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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The collection of Indian sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum includes a fine relief from Koṇārka. It is about 2 feet 6¾ inches (78·1 cm.) in height and depicts King Narasiṁha I (a.d. 1238–64), the founder of the celebrated Sun temple at Koṇārka in Orissa, sitting at the feet of his spiritual preceptor (Plate I). Acquired in the 19th century, this relief, which is carved in carboniferous shale, was long believed to be Nepalese. Havell, writing in 1911, notes that this sculpture is “said to have come from Nepal. Its date is uncertain. It appears to represent a Vaishnava adaptation of some old Buddhist jātaka story.” Some years later it was realized that the style of this sculpture belonged to that of the Eastern Ganga of the 13th century a.d., and that it represented the conversion of a kṣatriya noble to the worship of Viṣṇu by a Vaiṣṇava priest. The figure of the warrior sitting at the feet of the priest was identified as that of Narasimha I receiving spiritual instruction from his guru. This relief is one of a number showing scenes from the life of Narasimha which come from the great Koṇārka temple dedicated by him to the sun-god Sūrya. Of these, the panel already mentioned and another in New Delhi throw an interesting light on Narasiṃha's religious beliefs.
1 Havell, E. B., Eleven plates representing works of Indian sculpture, India Society, 1911, pl. III and textGoogle Scholar.
2 Personal communication, 11th May, 1966. This sculpture is one of several known reliefs, each very similar, showing King Narasiṁha I worshipping the Purī triad. The second is in the new museum at Koṇārka. The third, now badly damaged, is still on the side of the platform of the main temple at Koṇārka. K. S. Behera has informed me that the fourth relief is in the great temple at Purī. See Debala Mitra, “Notes on Konārak”, JASB, III, no. 2, 1961, 59–60.
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4 According to Alice Boner probably all the 24 portraits of Narasiṁha I on the temple walls were made by Viśvanātha Mahāpatra, who is mentioned in the Baya Cakaḍa. See Boner, A., “Economic and organizational aspects of the building operations of the Sun temple at Koṃarka”, JESHO, XIII, pt. iii, 1970, 266Google Scholar.
5 Cunningham was convinced that the image of Jagannātha was derived from the Buddhist symbol of the triratna, while Fergusson, Hunter, Monier Williams, Percy Brown, and Coomaraswamy all believed, with varying degrees of conviction, that the Jagannātha temple at Purī must have occupied the site of an earlier Buddhist shrine. The great car festival, the suspension of caste, the relic preserved in the body of Jagannātha, and the identification of the god with the ninth avatāra of Viṣṇu, all seemed to indicate a Buddhist origin of Jagannātha, and thus to preclude any speculation upon a possible tribal origin of the images of the Purī triad.
In the case of the temple of Jagannātha the reason for the suspension of caste restrictions is far more likely to be sought in the tāntric traditions of Jagannātha. There is evidence that at one time Jagannātha was actually associated with tāntric Kaulācāra rites, and tāntric cults tend to be non-caste. Rāmacandra introduces himself in the Śilpa prakāśa as a devout Kaulācāra worshipper of Jagannātha in the form of Daksiṇa Kālikā on the Blue Hill (Rāmacandra Kaulācāra, Śilpa prakāśa, tr. and annotated by Alice Boner and Sadāśiva Rath Śarmā, 1966, xvi). The identification of Śiva or Mahādeva with Buddha “is typical for the tendency to obliterate mythological distinctions between the Hindu and Buddhist pantheon, from the side of the Hindus at least” (A. Bharati, The tantric tradition, 2nd ed., 1969, 82, n. 31).
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