temple Hinduism grew.
This posed a deep challenge to the Vedic order, both ideological and economic. Responses to this new challenge within the Brahmin class were not uniform. To those orthodox Brahmins who held that the primordial responsibilities of the Brahmin class were to recite and transmit the Veda, to offer and officiate at sacrifices, and to receive and give gifts (as Manu states in MDh 1.88), images and shrines appeared as a threat. But, other Brahmins took a more conciliatory or integrative position. These iconodule Brahmins sought to engage themselves within the emerging practices of temple Hinduism and to articulate these practices within a Brahmanical orientation.
The full dimensions of this intraclass dispute are not known, and historians have characterized it in different ways. In his stimulating 1977 essay, von Stietencron portrays it as a fundamental schism within the Brahmin class, leading to a long-lasting “bitter feud” between iconophobic and iconophilic Brahmins (1977: 131–2). Ronald Inden sketches out how some Vedic transmission schools or branches (śākhas ) began to reframe Vedic practices within a theistic, image-based liturgy. For Inden, this change is a matter of religious politics. He regards it as “the result of contestation among different religious orders or schools for the “enunciative function” with respect to the religious or ontological commitments of ancient Indian polities (1992: 573).” Gérard Colas (2004) likewise recognizes the economic conflict. As royal and elite patronage of temples increased, grants to Vaidika Brahmanical settlements (agrahāras and brahmadeyas ) correspondingly decreased. He traces a multiplicity of critical opinions on image worship within several Sanskrit disciplines of knowledge, including Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, and Advaita Vedānta. Despite the critiques within these genres of orthodox discourse, however, he observes that most refrain from a thorough condemnation of image-related practices. They adopt an “ambivalent” position, he argues (171).
Whatever bitter feuds, contestation, or ambivalence among Brahmins may have played out on the ground in classical and early medieval India, the iconophobic discourse we see in the Dharmaśāstras and related literature does not take the form of harsh attacks or denunciation. Rather, the orthodox opponents of image worship follow the more subtle rhetorical strategies of omission, distancing, and ontological subversion.
If classical Dharmaśāstra works set out comprehensive ideals of proper conduct for members of the twice-born classes, and especially for Brahmin males. The great majority of these works omit any mention of image-related practices, either as domestic rites or as a worthy profession. For Manu, a central daily ritual task for a pious male householder is to perform the five “great sacrifices” (mahāyajña ): sacrifices to the Veda, to the ancestors, to the gods, to beings, and to humans (MDh 3.70). The sacrifice to the gods here remains very clearly within the paradigm of sacrifice. One adds wood to the domestic fire, reciting a Vedic mantra. Other Dharmaśāstras follow suit (with one exception, discussed in the following section). The worship of gods in the form of images is omitted as part of the proper daily conduct of an orthodox Brahmin.
As with the earlier Gṛhyasūtras, the Dharmaśāstras of Manu and Yājṇavalkya do acknowledge the existence of physical “gods” (deva, daivata ). In his general rules of conduct for a bath-graduate, Manu states that one should circumambulate a mound of earth, a cow, a god (daivata ), a Brahmin, ghee, honey, a crossroads, or a significant tree (MDh 4.39). The commentators gloss daivata here as “image of god.” Yājñavalkya (1.133) likewise recommends passing on the right a god, a mound of earth, cow, Brahmin, or large tree (literally, “king of the forest”)—all objects worthy of honor. Here, it would seem, a shrine with an image of a god is something one might encounter on route while traveling. If so, the authors urge the pious householder to show all due respect, and then move on down the road.
As for those who officiate at these shrines, that is a different matter. Manu addresses this in his discussion of monthly ancestral observances. A pious householder should be very careful about whom he invites. Ancestral offerings have much to do with maintaining the continuity and status of one’s lineage, so it makes sense to exclude those who might detract from the family purity. Among those to be excluded are devālakas . “Physicians, devālakas , butchers, and tradesmen should all be excluded from divine and ancestral offerings” (MDh 3.152). The devālakas are, according to Kullūka and other commentators, those who attend on images (pratimā-paricāraka ), temple officiants. This is one portion of a much larger set of exclusions. The careful śrāddha host will also avoid men with deformed nails or black teeth, people with one eye, actors, singers, gamblers, drunks, spice-merchants, and of course, nāstikas , along with many others, from such ceremonies of ancestral solidarity. People with these imperfections would contaminate the purity of the offerings.
Manu does not provide a rationale for excluding devālakas from ancestral rites. Since he places the image attendant in between physician and butcher, it is tempting to construe them together. Doctors earn a living by ministering to living human bodies, and butchers by dealing in dead animal bodies. Temple attendants also attend on the physical bodily forms of gods. Is it a matter of pollution through direct engagement with the organic, as anthropologists have argued? In his commentary, Kullūka suggests a different reason. Devālakas perform the rituals of worship of images for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, and not based solely on the principles of dharma . Feeding such an unworthy person at one’s śrāddha ceremony, says Kullūka, renders the ritual fruitless (Kullūka on MDh 3.180).
The notion of improper livelihood appears, again, when Many discusses wrongful actions or sins (papa ) that cause a fall in (pātaka ) and require an expiation (prāyaścitta ). Among those wrongful actions is the appropriation of property that should belong to gods or Brahmins. “If one seizes the property of a god (devasva ) or of a Brahmin out of greed,” declares Manu (11.26), “in the next world that sinful person will subsist on the leftovers of greedy vultures.” What is the property of a god? Kullūka glosses devasva as wealth that is given for the purpose of a divinity, such as for an image of the god. Temple priests are condemned to a future life of vulture leftovers for making a living, in this life, from food and other offerings made to the gods they attend.
The ninth-century Kashmiri commentator Medhātithi took this condemnation a step further, into ontological subversion Medhātithi was an erudite Dharmaśātrin who applied the Vaidika interpretive principles of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā in his commentary on Manu (Derrett 1976b). Devasva , he begins, is actually the property of males of the twice-born classes who are disposed to perform sacrifice. It is considered the “property of god” only insofar as it is intended for use in sacrifice or other rituals, since it is not possible for gods to own property. “Gods do not make use of property by their own desire, and one never sees them engaged in protecting it,” he asserts (Medh on MDh 11.26). Here Medhātithi’s Mīmāṃsā roots show through.
By the ninth century, it had become common in India to regard the god inhabiting the central image of a temple as the proprietor of the temple, the true recipient of donations and offerings, and the owner of its wealth. This view is reflected in myriad inscriptions of early medieval India. (Buddhists of the period likewise regarded the Buddha as owner of monastic property, as Gregory Schopen [1990 ] shows.) Medhātithi acknowledges this is a “common view” (loka ), by presenting the preliminary argument of an opponent. “In the common view,” this imagined interlocutor states, “the term devasva is used for property attached to an image, such as a four-armed temple icon.” Speaking for himself, Medhātithi firmly denies this. Divinity does not belong to a four-armed image. The fact that one uses the term “image” (pratimā , literally “likeness” or “imitation”) shows that it is not in fact the god (Medh on MDh 11.26).
Medhātithi’s view here accords with the position taken by Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, as presented in Śabara’s fifth-century commentary on Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsāsūtras . According to Mīmāṃsā, gods do not have bodies. This denial of divine agency applies to the anthropomorphic imagery of gods used in the Ṛg Veda , to understandings of sacrificial efficacy based on divine-human reciprocity, and to the painted or sculpted icons of temple worship (Clooney 1988 ; Davis 2001 : 119–21; Colas 2004 : 151–5). One performs sacrifice according to injunction in order to obtain a result through the transcendent principle of apūrva (the “remote”). For Mīmāṃsā, pleasing, feeding, or petitioning of deities cannot be the rationale for sacrifice or worship, for the gods do not intervene. Śabara (9.1.9) also observes that deities, being only sound, cannot in fact own or administer property. The so-called property of gods is in fact administered by temple attendants.
The worship of images is grounded solely on human custom, not on the transcendent basis of Veda. Gérard Colas sees Śabara’s position here as “complicated”: “Śabara rejects the notion of the embodiment of gods, but accepts image ‘worship.’ At the same time, however, he empties it of the worshipping dimension and refuses to accept that ‘worship’ is addressed to a god” (2004 : 154). I would put it more strongly. Although Śabara does not condemn image worship as a sinful practice, leading to vulture leftovers, Pūrva Mīmāṃsā does seek to subvert the ontological or theological premises of image worship. This iconophobic orientation continues within some lineages of Dharmaśāstra discourse, as we see in the commentary of Medhātithi.
The earliest positive treatments of image worship and temple practices in orthodox Brahmanical literature appear in a set of late Gṛhyasūtra texts:
Several of these include śeṣa or pariśiṣṭa (“supplement”) in their titles, and Shingo Einoo (2005a: 9) classifies them as belonging to the “Gṛhyapariśiṣṭa level.” Such texts are meant to complete an earlier existing work within a Vedic branch. As Jan Gonda (1977: 513) has observed, such supplementary additions may well incorporate “rites or variants of rites that had become in vogue after the completion of their samhitās and brāhmaṇas. ” The dating of this group of texts is not certain. Einoo points to features indicating a relatively late composition, but sets a terminus ad quem at the late fifth century ce , with the composition of Varāhamihira’s Bṛhatsamhitā. Composition in the early centuries ce , then, would place them contemporary with the expansion of image worship and the beginnings of Hindu temple construction, as indicated by archeological evidence. In these Gṛhyapariśiṣṭa texts, we see orthodox Brahmins belonging to select branches of the Veda taking an active role in articulating ritual procedures for the emerging religious culture of temple Hinduism.
The Āgniveśyagṛhyasūtra (ĀgGṛ ), belonging to a branch of the Black Yajurveda, presents a relatively simple account of the rite of image worship, as part of the daily conduct of a pious householder. After completing the fire rites (agnikārya ), it says, one should invoke and honor Viṣṇu.
In a diagram (maṇḍala ), on a consecrated ground (sthaṇḍila ), in water, within one’s heart, in a lamp, in fire, or else in an image (pratimā ), one should invoke Viṣṇu and worship him. (ĀgGṛ 2.4.10)
For this work, then, the image is not considered an exclusive or privileged site for Viṣṇu’s presence. The employment of an image is just one of a series of possible locations in which to invoke the god. Later theistic texts would stress the compassion and generosity of god in making his or her divine presence accessible to human devotees in many places. Āgniveśya goes on to provide more details about the use of an image.
Now if one is using an image, one should have fabricated from gold or metal, or if that is not possible then from stone, an image of four-armed Viṣṇu holding conch, discus, and mace, and have it established (pratiṣṭhā ) in a home (agāra ) or in a shrine (vimāna ).
Āgniveśya introduces three topics here: the substance of the image, its proper iconography, and the location for the installation or establishment of the image. Each will be greatly expanded in later treatments.
Āgniveśya directs the image worshiper to install or establish the image in an appropriate location, but the text does not provide any directions on how this should be done. The word he uses, pratiṣṭhā , in general usage, indicates standing firmly or providing a stable foundation. As Gonda (1975 ) has shown, this term has a remarkably wide range of uses in Vedic and post-Vedic literature. In temple Hinduism, pratiṣṭhā becomes the most common designation for the process—often very complex—by which an object is made suitable for sacred use. It denotes an instrumental and efficacious ritual that brings about a transubstantiation in the physical nature of the object (Davis 1997 : 33–7). The pratiṣṭhā of a fabricated image of a god transforms it into a fit embodiment for that god’s divine presence. Shrines and temples also undergo a ritual pratiṣṭhā , making them fit residences for the divine, and even more “secular” things like wells, tanks, parks, and towns can be consecrated through a procedure of pratiṣṭhā (Kane 1962–75: II 889–96). Several other works of the Gṛhyapariśiṣṭa genre provide guidance for the ritual establishment of a newly fabricated image or icon.
The Baudhāyagṛhyapariśiṣṭasūtra (2.13) sets out a procedure (kalpa ) for the establishment of Viṣṇu in image form. 2 The ritual procedures require a Brahmin officiant knowledgeable in the Vedas, for each action is accompanied by Vedic recitations, and more specifically passages from the Taittirīya recension of the Black Yajurveda, to which the Baudhāyana śākha is affiliated. The ritual of pratiṣṭha incorporates a Vedic fire sacrifice as an important auxiliary rite, and it begins and ends with the feeding of Brahmins. So Baudhāyana’s procedure for pratiṣṭha is in many respects a Brahmanical or Vaidika ritual.
However, the central acts of the ritual are directed toward an image (pratikṛti ) of Viṣṇu, understood as the Primordial Person (puruṣa ). At an appropriate time, Baudhāyana begins; the officiant should serve food to Brahmins and have them declare an auspicious day. An image is made. (Baudhāyana gives no details on the substance or iconography of the image.) Placing the image on a platform, the officiant sprinkles it three times with water, reciting Vedic passages from the Taittirīya recension, and then ties a protective cord on it. The image spends the night in water. (In later texts, this rite is known as jalādhivāsa .) The following morning four Brahmins remove the image from the water and set it up in a pure place, where the primary acts of consecration will occur.
The officiant first bathes the image with pañcagavya , the five products of the cow. Baudhāyana explains the preparation of this decoction (consisting of cow urine, dung, milk, curd, and ghee), and he cites the Vedic mantras that should accompany each substance. Einoo (2005b: 106–8) provides further comparative details on pañcagavya .) Then the officiant should sprinkle the image with water from a jar containing bark from all the trees used in sacrifice. Next, he sprinkles the image with a jar containing pearls, jewels, silver, and copper. The term here is abhiṣeka , a key rite in all establishment rituals and many others as well. Abhiṣeka is a constitutive ritual action, in which substances and related powers are first collected into a liquid form and then infused into a recipient by pouring the substances over it. 3 After these affusions of the Viṣṇu image, the officiant uses a golden needle to open its eyes. Later texts call this the netra-unmīlana , the opening of the eyes, and often consider this particular act to be the climactic moment in which the material object becomes alive. Finally, the officiant sets up a sacrificial fire. He recites the Hymn of Puruṣa (TĀ 3.12), offers oblations into the fire, and then touches the image at its feet, its navel, its head, and then its entire body, each time reciting again the Puruṣa Hymn.
The ritual pattern in Baudhāyana’s account of pratimā-pratiṣṭhā suggests a concentrating of powers onto the object, a ritual that constructs the image as a comprehensive body of the god Viṣṇu. The employment of the Puruṣa hymn here is clearly significant. It identifies Viṣṇu as the Puruṣa, the Vedic primordial being and the paradigmatic sacrificial victim. But, here, the ritual process reverses the direction of the Puruṣa hymn, as Shantanu Phukan (1989) has observed. If the Puruṣa hymn narrates a sacrificial dismemberment of the Puruṣa to create the phenomena of the existing world, here the materials of the created world are returned and reassembled to constitute the new image body of the god Viṣṇu.
Once this initial consecration of the image has been completed, one should take it into the shrine (devālaya ). In the context of a Gṛhyasūtra supplement, we can presume that Baudhāyana has in mind a domestic shrine, but there is no fundamental difference between pratiṣṭhā rituals for images meant for domestic shrines and those for larger public temples. After precious gems and metals have been placed on the pedestal, the image is set there. The officiant now performs the first ritual of worship (pūjā ) of the newly established Viṣṇu image.
First, the god must be invoked (āvāhana ) into the image. In Baudhāyana’s account, this is accomplished by reciting a series of Vedic mantras and the phrase, “I invoke the Puruṣa.” Baudhāyana goes on to list a series of offerings or services (upacāra ) that the worshiper now presents to Viṣṇu embodied in the image. These include a seat (asana ), water for the feet (pādya ), reception water (arghya ), and water for sipping (ācamana ). Each time the worshiper recites a request that this offering be accepted. In effect, the worshiper is treating Viṣṇu was an honored guest. He follows the same kind of ritual etiquette of respect that one would offer to a worthy Brahmin guest (atithi ) attending a śrāddha ceremony.
The worshiper now unties the protective cord from the image, and next offers more acts of honor or service. He presents to the image sweet-smelling perfume (gandha ), a garland (mālya ), flowers (puṣpa ), incense (dhūpa ), and the illumination of a lamp (dīpa ). He gives flowers while pronouncing the twelve names of Viṣṇu. The offerings here go beyond the more modest treatment of a guest, and begin to suggest a second model for the services of worship: the acts, honor, or veneration (vandana ) directed at a lord or king in court. Both are appropriate: Viṣṇu is both an honored guest in the home and the Primordial Person and Lord of the Cosmos.
Following these ritual attentions directed toward the image, the officiant offers oblations into the sacrificial fire and ends with a final offering of bali or “tribute.” He accompanies this final offering with a verse that reiterates the underlying theology of the ceremony.
You are the One, the original, the ancient Primordial Person (puruṣa ). We sacrifice to you, Nārāyaṇa, the creator of everything. You alone are the sacrifice, both completed and to be completed. Please accept this offering in yourself, by yourself. (Harting 1922: 32)
Here again is stressed the identification of the image of Viṣṇu with the Puruṣa. To complete the ritual, Baudhāyana prescribes that the officiant circumambulate two or four times while reciting praises of the god, and then feeds twelve Brahmins.
While some of the later “supplements” to the Vaidika Gṛhyasūtra literature began to envision the worship of divine images as a viable practice for orthodox Brahmins, the most prominent Dharmaśāstras of the early centuries ce —those of Manu, Yājñavalkya, and others—did not follow this orientation. Loyal to a more conservative vision of Vedic Brahmanical conduct, they took a dim view of image worship and temple practices, as we have seen. One Dharmaśāstra, however, departs form this iconophobic orthodoxy: the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra .
Composed around the seventh century ce , the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra (often referred to by scholars as the Viṣṇusmṛti ) is both a traditional and a new type of work within the Dharmaśāstra genre. On the one hand, like other Dharmaśāstras, it belongs to a specific Vedic branch, the Kathaka śākha , and it shares many of the concerns and much of its content with Manu, Yājñavalkya, and other earlier Dharmaśāstra texts. But, unlike those other Dharmaśāstras, the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra articulates a decidedly theistic perspective, and more specifically a Vaiṣṇava orientation. 4 The frame narrative established that the god Viṣṇu himself, not just some venerable human sage, is the primary speaker of the principles of dharma here. Shortly after Viṣṇu, in the form of a giant boar, has rescued the Earth and again created the manifest world—so goes the story—the Earth becomes anxious about its own preservation and seeks out Viṣṇu to learn the teachings of dharma that will maintain the proper order of things. Among his many teachings to Earth, Viṣṇu advocates the worship of an image of himself as an important part of the daily routine of a pious male Brahmin in the householder stage of life (gṛhāśrama ). He outlines a basic paradigm for the practice of daily worship (arcana ).
Viṣṇu specifies that the worshiper should have bathed well, washed hands and feet, and sipped water before interacting with the gods. The Lord Viṣṇu, he adds, may be worshiped in the form of a divine image (devatārcā ), on the ground, or in water. The worshiper should begin with two actions aimed at bringing the divine presence into the material support. First, he enacts the “giving of life” (jīvadāna ) for the image, and then he invokes (āvāhana ) Viṣṇu, each time reciting a suitable Vedic mantra. Then the worshiper should prostrate himself before Viṣṇu “with knees, hands, and head.” Throughout its account of nityapūjā , the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra prescribes specific passages from the Vedas to accompany each action.
Next, the worshiper presents a series of offerings to Viṣṇu in the image. These are similar to those prescribed by Baudhāyana:
Each of these presentations has its own Vedic formula. The Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra then adds a verse with six additional offerings:
These six should be accompanied by the Sāvitrī mantra. For all these offerings, says Viṣṇu, the worshiper should bow his head. He should act in a benevolent manner, avoiding both passion and anger. Finally, the worshiper should perform a mantra-recitation (japa ) of the Puruṣa hymn. As in Baudhāyana’s account of image establishment, the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra’s account of image worship stresses the identification of Viṣṇu with the Vedic Puruṣa, through the repetition of this crucial Vedic hymn.
I have argued elsewhere, based on Śaiva texts from a later period, that Hindu nityapūjā consists in three primary sequences of ritual acts (Davis 1991 : 39). The first sequence involves purifications, and especially purification of the self (ātmaśuddhi ), to render the human worshiper fit for engagement with the divine. The second sequence, invocation, summons the deity to become fully present in the icon to be worshiped. God becomes manifest in a material form. These two preliminary sequences bring the worshiper and the god toward one another, onto a common ground, where direct interactions between human and divine can occur (Davis 1991 : 134–6). The Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra presents the two initial portions as simple preliminaries, but they come to be greatly elaborated in later theistic ritual guides. Once this common ground is reached, the worshiper performs his homage to god in a sequence of services (upacāra ). These are mostly physical offerings or gifts, presented before the image, understood to be a divine person. The services are modeled on hierarchical human interactions, in which a subordinate treats a superior with respect and veneration.
It is important that the offerings presented to the divine person be the best possible substances. Accordingly, the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra (Chapter 66) provides some specifications. The unguents should consist only of sandalwood, saffron, aloe, camphor, deer-musk, or nutmeg. One should never offer ornaments of counterfeit gems or gold. One must not offer flowers that have no smell, nor ones that have a rotten odor. Only ghee and sesame oil may be used in the oil lamp. One must not offer food that is proscribed for the twice-born, not goat or buffalo milk, nor meat from five-nailed animals, fish, or wild boar.
As in all Dharmaśāstras, the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra assumes that different actions are suitable for different stages of life (āśrama-dharma ). The worship of Viṣṇu in image form is part of the daily conduct appropriate for a male householder. Later in the text, Viṣṇu sets out a different code for the fourth stage of male life, the renouncer or “Brahmā-stage” of life (Chapters 96–7). For the renouncer, yogic meditation (dhyāna ) replaces the worship of images. But, Viṣṇu recognizes that not all renouncers are equally adept at meditation, and so he sets out a series of possibilities, based on an individual’s capacity. Best is to meditate on Puruṣa as the One who transcends all material constituents. But, if one cannot fix one’s mind on this formless Absolute, one may try other options, such as meditating on the Puruṣa shining like a lamp at the center of the heart. Finally, says Viṣṇu, if the renouncer is not able to manage these abstract meditations, he may focus his mind on Viṣṇu in a visual form.
And if he cannot even do that, he should meditate on the auspicious form of Lord Vāsudeva wearing a crown, earrings, and bracelets. On his chest is a garland of forest-flowers, and in his four hands he holds conch, discus, mace, and lotus. The goddess Earth is between his feet. (ViDh 97.10)
Here the renouncer’s mental visualization of Viṣṇu parallels the householder’s use of a physical image of the god. 5
Viṣṇu’s instructions to Earth contained in the Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra are directed primarily to an audience of pious Brahmins. He sets out proper conduct for individual Brahmins at different stages of life. This includes the worship of physical images of Viṣṇu as part of a male householder’s daily conduct, and meditation on Puruṣa or Viṣṇu for the renouncer. Viṣṇu does devote some attention to the proper conduct of a king, but he says nothing about the royal activity of temple construction or about public temple ritual. These matters were taken up in a related work, the Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa , composed in Kashmir in roughly the same period. 6 Both works articulate a similar theistic orientation, but they address themselves to differing audiences.
The Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa consists in a dialogue between the eminent Brahmin sage Mārkaṇḍeya and the Kṣatriya king Vajra. The great-grandson of Kṛṣṇa, Vajra is ruling at Indraprastha. When Vajra sets out to perform a Vedic horse sacrifice, Mārkaṇḍeya journeys from his forest-retreat to Indraprastha, and the two engage in an extended colloquy. Mārkaṇḍeya’s aim, and that of the Viṣṇudharmottara , is to persuade an aspiring imperial ruler to accept the theistic and activist perspective of the Pāñcarātra school of Vaiṣṇavas. The sage outlines a series of devotional actions that will lead ultimately to union with Viṣṇu. Mārkaṇḍeya’s recommendations integrate political and religious actions, and place temple construction as a central part of royal conduct. As Ronald Inden (2000 : 30) puts it, “the grandest of these works would have the king of kings build a large, commanding Pāñcarātra temple after he had ‘conquered the quarters’ and made himself the paramount king in an imperial formation that embraced all of India.” Mārkaṇḍeya’s program here also has the effect of demoting the role of the Vedic horse sacrifice that Vajra is performing. “The Pāñcarātra temple, together with its elaborate liturgy of temple-honoring,” Inden (2000 :30) observes, “would displace the Vedic sacrificial liturgy as the capstone of…the imperial formation of India in its own age.” In these prescriptions of the Brahmin sage Mārkaṇḍeya, the worst fears of the orthodox iconophobes loyal to the old Vedic order would seem to be borne out.
The Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa discusses matters of image fabrication, temple construction, and liturgical procedure on a grand scale at great length. Indeed, among scholars, this text has been utilized most often by historians of medieval Indian art and architecture, as it provides one of the earliest and most comprehensive prescriptive accounts of Hindu iconography and temple architecture (Kramrisch 1928 ; Sivaramamurti 1978 ). These topics are also taken up in the genres of Śilpaśāstra and Vāstuśāstra, directed primarily at the sculptors and architects responsible for fabricating images and homes for the gods.
It is no coincidence that Mārkaṇḍeya’s teachings to Vajra are contained not in a Dharmaśāstra, but in a Purāṇa. To follow the discursive thread of orthodox literature pertaining to images and temples, we must turn now to that other genre of smṛti texts, the Purāṇas.
Let us begin with the case of Lakṣmīdhara, compiler of the great digest (nibandha ) of dharma teachings, the Kṛtyakalpataru . Lakṣmīdhara served as a high official under Govindacandra, an imperial Gāhadavāla ruler of twelfth-century North India based in Varanasi. At royal behest, Lakṣmīdhara set out to compile a comprehensive topical anthology of dharma , drawn from available smṛti literature. The resulting compilation amounted to an extraordinary work of some 30,000 ślokas , arranged in fourteen book-length sections, covering all major subjects of the Dharmaśāstra genre. His effort may have been provoked by the political encounter in Northern India during this period with an expansive Islamic world, as Sheldon Pollock has suggested, which led to a desire among Hindu elites for “totalizing statements” of the Brahmanical world vision. Or it may simply reflect, as David Brick (2015 : 16) counters, the inherent appeal to an ambitious ruling power of a collection that is comprehensive in scope, well organized by topic, and impressively massive. 7
Lakṣmīdhara treats pratiṣṭhā , “the construction and establishment of images and temples,” as one of the fourteen sections. 8 If we judge by the historical evidence, pratiṣṭhā would have been a subject of great interest for an ambitious twelfth-century Hindu ruler, for this was a period of extensive, grandiose temple building, often undertaken by royal patrons. But, a composition of writings on this topic drawn exclusively from Dharmaśāstra texts would not have amounted to much. Fortunately, Lakṣmīdhara could make use of another genre of orthodox literature, the Purāṇas. From at least the time of Yājñavalkya, the Purāṇas had been considered a valid source of orthodox knowledge and dharma, part of the smṛti (YDh 1.3). Accordingly, Lakṣmīdhara was able to rely entirely on the genre of Purāṇic literature for his compilation on the subject of pratiṣṭhā . Ludo Rocher (1986: 87) has observed that the Purāṇas are quoted so often in Dharmaśāstra commentaries and digests as “the logical consequence of their containing materials very similar to, if not identical with, the primary sources of those texts, the dharmasūtras and dharmaśāstras.” But, with topics of pratiṣṭhā and image worship, digest writers turn to the Purāṇas, owing to the paucity of discussion in the primary sources of Dharmaśāstra.
In the Kṛtyakalpataru , Lakṣmīdhara organizes his treatment of pratiṣṭhā into several key topics:
He cites no Dharmaśāstra texts, but draws on many Purāṇas. Several of these are of particular importance: Matsya Purāṇa, Devī Purāṇa, Bhaviṣya Purāṇa , and Varāha Purāṇa . As one might expect, his treatment of the establishment of a goddess image bases itself on the Devī Purāṇa , and the Varāha Purāṇa is a primary source for his treatment of Viṣṇu-pratiṣṭhā. Of all the Purāṇas, ṣmīdhara anthologizes most often the Matsya Purāṇa , which offers an early and exemplary Purānic treatment of images and temples.
The Matsya Purāṇa is a lengthy, varied work that treats all of the conventional subjects to a Purāṇa. 9 It discusses matters of cosmic creation and dissolution, narratives of the deeds of the deities, and genealogies of legendary rulers. It also covers numerous topics of concern to Dharmaśāstra, such as gift giving, ancestral offerings, impurity rules, and expiations for failures to follow dharma. The Matsya Purāṇa also devotes eighteen chapters (Chapters 252–70) to a full treatment of the subject of vāstu , the construction of dwelling places, or loosely architecture. As V. S. Agrawala (1963 : 342) suggests, these chapters may well have been an independent treatise, a Vāstuśāstra, that the compilers of the Matsya Purāṇa have incorporated into their text.
Matsya Purāṇa begins its discussion of vāstu by citing eighteen preceptors in the discipline of Vāstuśāstra. The narrator Sūta proposes to offer a brief summary of their knowledge to his audience of sages. Sūta goes on to relate the story of Vāstudeva, a deity born of Śiva’s sweat who subsequently serves as a foundational matrix set out for any constructed dwelling place. The geometrical diagram or vāstu-maṇḍala contains within it up to eighty-one squares, where forty-five different deities are invoked. This insures that any building rest on a comprehensive foundation of the divine. Religious shrines and temples are one category of dwelling place, since they house gods, but the Vāstuśāstra also includes within its purview, many other types of buildings, homes, and palaces. Sūta describes to his audience such matters as auspicious times for house construction, testing and preparing the soil before construction, the proper dimensions and proportions for building elements like pillars and doors, the types of trees to use for wood, how to cut down trees respectfully, and dangerous omens that might be observed during the process of construction.
After this treatment of “secular” architecture, Sūta moves on to the sacred.
I will tell you the discipline of action (kriyāyoga ) which consists in the worship of deities (devatārcanā ) and the narration (anukirtana ) of their deeds. Nothing else in all the worlds provides as much worldly benefit and liberation. Establishment (pratiṣṭhā ) of the gods, worship of the deities, narration of their deeds, sacrifices to the gods, and festivals are means by which one is liberated from bondage.(MatsPu 258.2–258.3)
The Matsya Purāṇa first provides a detailed descriptive account of how images of the gods should look. This encompasses not only iconography, but also iconometry, the proportional measurements of all the body parts of the anthropomorphic statues. Sūta begins with images of Viṣṇu, in accord with the text’s Vaiṣṇava orientation. He goes on to discuss many forms of Śiva, as well as images of Skanda, Gaṇeśa, Katyāyanī, Durgā Mahiṣāsuramardiṇī, Indra, Sūrya, Agni, Yama, the Lokapālas, the Mātṛkās, and many others. It is a comprehensive collection of Hindu deities similar to what one would see in temples of the early medieval period.
Following this treatment of the proper appearance of divine images, Sūta addresses the topic of pratiṣṭhā . Once the divine images have been fabricated, how should they be ritually established as divine? In outline, this account resembles those in the Gṛhya-pariśiṣṭas, but in an expanded form. A temporary pavilion must be constructed adjacent to the shrine, and this serves as a site for Vedic-style fire rites. There is a preparatory rite of adhivāsana , which may last for one night, three, five, or up to seven nights. (Helene Brunner-Lachaux (1968: 36) defines adhivāsana as “the dwelling near God, during at least one night, of objects and persons who will be central to an important ceremony requiring a ritual preparation.”) Here and throughout, the Matsya Purāṇa allows options of scale. A more ambitious pratiṣṭhā ceremony or one enjoying greater material and human resources would presumably choose a longer adhivāsana , leading to a greater proximity to the divine. After the preparations, the officiant has the image set up and ritually inscribes eyes onto it. Throughout the pratiṣṭhā rites, Vedic mantras are employed. The text also specifies that the supervising priest (sthāpaka or ācārya ) should be versed in Vedas, Purāṇas, and Vāstuśāstra, and he should be of good character (MatsPu 265.1–265.4). The Matsya Purāṇa locates the establishment of images within a Vedic lineage of ritual practice.
At the conclusion of pratiṣṭhā, Sūta tells the sages, one should celebrate a great festival (mahotsava ), lasting from three to ten days. He does not describe this festival, but such mahotsavas become a major topic in later texts of the Hindu theist schools. (See Davis 2010 , for a twelfth-century Śaiva mahotsava guidebook.) The Matsya Purāṇa also provides instructions for elaborate bathing rituals (snāpana ), involving up to one thousand jars of liquid. These are prepared and consecrated individually and then poured over the central image, conferring the powers of each onto that deity. These optional ceremonies reflect the growing scale of ritual practice within temple Hinduism during the early medieval period.
The Matsya Purāṇa concludes its embedded Vāstuśāstra with several chapters describing and classifying temples (prāsāda ) and ancillary pavilions (maṇḍapa ). The text lists twenty-one kinds of temples. These range from modest Garuḍa and Hamsa types of eight or ten hastas or about fifteen feet in height, up to the lofty Meru type, which should be around seventy-five-feet tall, with four doors and hundreds of peaks. The text also classifies twenty-one kinds of pavilions, scaled according to the number of pillars. Here again, the Matsya Purāṇa provides options of scale, so the patron and builder may select a structure conforming to their resources and capacities. But, for both temples and pavilions, proportionality is crucial. At whatever scale, the Vāstuśāstra seeks to set out proper relations of parts to the whole, whether in images, homes, temples, or pavilions.
By incorporating a Vāstuśāstra within its capacious design, the Matsya Purāṇa transformed knowledge of vāstu into smṛti , the remembered knowledge of orthodox tradition. And this enabled Lakṣmīdhara to quote extensive sections of this embedded Vāstuśāstra within his own digest of Dharmaśāstra teachings. Some aspects of the disciplinary scope of vāstu , like the story of Vāstudeva and the description of house building, did not fit into Lakṣmīdhara’s treatment of pratiṣṭhā . He did however include large sections from the Matysa Purāṇa’s treatment of vāstu , such as the description of iconography and iconometry of divine images and the procedures to establish these images as divine icons worthy of human worship.
Concurrent with the Purāṇas, schools of Hindu theism directed toward the primary deities Viṣṇu and Śiva articulated programs of theology, personal conduct, and ritual practice. Most prominent among these early medieval schools were the Vaikhānasa and Pāñcarātra sects devoted to Viṣṇu and the Pāśupata and Śaiva Siddhānta groups centered on Śiva. These schools presented and eventually systematized teachings that were fundamental to temple Hinduism. They considered one deity to be the Absolute: a personal deity who was both identical with the Vedic Puruṣa and the Vedāntic Brahman , and became manifest in the world through physical forms such as anthropomorphic incarnations. Such manifestations enabled humans to enter into close devotional relationships with the embodied divinity. Within this theistic outlook, images served as one particular material form that a deity could enter to become accessible for direct worship and veneration.
In some cases, these theistic schools set out their theological and ritual programs within texts that could be classified as orthodox smṛti , most often in Purāṇas. So a group of Kashmiri Pāñcarātra Vaiṣṇavas, as we have seen, presented a comprehensive set of teachings in the Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa . The Pāśupata School of Śaivas appropriated the Kūrma Purāṇa to make their case. As Andrew Nicholson (2014 : 12–15) has argued, the Pāśupata sections of this Purāṇa appear to be engaged in “mainstreaming” Pāśupata teachings, previously directed at a community of yogic renunciants, for a broader and more orthodox audience. But, these schools also began to present their religious visions within new and increasingly voluminous corpuses of religious texts that did not affiliate themselves directly with śruti or smṛti . Framed as the direct teachings of the preeminent god (whether that be Viṣṇu or Śiva), they bypassed the need for Vedic authorization. Most notable of these theistic canons were the Pāñcarātra Vaiṣṇava Saṃhitās and the Śaiva Āgamas of the Śaiva Siddhānta School. Scholars often refer to these genres of texts collectively as works of Hindu Tantra, a useful but elusive category. The full textual history of these bodies of religious literature is only beginning to be clarified by scholars like Alexis Sanderson (2009 ), Dominic Goodall and Harunaga Isaacson (2011 ), and others.
By and large, the Saṃhitās and Āgamas did not directly dispute the authority of the Vedas, as the heterodox Jains and Buddhists had previously done, but they did subordinate the Vedic tradition in various ways (Davis 1991 : 29–31). They might relocate the Vedas as a lesser revelation that has been supplanted by the direct teachings of the Supreme Lord. They might claim that the Vedic texts were valid but less comprehensive than the Saṃhitās or Āgamas, which gave a fuller portrayal of the divine. They might allege that the Vedic teachings were suitable for humans of lesser attainments, while only the new theistic texts enabled their votaries to attain the highest state of being. They usually replaced the old Vedic mantras with other more potent Tantric mantras. Within their ritual programs, they maintained many elements from the Vedic program, but clearly placed image worship above the Vedic sacrificial cult. And they were naturally critical of the iconophobic orientation within some communities of the orthodox.
One of the earliest Śaiva Āgamas, the Mṛgendrāgama , illustrates this measured repositioning in its frame story. 10 At the onset of this introduction, a group of ashram-dwelling sages has set up a Śiva-liṅga and is offering worship to it. The Vedic god Indra becomes aware of their practice and decides to test the sages’ commitment to this new form of ritual. He disguises himself as an ascetic and visits the ashram. “Why aren’t you following the dharma enjoined by the Veda?” Indra challenges. The sages reply that the worship of Śiva, as Rudra, is indeed recognized in the Vedas. But, Indra continues his examination of the sages by citing Mīmāṃsā principles. “The divinity is only sound,” he argues, and continues, “If it were other than sound, a deity could not be present among sacrificers in different places at the same time.” The sages defend themselves against this orthodox criticism. “What if that principle were applied in the case of the word ‘pot’ the same as in the word ‘Indra,’ since both consist of sound? But the word ‘pot’ does not hold water, and the sound of the word ‘moon’ does not shine.” They go on to explain that divine bodies are not spatially limited the way human ones are, and they cite examples of Śiva’s great powers to liberate persons from bondage. Indra is so pleased by their stout defense of Śiva-worship that he reveals his own lordly form. The sages immediately bow and praise Indra with hymns from the Vedas. In return, he offers them a boon. They request that he teach them the knowledge of Śiva, and Indra goes on to relate the teachings of the Mṛgendrāgama .
This brief narrative has the effect of relocating Indra, preeminent among the Vedic gods, as an acolyte of the new cult directed to Śiva. He is even placed in the uncomfortable position of using Mīmāṃsā arguments to deny his own corporeal existence, albeit as a rhetorical strategy to test the sages. The sages may be practicing a non-Vedic form of Śivaliṅga worship, but they, nevertheless, claim that it also rests on passages found in the Veda, and they are readily able to recite Vedic hymns celebrating Indra when he appears before them in his proper form.
Mṛgendrāgama directs itself primarily toward an audience of initiated Śaiva mendicants, much like the sages in the frame narrative. In Śaiva texts, these religious specialists are often classified as sādhakas , “mantra adepts” (Brunner, Sadhaka). In its section on ritual action, the Mṛgendra focuses on the daily practices of such an adept, and the practice of daily worship figures prominently. In a pure place of worship, it begins, “one must become a Śiva and then worship Śiva, inside and outside” (MṛĀ kriyā 3.1). The initial phase of worship, self-purification, is expanded into a veritable self-deification. The worshiper purifies himself by transforming his own impure body into a divine one, by imposing mantras onto it. The worshiper becomes, in the dualistic theology of Śaiva Siddhānta, a temporary support for the presence of Śiva. And this self-transformation leads to an interior worship. The worshiper invokes Śiva onto a throne in the center of the heart, and then makes offerings to that manifestation of Śiva. The ensemble of services is similar to other descriptions of pūjā .
Bath, clothing, sacred thread, incense, sandal-paste, unguents, all the ornaments, the chowry, lamp, mirror, divine weapons, garlands, betel-leaf, drink and food, canopy, parasol, and upraised shining banner—one should give [to the interior Śiva] these services, accompanied by the mantra HṚD, or the mantra OṂ, or with another mantras employed in sacrifices. (MṛĀ kriyā 3.15–3.17)
But, these are interior services, performed through visualization and mantras, not external physical presentations or actions. The worshiper uses Tantric Śaiva mantras for these ritual acts, though the text also allows one to utilize “sacrificial” mantras that, according to the commentator, could be the Vedic gāyatrī mantra.
After interior worship, the worshiper proceeds to the worship of Śiva outside himself. In the Mṛgendra’s account, this need not be a Śiva-liṅga; a sanctified platform (sthaṇḍila ) will also serve. Whatever support is used, it must also be transformed into a suitable body for Śiva to inhabit, utilizing much the same procedures the worshiper used for his own body. And much the same pattern of services may be offered. However, it is important to keep in mind that the Mṛgendrāgama sets out practices for an individual ascetic practitioner, not a temple priest. Other later temple-oriented Āgamas like Kāmikāgama provided elaborate accounts of the services of worship prescribed for public institutions of worship in southern India (Davis 1991 : 147–62). Such expansive Āgamas also incorporated extensive accounts of iconography, temple architecture, and other aspects of Vāstuśāstra.
Hindu Tantra works like the Śaiva Āgamas and the Vaiṣṇava Saṃhitās were not classified as smṛti , and, hence, they were off limits to Dharmaśāstra commentators and digest compilers. However, the boundaries were not always so clear. Here again, the Purāṇas might act as an intermediary genre, orthodox enough to qualify as smṛti , but flexible enough to assimilate Tantric teachings. The Agni Purāṇa , for example, incorporated large portions of a Śaiva Siddhānta work, the Somaśambhupaddhati , treating matters of daily worship of the Śiva-liṅga, establishment of icons and shrines, as well as the various initiations for members of the Śaiva community. 11 A Purāṇic imprimatur might render these teachings acceptable within orthodox circles. But, the process could also provoke controversy. Sanderson (2009 : 250) notes the case of the twelfth-century Bengali ruler Ballālasena, composer of a massive digest on gift giving, the Dānasāgara . He rejects several Purāṇas, including the Agni Purāṇa , from consideration as sources of dharma , since they contain instruction on Śaiva initiation and the establishment of images.