In the Name of Myself:

Donors of Images at Bodhgaya

RAJAT SANYAL

 

IN the domain of South Asian Buddhism in general and that of eastern Indian monastic Buddhism in the early medieval period in particular, the act of the proclamation of donation of images by means of a permanent inscriptional record seems to have had its genesis from two principal layers of inspiration: donation as a manifestation of patronage and donation as a corollary to the rites of pilgrimage.1 Of these two layers, the latter had a much wider socio-economic base, as reflected simply from the quantitative profile of the documentary evidence. And in both the cases, for undertaking an examination of the vicissitude and ramification of the act of donation and the perceptions of person/s involved in that act of donation, the primary source is the often short and sometimes even cryptic pieces of epigraphic texts that accompany these works of art. In epigraphic terminology, such epigraphs are labelled image inscriptions, though more generic terminologies like dedicatory or donative are favoured over the former. These are engraved mostly on the pedestal/ stela of the sculptures. There are instances, however, of their occurrence on the back of the image and even on the underside of the pedestal.2 While the act of donation is evident from the very object that is donated, the world of the donors can only be viewed with the lens of these inscriptions. Again, the majority of Buddhist donative inscriptions on images from the Bengal-Bihar region are composed of the quintessential Ye dharmā stanza, without recording the name of the donor. The philosophy of this essentially intentional act of the donor to stay anonymous might be an equally important theme of inquiry, but our questions in this note relate to the images where the donors explicitly record their names and also often cause their images to be carved on the feet of the deities they are donating, either in a monastic environ, or at a shrine away from the neighbouring cluster of human settlements and, in many of the cases, at a site of pilgrimage.3

 

An attempt is being made in the following to very briefly study, with only representative examples dating between the fourth and the eleventh centuries CE, the varying layers of identities of the donors of images, at possibly the most vibrant site of Buddhist pilgrimage in eastern India – Bodhgaya. It is probably the only centre of Buddhism in eastern India that witnessed a continuous growth of a sacred place of pilgrimage right from the early historic period till the modern times.4 I may pause here to note that like many other material evidences from the site, the inscribed images, found at Bodhgaya and subsequently either shifted to Museums or kept within the larger Bodhgaya complex of locales, are almost irretrievably removed from their original contexts. As a result, the image that one extracts from these materials, have to remain sometimes in a shroud. Yet, a brief revisit to these inscriptional texts is expected to reveal facets of a perpetual process of transformation that the site witnessed in the late early historic and early medieval periods.

 

 

In terms of a classificatory scheme, the dedicatory inscriptions at Bodhgaya can be divided into three categories: comparatively long and elaborate texts of dedications recorded on stone slabs, formulaic dedications recorded on clay tablets and the largest gamut of records in the form of inscriptions on images. The earliest evidence of the third type – the one we are concerned here with – is that of a stone image of the Buddha, called Bodhisattva pratimā in the accompanying mutilated inscription, is dated in the sixty-fourth ruling year of an elusive king named Mahārāja Trikamala (Plate 1). It records the consecration [pratisthāpayati] of the image by one Siharatha (i.e., Siṁharatha) for a teacher of the vinaya and who was the companion of another monk [bhikṣu] who was also a teacher of the vinaya.5 Palaeographically and stylistically datable to the fourth century CE, neither the script used in writing the inscription nor the stone employed in making the image were local to southern Bihar. Thus, it remains a shady evidence for the student of art history.6 But, if one takes the evidence of the inscriptional reference to the acquaintance of the donor and/or executor with one of the Vinayas, it might suggest that a group of monks of the Theravāda order being connected with the act of donation of a deity who is iconographically the Buddha but was ritualistically being perceived as a Bodhisattva by its donor, as late as the fourth century. On the other hand, the phrase read by R.P. Chanda as matapituṁ pūjāye bhavatu upadha [ya] in the last line of the inscription seems to reflect the phraseology of the later and much refined Mahāyāna formulaic expression starting with mātāpitr̥pūrvaṁgamaṁ kr̥tvā jad bhavatv ācary opādhyāya etc. In that case, of course at the risk of accepting R.P. Chandas reading beyond question, does this inscription demonstrate the layered identities of the monk embedded in the Mahāyāna monastic order but still acknowledging the pre-existing and well-established Theravāda tradition?

The next stage of the process is probably illustrated by the donation of the Ceylonese monk Mahānāman who dedicated a temple and an image, of which only the inscribed pedestal survived when it was discovered by Alexander Cunningham and was subsequently published by John F. Fleet in the late nineteenth centuries.7 The inscription records the donation of the image by the śākyabhikṣu and sthavira named Mahānāman, a resident of Āmradvīpa. That he came to the site of enlightenment from Srilanka at the end of the sixth century CE is securely known from his second, and more well-studied, inscription dated in 588/89 CE.8 The inscription begins with the expression deyadarmmo yaṁ, followed by the name, geographical and religious affiliation reference to the donor, ending with the would-be formulaic yad atra puṇyaṁ tad bhavatu sarvvasattvānāṁ anuttara jānāvāptaye stu stanza. This probably is the earliest reference to the use of the expression deyadharma, in the Bihar-Bengal region, denoting the act of donation/religious gift of images. One has to note here that the monk is not only referring to himself as a śākyabhukṣu but is also offering the merit acquired from this donation in terms of the widely recognised Mahāyāna formula. After a thorough study of Mahānāmans two inscriptions from the site, the smaller one being the image inscription under discussion, Vincent Tournier has come up with the following observation, with an appreciable element of caution.9

 

Even if some uncertainties remain, [] it is fairly certain that [] Mahānāman represents himself as en route for Buddhahood, an expectation that is characteristic of the Bodhisattvayāna and certainly constitutes one of the unifying ties of the Mahāyāna nebula[]Mahānāman and his compatriots, who express their wish for Awakening in the inscriptions of the period concerned, could indeed be representatives of the group which, according to Xuanzang, writing a few decades later, dominated the Bodhgayā religious landscape, namely the Mahāyāna-Sthaviras [] residing at the Mahābodhi-saṅghārāma.

 

Before taking a look into the possible third stage of this development in the domain of essentially Buddhist donations, let us consider the chronologically next piece of evidence, viz., the celebrated Keśava praśasti, dated in the 26th ruling year of the Pāla king Dharmapāla. In an inscriptional corpus essentially dominated by Buddhist donors, this not only is the most prominent exception of a donation of Brahmanical sculpture, but also marks the beginning of the journey of dated Pāla inscriptions at the site.

Although it has been recently argued convincingly to have been a product of at least seventh century,10 the inscription is datable to the second half of the eighth century. This inscription is historically significant on many scores. The one that relates to our discussion is the reference of the donor Keśava to himself as the son of the sculptor (śilābhit) Ujjvala. Thus, this is one of the very few records from eastern India referring to a donation by a member of the artisan community. Secondly, though the objective, prima facie, of engraving this inscription is to record the donation of a Caturmukhaliṅga, for which the donor selected, curiously, a pre-existing carved lintel depicting the Brahmanical triad consisting of the icons of Viṣṇu-Sūrya-Lakuliśa, he does not forget to refer to himself as a benefaction who aspires to gain merit for the welfare of the śramaṇas residing at Mahābodhi.11 The specific reference to Mahābodhi clearly indicates a conscious attempt by the donor to acknowledge the sacredness of the place. The inscription further records that this Keśava spent no less than 3000 drammas in excavating a tank for the use of the resident monks at the site. Thus, this is a donation by the son of a very successful professional sculptor, who must have been used to carving sculptures of deities of all pantheistic systems under the order of his clients. Then, his act of donation of an image of Śiva for the welfare of the Buddhist and resident-monks of Mahābodhi appears to have crossed the trans-religious boundaries. Or, was it, again, an attempt to draw a balance between the lay donors individual sectarian identity and the professional donors larger world of transcending boundaries of varying religious orders within a given sacred space?

Getting back into the domain of Buddhist donations of a later phase, I shall draw on some inscribed pieces, including two images dated in the reigns of two of the later Pāla rules, viz., Gopāla III (mid-tenth century) and Mahīpāla I (late tenth-early eleventh century). The first one, read by T. Bloch and later reproduced by D.C Sircar, records the donation of a tenth-century image of a standing Buddha by a monk named Vīryendra, who refers himself as śrīsomapuramahāvihārīya vinayavitsthavira, hailing originally from Samataṭa in south-eastern Bengal.12 This inscription is the sole epigraphic evidence from Bodhgaya that talks of a resident-monk from the Somapuramahāvihāra excavated at Paharpur,13 in the Bogra district of Bangladesh. Further it represents a rare narrative of a monks place of origin, his place of official affiliation and his act of donation in course of his pilgrimage to a different centre of Buddhist faith. More importantly, it represents an epigraphic testimony to a sthavira versed in one of the Vinayas, recording his donation along with the formulaic Mahāyāna expression yad atra puṇyaṁ etc, marking yet another phase of donative activity at the site. As we shall see, this process will further intricate itself with a more complex inscriptional vocabulary within the same chronological frame of tenth-eleventh century.

The second one is again tenth century work of a master artist, depicting a massive eighteen-armed image of the Buddhist goddess Cundā/Cuṇḍā. This image, among the sculptural assemblage from the site, probably has the privilege of having the longest history of research – from the early nineteenth century till the very recent years.14 The credit of identifying the image as that of Cundā and noticing rightly that the pedestal of the image contains an inscription goes to A. Foucher.15 However, the inscription was first successfully deciphered by Debala Mitra towards the end of the last century.16 In fact, there are two inscriptions on the body of this sculpture: one around the halo recording the Ye dharmā stanza and the other one on the pedestal containing the name and identity of the donor, both written in the Siddhamātrkā script of about the tenth century. The inscription on the pedestal records the donation of the image by a person named Śrī Śubhaṅkara, who is called a Mahākṣapaṭalādhyakṣa, an officer of the rank of Director of the Superintendents of the Department of Records and Accounts.17 That this was a prominent official post within the Pāla dominion is also proved by its occurrence on other images of donation in southern Bihar in the ninth-tenth century.18 If the term is juxtaposed against Akṣapaṭalādhyakṣa, the the superintendent of records and accounts, it clearly indicates the sharp element of hierarchy that existed in the political administrative structure of early medieval eastern India. Further, Śubhaṅkara is also called a Karaṇika or scribe, distinguishing his official rank from his occupational and often ascribed identity. What is even more interesting in this piece is the rather unusual and rare occurrence of the Ye dharmā stanza along with the common Mahāyāna formula starting with pravara mahāyāna yāyinya etc., prefixed with the name of the donor. Thus, in this essential act of a royal patronage meant for a monastic temple,19 the donor introduces himself not only explicitly as a follower of Mahāyāna, but also couples the donative formula with the Ye dharmā stanza in underlining the larger esoteric matrix from which he, as the donor, perceives the deity to have emanated.

The next Buddhist donation from the site to consider is a rectangular stone slab preserved in the Asutosh Museum, Kolkata, showing a Bodhisattva-maṇḍala of nine figures with the Tathāgata in dharmacakrapravartanamudrā at the centre. The simple one-line inscription records the deyadharma of one Śrī Valacandra, son of the Karaṇika named Jayacandra.20 This only adds to the number of scribes donating images at the site. It is quite plausible, given the rising importance of the site as a centre of pilgrimage, that an office of the department of records and accounts was effectively functional at the site.

The two dated Pāla period records of Gopāla III and Mahīpāla I also provide interesting insights into the donors profile at the site. The pedestal inscription dated in the reign of Gopāla III records donation of a pratimā of the Buddha by one Dharmabhīma, alias Śakrasena, who hailed from the north-west (sindhūdbhava).21 Several such donors hailing from the Sindhu country are known from the dated Pāla images from south Bihar. While here also one finds the Ye dharmā stanza accompanying the donative text, its significance also lies in the fact that here the donative text in verse is closer to the format of a eulogy than that of a formulaic donation. The other one dated in the 11th year of Mahīpāla I, still located at the site in a small temple within the Mahābodhi complex, records the donation of a Gandhakūṭī. Although the published text of the epigraph does not provide any information on the donor,22 it is possibly the only image inscription from the site recording donation of a Gandhakūṭī by a follower of the Mahāyāna.

The last of the inscriptions considered for this case study is engraved at the base of a stūpa holding a miniature image of the Buddha in bhūmisparśamudrā located to the western side of the Mahābodhi temple (Plate 2). The inscription, to my knowledge, is still unpublished. It is written in Sanskrit language and Siddhamātrkā script of c. tenth century. It records, again, the donation of a sthavira named Dharmapālita. This one represents the most commonly known donative formula from Bodhgaya, as from many other sites of eastern India—recording the name of the donor, who might be a monk or a lay devotee, after the omnipresent Ya dharmā stanza. A number of this specific variety of inscribed images are known from the site and deserve a detailed study.

 

 

To sum up, this note is aimed at making a framework for future studies on the identity of the donors at the site of Bodhgaya. An analysis of the representative samples dating between the fourth and the eleventh century possibly buttresses the general argument that Bodhgaya witnessed myriad and layered processes of transformation throughout its journey from the Maurya to the Pāla period. While the temple and the sculptural assemblage from the site have been subjected to generations of research, the inscribed images hailing from the site have not been either thoroughly documented or critically re-examined. A detailed study, taking into account the entire database of inscribed images from the site, will throw new light on the donors of images and their engagement with this important site, particularly in the early medieval period.

 

 

 

Acknowledgements: Abhishek Singh Amar for allowing me to be part of this work and for many insightful comments at different stages of writing. Bidhan Halder, for making the French sources readable for me. Subir Sarkar, as always, for excavating some of the most important and difficult-to-trace sources. The research for this article has been undertaken as part of the project DHARMA The Domestication of Hindu Asceticism and the Religious Making of South and Southeast Asia, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no 809994); see https://dharma.hypotheses.org.

 

1. The very term donor, or its close parallel like devotee has recently been questioned, based on a quantified and representational study of the figures of the sponsor couples carved on the pedestals of images, by Rob Linrothe, Deeply Rooted Ritual: The Plurality of Sponsor Couples in Eastern Indian Sculpture, C. Eighth to Thirteenth Century, and an Explanatory Hypothesis, Journal of Bengal Art 24, 2019, pp. 123-150.

2. One major example, among others, of the first category i.e., of an inscription on the back of the image, is the well-known Jambhala image from Ratnagiri, Odisha, published by Debala Mitra, Ratnagiri (1958-61), vol. I. Delhi, Archaeological Survey of India, 1981, pp. 229-232. The rather rare example of the second category i.e., on the underside of the image is represented by a medieval metal image of Rādhikā from Mohanpur, West Bengal; see, Rajat Sanyal, Artisans of Shared Origin: Revisiting the Mohanpur Radhika Image, Sanskriti Vichitra: Essence of Art and Archaeology, Museums, Museology and Heritage Management in Honour of Dr. S.S. Biswas (eds. S.N. Bhattacharya, R.K. Chattopadhyay and Goutami Bhattacharya). New Delhi, Kaveri Books, 2016, pp. 211-217.

3. These locational contexts of eastern Indian donations were considered by Gautam Sengupta, Donors of Images of Eastern India (c. 800-1300 AD), Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 43, 1984, pp. 158-164. Issues related to the identities and practices of donors of northern and eastern India are also discussed with case studies in, Gouriswar Bhattacharya, Essays on Buddhist Hindu Jain Iconography and Epigraphy, (ed. Enamul Haque). Dhaka, International Centre for Study of Bengal Art, 2000, pp. 363-503. For an excellent recent study based on the images from the site of Kurkihar, Sayantani Pal, Donors of Kurkihar Images: An Investigation into their Socioeconomic Background, Art and History: Texts, Contexts and Visual Representations in Ancient and Early Medieval India (ed. R. Mahalakshmi). Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2020, pp. 208-223.

4. For a brief but insightful discussion on the growth of Bodhgaya as a centre of pilgrimage, see Abhishek Singh Amar, An Archaeological Study of Pilgrimage and Ritual at Sacred Bodhgaya, Pragdhara 19, 2008, pp. 37-46. The varying contours and layers of transformation of sacred spaces of the site has been critically demonstrated by Michael Willis, Bodhgayā: From Tree to Temple, Modes of Representing Sacred Sites in East Asian Buddhist Art (ed. Inamoto Iasuo). Tokyo, Kyoto University, The Institute for Research in Humanities (Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyusho), 2016, pp. 204-189. For a recent examination of the genesis of sacredness of the site in the light of evidence on sectarian religious contestations witnessed by the site, see Nikhil Joshi, The Mahābodhi Temple at Bodhgayā: Constructing the Sacred Placeness, Deconstructing the Great Case of 1895. Delhi, Manohar, 2018; see also, Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on a Contested Buddhist Site: Bodh Gaya Jataka (eds. David Geary, Matthew R. Sayers and Abhishek Sigh Amar). London, Routledge, 2012.

5. The inscription was never reread after it was first published by R.P. Chanda, The Mathura School of Sculpture, Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India 1922-23, Calcutta, Government of India Centra Publication Branch, 1925, pp. 164-170.

6. For a discussion on the controversy surrounding this image, see Susan L. Huntington, The Pāla-Sena Schools of Sculpture, Leiden, Brill, 1984, pp. 13-14.

7. John Faithful Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. III (Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings and their Successors). Calcutta, Superintendent of the Government Printing, 1888, pp. 278-79.

8. For the date of Mahānāman and the broader context of the religious message borne by his donations at Bodhgyaya, Vincent Tournier, Mahākāśyapa, His Lineage, and the Wish for Buddhahood: Reading Anew the Bodhgayā Inscription of Mahānāman, Indo-Iranian Journal 57, 2014, pp. 1-60. See also, Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Other Indo-Aryan Languages. New York, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 39.

9. Tournier, Mahākāśyapa, His Lineage, pp. 42-44.

10. Gautam Sengupta, Bodhgaya Lintel bearing the Inscription of Dharmapala, Studies in South Asian Heritage: Essays in Memory of M Harunur Rashid, (ed. Mokammal Bhuiyan). Dhaka, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2015, pp. 175-179,

11. The term I read as śrama(ṇā)nāṁ in the third line of inscription have been read by all the previous editors as mallānāṁ and has been translated in one of the editions as superior monks, see Ramaranjan Mukherjee and Sachindra Kumar Maity, Corpus of Bengal Inscriptions Bearing on History and Civilization of Bengal, Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1967, pp. 112-113.

12. T. Bloch, Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1908-09. Calcutta, Superintendent of the Government Printing India, pp 157-58; D.C Sircar, Select Inscriptions Bering on Indian History and Civilization, vol. 2. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1983, p. 59.

13. K.N. Dixit [Rao Bahadur], Excavations at Paharpur, Bengal (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, No. 55), Calcutta, Superintendent of Government Printing, 1938.

14. For a detailed note on the works on this image as well as the abstract of the inscription, Debala Mitra, Images of Cundā from Bodh-Gaya, Historical Archaeology of India: A Dialogue between Archaeologists and Historians (eds. Amita Ray and Samir Mukherjee). Delhi, Books & Books, 1990, pp. 299-305; see also, Claudine Bautze-Picron, The Forgotten Place: Stone Images from Kurkihar, Bihar, Delhi, Archaeological Survey of India, 2015, p. 229.

15. A. Foucher, tude sur Liconographie Bouddhique de Linde: Daprs des Documents Nouveaux. Paris, Ernest Leroux, ditour, 1900, pp. 144-146.

16. Debala Mitra, Two Images from Bodh-Gayā, Makaranda: Essays in Honour of James C. Harle (ed. Caludine Bautze-Picron). Delhi, Indian Books Centre, 1990, pp. 153-59.

17. D.C Sircar Indian Epigraphical Glossary. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1966, p. 178, translates the term Akṣapaṭal-adhyakṣa as the superintendent of records and accounts.

18. Sayantani Pal, Donors of Kukihar, p. 211.

19. That this image was originally installed in a temple within the monastic complex to the north of the Mahābodhi temple is known from extant literature on the image; for an account of the history of its displacement from the site to its present location in a niche outside the Mahants compound, see Janice Leoshko, The Iconography of Buddhist Sculptures of the Pāla and Sena Periods from Bodhagyā, vol. 1, (Ph.D. Dissertation submitted to The Ohio State University), 1987, p. 323, n. 84.  https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_olink/r/1501/10?p10_etd_subid=92258&clear=10 (accessed November 2020).

20. Debala Mitra, Lintels with the Figures of Eight Great Bodhisatattvas and a Tathāgata: An Iconographic Study, Tantric Buddhism: Centenary Tribute to Dr. Benoytosh Bhattacharya (ed. N.N. Bhattacharya). New Delhi, Manohar, 1998, pp. 276-300; see also, Bautze-Picron, The Forgotten Place, p. 207.

21. Nilmani Chakravartti, Pāla Inscriptions in the Indian Museum, Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 4(3), 1908, pp. 101-109.

22. R.D. Banerji, Pālas of Bengal (Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 3), Calcutta, The Asiatic Society, 1915, p. 75.