Perhaps the best place to examine the broad similarities between Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism in the first millennium CE is the site of Ellora in Maharashtra. In the latter part of the first millennium CE, with the support of the Rashtrakuta Dynasty, Ellora became a major religious center, with thirty-four rock-cut temples, monasteries, and shrines of the three religions erected nearly side by side on a long cliff face. On the southern end of the cliff face, twelve Buddhist caves were constructed between the seventh and eighth centuries. Several of these took the form of multistoried viharas. It is likely that at least some of the Buddhist caves were the earliest constructions at Ellora. In the middle of the cliff were seventeen Shaivite caves, including Kailashnatha, a massive eighth-century temple that represents the pinnacle of the Indian rock-cut temple tradition. To the north, somewhat separated from the Shaivite and Buddhist caves, Jains carved five caves in the ninth and tenth centuries. Overall, the rock-cut caves at Ellora are the culmination of almost a millennium of development from the earliest rock-cut caves in the Barabar hills in Bihar (Chapter 3) through the Buddhist monasteries of the Western Ghats (Chapter 4) and Ajanta (Chapter 5). By examining the long-term development of rock-cut architecture in the Western Ghats, it is possible to see the incorporation of Buddhist ritual practices into early Hinduism. As the Buddhist sangha gradually stopped building chaityas and withdrawing into their viharas, Shaivites began taking key elements of Buddhist architectural design and incorporating them into their own public worship spaces.
Early rock-cut Buddhist monasteries in the Western Ghats typically consisted of two separate spaces—apsidal chaityas for worship and square viharas that served as monastic living quarters. Over the course of the first millennium GE, the sangha gradually merged chaityas and viharas, creating single spaces that served as both living quarters and worship spaces (see Figure 6.4). This change coincided with the adoption of Buddha images by the sangha, initially carved on the front of stupas within apsidal halls (e. g., Ajanta Cave 26) and, by the mid-first millennium, placed inside special chambers within viharas themselves. With the placement of Buddha images within viharas, viharas began to take on some of the attributes of apsidal chaityas—particularly in the way that people used and moved through space.
In the earliest apsidal chaityas, devotees entered the worship spaces and circumambulated by walking clockwise in the circumambulatory path. This served to keep the central stupa on the right of the devotee. Initially, the placement of Buddha images within viharas eliminated the potential to circumambulate them. At Ajanta 17, for example, the image was placed in a small room along the back wall, preventing circumambulation. This layout required a shift in the way people moved through the space. In order to keep the image on the right, devotees were forced to walk counterclockwise through the space. By the sixth century GE at Aurangabad, the sangha had redesigned their viharas to allow for both image worship and circumambulation (see Figure 6.4). At Aurangabad 7, the sangha had
Figure 6.4: Left, Buddhist vihara (Aurangabad Cave 7: c. sixth century ge) and right, Hindu Temple (Ellora Cave 14: c. seventh century ge; after Fergusson and Burgess 1880) a path carved behind the perfumed chamber, allowing for circumambula-tion. By the seventh and eighth centuries, the Buddhist sangha at Ellora resumed placing the perfumed chamber along the back wall of the viharas. Critically, however, at Ellora the Shaivite caves were carved following the same layout as Aurangabad 7. That is, the central image chamber was placed to allow both viewing of the lingam and circumambulation of the room containing the lingam (see Figure 6.4). In this way, the Shaivite temples at Ellora were modeled on earlier Buddhist viharas in the Western Ghats.
There is, however, one key difference between the Buddhist and Shaivite temples at Ellora. Unlike Buddhist viharas, the Shaivite caves at Ellora omitted monastic cells. The Shaivite caves, like the long-since-abandoned apsidal chaityas of Buddhism, were worship spaces, not living quarters for Brahman priests. Where the Buddhist sangha increasingly shunned the laity in the first millennium CE, Shaivites welcomed the laity—even to the degree of fashioning their ritual spaces to be familiar to Buddhist converts. In Shaivite temples, the Brahmans even refashioned their primary focus of ritual—the lingam—to more closely resemble a stupa (see Figure 6.5).
In previous chapters I have discussed the slow change in the form of monastic stupas—from iconic stupas that signified the burial mound of the Buddha, to more symbolic attenuated stupas and 3/5 anda stupas. I argued that each of these changes represented a shift in the degree of abstraction from the original earthen stupa in which the Buddha’s corporeal relics were interred. I also argued that the sangha’s manipulation of the form of the stupa was a legitimation, an attempt to foster their own power over those who came to worship at their chaityas. Here I argue that a similar process occurred in Shaivite temples with manipulations to the form of linga, where earlier iconic linga were gradually replaced by more symbolic, abstract linga—that is, between the first century BCE and the eighth century CE, Shiva linga gradually shifted from more literal depictions of a phallus to stouter, more abstract depictions of a phallus (see Figure 6.5). Just as in Buddhism, these shifts corresponded with a shift from a complex, multifaceted sign that combined iconic, indexical, and symbolic elements to a more esoteric, emotionally distant sign with less iconic immediacy.
Figure 6.5: The comparative development of Buddhist and Hindu ritual foci in the early to mid-first millennium ce (less iconic of a phallus), and only Shiva’s face was depicted (Willis 2009). By the eighth century GE, the lingam in the Kailashnatha temple had lost its iconic significance, with the symbolic elements dominant. Perhaps more interesting, the progressive abstraction of Shiva linga resulted in a shape with more or less the same proportions as an attenuated Buddhist stupa from centuries earlier—from the time when the Buddhist sangha was still actively attempting to assert their authority over the laity. The functional equivalence of Shiva linga and early stupas is most clearly demonstrated at Karla, one of the earliest rock-cut Buddhist monasteries in the Western Ghats. Sometime after Buddhists abandoned Karla in the seventh century GE, the chaitya was converted to a Shaivite temple and the stupa was painted to resemble a lingam (Singh 2004:291).
Overall, the metamorphosis of Shiva linga in the first millennium GE follows the same general pattern as the metamorphosis stupas. That is, both were initially iconic and slowly became more symbolic over time. The difference is that in the early to mid-first millennium GE, the Buddhist sangha returned to the more iconic worship of the Buddha in the form of images, while Shaivites did not. Rather, they continued to construct more symbolic representations of the phallus, representations that also just happened to strongly resemble the iconic representations of a stupa favored by the formerly Buddhist laity. As such, the lingam at Ellora and other late first millennium GE Shaivite temples were intentionally multivalent, meaning different things to Shaivite and Buddhist audiences. The Shaivite temples at Ellora brought several elements of Buddhist design together to produce a ritual space that Buddhist converts would feel comfortable worshiping in. Former Buddhists would enter and move through these new Hindu temples in much the same way they had entered and moved through earlier Buddhist chaityas. Likewise, the ritual focus of the structures, the lingam, would be familiar to Buddhist converts, as it closely resembled a stupa. Critically, these appropriations of Buddhist temple design were not limited to the Ellora, but were common across India.
Contemporary Hindu temples in India shared the same basic layout as those found at Ellora. They generally consisted of a processional path (prada-kshina) leading to the central chamber where devotees could view the image of the god who resided there. Early Hindu temples also typically included a columned hall (mandapa), strongly resembling the courtyard found at the center of Buddhist viharas. In Shaivite temples, linga were abstract and symbolic—multivalent signs that were both symbolic of the phallus and iconic of a stupa. As such, throughout India early Hindu temples were designed to help draw the Buddhist laity to Hinduism. By minimizing the differences between Hindu and Buddhist worship—by making the Buddhist laity comfortable—early Hindu sects successfully recruited the Buddhist laity just at the point when the Buddhist sangha was turning their backs on them. This process of conversion even extended to Buddhist sites themselves. As will be discussed further at the end of this chapter, as Buddhist sites across India failed and were abandoned in the first millennium ce, they were often re-sanctified as Hindu temples.
For the most part, the story of Hindu/Buddhist syncretism concerns the appropriation of Buddhist elements by Hindus. This imbalance makes sense given that the Buddhist sangha withdrew from regular contact with the laity over the course of the first millennium ce. If the Buddhist sangha was turning their back on their own lay followers, they were not adjusting their ritual and religious practices to attract new followers. That said, there is evidence for the appropriation of Hindu ritual and architectural elements into Buddhism. These appropriations take two forms. The first are appropriations of Hindu elements in later Buddhist pilgrimage sites. While many Buddhist pilgrimage sites were abandoned or ceded to Hindu sects in the first millennium ce, those that remained affiliated with Buddhism took on more Hindu elements. The second locus for appropriation was the sangha itself. In terms of the Buddhist sangha, the most obvious appropriation might be Buddha images. There is no question that early Hindu sects were depicting their gods in friezes and sculptures several centuries before the sangha began creating Buddha images. Likewise, in the early centers for the production of Buddha images in Gandhara and Mathura, Hindu images predate Buddha images, and Buddha images share iconographic elements with early depictions of Hindu gods. Thus, the Buddhist sangha may have been inspired to create Buddha images after seeing the images created by early Hindus. Beyond images, there are also numerous examples of Buddhists appropriating Hindu religious concepts into monastic Buddhism in the late first millennium ce.
Perhaps the clearest appropriation of Hindu elements into Buddhist pilgrimage architecture occurred at Bodh Gaya. While stray finds and sculpture found at Bodh Gaya indicate that the site was in use from at least Mauryan times, Cunningham’s ([1892] 1998) excavations revealed that the main temple rested on foundations first constructed in Gupta times. The focus of Bodh Gaya is the Bodhi tree, said to be a descendant of the tree under which the Buddha gained enlightenment. The main temple at Bodh Gaya (see Figure 6.6) is situated directly east of the Bodhi tree, with an image of the Buddha seated on a throne placed where the Buddha sat when he attained enlightenment. Mitra (1971:61) argues that this image dates to the Gupta period, replacing an earlier image of an empty throne that concorded with the earlier taboo on iconic depictions of the Buddha.
Figure 6.6: Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (Http://upload. wikimedia. Org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Mahabodhi temple. jpg); converted from color to black and white.
While the superstructure of the temple at Bodh Gaya was regularly reconstructed, the general layout of the worship spaces conforms to the general plan of a Gupta period Hindu temple. Likewise, the Guptas were prominent supporters of nascent Hinduism.
The idea that early Hindu sects took in converts from Buddhism is not a new idea. Neither is the idea that Hinduism is a highly syncretic religion that incorporated Buddhist theology, ritual, and ritual architecture into its day-to-day practices. Even the claim that Hindu temple architecture is inspired by Buddhist architecture is widely noted. What is new in this analysis is the significance attributed to the architectural changes—that is, the emphasis on the sensual experience of moving through a temple and engaging with the central ritual foci. While the ground plans of
Buddhist and Hindu temples are similar, people do not experience ground plans. People experience architecture in three dimensions as they move through a space. It is the feeling of movement, the process of revelation, and the rituals performed in Hindu temples that would have been familiar to the Buddhist laity. All that said, we must be careful using the term “conversion.” As I have argued repeatedly, it is likely that the laity never wholly identified themselves as Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, or whatever. Rather, they relied on holy people to assist in marking life events and traveled to particularly sacred sites, with little regard to the specific sectarian differences of the people they interacted with and the sites they visited. In the long run, Hinduism successfully gained devotees as Buddhism lost them during the first millennium GE, but it is likely that from the lay devotees’ perspective, very little, if anything changed.
World History
