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The Earliest Krodha-vighnantaka

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Hundreds of South Asian krodha-vighnantaka images survive . Those which have been examined can be broken down into a few basic groupings . The most obvious division is between independent images and all those in which the krodha­ vighnantaka is a subordinate.

As a minor subordinate, the krodha-vighnantaka is invariably represented as a smaller attendant accompanying a larger, more impor­tant bodhisattva. Th.is category of krodha vighnantaka image is probably the largest , evidently the earliest, and seemingly the longest-lived . It will be the first to be examined here.

For the sa k of convenience l have termed such images Phase One images . Although this phase begins before Phase Two or Three, Phase One images contin­ue to be made alongside the later forms until Buddhism as a whole was curtailed in India in the thirteenth century. The first krodha-vighnantaka images of the Phase One type may date to the second half of the sixth century.


Our initial example, of approximately that date, is found on the north side of the vestibule to Cave 6 in Aurangabad, Maharashtra . Approximately contemporary is a krodha­ vighnantaka attending Avalokitesvara within the shrine of Aurangabad's Cave 7. Slightly later in date, probably very early seventh century, is a quite similar krodha-vighnantaka, again on the doorway to a shrine, in Cave 6 of Ellora, also in Maharashtra . These krodha-vighnantaka images are among the very earliest

Context is an obvious advantage in establishing their original significance, and an extended discussion will be devoted to characterizing th.is context. Before analyzing the broader context of the Cave sculptures, however, it will be helpful to introduce a pair of early krodha-vighnantaka, to enlarge our pool of early examples.

As with most of our examples, very little contextual evidence sur­vives for either, giving impetus to derive as much as poss_ibl e from the Aurangabad and Ellora examples.


The first of the two is a ca. sixth or seventh century sculpture of a bodhisattva with a krodha-vighnantaka attendant. The two may repre­sent Vajrapani and Vajrapuru a, though the identifications are tentative. Th.is sculp­ hire, now in the National Museum of New Delhi, is one of a pair from Sarnath, near Benares, the site of the Buddha's first sermon.

The wrathful attendant stands on the proper right side of a two-armed bodhisattva who seems to lea n on him. He is d war fish , with the viimana-Yak a body type and a plump face. Though he has "bug­ eyes," he has a sweet smile .

Like two of the three krodha-vighnantaka already introduced, the Sarnath wrathful deity makes the vinayahasta mudra , crossing his arms in front of his chest.

He stands with one leg bent behind the other . There is a diamond-shaped crest at the part of his hair, suggestive of an early type of prong-less vajra .4 It seems possible then that the bodhisattva is meant to be Vajrapani, with the personifica­tion of his primary symbol, Vajrapuru a. The similarities of pose, body type and iconographic configurations among all the sculptures mentioned so far are quite striking.

The Sarnath bodhisattva was originally paired with a standing Avalokiteshvara also in the National Museum in New Delhi . The latter sculpture holds the stem of a lotus in his left hand, and there is an image of Amitabha in his head­ dress.


The right arm is extended down, palm out, towards a kneeling female devotee . The Avalokitesvara figure looks toward his right, the opposite of the Vajrapani figure . Most likely the two sculptures acted as a framing device on either side of a Buddha , such as that we find at Aurangabad and Ellora.

A Vajrapani with a dwarfish wrathful attendant in the Irving collection on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York may also be a member of a pair, though its partner has not been identified.

It is datable to the seventh or eighth century, and the fearsome qualities of the wrathful attendant have been enhanced by weapons and a snake decoration. He leans his elbow on the upturned handle of an axe and holds a flower in his proper right hand at his shoulder.

A snake acts as his upavita (sacred thread). He stands with his right leg bent oddly at the knee and ankle, with the other leg straight. His eyes have outlined lids and slanted eyebrows, and they bulge out beneath a mop of curly hair and above a "par­rot-beak" nose. He comes up to the mid-thigh of his sweetly-smiling bodhisattva master, who rests his left hand on the krodha-vighnantaka's head.

We have now assembled five early krodha vighnantaka images. Two themes will dominate the discussion of these earliest representative krodha-vighnataka images.


First, as subordinate deities, they appear as the personifications of symbols, abili­ ties, powers or attributes of their masters, the bodh isat tva . This relationship is sustained in later Phase One imagery as well and will be explored in the next chapters while discussing Yamantaka and Hayagriva.

Second, their earliest appearances are conditioned by Mahayana Buddha is m. The formative stages of Esoteric Buddhism gradually emerge from the broad context of Mahayana practice. At this early stage, however, Esoteric Buddhism is difficult to extract from Mahayana .

Later the krodha­ vighnantaka become independent images and help to distinguish Esoteric Buddhist practice from that of mainstream cult Mahayana . But the leitmotif of this discussion of the earliest examples will be the interaction between Mahayana cult practice and early Esoteric Buddhism.

The Aurangabad Cave 6 example stands in the pratyali{jha posture (proper left leg extended , right bent at the knee), while that of the Ellora Cave 6 wrathful deity stands in the opposite stance: iili {jha. Each crosses his arms over his chest, in the vinaya hasta gesture of sub mission.

The face above the vira-Yak a body of the Aurangabad krodha-vighnantaka has a grotesque expression , a grimace and bulging eyes. His slightly earlier date is supported by his three-tiered hairdo, which closely recalls the Sondni vidyadhara datable to the second quarter of the sixth century.7 The Ellora krodha-vighnantaka , while also a vira-Yak a in body type, has a slightly less grotesque facial expression .8


The krodha-vighnantaka in Aurangabad Cave 7 is in some ways distinct from these two . First of aU, it takes the form of the utimana-Yak a, a pudgy butter­ ball of an attendant. He has his proper left hand placed rather saucily at his hip, while the other hand holds something against his shoulder. A beaded necklace hangs around his neck.

Whatever garment he wears looks as much like a diaper as a waist-wrapping dhoti. The dominating bodhisattva leans his torso protectively towards his attendant and places his hand on the round head.

These examples were chosen because they represent early krodha-vighnantaka types frequently met with: the ferocious uira-Yak a type , the less exaggerated, almost heroic uira-Yak a type , and the mischievous child-like utimana-Yak a type .

Each form evokes a different reaction in the viewer and provides a seed for later growth.

The first type is an awe-inspiring, slightly fearsome character. These incipient features will be fully developed over time in such deities as Yamantaka, who among others remains grotesque through­out his many incarnations during Phases One to Three. The subdued but dignified type combines power with grace.


Such handsome krodha-vighnantaka are relatively rare in Phase One images, but they will come to the fore with Phase Two krodha-vighnantaka like Trailokyavijaya. Finally, the uamana-Yak a type evokes not so much awe as humor, a feeling which is the flipside of sacred horror. These three types contain within themselves shoots which will bloom at the hands of Esoteric Buddhist artists and practitioners in the future .

As we will see in the next chapter, they also directly reflect the non-Buddhist conceptual and formal strands which informed the earliest krodha-vighnantaka imagery.

Each of the early krodha-vighnantaka for whom the context is known - that is, the ones from Aurangabad and Ellora - attends a standing bodh isa ttva . Each of these standing bodhisattva are themselves attending, in one way or another, a shrine containing a Buddha seated with both legs pendent, who makes the dharmachakra mudra.

The uamana-Yak a krodha-vighnantaka attending Avalokitesvara is actually inside the inner cella of Cave 7, while the two uira-Yak a krodha-vighnantaka a [11, 17] belong to compositions arranged around a pair of bodhisattva on either side of the entrance to the inner cella of their respective caves. This arrangement describes Ellora Cave 6.

The pudgy krodha-vighnantaka is found on the north wall of the shrine of Aurangabad Cave 7 next to Avalokitesvara, who shares the wall with Tara. Across from them is the celebrated dancing Tara with musicians.


On the west wall is the teaching Buddha seated on a lion-decorated throne in pralambapada asana, surrounded by smaller seated Buddhas. Although the female deities in the cella and in the vestibule are often pointed to as harbingers of mature Esoteric Buddhism, the cave's overall structure relates to mature Mahayana with its cults devoted to the male and female bodhisattva, notably Avalokiteshvara and Tara.

Based on its simi­larity to later images and texts to be discussed in forthcoming chapters, the krodha-vighnantaka present here can be identified as Hayagriva . On the outer wall leading to the inner shrine of Ellora Cave 6 stand two gate­way bodhisattva. (20] The one on the left (north) side is Avalokitesvara and the other is either Vajrapani or Maitreya .

Assuming the latter is Vajrapani , one would expect the bodhisattva to carry his namesake attribute, but it is instead the krodha-vighnantaka who bears the vajra in his headdress.

Though transferred to his attendant, the presence of the vajra lends some credence to the minority interpreta­tion of the bodhisattva as Vajrapani. The mark that primarily contradicts this argument is the distinct stupa in the bodhisattva's headdress, an iconographic mark e r usually associated with Maitreya .11 In other respects, however , both figures closely resemble seventh and eighth century stone and metalwork Nepalese sculp­tures of Vajrapani. The identities of the bodhisattva and his attendant cannot be determined with certainty .

If it is Maitreya, an attendant who embodies the vajra is unexpected; if it is Vajrapani, the presence of a stupa in the headdress is unusual.

Perhaps the ambiguities reflect the iconographic indistinctiveness of the early stage, particularly in terms of the distribution of krodha-vighnanta ka with particular bodhisattva.

Two gateway bodhisattva are also found on the wall leading to the inner shrine at Aurangabad Cave 6. The one on the left (south) side has been identified as Manjushri . If the attribution is accurate, his standing attendant, who holds a bowl with both hands, may be Yamantaka . The bodhisattva on the right (north) side has been identified as Vajrapani.

The identification of the northern bodhisattva as Vajrapani is widely accepted, as he holds a vajra in the left hand placed at his waist. Vajrapani's attendant, who is the counterpart of the presumed Yamantaka, therefore may be identified confidently as Vajrapuru a, the personification of the vajra.

Others, however, have identified him differently. Berkson, for instance, sug­gests the attendant figure is Mara, "the personified Kama (desire) or evil, whom Gautama Buddha defeated while achieving the supreme knowledge .


No reasons are given for this identification, and though I do not believe it is supportable, it is productively provocative. The submissive gesture and the demonic appearance of the Aurangabad attendant figure may have suggested to Berkson the image of a subdued Mara. Furthermore , in the Arya Mahabala-Nama -Mahayana sutra, One text, Vajrapani's hypostasis, Mahabala, does subjugate Mara.

If that were the case here, however, one would have to accept that the ideas in this Phase One text were current already in the sixth century. Were that granted, then one would expect to see Mara trampled underfoot, because the Arya Mahaba/a-Nama-Mahayana sutra explicitly states that after Mahabala had spoken his dharani, Mara was "frightened, trembling with fear, heart aflutter, and stupefied; bereft of the use of the four limbs, without the appearance of life .

The krodha-vighnantaka is not prostrate and imperiled , however; instead a lotus pad supports the krodha-vighnantaka proper left foot, marking him as divinity, not a demon . Rather than Mara, the Aurangabadkrodha-vighnantakais more plausibly identified as a furious form of Vajrapani, either Ucchusma or Mahabala himself, but most likely Vajrapuru a, the personification of Vajrapani's at tribute.

I am reluctant to invest the krodha-vighnantaka at Ellora and Aurangabad with advanced or well-defined Esoteric Buddhist identities. The context in which they appear does not justify it. Their arrangements are classic Mahayana compositions: essentially triadic groupings of a central Buddha and one or more pairs of bodhi­sattva placed on either side of a doorway leading to the Buddha.


The shrines in fact fit well with what Sheila Weiner calls "the Mahayana threshold," attained only in the late fifth and early sixth centuries, with the teaching Buddha in pralam­ bapada asana. As John Newman points out, "the icons at Aurangabad ... are not prima facie ' tantric."'

We can extend this conclusion to related works , for which a similar triadic context is confirmed by the existence of a companion piece. Inscriptions on the Nalanda Vajrapani reinforce the conservative matrix in which it was made. Above Vajrapan's head and proper left shoulder appears, not an Esoteric Buddhist formulation, but the familiar "Buddhist creed."

There is evidence of nascent Esoteric Buddhist thought and imagery at Aurangabad and Ellora, though it is not as decisive or central as some interpreters would have it. Evidence given for the presence of early Esoteric Buddhism at these caves has included the prominence of female deities in Aurangabad Cave 7, the presence of the wrathful attendants and the "ma,:r a/a" arrangement of nine Buddha figures seated i.n three horizontal rows on a side wall of Cave at Ellora.


True ma,:r a/a, wrathful deities and certain female deities (not merely Tara) are inarguably aspects highlighted by mature Esoteric Buddhism. The basic structure, however, of all three caves under consideration is a nuclear triadic form composed of two bodhisattva flanking the teaching Buddha Sakyamuni. The other elements are fitted into the primary structure in a subsidiary fashion .

The putative ma,:r a/a are actually seated Buddha figures arranged in registers. These visual programs are regularized extensions of groupings of five, seven, nine or ten Buddhas, or an abbreviation of the 1000-Buddha theme. The female deities are mainly forms of Tara and not Marici, or the consorts of Buddhas such as those found in the Sarvatathilgata tattvasamgraha, the primary Phase Two Esoteric Buddhist text.

Nor are they female deities such as Nairatmya or Vajravarahi, who are featured in later Eso­teric Buddhism. Finally, the wrathful deities are personifications of the powers and abilities of the bod his attva , who remain much more important than their attendants.

It is more accurate to consider Caves 6 and 7 at Aurangabad and Cave 6 at Ello­ra, not as early Esoteric Buddhist, but as the product of newly mature devotional Mahayana Buddhism . As Weiner notes, from the late fifth to early sixth centuries greater stress was given to the Buddha image and to its devotional worship.


The iconography of these caves is actually conservative, for as Malandra points out, "there is no difficulty in tracing the source of the Buddha images in [[[Ellora]]] caves through 10 to earlier prototypes at Ajanta and Aurangabad."

Both what is por­trayed and what is absent in the caves betray a predominant orientation of sixth-century and early seventh-century cultic Mahayana.

They typically feature in the Mahayana mode iconic images of the Buddhas Sakyamuni, Amitabha and Vairo­cana, a few narrative episodes from Sakyamuni Buddha's life and the principal bodhisattva with their female counterparts.

What is absent here is a focus on the deities featured in early developed Eso­teric Buddhism. Vajrapani, for example, is particularly singled out in Esoteric Bud­dhist imagery and texts, yet in these caves he is peripheral. Even as early as the Manjusrimulakalpa , Vajrapani has considerable importance as one of the principal interlocutors in a text devoted to Manjusri Bodhisattva. Vajrapani is pre­sent at Aurangabad, but only as one of several bodhisattva found in pairs at the gateways leading to a cella enshrining a Buddha.

If any bodhisattva is featured at Aurangabad, it is Avalokitesvara, one of the stars of the Lotus Sutra. In addition, there are no fully independent krodha-vighnantaka images, which is a definitive sign that at these sites Esoteric Buddhism has not yet emerged from Mahayana.

Academic representations of Mahayana Buddhism tend to emphasize the philosophical strain inscribed in the Prajnaparamita literature. But this literature was hardly "popular," a measure of which must surely be that it would have inspired the many images, planned and intrusive, which fill the cave walls. Much more commonly depicted at the western cave sites was the cult of the Buddha and increasingly the bodhisattva.

The goal of cultic Mahayana was dual: rebirth in par­adise and, more immediately, visions of assemblies of Buddhas and bodhisattva in such a paradise.2 5 A passage from a slightly later (ca. seventh century) Mahayana liturgical text by Shantideva gives life to these caves with rich descriptions matching the decorative and figurative carvings and the kinds of rituals which were carried out there:

In perfumed bathing halls, beautified by columns that shine with encrusted pearls, with awnings that shine with garlanded pearls, and with floors of shining pure crystal, full of urns inlaid with fine gems, full of delicate flowers and perfumed waters, there shall I pre­pare a bath for the tathagatas and their sons,

accompanied by music and song With delicate heavenly clothing, soft to the touch, of many colors, and with fine ornaments, I cover Samantabhadra, Ajita {Maitreya], Manjughosha, Lokesvara [[[Avalokitesvara]]] and the other bodhisattvas.

With the best perfumes that fill a billion worlds with their scent I anoint these {bodhisattvas, who are] monarchs among the sages, whose bodies shine with the brightness of well purified, burnished and polished gold.


The sculptures of Cave 6 at Aurangabad and Ellora are directly related to the themes of Buddhas teaching in paradise and compassionate savior-bodhisattva. The caves at Aurangabad and Ellora are realizations of the meditative visions involving Buddhas preaching to bodhisattva and other beings in celestial assemblies.

These celestial assemblies were described by Mahayana texts like the Buddha­ baladhana-pratihayavikurvanirdesa Sutra and the Saddharmapundarika-sutra (the Lotus Sutra).

The Tibetan version of the former pairs Vajrapani with Avalokitesvara as they approach Sakyamuni in a celestial assembly at which Sakyamuni preaches. While not suggesting that Cave 6 at Aurangabad or Ellora necessarily illustrates this text, the site and the text share a resemblance because this triadic formation was fundamental to Mahayana imagery, visual and literary.

Outside the inner shrine of Cave 7 at Aurangabad, which features the preach­ing Buddha and Avalokitesvara with Hayagriva , we find the A1?tamaha­ bhaya Avalokitesvara surrounded by the eight perils from which Avalokitesvara has vowed to save those who call on him. The locus classicus for this scene is of course the twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, as translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva in 405-406 CE.

The Lotus Sutra is hardly an Esoteric Buddhist, or even a "proto-Tantric" text, but a popular Mahayana scripture. The importance of Aval­okitesvara at both cave sites reinforces the linkage with the Mahayana bodhisattva cult. The paradise and bodhisattva cults are much more prominent than the ele­ments of Esoteric Buddhism which have been recognized through ingenious and creative, if slightly over-determined, interpretations.

These earliest surviving krodha-vighnantaka images were incorporated into a context of Mahayana cult ritual practices performed by laymen and/ or clerics, making it very difficult to extricate proto-Esoteric Buddhism from cultic Mahayana.

Early Esoteric Buddhist texts like the MMK similarly are permeated by Mahayana So.tra features. Texts and images alike share a common format, setting and cast of protagonists.

The difference between early Esoteric Buddhist texts and images and those of ritualistic cult Mahayana is perhaps only a matter of the degree to which emphasis is laid on dharani, and its defense, supra-mundane goals of enlightenment in this life and consecration ceremonies.

Even these are not unfail­ing guides. Iyanaga notes that "The borders between exoteric and esoteric Bud­dhism are extremely fluid," and S.K. De observes:

the line of demarcation between a Mahayanist and a Vajrayanist work is not fixed; for the former often contains Tantric ideas and practices of Vajrayana, while the latter includes topics essentially Mahayanist.

Thus, Shantideva Siksasamuccaya, an undoubtedly Mahayanist work, contains unreserved praise of the use of the dharanis and traces of other Tantric ideas.

Both Mahayana and Esoteric Buddhism share an interest in mundane accom­plishments.

Both perform rituals of veneration and meditations with images. Phase One images of krodha-vighnantaka will continue in this realm of mixed cultic Mahayana and early Esoteric Buddhism through the thirteenth century and beyond in India. It was necessary at the outset to point out this feature which marked its birth.


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