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The ancient pillar-cult at Prayāga (Allahabad): its pre-Aśokan origins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

John Irwin
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Extract

The monument at Pl I, until recently called the “Allahabad-Kosam” pillar and attributed to Aśoka, is now known to have been erected before Aśoka came to the throne in 272 B.C. We also know with certainty that its original emblem had been – not a lion, as previously supposed – but the bull of pre-Buddhist, brahmanical religion. Moreover, there is no longer any reason to suppose that it had not always held a position overlooking the confluence of the two sacred rivers, the Gaṇgā and the Yamunā, otherwise known as “the holiest site in India”.

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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 115 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 253 - 280
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1983

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References

NOTES

1 The evidence for this part of my thesis is presented in my paper, “The Prayāga bull-pillar: another pre-Aśokan monument”, South Asian Archaeology 1979 (Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe), edited by Hartel, H., West Berlin, 1981, 313–40.Google Scholar The reader's knowledge of that paper is henceforth presumed.

2 This coincidence was first recognized by Krishnaswamy, C. S. and Ghosh, Amalanda, in “A note on the Allahabad pillar of ksoka”, JRAS, 1935, 702–3.Google Scholar

3 The principal textual sources are Nikāya, Majjhima I. 39;Google ScholarMahābhārata, III, 82Google Scholar (crit. ed.), and Matsya Purāṇa 104, 4.Google Scholar Cf. also Kālidāsa, , Raghuvaṁśa, Canto 13, verse 58,Google Scholar and Játaka, VI, 198.Google Scholar For similar benefits attributed to ritual bathing at other confluences, including the Varuna Sangam, Vārāṇasī, see my paper, “The Lāṭ Bhairo at Vārāṭasī: another pre-Aśokan monument?”, (awaiting publication in Proceedings of 6th International Conference of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe,Cambridge,July, 1981;Google Scholar expanded (in English) in ZDMG, 1983).Google Scholar

4 Prinsep, James, “Further elucidation of the lat or Silasthambha inscriptions from various sources”, JASB, VI, 1837, 790–7.Google Scholar

5 Wensinck, A. J., “The ideas of the Western Semites concerning the navel of the earth”, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afd. Letter-kunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel XVII, no. 1, 1916.Google Scholar

6 As first interpreted in an architectural context in the brilliant essay by Eliade, Mircea, “Centre du monde, temple, maison”, in Tucci, Giuseppe (ed.), Le symbolisme cosmique des monuments religieux, Serie orientale Roma, vol. XIV, 1957.Google Scholar

7 For pioneer discussion of the world-wide basis of the motif of the earth-diver, see Dahnhardt, Oskar. Natursagen. Eine Sammlung naturdeutender Sagen, Märchen, Fabeln u. Legenden, 1907–1912.Google Scholar For the Sanskrit sources, see especially Hertel, S., Die Himmelstore im Veda und im Awesta. (Indo-Iranische Quellen und Forschungen, Heft II), 1924, especially 24–5.Google Scholar (Eliade's, Mircea discussion of this motif in “Mythologies asiatiques et folklore sud-est européen”, esp. Part I, “Le Plongeon cosmogonique”, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions (Annales de Musée Guimet), Paris, 1961, pp. 177–212.Google Scholar

8 For visual imagery, see drawings published with my paper, “The Mystery of the (Future) Buddha's First Words”, Annali dell' Istituto Orientale di Napoli, 1981.Google Scholar

9 For Vedic and Sanskritic references, see especially Kuiper, F. J. B., “Varuṇa und Vidūṣaka: on the origins of Sanskrit drama”, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 100), 1979.Google Scholar

10 The southward course of the Gaṇgā varies from year to year over the broad stretch of sands between its firm-banks; sometimes the Gaṇgā cuts its channel closer to the Fort. The map at Fig. 2 is based on 19th-century maps in the Royal Geographical Society, London.

11 Allahabad through the ages, a pamphlet written in collaboration, by Sharma, G. R., Ansari, M. A., Yadava, B. N. S. and Jha, C. P., issued on the occasion of the 27th session of the Indian History Congress, 12 1965, printed at the Indian Press Private Ltd., Allahabad.Google Scholar

12 Vogel, J. P., The antiquities of Chamba State, (Arch. Survey of India, New Imp. Series of Reports, Vol. XXXVI), Calcutta, 1911, 32–3.Google Scholar Discussing the carved and inscribed fountain-stones of Chamba, erected at water-springs, Vogel shows that a representation of Varuṇa is invariably the central deity of the carvings. In discussing the purpose and origin of the stones, he states at p. 33, “… In other fountain inscriptions of the Curāh wazārat the donor states that he erected the stone ‘fearing with the fear of mundan existence’ (Skr. saṁsāra-bhaya-bhītena). The slab itself is invariably designated as a Varuṇa-deva, i.e. ‘a god Varuṇa’, for the obvious reason that Varuṇa, the patron of the waters, is usually carved on it. This name is no longer remembered”. The translations of all the fountain-stone inscriptions examined by Vogel, together with descriptions and illustrations of the stones, appear at pages 177 to 182, and 200 to 247.

13 In the primordial world, Chaos was itself a sacred power. It was only after the Creation that “chaos” and “order” were polarized into opposites, giving rise in all archaic cosmologies to the ambivalence of the Waters as image of Chaos: they are deemed both beneficient, and source of fertility, and at the same time symbolic of the aggression of the underworld or primeval abyss, the source of flood and catastrophe. The ambivalence of the Waters is stressed in the Hindu legend of the Churning of the Ocean, where they produce both the life-giving elixir (amṛta), and also the deadly poison (kalakuta). This is discussed in more detail in my paper, “The Mystery of the (Future) Buddha's First Words”, Annali dell'Istituto Orientate di Napoli, 1982, pp. 4 and 22.Google Scholar

14 See Pande, Bishambhar Nath, Allahabad: retrospect and prospect, Allahabad Municipal Board, 1955, 13.Google Scholar

15 Kurma Purāṇa, 35, 11;Google ScholarMatsya Purāṇa, 110, 6–7.Google Scholar

16 Stietencron, H. v., Gaṇgā and Yamunā: zur symbolischen Bedeutung der Fluss-göttinnen an indischen Tempeln, Wiesbaden, 1972,Google Scholar

17 Matsya Purāṇa, 104, 4.Google Scholar

18 Matsya Purāṇa, 111, 14.Google Scholar

19 Beal, S., Buddhist records of the Western World, Pt. I, 231.Google Scholar

20 For discussion and explanation, see my series, “‘Aśokan’ Pillars: a reassessment of the evidence: Part II, Structure”, Burlington Magazine, CXVI, 12, 1974, 724–5.Google Scholar

21 In converting li into kilometres, I have followed Yule, Henry and Burnell, A. C. in Hobson-Jobson, Glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words…, 2nd edn., London, 1902, 513 and 261,Google Scholar which was followed by Cunningham and others. The figures are approximate.

22 Beal, , Pt. I, 233;Google ScholarWatters, , op. cit., Part I, p. 364.Google Scholar

23 Beal, , Pt. I, 234.Google Scholar Hsüan-Tsang says nothing about the meaning of the rite, which apparently seemed quite alien to him, so that even the translator (Beal) described it as “rather silly and not very intelligible”!

24 SirFrazer, James, The dying god, London, 1911, 278ff.Google Scholar

25 Kosambi, D. D., “Living Prehistory in India”, Scientific American, CCXVI, 1967, 105–14.Google Scholar Kosambi, who was not himself familiar with the history of religions, nevertheless aptly comments that “foreign observers could discover no particular reason for its performance and rather too willingly attributed it to the savagery of the people who practiced it”. The same insensitivity was observable even among professional ethnographers at the beginning of the present century (for instance, see Thurston, Edgar in Bulletin of Madras Government Museum, V, 1, 1903, 38,Google Scholar who wrote that he could see “no association between celebrants and surviving religious ideas”.

26 For an excellent description of this rite with photographs, performed as recently as 1937, see The Illustrated London News, 5th June 1937, 1035–7,Google Scholar where, as in Indian publications, the meaning is totally forgotten.

27 As I have shown elsewhere, in many parts of the world there is evidence that Dawn was traditionally the moment of pillar-worship. This applies no less to evidence of the early so-called “Cross” cult of Europe, than to the older cult of the cosmic pillar (Vedic skambha, Sanskrit stambha) in India. Few Christians are aware that there is no mention of a “Cross” or “Crucifix” in the Bible, this term belonging wholly to later (and false) translations of the Greek word, stauros, which is cognate in meaning to skambha and stambha, all meaning to “fix”, “make firm”, the cosmic pillar being mythologically associated with the “fixing” of the Primordial Mound (= Skt. chaitya, Pāli mahāmaṇḍa, Hebrew golgotha, etc.) to the bottom of the Cosmic Ocean. For further discussion, see my paper, ‘The axis mundi and the phallus: some unrecognized East-West parallels’ in Newall, V. J. (ed.), Folklore studies in the twentieth century, 1980.Google Scholar

28 It is often claimed that the umbrella, as symbol of this cosmic power, derived from its association with the king, in other words as a royal symbol. The reverse was true. The king derived sovereignty from his place at the immovable Cosmic Axis, which could equally well be served symbolically by throne or tree or pillar, all of which reposed at the esoteric “Centre of the Universe”, see especially Auboyer, Jeannine, Le trône et son symbolisme dans l'Inde ancienne, Paris, 1949,Google Scholar for pioneer study of this theme.

29 Accounts of the Fort under Akbar stress its court luxury. However, its strategic position became evident in Akbar's continued efforts to expand and strengthen it, although Peter Mundy was still describing Allahabad in 1623 as “a great Tackht [takht = throne, court], or a place where kinges have kept residence and governed in them” (Travels, II, Hakluyt Society, London, 1914, 107.Google Scholar Increasing military importance was attached to the Fort in the 17th century, when the Mughal emperors were trying to subdue the Deccan. The rise of Maratha power in the second half of that century added to its military importance and coincided with the period when the present temple-grotto was completed for the akṣaya-vaṭa. It was in their own efforts to subdue Maratha power that the Fort was taken over by the East India Company. As explained in my earlier paper (see above, n. 1.), it was during the East India Company's operations to strengthen the Fort in the late 18th century that the pillar and adjoining parts of the palace were dismantled to make way for new buildings.

30 Finch, William, ‘Observations taken out of his large Journal…’, in Samuel Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimes, I, Bk. 4, London, 1625Google Scholar (reprinted by Hakluyt Society, London, as Hakluytus Posthumus, IV, Glasgow, 1905–1907, ch. III, 67).Google Scholar

31 JRAS, 1935, 698.Google Scholar

32 William Finch, ibid, p. 67. It is curious that this important reference has so far been neglected by all historians and archaeologists writing on ‘Aśokan’ pillars.

33 Smith, Edmund, The Moghul architecture of Fathpur-Sikri, in four parts, (Arch. Survey of India, New Imp. Series of Reports, Vol. XVIII), 1894–8,Google Scholar esp. Part I, chapter 3, on the Dīwān-ī khāṣṣ. Since this lecture was delivered, my attention has been drawn to an important paper by Nath, R., “The Dīwān-ī-Khâs of Fathepur Sikri: a symbol of Akbar's belief in Surya-purusa”, Quarterly Review of Historical Studies, Calcutta, XII, 1972–1973, 197–211,Google Scholar which independently corroborates a number of my main opinions on Akbar's pillared throne and constitutes a valuable contribution in its own right. The suggestion by Rizvi, Sayyid Athar Abbas and Flynn, V. J. A., Fatehpur Sikri, Canberra, 1957,Google Scholar that the Diwān-i khāṣṣ was a jewel-house, is, of course, consistent with the notions of the royal treasury being associated with the axis mundi and the base of the cosmogonic pillar. This association is fully discussed in my recent papers “The mystery of the (Future) Buddha's first words”, Annali dell' Istituto Orientale di Napoli, XLI, 1981, 627Google Scholar and “The sacred anthill and the cult of the primordial mound”, History of Religions, XXI, 4, Chicago, 1982, 339–60.Google Scholar

34 Cf. also the yūpa-palace and yūpa-city, Pali Jātaka, nos. 121, 454 and 465; and Culavamsa, Geiger, translation, II, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar For excellent discussion of these concepts, see Auboyer, Jeannine, Le trône et son symbolisme dam l'Inde ancienne, Paris, 1949, 80,Google Scholar where the author brilliantly demonstrates a correlation between the concepts of yūpa-throne, cakravartin, and the sun. Whether the yūpa holds up a throne, a palace, or a city, it serves always (she maintains) as a cosmic symbol accompanying the solar rhythm, or the rhythm of the “Great Year” (kalpa).

35 The Akbar Nama of Abu-l-Fazl, translated by Beveridge, H., III, 169.Google Scholar Students of astrology will note that the festival took place when Jupiter was in Aquarius, which was at the polar opposite to Leo.

36 Steingass, F., Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, 1892.Google Scholar The author mentions also Old Iranian kaofa, which in a compound refers to the “hump” of a camel, which is an indication to us of its original form as a “low eminence” rather than “mountain”.

37 The popular legend, surviving locally, is recorded by Pande, B. N., Allahabad retrospect and prospect, Allahabad, 1955, 16–17.Google Scholar

38 Finch's Travels were first published by Purchas, Samuel, in Purchas his pilgrimes, IV, London, 1625Google Scholar (reprinted under the title Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes, Hakluyt Society, extra series, Glasgow, 1905–1907, IV, 68).Google Scholar The standard modern reprint is Foster, William (ed.), Early travels in India 1583–1619, London, 1921.Google Scholar

39 Purchas, Samuel, op. cit., 68.Google Scholar

40 Tieffenthaler, Joseph, in Bernouilli, J., La géographic de;'Indoustan, I, Berlin, 1786, 223.Google Scholar

41 Al-Bīrūnī, , as quoted in translation by Elliot, H. M., History of India as told by Muhammedan historians, London, 1867, I, 55, n. 2.Google Scholar

42 In Indian (Jain) texts, the sacred fig-tree (aśvattha) is called “the tree of milk”, or which “distills milk” (cf. the remarks on this subject by Sénart, Emile, Essai sur la légende du Buddha, 1875, 240,Google Scholar who in turn quotes Albrecht Weber on the same subject).

43 In Vol. I of Archaeological Survey Reports, published from Simla in 1871, but describing a visit to Allahabad in 1862–3, Cunningham wrote: “I think there can be little doubt that the famous tree described by the Chinese pilgrim in 644 A.D. is the well known Akshay Bat, or ‘undecaying Banian tree’, which is still an object of worship … This tree is now situated underground at one side of a pillared court, which would appear to have been formerly, and which is, I believe, the remains of the temple described by Hwen Thsang.”

44 “Remarks on the locality of the lats of Allahabad and Delhi”, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, VI, 2, 1837, 795–7.Google Scholar Kittoe's report is incorporated in Prinsep's important paper, “Further elucidation of the lat or Silasthambha inscriptions from various sources”, but is separately initialled ‘M.K.’ on p. 797. Both Prinsep and Cunningham gave independent testimony to Kittoe's skill and knowledge as an antiquarian, notwithstanding his unpolished character, without knowledge of Greek or Latin (see especially Archaeological Survey Reports, I, 1871, xxiv ff.).Google Scholar

45 For a summary of this evidence, see my paper quoted at n. 1, especially 335–6.

46 There is in fact no foundation to Kittoe's suggestion that the fig-tree may have been Buddhist. The balance of evidence points to Brahmanical worship, as Kittoe himself implies in the following passage.

47 Coomaraswamy, A. K., “Early Indian architecture”, Eastern Art (describing itself as an Annual published by the College Art Association, Philadelphia), II, 225–35.Google Scholar This seminal paper is not included in the author's Selected papers published by Princeton University Press in 1977 under the editorship of Roger Lipsey.

48 Irwin, John, “‘Aśokan’ pillars: a reassessment of the evidence, Part I”, Burlington Magazine, London, CXV, 1973, 716–17.Google Scholar

49 The word “vault” is apparently used here not in its modern sense of arched structure, but in its earlier meaning of “a deep hole or pit”, which the Oxford English Dictionary attributes to 1535.

50 See above, n. 38. The passage appears on p. 67 of the 1625 edition; and on p. 177 of Early travels in India edited by William Foster.

51 This remark can be taken as evidence that in folklore the meaning of the cosmic pillar was contaminated by the well-known legend explaining the origin of the Liṅgam (liṅgobhava), in which Brahmā and Viṣṇu dive down into the cosmic waters to compete in finding the bottom of the pillar/phallus, to be defeated by Śiva, for whom the pillar/phallus bursts open, to reveal him as supreme creator and destroyer of the universe. The fact that the pillar was believed to have “had no end” seems to derive from association with the same legend. (See Zimmer, H., Myths and symbols in Indian art and civilization, Princeton, 1947, 128.)Google Scholar

52 Finch, William, op. cit., cf. n. 30 above, p. 67 of the 1905 reprint.Google Scholar

53 Finch made the same remark about the Meerut pillar re-erected by Firuz Shah on the ridge at Delhi; similarly, in medieval records describing the Topra pillar at Delhi which bears Aśoka's famous seventh edict, added to the shaft when it was already standing with the first six edicts, as proved in the first of my articles on the Prayaga pillar (see above n. 1).

54 See for example Bhattacharya, U. C., Catalogue and guide to Rajputana Museum, Ajmer, Pt. I, Jaipur, 1960–1961, Pl. VII, 17, no. 1 (27) 374.Google Scholar

55 A classic instance of this is recorded by Heber, Bishop, Narrative of a journey through the Upper Provinces of India, London, 1828, 323,Google Scholar claiming that as a result of this “sinkage”, the tops will eventually disappear below the ground, from which moment “all Hindus will then become outcasted”. This apparently alludes to related belief in the gradual decline of righteousness through the four ages (yugas). Historians of religion may recognize here the implication that the cosmic pillar is metaphysically synonymous with religious Law (dharma), and therefore with the Divine Principle itself. This belief seems to have been an important channel through which the archaic pillar-cult was assimilated into Buddhist doctrine. For further discussion of this concept see my paper in ZDMG, 1983, cited in n. 3 above.Google Scholar

56 As recently pointed out by Snellgrove, D. L. with some conclusions differing from our own, in “Sākyamuni's final nirvāṇa”, BSOAS, XXXVI, 1973, 399ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar