‘Liquid Pillar Of Purity’

With the monsoon around the corner, water takes on a special significance. The first of five elements according to the Manusmriti, water has always held a place of value in our consciousness and philosophy. From the very beginnings of Vedic thought the importance of water in both the religious and social milieus is apparent. Within the cultural framework of Indian thought process itself, water has enjoyed a unique and respectable status.

Water has been described and referred to as the nectar, honey, source of life, protector of earth and environment, cleanser of sins, generator of prosperity and so on. Water is the single most important mode for performing daily religious rituals, social ceremonies and a primary mean of purification of the body and soul from birth till death. The purification at the commencement of sandhya prayers invokes the waters as bliss-conferring and requested to provide food for the body and great charming insight for the intellect as well as a share of their auspicious bliss for the soul. According to the Sanskritist scholar C. Sivaramamurti, water is considered to be the base of everything in the universe, all beings are water, all food is water, ambrosia is water, the Almighty in his subtle, monumental and unmanifest forms is water, the metres are water, the Vedic texts are water, truth is water, all the gods are water, the three worlds, Bhuh, Bhuvah and Svaha are water as well.

In the Indian ‘karmic’ and ‘dharmic’ tradition the concept of the river evokes a sense of reverence, a reverence that is at once associated with that of a sustaining mother. The word Payas meaning both water and milk, has been appropriately used in relation to a river, for the river sustains and nurtures a civilization, her children, with water, as the mother sustains the child with her milk. For the Vedic seers the great rivers were life-sustaining goddesses of maternal compassion. Hymns have been invoked to these rivers requesting them to present themselves for purifying the devotees. They are individually named. “Oh Ganga, Oh Yamuna, Saraswati, Sutudri, Marudvriddha, Parushni, Vitasta and Sushoma.”

Amongst all the rivers in India, Ganga has always had the highest appeal. Ganga the heavenly river brought to earth by the great efforts of an indefatigable chain of princes for the purification not only of their ancestor’s ashes but also of one and all. Every river is judged by the standards of this supreme river believed to be the epitome of sanctity and purity. Kalidasa’s is his iconic text the Raghuvamsa, poetically describes the pure white stream of the Ganga, gradually narrowing in size in the far distant landscape which appears to him like a necklace of pearls close fitting to the earth’s damsel - Ganga.

The Ganga is also recognized as the Tripathagatha or the purifier of three different areas. She is known as Akasaganga, wherein the elephants of the eight quarters bathe with delight and the seven rishis have their holy ablutions. The Ganga as Tripathagatha, the sacred river purifying the three worlds, is a popular theme in sculptural representation. It is beautifully represented in a relief panel in the Virupaksha temple at Pattadakal. The theme of Gangadhara Shiva is also extremely popular where Shiva is shown as taking the earth shattering weight of the mighty river in his locks and imprisoning her. She is released as a result of Bhagiratha’s severe penance, and proceeds towards the mountain Himavan. She is said to have enraged sage Jahnu who receives her in his kamandalu and swallows her in a sip. The severe penance of Bhagiratha saves her again and she escapes through the ear of the sage Jahnu finally reaching the nether world and thus is also known as Janavi.

The Royalty and common folk alike revered the sanctity of the river and riverine civilisations. In fact the mighty monarch of Chola dynasty, Rajendra Chola venerated the sacred Ganga so deeply that he brought its water down to the south in vessels offered as tribute by kings defeated by him in battle in the region of the river. He dug a large lake called the ‘liquid pillar of victory’ as he assumed the title Gangaikondachola- The Chola who brought the Ganga to the south.

The river Yamuna is usually associated with Ganga but the Yamuna has her own individuality. She has inspired many great artists and poets and her greatest glory is near the Trivenisangam. The commingling of the blue waters of the Yamuna is said to enhance the beauty of the Ganga. The purity and sheen of the Ganga when merged with the iridescent blueness of the Yamuna has been beautifully expressed by Kalidasa in the Raghuvamsa when he says that the Yamuna looked as if she were charged with the waters of the Ganga, when the white sandal paste washed off from the breasts of the damsels during their sportive bath from the harem of the Surasena king, Sushena. The confluence of these two mighty rivers becomes a tirtha sthala at Prayaga whereupon they commingle and flow to meet the samudraraja.

The rivers Ganga and Yamuna have also been represented anthropomorphically on the doorjambs and can be seen on their respective vahanas the makara/crocodile and the tortoise/kurma. With swans flying above, garlands of lotuses or lilies in their beaks, there is a suggestion of cool fragrances and aquatic associations. We see a continuous representation of doorway river goddesses from the Gupta period onwards. It was a belief that the devotee was purified before entering the sacred space of the garbhagraha and this belief was further strengthened when temples such as Deogarh, Nachna -Kuthara, Mandasor, Bhitargaon multiplied during the Gupta era. Following this the Ganga-Yamuna figures become a permanent fixture on doorways. The goddess or the nadimatrka is often described carrying a purna kumbha or a vessel brimming with water. This iconography has been mentioned in the Vishnudharmottara Purana. The Purnakumbha itself, with lotuses and water, is a symbol not only of plenty and auspiciousness but of the river, and the earliest symbolic representation of the purifying influence of the river goddess, guarding the entrance on either side, which accounts for the presence of purnakumbhas flanking the doorway.

Water has been a popular theme in both artistic and literary representations through the ages. By degrees the purifiers, nourishers and sustainers, rivers have been the very backbone of civilisation. The Indus Valley, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian civilisations were built, sustained and protected by the powerful rivers, which were possessed of and endowed with potency, grace and purity. Traversing both the pragmatic and cultural water is vital whether in daily ablutions or sacred rituals. From the verbal to the non-verbal, imaging water thus has the connotation of both the sacred and the profane.