Mahakala II
Before we leave the Indian deities I would like to touch upon Mahakala, the “great black one.” I-ching, a Chinese priest who visited India in the seventh century, commented that a wooden statue of the “great black deity” (Daikoku-ten in Japanese) stood beside the dining pillar in the temples, that it was continually blackened with oil, and that the deity had a protective function. From early times in Japan Mahakala was revered as a deity of good luck, apparently confused with an ancient native kami called Okuninushi no mikoto. (This confusion doubdess arose because both names can be pronounced “daikoku,” according to alternative readings of the Chinese characters.) It became the custom to call the central pillar of the house the daikoku-bashira (hashira, “pillar”). I think, despite the different explanations that appear in Japanese dictionaries, that this expression derived from the pillar upon which Daikoku-ten was venerated.
Why this god is black we do not know. It may be significant that Marco Polo, writing in the thirteenth century, remarked that in southern India black was revered and white despised.1 When the Aryans entered the Indian subcontinent, they made a distinction between themselves, whom they thought of as white, and the aboriginal inhabitants, whom they considered black. The Hindi term vama, meaning “color,” is the common Indian term for the system of four castes that divides society, and so it may be thought that the caste system is the result of white supremacy. By the time Marco Polo arrived in southern India, however, it appears that the old way of thinking had been turned about, and black had come to be thought superior. The name of Krsna, the best known of Hindu deities, means “black,” as does that of the grim goddess Kali, “the black one.” Perhaps Mahakala shares the same tradition.
Protectors of Buddhism. There are a large number of demigods in Buddhism, which could be defined as either demons or gods, for they share characteristics of both. The demigods have traditionally been grouped into eight kinds of beings that protect Buddhism: devas, nagas, yaksas, gandharvas, asuras, garudas, kimnaras, and mahoragas. Carvings of these can be seen, for example, at Kofuku-ji in Nara, Japan.
We have dealt already with devas; they are of course not demigods but gods.
The naga is a personified snake, in particular the cobra, the object of a widespread cult in India. Throughout the world the snake is linked with the bringing forth of water, perhaps because snakes are found near water or because their movements resemble a twisting river.
Yaksas tend to be wild, demonic beings; they were originally tree deities and spirits of the villages and woodlands. Though they are thought of as frightful in aspect, female yaksas are depicted in Indian sculpture as beautiful and erotic. In Japan they seem to have terribly cold hearts, lending meaning to the popular Japanese expression “the face of a bodhisattva and the heart of a yaksa. ” In China and Japan yaksas were almost always shown as terrifying beings.
Gandharvas are Indra’s retainers, and they are represented as celestial singers and musicians who feast on perfumes.
Asuras are the demonic enemies of the gods (devas'). Asura shares the same derivation as ahura (“lord”) of ancient Iran. Interestingly, Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism, means “radiant lord,” whereas daevas in Persian means “violent and amoral destroyers.”
In Hinduism, the garuda is a mythical bird, the personification of the eagle and the steed of Visnu. Indian sculpture portrays the garuda as an eagle, but in Central Asia it is depicted as a human body with an eagle’s wings, talons, and beak. In China and Japan the image of the tengu (“heavenly fox”) accreted to that of the garuda, resulting in portrayals of a being with wings and a long nose, the latter perhaps a misrepresentation of a beak. It is also possible that the depiction of the garuda was influenced by the gigaku and gagaku masks of the Nara and Heian periods in Japan, which include representations of karura (garuda] and suikoo (“drunken barbarian kings”) with large noses.
Kimnaras are a type of bird. The Sanskrit word means “Is it human?” revealing the half-human, half-bird nature of this being. It does not exhibit the garuda?, fearsome aspect but is gentle in appearance. The deity of music, the kimnara derives from the same source as the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene. In Japan this type of being is called a kaiyobinga (kalavihka in Sanskrit).
The mahoraga (“boa”) is a personification of a large snake.
Raksasas. Other demonic demigods include the raksasas, demons and devils connected with the island of Sri Lanka. In the Rama-yana (Romance of Rama), one of India’s two great epics, they appear as inhabitants of that island. A modified form of that legend entered Buddhism, relating that there lived in Sri Lanka five hundred female raksasas, who captured and ate shipwrecked merchants.2 This perhaps hints at the existence somewhere in India of a tribe that ate human flesh. Herodotus mentions a tribe of Indians called the Callatiae (Kallatiai), who ate their parents’ dead bodies, and another called the Padaei (Padaioi), who killed the sick in order to eat their meat before it was destroyed by illness.3 This is a good example of the way some people are viewed as demons because of their different customs and manners. Other demigods. Another monster is Kumbhanda, a demon with testicles as huge as a waterpot. So big are they, in fact, that he is able to use them as a seat, and he can only walk if he holds them up out of the way. I was inclined to think of this as pure fantasy until I saw some photographs of enlarged testicles caused by a parasite, a condition called elephantiasis. It is a disease prevalent in hot countries, including southern India. A colleague commented on the similarity of this aspect of Kumbhanda with the traditional ceramic depiction of the raccoon dog, the tanuki, as having enormous testicles. The Kumbhanda of India and the tanuki of Japan may both be fantastic representations of an actual condition.
Kumbhira is the personification of the crocodile and thus is associated with water. He came to be regarded as a water deity, the protector of shipping. He is enshrined in Japan as Kompira and is familiarly known as Kompira-sama. Kompira’s most famous shrine is found in Kagawa Prefecture on Shikoku. Since the Meiji period (1868-1912) this shrine has been formally called the more Shinto-sounding Kotohira Shrine, the result of government efforts to separate the closely entwined Buddhist and Shinto traditions.
Gods of the Esoteric Tradition
Esoteric Buddhism, the last stage in the religious development of Buddhism in India, appeared suddenly in India around the latter half of the seventh century C.E. One of its features is ultrasymbolism, in which minor differences in the position of the fingers symbolize one or another great truth. In the same way, single letters or syllables (bija, “seed”) symbolize particular deities. Another feature of esoteric Buddhism is affirmation of worldly desires. Early Buddhists endeavored to escape from the defiled world and the stained self. Esoteric Buddhism, however, declares that worldly desires are emancipation, perhaps because everything is a manifestation of the cosmic Buddha. Thus in this type of Buddhism appear deities who are possessed of anger, desire, passion, and other intense feelings. Furthermore, esoteric Buddhism grew under the enormous influence of Hinduism, with the result that virtually all the Hindu deities entered Buddhism at that time.
Acala. Acala is depicted surrounded by flames and has a fierce countenance. His mind is immovable (acala), and he consumes evil with his fire. Some paintings and statues of Acala show his body as red and others, yellow or blue. There thus arose a custom of referring to Acala in terms of color, such as the Red Acala or the Yellow Acala. Still other color designations are made in terms of the color of his eyes, such as the Black-eyed Acala or the White-eyed Acala.
Raga Vidyaraja. Raga means “red,” and symbolizes the blood running hotly through a body overwhelmed by desires, and so has the connotation of being stained by the passions. PreMahayana Buddhism taught people to cast away the passions and defilements and to seek enlightenment. Mahayana brought changes in this doctrine, and by the time esoteric Buddhism held sway, the defilements were considered to be in themselves enlightenment, which meant that this life of ours, full to bursting with defilements and passions, is itself the enlightened state. This idea came from Hindu tantrism.
Pre-Mahayana Buddhism, however, taught that a life stained by the passions is a life steeped in delusion, and that it therefore must be purified. It is Raga Vidyaraja who performs that cleansing. He is generally portrayed with a red body, symbolizing both the defilements themselves and their purification. The epithet vidyaraja, shared also by Acala, belongs to those divinities who express enlightened wisdom through a passionate aspect.
Ganesa. Ganesa, with an elephant’s head and a human body, often appears in the form of embracing male and female figures, an expression of enlightenment through the unity of male and female. Mahayana Buddhism was influenced by the Hindu idea that the Absolute (Brahman, the universe or world essence) is identical with the Self (Atman). To an enlightened person the two are one, for with enlightenment comes the loss of all egotistic consciousness. We usually consider the world and the self to be in opposition, the self working as the subject of action. Such an attitude is, however, a delusion. Those who wish to arrive at this truth must undergo various kinds of religious training. Some practitioners of Tantric (esoteric) Buddhism taught that the realm of true enlightenment could be reached through the unity of male and female. By means of the sexual act the practitioner could enter a state of rapture, losing all sense of self and so penetrating the truth of the oneness of Brahman and Atman. Ganesa symbolizes this idea.4
