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Siddha of Kayikara: Vajrayana in Kerala

// January 12th, 2013 // No Comments » // Cultural Politics

Granite idol at Kayikara now installed at the gate of Asan memorial. Can be identified as a Siddha of Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism in Kerala. 26 Dec 2012

In the Oxford Illustrated Cultural History of India edited by A L Basham (New Delhi: 2007) Bhikhu Sangharakshita has sensitively traced the rise and fall of Buddhism and its various schools in India, the birthplace of the light of Asia.  According to Sangharakshita at least three schools were prominent. Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana also formed the three stages of evolution and the most prominent schools of enlightenment in India that tried to resist caste and gender hierarchies in India.

The gateway of Asan memorial library and sculptural complex at Kayikara. Siddha statue towards the right inside the wall.

The Hinayana or Teravada which is often called the little cart projected the image of the Arhat as a desirable ethical stature.  The Mahayana or great cart was centred on the image of the Boddhisatva.  The last school of Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism projected the image of the Siddha.  Arhat is a sage who has attained enlightenment following the path of the buddha.  Boddhisatva is a saintly and celestial mystical being akin to the buddha.  Siddha is a Buddhist yogi or a holy man with instant potentials and greater agency.

The buddha from Chandala Bhikshuki a pillar relief by Chavara Vijayan at Kayikara.

In Kerala the early Chera kings adopted the surname Athan which is a form of the Arhat.  Boddhisatva has become Chathan in Kerala.  Another synonym of the buddha, ‘Sastha’ is also associated with this word.  Siddha of Vajrayana has become ‘Chithan” in Kerala.  C V Kunjiraman the worldly disciple of Narayana Guru, a contemporary of Asan, a leading renaissance writer and anti caste activist has observed that Ezhava people in south Kerala had two deities traditionally: Chithan and Arathan.  Chithan is Siddha of Vajrayana and Arathan is none other than Arhathan/Athan a localized form of the Arhat.  In mid and north Kerala Ezhava and other Avarna people, especially the dalits still worship the Chathan.  Chathan is also connected to Sastha and Ayyappa by the Bahujans.

Asan, Narayana Guru and Dr Palpu: Bass relief by Chavara Vijayan at Kayikara

On 26 Dec 2012 I visited Kayikara, five km south of Varkala by the Arabian Sea which is renowned as the birth place of poet laureate Kumaran Asan.  His ancient household called Thomman Plackal is no more.  There is a library, a memorial statue, a sculptural complex and a Governemnt School at the place.  The in-charge of the library Mr Soman a senior citizen from the region  informed me that there was an ancient pond at the place and a granite idol was recovered from the pond which is now installed on the right of the gateway close to the compound wall facing west by the roadside.

Kumaran Asan statue at Kayikara by Chavara Vijayan

The local people designate this life size granite idol as the buddha, as I talked to many.  A broad shouldered man with a head dress or rounded hair tuft (in place of the Jwala of the buddha) and a peculiar loin cloth stand with the palms joined together before the chest in the Pranama posture has some resemblance to the buddha.  The person has a round face, broad shoulders and thick lips and is in a spiritual melancholy.  The phase looks south Indian. There is a deep sorrow and yearning in the whole mood and look.   It has resemblance and some similitude to the figure of the Chakyar in Koodiyattam which is often associated with the Sakya artistes and early Buddhism in Kerala by many researchers.

Tagore meeting Narayana Guru at Sivagiri: A bass relief by Chavara Vijayan at Kayikara

The statue is a unique one in its figuration and chiseling style.  The stone type and stylization are also different from other buddhas at Mavelikara, Kayamkulam, Kottapuram or Pattanam.  The other buddha idols recovered so far from Kerala belong to the Theravada early period and are dated to 7 th or 8th century by experts like Ilamkulam.  Most of them fall under the influence of the great Anuradhapura style of Srilanka.  But the Kayikara idol looks a lot recent and could be dated to 15th or 16th century.  Researchers like Dr Aju Narayanan also endorse this observation.

LIfe size idol of the Siddha at Kayikara. Recovered from an ancient pond near the birth place of Asan. A key icon of Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana in Kerala.

Buddhas generally appear in Padmasana, Bhumisparsa and Abhaya postures.  It is extremely unusual for a buddha to assume the Pranama posture that is a product of the Hindu hierarchical worldview.  But there are place names scattered all over Kerala connected to this posture of Pranama or  “Thozhal” in current Malayalam.  Thozhuvan Kode, Thozhuvan Konam, Thozhuvan Uru etc. are place names found all over Kerala.  Even in Malabar there are place names associated with the Thozhuvan or one who is in the Pranama posture.  Thazhampally and Mampally are regions just south of Kayikara.  The Chamana antiquity of the place is evident.

Bodhisatva in Pranama posture, Temple of Nara, Japan. C. 8th century AD. Photo from Internet

In my inquiry through books and the internet a bodhisatva idol in the same posture was found in the Temple of Nara in Japan that belongs to the 8th century AD.  Mr Soman had also told me that when Mr Humayun Kabir the M P visited Kayikara he made a statement that it was not buddha as buddhas never assumed the Pranama posture.  It is true that the original buddhas in Hinayana and Mahayana never assumed this posture which is often related to Brahmanical Hindu cults.  But if you look at the history of the development of Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana and its appropriation by Tantric Brahmanism in the 15th and 16th centuries this Pranama posture becomes meaningful.  it provides the vital clue and the missing link in the history of Buddhism in India.

Mampally and Thazhampally regions south of Kayikara. A view from Anjengo light house. Anjengo Kayal is also visible.  ”Pally” in the place names proves the Sramana antiquity of the region as in Panayanpally and Thopumpady in Mattanchery in Ernakulam district.

Mahayana itself was a greater and diversified movement that diluted the original Hinavada or Sunyavada of the buddha.  Nagarjuna and other sages who basically came from Brahmanism itself digressed a lot from the original teaching of the buddha in their contestable attempts at popularizing and liberalizing Buddhism in India through their greater vehicle.  As a result of this large scale liberalization there was extensive hybridity and ambivalence in the context.  The ambiguous figure of the Siddha or Chithan emerged from this chaos.

Specially designed Pagoda with ventilation, enshrining the Sarada installation by Narayana Guru at Sivagiri  (April 1912) where he used the Jain imagination and consecration of the deity rather than the Brahmanical one. He traveled throughout the south India and in Sri Lanka before the act and imagined and designed the simple architecture of the shrine.  Foundation was laid in 1907.  Soon after the performative installation avoiding Tantric rituals he composed a literary offering to the goddess of knowledge, Janani Navaratna Manjari, Nine Gems in Praise of the Mother.

This hybridity and later easy apropriation by Brahmanism could also be read as a strategic tactics by the hegemonic forces to take over the heterodox Buddhism from within.  They infiltrated into the Sangha, liberalized it, hybridized it and smoothly converted it into Hindu Brahmanism.  Diluting, dividing and deviating is a key strategy used by imperialisms everywhere.

A little buddha idol, exactly like a little Krishna image. This replica of the  one at Todaiji temple of Nara, Japan. An example of ambiguity and hybridity. Photo from Internet

Thus the suspicious stone idol at Kayikara could be aptly identified as Chithan or the Siddha of Tantric Buddhism.  The Yogic Siddha stands in self engrossing Pranama by the Arabian Sea at Kayikara.  The undercurrent of Buddism in Asan’s poetry at least in its political unconscious could also be explained in the light of this Siddha of Kayikara.  It represents the gradual blurring of the boundaries between Tantric Buddhism and Tantric Brahmanism.  The icon provides the missing link in the socio cultural evolution of Kerala and India at large and the gobal history of Buddhism in general.

A Broken Padmasana: The Fissured Buddha of Pattanam

// November 2nd, 2012 // 16 Comments » // Cultural Politics

Whatever is the essence of the Tathagata,
That is the essence of the world.

The Tathagata has no essence.

The world is without essence.

                        Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika, XXII:16

Crossed legs and part of the left hand completing a solemn Padmasana. Demolished above the waist in the violent conquest in the middle ages. Now worshiped as Yakshi at Nileeswaram Siva temple, Pattanam. Ernakulam dist, Kerala.

It was Prof P J Cherian the director of KCHR and the Pattanam/Muziris  excavation project who drew my attention to certain broken granite sculptures kept in Pattanam Nileeswaram Siva temple a couple of months ago.  A retired school master told him about the fragments, says Prof Cherian.  These fragments were recovered some 70 to 80 years ago from the temple pond and placed on the raised platform of the Yakshi outside the Nalambalam structure beneath a Pipal by the pond.

The pedestal and half-undone Padmasana idol from the back. It was recovered from the temple pond almost a century ago and placed on the Yakshi platform by the pond under a Pipal tree. Mavelikara, Kayamkulam and Kattanam Buddhas were also recovered by the people from current Savarna temples at the same time.

People still worship these broken idols as Naga Yakshi and Naga Raja.  But in close examination they were found to be of different statues.  A seated figure in Padmasana is the vital fragment.  Yesterday, 26 Oct 2012 I got time to visit Pattanam and had a close and enlightening view of the fragments.  It is placed on a pedestal with a water chute.  The iconographic style, color of the stone, chiseling style and texture of the stone closely resemble the Buddha idols recovered from Mavelikara, Karumady, Bharanikavu and Kayamkulam in the south.

Four fragments are placed together and that is why it was difficult for the people to decipher the mystery of Pattanam Buddha. It again is a hegemonic act of obscurantism and erasure of vital past by the obliterating Savarna Brahmanical forces who still specialize in burying their own past in a repressive and fascist way.

This idol in Padmasana seems to be demolished above the waist and is the only one resembling a Buddha idol reported to be recovered so far from Ernakulam district.  The regions between Edapally and Vadanapally thrive in place names with the common affix Pally, a Pali word signifying a Chamana sacred place.  All other Buddha idols recovered so far are from Alapuzha and Kollam districts.  Plenty of similar Buddha sculptures are also reported from Tyaganur, Ariyalur, Nagapatinam and other parts of Tamil Nadu, especially in Madurai and Tirunelveli districts.

Tyaganur Buddha in the open field for the last one thousand years or more, from Tamil Nadu.
Photo: The Hindu

Any way it is very important to note that the idol fragments were recovered from the temple pond.  It was the same in Mavelikara, Kayamkulam, Pallykal and Karumady.  All the Buddha idols in Kerala were recovered from current Savarna temple ponds or paddy fields in their vicinity.  They were violently attacked uprooted and thrown or buried in ponds and marshes.  The Buddha at Tyaganur is still sitting pretty in the open field exposed to the elements almost a millennium after its creation by skilled sculptors or Chamana sages themselves.

Perfect disguise of the past:  the fragmets placed together in an ambiguous way.  Nileeswaram temple at Pattanam is so close to Cherai the birth place of Sahodaran Ayyappan who initiated the neo buddhist movement in Kerala during the renaissance cultural revolutions in early 20th century. Sahodaran has written extensively on the destruction of buddhist shrines in Kerala by Brahmanic Hindutva forces like Kodungallur and Srimulavasam in particular. Remember his song “O don’t go to the Bharani O brothers…”  Because of his scathing critique of Brahmanism and Savarna elitism,  Sahodaran the greatest organic intellectual that Kerala has ever produced was systematically excluded from the high canon and  textbooks by the Savarna literati, who instead celebrated Asan for his mild Hinduized worldview.

It is not likely to be a Jain Thirthankara image because there is no Mudra or symbols of animals or Chaitya trees associated with each Thirthankara on the base or pedestal.  Moreover the stylization of the figure and its seated posture and orientation of the limbs closely echo the Buddhas at Mavelikara, Karumady and Bharanikavu.  P C Alexander and S N Sadasivan who wrote the history of Buddhism in Kerala  have argued that these south Kerala Buddhas resonate the Anuradhapura style of stone sculpting and chiseling.  The blackness and density of the granite and the exquisite oily suppleness of appearance closely link the Pattanam fragment to its counter parts in Alapuzha and Kollam and in the far south in Srilanka.

Mavelikara Buddha, recovered from the paddy field adjacent to Kandiyur temple and placed at the Buddha Junction, Mavelikara. Note the lotus posture/Padmasana with crossed legs and connected hands. See the tone and texture of the stone and its colour that is recurring in all the Buddha idols including the Pattanam Buddha recovered from Kerala.

It is a mockery of history that these invaluable  fragments of Pattanam went unnoticed and unidentified for the last one century.  It shows the repressive power of the mainstream Savarna Hindu ideology and common sense that becomes hegemonic and annihilating.  Crucial suppression and erasure of collective consciousness, memory, past and integrity under cultural hegemony is a key aspect of Kerala’s elite culture called Savarna supremacism.  Genocidal and symbolic violence and perpetual erasures and mutilations are its chief tenets.  These historic and epistemic violences are legitimized in the name of an omnipotent god and timeless religion.  The pivotal significance of the archetypal phallus or the Linga in the Saivite Hindutva appraisal gains meaning in these contexts.

Pattanam Buddha idol (half demolished, above waist): An early photo by KCHR photographer. Iconography, Chiseling style, Stone type, texture and color closely resembling Buddha idols recovered at Mavelikara, Karumady, Kattanam and Kayamkulam. By courtesy of Prof P J Cherian and KCHR

The broken figure in Padmasana at Pattanam is yet another key-marker of the cultural reality and history of Kerala.  It proves once again that grave and material violence was used to convert and modify the ethical and egalitarian spiritual practices and instructive places in Kerala during the early middle ages by Brahmanic Hinduism and its strategic appropriating tropes like Saivism and Vaishnavism.  The Brahmanic henchmen belonging mostly to the Maravar and Kallar clans, literally demolished and buried all the traces of Buddhism and its non violent culture in Kerala with true Sudra allegiance and slave like fidelity to their caste- sovereigns, the earthly gods or Bhudeva.

Buddha at Bharanikavu Pallykal, Katanam near Kayamkulam. It was also recovered from a pond behind the current Hindu temple in early 20th century. Till then it was used as a washing stone and foot cleaning stone in the temple pond. See the close similarity in chiseling style and lotus posture; with Mavelikara, Karumady and Pattanam idols. Pallykal Buddha is dated to 7th century by experts.  Now protected by Archeological department of Kerala.

Suppression of reality, resistance and speech are still widely practiced by the Savarna power elites who monopolize every public institutions in the country, especially the higher academia and media.  The ideology and praxis of erasure and sanctioned ignorance or silence on the key aspects of collective past are still dominant practices in higher academia and media in Kerala and India at large.  Even the victims conform to this dominant practice out of compulsion from conventions and supervision from the orthodoxy.  Through such hegemonic measures of suppression and silencing the ethical and democratic Chamana culture of Kerala is pushed under the carpet even today in mainstream academic and media discourses.  Mainstream academic historians from the former Savarna social background argue that the idols are some exceptions brought here by some merchants and traders and not part of a people’s culture and tradition!  They are still keeping mum over the extensive presence of Pali words in Malayalam and the cultural symbols and images in the daily life practices of people related to Jain and Buddhist traditions.  Archaeological, cultural and linguistic evidences explode the silence of the self-fashioned academic scholars who make a monopoly of the “academic methodology and practice.”

The pedestal with lying human figures piled on one another on which the Padmasana figure is placed at Pattanam Nileeswaram Siva temple. Ernakulam dist of Kerala.  Note the easy chiseling possibility of modifying such  idols and seats into a Siva Linga.  It was practiced through out south India by Brahmanism and its assimilatory tropes like Saivism and Vaishnavism to convert Chamana Pallys.

The broken granite Buddha sculpture at Pattanam testifies this fascist violence that is still brewing in the present against minor sects, others and out castes in India by the Hindutva and Savarna henchmen.  Pattanam Buddha is a vital fragment of history that teaches us to be vigilant against cultural,  iconographic, architectural and epistemic violence and alterations by the power elite done with coercion and appropriating strategies.  It is striking that Pattanam is so close to Cherai where Sahodaran Ayyappan initiated the most dynamic neo buddhist discourse in Kerala along with C V Kunhiraman and Mitavadi C Krishnan in the early 20th century as part of the  cultural struggles now termed as Kerala renaissance under the visionary leadership of Narayana Guru who symbolically and radically subverted the Brahmanical hegemony through his Aruvipuram installation in 1888.

Sahodaran Ayyappan (1889-1968) wrote extensively on Buddhism in Kerala at the wake of the 20th century. His verses contain a special section “Baudha Kandam.” Instrumental in initiating neo buddhism in Kerala. Also initiated live dialogues with Ambedkarism and Periyor movement in early 20th century Kerala.

In his verse and prose he reintroduced the ethical message of the enlightened one to the people in their mother tongue Malayalam as against the Pali of the Amana monks.  Sahodaran  journal was dedicated to the teaching of ethics to the dalitbahujan people in Kerala.  He used the Pipal leaf as its logo and compared the modern boddhisatva of Kerala, Narayana Guru to the Buddha himself.  The coinage “Sri Narayana-buddha”  is an insightful and futuristic semantic construction by Sahodaran.  He also inaugurated the rationalist and civil/human rights movement in Kerala in early 20th century that culminated in the Kerala model and modernity in a few decades.

Nileeswaram Siva temple at Pattanam. Towards the right background the big Pipal stands and beneath it the Buddha fragment is placed now and worshiped as Yakshi.  Pattanam excavation site is to the left background of this temple.

The shattered buddha of Pattanam is an immortal piece of art as well.  It tells us a lot about South Indian cultural history, iconography,  society and polity during the last few thousand years.  It is an icon of survival, resistance and articulation against invasions and imperialisms, both internal and external.  It is an ethical and spiritual work of art that is political and social as well, with its polyphonic significations and liberating visual cultural possibilities.  This invaluable treasure and heritage of the whole humanity and Kerala in particular must be preserved and protected by the people and their elected governments for future.  As the neo buddha of India has reminded us the people who do not know history, can not make history.

neo buddha of India: Ambedkar merged into the Buddha in the imagination of a dalit artist. Image from the internet.

It is vital to remember that the Padmasana a basic posture  in Indian Yoga traditions has its origin in the Indus valley Dravidian civilization that dates back to BC 3000.  The meditating Yogi in Padmasana amidst wild animals including the tiger and the elephant, recovered from terracotta seals in the Harrappan sites  is identified as one of the earliest artistic expressions of this unique nonviolent culture, ethical aesthetics and cosmological vision.

Indus valley seal of a Yogi in Padmasana: An earliest artistic expression of ascetic and ethical practice in India. Orientalists termed it as Siva as Pasupati. Now linked to the Sramana Yogic tradition of early Dravidian and pre-Jain/buddhist traditions. Image from internet

The orientalist scholars and early Hindutva ideologues instantly  declared it Siva as Pasupati or lord of the beasts.  But radical organic intellectuals from the people recovered this iconic image as the early manifestation of Indus valley Dravidian culture and ethics.  The rudimentary forms of Sramana/Amana/Chamana ascetic-ethical  tradition could be aptly traced back to this Yogi in Padmasana.  The Jain and Buddhist wisdom and philosophy of nonviolence, renunciation and being one with nature could be appropriately  identified with the spiritual tranquility and ethical stability of this human figure amidst animals and the wild forces of nature.

A Boddhisatva from contemporary Kerala who wanted to write on the Padmasana in Indian cultures from the Indus onwards, but could not : O V Vijayan with his life-partner Dr Theresa. Padmasanam was his last projected novel. Photo: thehindu.com

It is again vitally important to remember that O V Vijayan the legend of Malayalam letters was struggling to write his last novel titled Padmasanam as death separated him from us.  He was trying to connect the Indus valley Yogi in Padmasana with the numerous Sramana idols in south India in the same lotus posture, while negotiating with the Parkinson’s disease.  The Pattanam Buddha fragment is there fore the latest addition to this ethical and egalitarian cultural legacy of India that is ever growing and being rediscovered everyday by the people in their various walks of life, struggle and survival.  Preserving it for the world and for the posterity with correct details is going to be a task ahead for the people.

ajay sekher  2 Nov 2012