Human Agency and Divine Power Transforming Images and Recreating Gods Among TheNewar

Human Agency and Divine Power: Transforming Images and Recreating Gods among the Newar Author(s): Bruce
McCoy Owens Source: History of Religions, Vol. 34, No. 3, Image and Ritual in Buddhism (Feb., 1995), pp. 201-240 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062940 . Accessed: 08/08/2013 05:21
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Bruce McCoy Owens
HUMAN AGENCY AND DIVINE POWER: TRANSFORMING IMAGES AND RECREATING GODS AMONG THE NEWAR
During the symposium that ultimately inspired the papers collected in this issue, Joanne Waghorne observed that the "gods" displayed in the exhibit upon which we were commenting were essentially "dead." Objects honored as deities in Hindu and Buddhist traditions typically require regular reconsecration, and their adoration entails ongoing transfiguration.The vitality of the images on exhibit, unadornedand unchanged since their acquisition, depended upon transformativepractices that had ceased. The question thus arose of how one could reconcile the fact that the surfaces of many of the images on display were very finely articulated with the ethnographic evidence that these details would have been obscured through the cumulative effects of ritual practices. My answer to this-that the creative process of evoking divinity in plastic form can never stop-has led me to consider further the topic explored here: the role of human agency in the constitution of the power and form of images worshiped as gods. One of the principal deities of the KathmanduValley of Nepal, variously known as Bumgadyah or Karunamayato his Newar devotees and
Research upon which this article is based was supportedby the Wenner-GrenFoundation for Anthropological Research, a Traveling Fellowship from Columbia University, the Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University, a Floyd LounsberryFellowship for Anthropological Research from the American Museum of Natural History, the American Philosophical Society, and the Centerfor InternationalStudies at the University of Chicago. I also thank Matthew Kapstein for his valuable comments on earlier versions of the paper.
? 1995 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0018-2710/95/3403-0001 $01.00
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Human Agency and Divine Power
Rato Matsyendranathto most others, is considered to be at once quite powerful and yet in many ways highly dependent on human agency for his power.1 The ritual cycle and constellation of beliefs that articulate interrelationships and interdependency between Bumgadyah and those who seek his support illustrate a wide range of dimensions through which human agency can be viewed as an aspect of divine power. I argue that the degree to which Bumgadyah's power is understood to be dependent on human intervention is exceptional, although some requirement of human intervention for the empowerment of deities is the rule rather than the exception in Nepal. I will also argue that the form of Bumgadyah's image (fig. 1) can be understood as a physical manifestation of this dependence, and I will suggest why both the image of Bumgadyah and his dependency on humans might be unusual even as they serve to exemplify typical processes and dynamics of human-divine interaction and interdependency in south Asia.
THE NEWAR
The human agents in the rituals to be described are all Newars, an ethnic group popularly known as the indigenous people of the Kathmandu Valley. Like most definitions involving the word "indigenous," this one obscures a complex history. Until the threat of the expansionist western hill kingdom of Gorkha was clearly felt in the KathmanduValley in the middle of the eighteenth century, the term "Newar" referred simply to those living in the valley then known as "Nepal." The descendants of those who came to be known as Newars share a language (albeit with significant dialectical variations) but encompass substantial diversity. Although the valley has an indigenous written history extending back to the fifth century, the term "Newar" was first used in the written record to describe an ethnic group less than 300 years ago.2 The issue of Newar ethnic identity is therefore a particularly complex one that cannot (and need not) be fully addressed here.3 One critical component
1 The method of Newari transliteration used here represents a compromise between indicating Newar pronunciations and using Sanskrit loan words in their conventional form for the sake of comprehensibility for the non-Newar specialist. Hence, the Newari parsdd is renderedprasad, a term also comprehensible to the Newar, and Bhailadyah is rendered here as Bhairab, an alternate Newar pronunciation that is more generally familiar. Commonplace names and well-known proper names have been rendered, for the most part, without diacritics in conventional forms. I have retained the authors'own transliterations and spellings in citations of their works. The final short a is rarely pronounced in Newari and is therefore omitted unless the Sanskrit form is used. Finally, h is used to indicate the prolongation of the vowel that precedes it, indicated in Newari with the visarga. 2 Theodore Riccard, "The Royal Edicts of King Rama Shah of Gorkha," Kailash 5, no. 1 (1977): 54. 3 See David N. Gellner, "Language, Caste, Religion and Territory:Newar Identity Ancient and Modern," Archives europeenes de sociologie 27 (1986): 102-48; hereafter,
FIG.1.-Bumgadyah (Padmapani Lokesvar) of Bungamati and Patan, just after repainting has been completed, prior to life-cycle reconsecration rites (dasa karmapuja), Patan, May 1983. (Photo by author.)
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of contemporary Newar formulations of ethnic identity is that it was their ancestors who ruled and for the most part inhabited the complex, urban-centered kingdoms of the KathmanduValley until 1768,4 when Parbatiya troops under the rule of PrithvinarayanShah of Gorkha conquered the valley as part of his campaign to unite under his dominion what was essentially to become Nepal. The current king, now a constitutional monarch, is a descendant of Prithvinarayan.He and a descendant of the king whom his ancestor conquered both play importantroles in the ritual cycle devoted to Bumgadyah. Their participation is critical with respect to one of the aspects of human agency to be examined here: the interdependent nature of the interrelationships between monarch, subjects, and gods. There are both Buddhist and Hindu Newars, as well as some who profess to be both Bauddhamargi and Sivamargi: followers of both Buddha and Siva. Although Newar religion is often described as a curious admixture of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, it appears curious only by virtue of the fact that Mahayana Buddhism was virtually extirpated in India during the first centuries of the second millennium C.E., eliminating whatever practices might well have demonstratedthe same kind of confluence of these traditions that is noted in contemporaryreligious practice in Nepal. The characterizationof Newar Buddhist ritual practice as curious implicitly entails comparison with an Indian Buddhism imagined on the basis of texts intended primarilyfor monks, not practices that engaged laity. Newar Buddhists, who are the focus of this essay, are also described as anomalous by virtue of their caste system, the householder status and priestly ritual activities performed by those initiated into a samgha, and the prevalence of sacrifice in Newar Buddhist ritual.5 I and others have argued that in essence (though not by virtue of his essentialism) Sylvain
"Newar Identity"; and Declan Quigley, "Ethnicity without Nationalism: The Newars of Nepal," Archives europeenes de sociologie 28 (1987): 152-70. 4 Though the Newar refer to "Newar kings," those so identified often claimed a heritage from outside the valley. Historians generally contrast them with the Parbatiya rulers, however, who have maintained a distinction between Newar traditions and their own. 5 Concerning Newar castes, see Stephen Greenwold, "Newar Castes Again," Archives europeenes de sociologie 18 (1977): 194-97; Gellner, "Newar Identity"; Colin Rosser, "Social Mobility in the Newar Caste System," in Caste and Kin in Nepal, India and Ceylon, ed. C. von Furer-Haimmendorf(1966; reprint, New Delhi: Sterling, 1978). On Newar Buddhist priests, see Stephen Greenwold, "Buddhist Brahmans,"Archives europeenes de sociologie 15 (1974): 101-23, and "The Role of the Priest in Newar Society," in Himalayan Anthropology: The Indo-Tibetan Interface, ed. J. F. Fisher (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1978), pp. 483-503; Michael Allen, "Buddhism without Monks: The Vajrayana Religion of the Newars of KathmanduValley," South Asia 3 (August 1973): 1-14; and David N. Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1992). On Buddhist sacrifice,
History of Religions
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Levi might well have been right when he wrote that Nepal was "l'Inde qui se fait": a place to contemplate aspects of what might have been in India if Muslim and/or British rule had not intervened.6The point is that in spite of these apparently anomalous aspects of Newar Buddhist orthopraxy, there is a body of work that suggests that Newar practices should be considered a potential resource for better understandingBuddhist rituals that might have prevailed in India, rather than being disparaged as deviant or peculiarly syncretistic.7 Certainly the basic formal aspects of the rites to be described here will surprise no one familiar with Hindu or Buddhist ritual. The accounts of origin and the form of Bumgadyah as well as the ritual cycle of which he is the center are exceptional by virtue of the degree to which they engage human agency in constituting and situating his divine power, not because the principles through which that power is constituted and situated are unusual.
HUMAN AGENCY
My use of the term "agency" follows that of Anthony Giddens, who states that "agency refers not to the intentions people have in doing things, but to their capability of doing those things in the first place." He adds that "agency concerns events of which an individual is the perpetrator,in the sense that the individual could, at any phase in a given sequence of conduct, have acted differently. Whateverhappened would not have happened if that individual had not intervened."8Ronald Inden has recently made the case that Indological histories of ancient India have "stripped"its people and institutions of "agency," or "the capacity of people to order their world," through the Indologists' imposition of essentialist notions about such "things" as caste, divine kingship, and village society that deny people this capacity.9 These essentialisms, both Orientalistand Occidentalist in that they serve the interdependent"imagining" of both India and the West, continue to obscure the perpetually negotiated and contested power relations that Inden, acknowledging Michel Foucault, suggests were and are characteristic of what he calls
see Bruce McCoy Owens, "Blood and Bodhisattvas: Sacrifice among the Newar Buddhists of Nepal," in The Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas, ed. Charles Ramble and Martin Brauen (Zurich: Universitat der Zurich, 1993). 6 Sylvain Levi, Le Nepal: Etude historique d'un royaume Hindou (1904; reprint, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1990), 1:28. 7 See, e.g., David N. Gellner, "Ritualized Devotion, Altruism, and Meditation: The Offering of the GuruMandala in Newar Buddhism,"Indo-Iranian Journal 34 (1991): 161; David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism (Boston: Shambala, 1987), 1:3; and John K. Locke, S.J., Karunamaya (Kathmandu:Sahayogi Prakashan, 1980), p. 70. 8 Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 9. 9 Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1990), p. 1.
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Indian polity (ratherthan society). Inden's notion of "human agency" is consistent with Giddens's but it goes further,for he means by this phrase "the realized capacity of people to act effectively upon their world and not only to know about or give personal or intersubjective significance to it. That capacity is the power of people to act purposively and reflectively, in more or less complex interrelationshipswith one another,to reiterate and remake the world in which they live."l0 Significant for the project undertaken here, Inden also recognizes gods as agents "whose very existence may be contested [but who] may in a sense be real."ll This article concerns this notion of agency as it pertains to Newar ideas about their relations to objects they worship as gods and to the powers they attributeto these gods. It is an attempt to heed Inden's call for new understandingsof power relationships that fully recognize people's capacity "to act effectively upon their world," and it seeks to do so in areas where one might least expect to find human agency explicitly articulated as operative: in the accounts of origin and the physical form of a god. Inden suggests that "we may take such agents [as gods] to be real to the extent that complexes of discursive and nondiscursive practices constitute and perpetuate them,"12and it is upon such practices that I focus here. He also notes that people not only act as agents but "also have the capacity to act as 'instruments'of other agents, and to be 'patients,'to be the recipients of the acts of others."13 Presumably, given his statements above he would agree that this is also true of gods. This article is intended to document and offer the beginnings of an explanation for how Bumgadyah, one of the most revered of KathmanduValley deities, is also explicitly described and acted upon as patient and instrumentto an extraordinarydegree by those who worship him. The Newar word that corresponds most closely with the word "god" is dydh, a term applied to images as well as to forces distinct from images yet which reside in them. As James Preston has said of the "Hindu sacred image," "such images of divinity are 'lifeless' until ceremonies of installation are performed" (presumably referring to images created rather than self-emanated), but "thereafter, the image is the deity, not merely a symbol of it."14Newars appear to use the term dyah inconsis10 Ibid., p. 23. 1 Ibid., p. 27. Inden also differs from Giddens in other respects, perhaps most important in his ideas about "complex agents" (p. 26), the implications of which I can only tentatively explore here. 12 Ibid., p. 27. 13 Ibid., p. 23. 14 James J. Preston, "Creationof the Sacred Image: Apotheosis and Destruction in Hinduism," in Gods of Flesh, Gods of Stone: The Embodimentof Divinity in India, ed. Joanne Punzo Waghorne and Norman Cutler (Chambersberg, Pa.: Anima, 1985), p. 9. See also Inden's critique of Ananda Coomaraswamy's notion of the image as symbolic device in Inden, pp. 111-12.
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tently unless one accepts that the material embodiments of deities are in fact deities even though human intervention may be required in order to make them so. This is furthercomplicated by the convention that deities can be manifest in multiple forms in many locations. Thus, Bumgadyah is recognized as Padmapani Lokesvar, but only one particular image that resembles Padmapani Lokesvar is generally referred to as Bumgadyah.15 Furthermore, the life force that is "installed" in the image may be derived from multiple sources; thus, "Bumgadyah"is brought to this image, with which he is cosubstantial, from two locations.16 Finally, although the rites of annual reconsecration are in some ways consistent with the notion that the image is a mere vessel for a god's life (jivan), in other ways these rites continue to honor the image as deity even while its "life" has been removed temporarily.17Thus, my use of the term "god" shifts between, and at times encompasses, both an image and the life or force that empowers it, depending upon the context. In the account of origin that follows, for example, the "god" that is brought to Nepal is extracted from its human form, and its physical manifestation undergoes several transformations, all the while remaining the Karunamayawho came to be called Bumgadyah and who is now recognized primarily in only one image.
THE ORIGIN OF BUMGADYAH IN NEPAL
Accounts of origin that explain Bumgadyah's presence in Nepal and recount the inauguration of his annual festival repeatedly emphasize human agency. Although there are many versions of this story, both preserved in texts and recounted orally, one form published by Asa Kaji Vajracaryais well known and has come to be considered "authoritative" by many of the priests who attend the deity.18 At this writing, 3,500 copies have been published in four editions and a fifth is about to be produced, an extraordinarynumber for a Newari book of this kind. "Authoritative"is qualified with quotation marks because I have worked extensively to discount the notion that there is one authoritative account from which all others vary; Bumgadyah is multiply situated in the lives
15 Artisans do sell papier-mach6 replicas of Bumgadyah's image at religious festivals for use in private shrines, but these replicas emphasize features unique to Bumgadyah ratherthan conforming to iconographic conventions that are typically employed to portray PadmapaniLokesvar. 16 See the section below entitled "The Reconsecration and Re-creation of Bumgadyah" concerning the second series of reconsecration rites for Bumgadyah. 17 During the repainting of Bumgadyah's image, for example, only designated ritual practitioners are permitted to touch it, and those who do touch it continue to perform brief rites of worship to it as well. 18 Asa Kaji Vajracarya, Bumgadyo Nepale Ha:gu Kham, 4th ed. (Patan: Subash, v.s. 2037/1980 c.E.). Several of Bumgadyah'spanju attendants refer to this booklet simply as "the vamSavali."
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of many different people, and different stories of his origins are likely to emphasize links between the deity and the story's teller in idiosyncratic ways. This tendency is completely consistent with the level of human intervention found in accounts of origin and in ritual associated with Bumgadyah and undermines any defense of privileging one account as being the one from which others deviate. Therefore, in presenting this account and the others that follow I have mentioned whatever other accounts might be construed as challenging the generalizations I make concerning common understandingsabout the gods I consider. The full account of the origins of Bumgadyah that I briefly summarize here is highly elaborate. Individual narratives of Bumgadyah's coming to Nepal are not likely to include all of the events noted in this story as published but will, in most cases, mention several of them in particular. Individual versions will also vary with respect to such factors as whether the priest in the story was a Hindu Acarya or Buddhist Vajrdcarya, which of the valley's Bhairabs (fierce and powerful forms of Siva) carried the deity, if the farmer was accompanied by his wife, and so on. One striking feature that emerges from comparing these different oral and written accounts is the degree to which they consistently include reference to events that do not seem critical to the major plot line but that stress human control of deities. Thus, the version summarized here is representative of Newar popular belief in that it includes most of the wide range of elements that I have noted in other versions, shares a common emphasis on human intervention, is widely disseminated in its own right, and is referred to by many of the priests whom other Newars most often query about details of the deity's ritual cycle. This summary retains the use of the epithet "Karunamaya"as found in A. K. Vajracarya'sbook, both to preserve some authenticity and because the name "Bumgadyah" is derived from events that this story recounts. This account begins with Nepal having suffered a twelve-year drought. SantikarVajracarya,the first initiated Vajracdryapriest of Nepal, informed the king that only Karunamayacould end the drought and that he must be brought from Kamuni (in Assam) in order to do so. A Vajracdrya priest, the king, and a farmer set off to Kamuni and on their way encountered Karkotaka Naga Raja lying in their path. Through a combination of clever flattery and the power of his mantra, the priest captured the powerful serpent deity and compelled him to join them in their quest.19
19 The passage that includes this incident opens by referring to the priest as "bauddha tantrarajevrayamahapraksaguru," stressing his tantricvirtuosity (ibid., p. 43). In another version, the assistance of Karkotakais secured with the help of Yogambara-Jfinaadakini,
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When this group arrived at Kamuni, the king and queen (referred to as yaksas),20 refused to part with Karunamaya,who was the youngest and dearest of their 500 sons. The priest left and used his power to perform the visualization technique of sddhana to extract the life (jivan) from Karunamaya(who is characterized as a young boy), transform it into a bee, and capture it in a flask (kalas).21 The group returned to Nepal with the help of four powerful Bhairabs, also summoned by the priest through his power of sadhana. Upon reaching Bungamati, the village south of Patan where one of Bumgadyah's two temples is now located, the Bhairabs put down the palanquin in which they were carrying Karunamaya,all the gods came to honor him, and it began to rain.22 When the group arrived at the outskirts of Patan, the priest, farmer, and king, who were each from a different KathmanduValley kingdom, argued about where they should bring Karunamaya,each favoring his own city. The decision was entrusted to the eldest man of Patan, who chose his own city under duress because Patan's king (in collusion with the farmer, who was also from Patan) sent the elder a sign of his wish that he decide in his kingdom's favor. To enable the people to worship Bumgadyah, the kalas containing his life force was brought to a Sdkya silversmith, who made an image in which this power could reside.
whom the priest summons through sadhana to aid them (Daniel Wright, The History of Nepal [1877; reprint, New Delhi: Asian Publication Services, 1990], pp. 142-43). 20 The designation yaksa is ambiguous, both as defined in the literatureand in popular usage. Locke defines yaksas as "semi-divine, generally benevolent beings" (Karunamaya [n. 7 above], p. 479), whereas Aghehenanda Bharati defines them as "semi-demonic" (The Tantric Tradition [New York: Samuel Weiser, 1975], p. 125), and N. J. Allen states that "this category of supernaturalsis linked with vegetation and with Kubera, god of wealth, but yaksas can also be devils" ("The Coming of Macchendranathto Nepal: Comments from a Comparative Point of View," Oxford University Papers on India [Delhi] 1, pt. 1, [1986]: 75-102). Wright's version of the account of origin identifies Bumgadyah's mother as a yaksini named Gyana-dakini (Jfiinanadkini), whose most famous form, Mhaipi-ajima, is an ominous deity who demands blood sacrifice and is associated with witches (boksis) (p. 143). Several of the sacrifices offered over the course of Bumgadyah's festival are directed toward his mother and/or other demonic denizens of her realm, and many have explained these sacrifices to me in terms of the need to maintain vigilance against their predations, particularly the threat of their abducting Bumgadyah. 21 Bharatihas described sadhana as a psycho-experimental method of achieving release from reincarnation and the hallmark of tantric traditions (pp. 18, 228). For the Newar Vajracdryaand those on whose behalf he performsrituals involving sadhana, it is primarily a visualization techique whereby the practitionerachieves identity with the deity summoned throughmeditation and thereby attains some control over the deity. See also Gellner, Monk, Householder, Priest (n. 5, above), pp. 158-59; and Locke, Karunamaya,p. 115. 22 In Wright'sversion, one of the Bhairabs carrying Karunamaya utteredthe sound "bu" when the partyreached Bungamati. The priest interpretedthis as a sign indicating the birthplace of Karunamaya,which prompted him to declare Bungamati to be the site on which a temple for the god be established (p. 146). As Locke points out, A. K. Vajracarya'sversion only explicitly accounts for the location of Bumgadyah's Patan temple, even though it acknowledges the existence of his other temple in Bungamati (Karunamaya,p. 294).
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In this story, presentedhere in greatly abbreviatedform, humanagency plays a role in several key dimensions.3 Both the presence in Nepal (i.e., the KathmanduValley) and form of the power of Karunamaya(henceforth, Bumgadyah) have been determined by humans. Bumgadyah's power was brought to Nepal by humans with the help of deities summoned by humans. Humans transfiguredthe form in which Bumgadyah's power was originally manifest as a boy into the form of a bumblebee. Humans also determined, through deceitful contrivance no less, that one temple for Bumgadyah'simage should be located in Patan,and the maker of the image to house Bumgadyah's power is also identified as human. Thus, both the location and creation of Bumgadyah'simage are also explicitly attributedto human agency.
THE ORIGINS OF OTHER MAJOR DEITIES IN THE KATHMANDU VALLEY
The extent to which human agency is involved in accounts of origin of Bumgadyah becomes all the more striking when compared to other accounts that explain the presence of other principal deities in the Kathmandu Valley. The arrival of major deities is often attributedto cosmic events outside the sphere of human influence. Perhaps the most important Buddhist deity in Nepal, Swayambhunath, is described in the Swayambha Purana as self-existent, manifest as a flame emanating from a lotus that floated on the primordial lake that once filled the Kathmandu Valley. This text tells us that when Mainjusridrained the lake by cleaving a gorge in the valley rim with his sword, the lotus came to rest on the hill where the Swayambhu stupa now stands. Santikar Acarya, the first guru of all of Nepal's Vajracarya priests (referred to as SantikarVajracaryain A. K. Vajracarya'spublished account of the origin of Bumgadyah), built the stipa in order to shield Swayambhu from human contact. He did this lest people bring misfortune upon themselves by dishonoring the deity in the inauspicious kali yuga. Human agency in this case is limited to explaining the existence of a structure originally intended to distance divine power from human interference.24 The root of this primordial lotus, according to Buddhist interpretations, was anchored at Guhyeswari, a place honored by both
23 I have omitted any mention, for example, of the cause of the drought, which in A. K. Vajracarya'sversion is brought about by a disciple of Karunamayabecoming angered by having been duped by an innkeeper and consequently binding the serpent rain deities (nagas) who had aided in duping him. Many of these details provide further examples of human agency determining the actions of deities, but they are too numerous for consideration here. See John K. Locke, S.J., Rato Matsyendranathof Patan and Bungamati (Kathmandu: TribhuvanUniversity, 1973), for a lengthy summary of this story. 24 This is not to say that the integrity (if not efficacy) of this stupa is not dependantupon human maintenance and renewal. For example, the central wooden shaft, or yasti, must be replaced from time to time, and lime is regularly applied to its domelike anda surface.
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Hindus and Buddhists as a powerful pitha. This, according to one point of view, is the place at which the "hidden part," or vagina, of Sati's corpse fell as her grief-maddened spouse, Siva, carried her body about the world after her self-immolation. In these stories as well as many others, the presence of deities in Nepal and the location of their shrines are attributedentirely to the actions of gods. Also in contrast to Bumgadyah, images of major deities are often described as having been miraculously discovered, usually with the help of hints provided by gods. Pasupatinath, a manifestation of Lord Siva and arguably the most important Hindu deity of Nepal, is said to have originated from a time when Siva came to the KathmanduValley in the form of a deer in order to escape the tiresome adulation he received in Varanasi. The gods entreated him to return and finally seized him by his horn. The horn broke into pieces, however, allowing the deer (Siva) to escape to the site of his future temple by the Bagmati river, where he declared that he was to be known as Pasupati because he had taken the form of a beast. Visnu then used one of the horn fragments to fashion a litiga to be worshiped as Pasupatinath. After the temple had fallen into disuse, the location of Pasupatinathwas revealed to a herder by his cow, who offered her milk to the place on the ground under which the famous lihga lay buried.25 So, too, the gigantic image of Budhanilkanthareclining on a bed of serpents, variously identified as Jalasayana Narayanaor Avalokitesvara and known by historians to have been commissioned by Visnugupta about 641 c.E.,26 is said to have been disinterred under miraculous circumstances. Prompted by the extraordinaryproductivity of the land in the area and/or by a dream in which a goddess informed the king of the image's location, the image was excavated, and in the process its nose was broken and the image bled. An alternative account simply has it that the image was discovered by a jyapu farmer who, while plowing his field, struck what he thought to be a mere stone only to see it bleed.27 According to another local tradition, the famous Krsna temple in the center of Patan houses Krsna only because Visnu appeared in a dream to King Siddhinarasimhamalla,who was at that time building the temple to house Lord Siva. Visnu informed the sleeping king where an image of Krsna could be disinterred from the ground near his palace and told him that this image should occupy the temple in Siva's stead.
25 For summaries of this story based on the Nepala-mahdtmya, see Mary Shepard Slusser, Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 226-27; and L6vi (n. 6 above), pp. 357-60. 26 Slusser, p. 255. 27 See Mary M. Anderson, The Festivals of Nepal (New Delhi: Rupa, 1977), p. 180; and L6vi, pp. 366-68.
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All of these major deities are said to have been discovered under remarkable circumstances through the agency of deities. These stories deny that images were made or that the location of their shrines was determined by the humans who built them, thus distancing objects of devotion from human agency except insofar as people served as their excavators.28 Bodhisattvas, COMPASSION, AND HUMAN INTERVENTION It might be suggested that the degree to which humans determine events in the various accounts of origin of Bumgadyahcan be explained in terms of his identificationwith the bodhisattva PadmapaniLokesvar. Although Padmapaniis conventionally identified as an emanationof the PaficaDhyani Buddha Amitibha and, thus, as a deity whose origins lie outside the realm of any humanintervention,29bodhisattvas are, by definition, markedly responsive to the needs of humans by virtue of their compassionate nature. It could thus be argued that the mythological incidents revealing Bumgadyah'ssusceptibility to human agency might, therefore, be understood as accentuationsof his benevolent bodhisattvanature.The question thus arises, Is this compliance with human volition evident in the accounts of origin of other bodhisattvas? The accounts of origin of four other deities are ideally suited for comparison with the stories of Bumgadyah's coming to Nepal, for these deities, with Bumgadyah, constitute the members of a Newar category of preeminent bodhisattvas known as the pengu thay lokesvars, or "lords of the world of the four places." These lokesvars are each identified with a particularmanifestation of Avalokitesvara. That five rather than four deities are recognized as such is owing to the fact that not all agree on which of the valley's many lokesvars should be included in this select group.
28 Samuel Parkertells of a Tamil Nadu stone carver who emphatically denied that he had played any role in restoring a stone temple, saying that it was a sin to even hear the suggestion that any human might have been involved in its creation ("Makers of Meaning" [Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1989]). Not all accounts of the origins of major deities in Nepal feature such distancing from human agency. But explicit reference to their manufactureis certainly unusual, and the location of their shrines is, insofar as I know, most often determined through the explicit intervention of divinities. These generalizations apply only to major deities, for there are many instances of secondary shrines being established using sddhana as a means of locating a major god's power in a new place and installing that power in an image made for this purpose. This is often done for the sake of convenience, so that devotees may more readily partake of the blessings of a deity whose major shrine is located far from them. 29 The convention to which this refers is recorded in the SwayambhiiPurana and is represented iconographically in the western chapel of the Swayambhi stupa as well as elsewhere. The appellation dhyani ("meditation") as applied to the five Buddhas (Aksobhya, Amogasiddhi, Vairocana, Amitabha, and Ratnasambhava),who are more widely described as "transcendent,"is typical of Newari sources (Locke, Karunamaya, pp. 127-28, n. 8).
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Cobahahdyah (Anandadi Lokesvar) of Cobahah (at Chobar) (fig. 2), Naladyah (Srstikanta Lokesvar) of Nala (fig. 3), and Bumgadyah (Padmapani Lokesvar) of Bungamati and Patan (see fig. 1) are always mentioned as pengu thay lokesvars. Residents of Patan are likely to include Cakvadyah (JatadhariLokesvar) of Tanga Bahah in Patan (fig. 4), but people from Kathmanduare apt to include Janmadyah(also Padmapani Lokesvar) of Janabahahin Kathmandu(fig. 5), rather than Cakvadyah, in this tetrad.30The presence of each of these deities is accounted for in distinctive yet similar ways. For none of these other deities does a text as widely known as the one about Bumgadyah published by A. K. Vajracarya exist. In each summary of the accounts of origin outlined below, I note story variations that pertain to the issues examined here rather than simply select versions that fit the analysis most perfectly. Each of these accounts of origin point to human agency as playing a decisive role in determining the fates of these gods, but none so extensively as that of Bumgadyah.
NALADYAH
All of the accounts of Naladyah's origins that I have heard or read agree that Naladyah was stolen from Bungamati and abandoned by the thieves just outside the eastern edge of the valley, near the town of Nala. The priests of Bungamati who attend to Bumgadyah also perform the annual reconsecration rituals for Naladyah, and they cite the god's theft from Bungamati to account for their participation in these rites. Some renditions state that the god made himself too heavy for the thieves to carry, forcing them to abandon him near the spot where his temple now stands, but others state that the thieves threw the image into the river and that it floated to its present location. I have never heard or read any account of the origin of the image itself, so only the location of the deity is explicitly linked with human volition (the theft), albeit in one version the deity himself interceded and made himself too heavy to be carried. John K. Locke summarizes a more elaborate textual version that he describes as "a standardstory of the history of Nala which is recited at Astami Vrata ceremonies";31this version includes the prophecy
These identifications of the images with these particularforms of Avalokitesvara are also contested, at least in the Newari and Nepali literature,although these are the identifications made by those whom I asked. AmoghabajraBajracaryaidentifies Bumgadyah with Raktaryavalokitesvarain his Lokesvaraya Paricaya (Kathmandu:Lokesvar Samgha Nepal, N.s. 1099/1978 c.E.), as does Sanu Bhai Dangol and his associates in his Sri Adinath ([Kathmandu:Adinath Anusandhan Nidhi, 1989], p. 1), who may well have derived this identification from Bajracarya's book, as they cite secondary sources extensively. This identification is quite curious, for Bajracarya's own description and illustration of Raktaryavalokitesvaraportray a seated deity with four arms (pp. 24, 40). 31 Among the Newar, Astami Vrata are religious observances, typically performed and sponsored collectively by a group and usually involving fasting, that take place on the
30
FIG.2.-Cobahahdyabh (Anandadi Lokesvar) of Cobahahbeing prepared for repainting, March 1984. (Photo by author.)
FIG.3.--Naldyah (Srstikanta Lokesvar) of Nala being carried back to his temple by his dyih pahlah after repainting, March 1983. The man to his left is carrying one of his two Tara consorts. (Photo by author.)
FIG. Lokesvar) of Tanga Bahalhin Patan, during 4.-Cakvadyah (Jatadhari life-cycle reconsecrationrites (dasa karmapaja), May 1983. (Photo by author.)
FIG.5.-Janmadyah (Padmapani Lokesvar) of Janabahahin Kathmandu, during second day of painting, January 1984. (Photo by author.)
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that a Kirati king will steal Karunamayafrom Bungamati, that the god would be thrown into a river and come floating to Nala, and that Nala's lokesvar would come to be disrespected.32 This latter prediction was clearly borne out, for Naladyah's ritual cycle and shrine were revived from total abandonmentless than forty years ago.33 A version published by Amoghabajra Bajracarya is consistent with the summary provided by Locke but includes a description of the theft that states that the Kirati king, with the aid of the serpent deity Vasuki Naga, used sddhana to steal Bumgadyah from Bungamati.34 Upon reaching the river at Nala, the skies grew dark, a great wind blew, the river flooded, and the abductors could take the god no further, so they threw it into the river and ran away. Bumgadyah then appeared to the panjus in Bungamati, to the king of Bandipur, and to a Nala temple attendant (dyahli) in their dreams and told them where to find him.35 This most elaborate version only further emphasizes the roles that deities played in establishing Naladyah's temple by featuring Vasuki Naga's assistance, celestial signs of foreboding, and Bumgadyah's direct intervention in dreams.
JANMADYAH
In most of the legends of which I am aware that recount the origins of Janmadyah,the image is described as having been discovered accidentally by a farmer or by potters digging for clay in Jamal.36This is true of three of the four accounts cited by Locke in his study of this deity.37 These three accounts differ in detail about how the image came to be buried there, but all essentially agree that the image was stolen and inappropriatelyworshiped or otherwise disrespected and that Janmadyah therefore caused affliction to his abductors,who then disposed of the image (either in a pit, well, or pond) upon returningit to Jamal. These legends also agree that the location of Janmadyah'sshrine was dictated by
eighth day of the lunar fortnight. See Todd T. Lewis, "MahayanaVratas in Newar Buddhism," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 12 (1989): 109-38; and John K. Locke, S.J., "The Uposadha Vrata of Amoghapasa LokeSvara in Nepal," L'ethnographie, n.s. 83, nos. 100-101 (1987): 159-89. 32 Locke, Karunamaya (n. 7 above), p. 368. 33 Ibid., p. 366-67. 34 Bajracarya,pp. 78-79. 35 The description of the deity they then struggled to remove from the river is consistent with the white image now honored as Naladyah rather than the image now known as but no accounting is given for this inconsistency. Bumgadyah, 3 "Jamal" currently refers to an area directly south of the new royal palace in Kathmandu where a village, destroyed to make way for an immense Rana palace, once stood. Janmadyah'schariot festival begins there every year in recognition of the deity's origins. 37 Locke, Karunamaya, pp. 146-60.
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the deity in a dream. Some chronicles suggest that the image had been worshiped previously and name Gunakamadeva(ruled ca. 942-1004) as the king who originally had the image made, but these chronicles also note that observances for the image had fallen into neglect.38 A longpublished account cited at length by Locke does not mention any period of neglect or the discovery of an image but states, in agreement with one of the accounts noted above, that Janmadyah came to Kathmandu in order to relieve people of their affliction and that he specified where his vihdra should be located.39 This published version also notes, unlike the other versions, that Janmadyah stipulated that a statue of him should be set up in his vihara, now located near Asan tol in Kathmandu. Another version links this Lokesvar with Yamaraj,the Lord of Death (as is Cakvadyahof Patan in an account of his origins related furtheron). In this story of Janmadyah, Yamarajprematurely takes away a young woman while she is contemplating Lord Siva, but Siva intervenes on his devotee's behalf, informing Yama that Lord Avalokitesvara lengthens the life span of anyone deeply engaged in worship. A disappointed Yama then manages to gain a direct audience with Avalokitesvara, who instructs Yama to build a shrine to him at Jamal and promises that he will enter the shrine upon its completion. Yama thus makes the image of Avalokitesvara for the shrine and composes a hymn in his praise. This is then followed by the familiar theme of the god being stolen, wreaking havoc in the country of his abductors, and being returned,rediscovered, and installed (at the behest of a king) in his current temple.40 Thus, in the oral accounts of the origins of Janmadyahmentioned by Locke, human agency is limited to the theft, return,and later discovery of an image, and in the published account that Locke summarizes (which does not describe any theft or discovery), human agency is limited to the image's creation. In the last account considered, one god makes the image at the behest of another god. In all the accounts that mention the theft of the image of Janmadyah, it is the deity who forces his abductors to return his image to Jamal.
38 See Locke, Karunamaya, pp. 157-58, for an assessment of the credibility of these accounts. 39 Locke cites KamalanandaVajracarya,JanabahahdyahydBakham (Kathmandu:Self published, v.s. 2021/1964 C.E.). In this account Yamaraj, bound by a mantra in a king's throne, is asked to provide eternal life, which he states he is incapable of providing. Pressed to reveal that his guru, Karunamaya, might be able to do so, Yamaraj begs Karunamayato come to assist him. Thus, the theme of an imprisoned deity requiring the presence of Karunamayafor release once again emerges as in the story of Bumgadyah (see n. 23 above). See Locke, Karunamaya pp. 151-54, for a summary of this story. 40 Karunakar Vaidya, Buddhist Traditions and Culture of the Kathmandu Valley (Kathmandu:Sajha Prakashan, 1986), pp. 285-86.
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CAKVADYAH
Accounts of Cakvadyah'sorigins typically begin with a King Vrsadeva, who was highly regarded by his subjects but who had died and been mistakenly carried off to the underworld. When Padmapani Lokesvar went to hell to comfort those there, he found Vrsadeva and intervened with Yamaraj to allow Vrsadeva to return to the earth, which Yamaraj permitted, having recognized the error committed by his messengers.41 Vrsadeva's subjects, grateful for the return of their king, asked him to have an image of JatadhariLokesvar made.42The king did so, installed the image in one of his palace courtyards, and then abdicated the throne to his brother in order to lead an ascetic life. During his brother'sreign, a Bhairabran amok in the valley, wreaking destruction, so the new king took refuge in Cuka Bahah, very near Cakvadyah's current temple in Patan, taking the image with him. While sleeping there one night, JatadhariLokesvar came to him in a dream and said that he wanted his own temple and that a sparrow would indicate where it should be built. The next morning a sparrow alighted near where the king was staying and then flew straight upward into the heavens, so the king built a temple there for the image of Jatadhari Lokesvar, now known as Cakvadyah. In this story we see human intervention in several dimensions. Although neither the presence of the power of Cakvadyah nor the form in which that power is manifest are subject to human agency, the image in which that power is situated is clearly a human creation. The location of the shrine for the image, however, is determined by divine indications. Although explanations of the origins of Cakvyadyahexplicitly state that the image was fashioned by humans, several Newars have told me that no one dares to make another image of this god, so great is the power it possesses by virtue of its link with Yamaraj.
COBAHAHDYAH
A narrative account of the origins of Cobahahdyah, published twenty years ago by Varnavajra Vajracarya and summarized by Locke,43 in41 This account, summarized by Locke in Karunamaya,pp. 378-83, is consistent with the essential features of the oral accounts I have heard and follows that published by Nhucheraj Vajracarya as Minandthko [sic] Vamsavali (Patan: Self published, v.s. 2029/ 1972 C.E.). PadmapaniLokesvar's visit to the underworldrecalls one of the episodes in the Gunakdrandavyaha,often read in the presence of Bumgadyah, that details the compassionate acts of Avalokitesvara. This part of the text is summarized in John C. Holt, Buddha in the Crown: Avalokitefvara in the Buddhist Traditions of Sri Lanka (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 47. 42 There is no explanation given for this particular manifestation of Avalokitegvara having been chosen for the form of the image. 43 VarnavajraVajracarya,Cvabaha KarunamayaydBakham (Banepa: Indra Vajra Vajracarya,v.s. 2031/1970 c.E.). This and the following related stories are given in more detail in Locke, Karunamaya, pp. 349-57.
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cludes the principal features of the accounts of origin offered to me by the Vajracairayapriests who perform the deity's annual reconsecration is here linked with Manijusri,who, as rites. The origin of CobahaIhdyah in the of Manijudeva, company Ks'yapa Tathagata, came to the Kathmandu Valley to visit Swayambhu. They established Pim Bahah in Patan, where Manijudevabecame known as Adinath. Initially the gods freely conversed with their devotees, and they trained priests to perform the necessary rituals. But, just as potential ramifications of the kali yuga prompted Santikar Acarya to construct the Swayambhf stiipa over the self-emanated flame for which it is named, Adinath and Ks'yapa Tathagata became concerned about the trouble people might cause if they continued to speak with them in this inauspicious age, so they entered images and became mute. Devotees, angered at the priests whom they blamed for the deities' silence, killed all but one, who, in turn, became angry at the gods for causing the deaths of his fellow priests. He therefore threw Adinath's image into the Bagmati river. The image floated past a meditating Acarya, who through his power of sadhana withdrew from the image the life of Adinath, which came to him in the form of jasmine flowers. The Acarya then took the life of Adinath in a kalas to the hill at Chobar and installed it into an image. A Vajracdrya priest who performs Cobaha.hdyah'sannual reconsecration rites explained the god's unusual upturnedeyes to me by saying that this is how the deity indicated where he should be taken. This story actually contains two series of events. Adinath's presence in the valley and the location of his shrine at Pim Bahah are the results of his own volition. The origin of the image into which he merged is not detailed, and there is no intervening transformationof the manifestation of his power as described for Bumgadyah (whose life was transformed into a bee), although the decision to withdraw into an image was his own. Adinath's removal from Pim Bahah is, however, the result of human intervention, as is the transformation of his life force into the form of flowers, although the creation of the image to which the Acarya transferred the god's power is not discussed. Versions conflict over whether the location of the deity's shrine is a result of Adinath/Cobahahdyah'svolition, which he indicated with his upturned eyes, or the decision of the Acarya. A related series of stories recounts that once, when Cobahahdyah's chariot was stuck in the river, he took the form of a girl, who some Tibetans then abducted to Sankhu, a town in the northeasternpart of the valley. Upon realizing that the girl was in fact a god, they transferredits life from the girl into an image that they then took to Kerung (a pass into Tibet) where they bound it in place with mantras. The temple at Chobar then fell into disuse, but a cowherd who had been granted the boon of understanding the speech of animals continued to care for Adinath's
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cattle, and years later one of the cows indicated to the cowherd the spot where a golden pot could be found. Upon returningto this spot, the cowherd discovered Karunamayasitting there, and Karunamayainstructed him to take him up the hill and restore worship to him at the shrine now known as Cobahah.44 These related stories also invoke both human and divine agency: Cobahahdyahchanges his own form but is abducted by humans who also transfer his power into an image that they remove from Nepal. Miraculous events account for the revival of Cobahahdyah'stemple, which is clearly directed by the deity himself, and the account of these events once again associates the presence of the deity with a vessel, although it is not explicit that the deity is contained within.
AGENCYIN ORIGINS COMPARED
The stories of origin of all five lokesvars involve their theft or abduction at the hands of humans: a kind of human intervention which, although not unique to these lokesvars, is featured in accounts of their origins with striking consistency. All of these stories assert that these lokesvars would not be manifest in the forms they are now, and/or where they are now, and/or worshiped in Nepal at all were it not for the actions of mortals. Taking into consideration the various accounts of the origins of these bodhisattvas, the degree to which humans pay critical roles in the fate of Bumgadyah remains exceptional. Recall that the presence of the power of Bumgadyah was compelled by humans, the form in which that power was manifest was transformed by humans (i.e., from boy to bee), the location of its Patan residence was determined by humans (although its Bungamati residence was determined by a deity), and the image was created by humans. For the sake of comparison, one may distinguish these points of intervention of human agency as: determining the presence of divine power in Nepal, transforming the original manifestation of this power (physical form), dictating the location of the deity's shrine, and creating the image in which the power of the deity presently resides. Bumgadyah and Cobahahdyah both emerge as the lokesvars whose accounts of origin consistently entail the most intensive and extensive human intervention, but only Bumgadyah's accounts of origin unambiguously detail human agency in all four of these dimensions. Whatever factors may contribute to the preeminence of Bumgadyah among bodhisattvas in particular and deities in general, this analysis suggests that the degree of his susceptibility to human agency is distinctive and an important component
44 It is this second part of the story that Bajracaryachose to include in his collection of stories pertaining to lokesvars (n. 30 above), pp. 66-72.
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of his identity that distinguishes him among gods. Although the accounts of origin of all five of the bodhisattvas considered here involve human agency, the most honored and most powerful of the bodhisattvas is also the one whose accounts of origin most explicitly invoke "the capacity of people to act effectively upon their world" through their influence over divine powers.45 But how does this analysis of accounts of origin relate to the constitution of the power and form of images that prompted these investigations? Accounting for how images came to be where they are is usually the basis for Newar explanations of what they are: the power they represent as well as their form. As noted above, the accounts of origin of Bumgadyah and Cobahahdyah describe the most intensive and extensive responsiveness to human agency; these two deities are also clearly the most important of the five lokesvars considered here. Both attract worshipers from far beyond their local communities, especially during theirjdtras, and people from many areas come to both deities for daily darsan over extended periods of time: to Cobahahdyahduring the Buddhist holy month of gumla and to Bumgadyah during his jdtra as well as during gimla. These gods also have the most elaborate annual reconsecrations of any of the lokesvars. These rites constitute public displays of human agents' controlling the presence and manifestation of a god's power during which humans extract and reinstall the vital forces of images that they also disfigure and re-form. The appearance of both of these deities is also distinctive; the images of Cobahahdyahand Bumgadyah are unique among Kathmandu Valley lokesvars in that their forms depart dramatically from iconographic conventions used to portray the lokesvars with which they are identified. Far from emulating idealized proportions of perfection, their heads are strangely shaped and oversized, and their torsos as well as their heads are crudely fashioned, a point to be further considered below. The extent of human agency described in the accounts of origin of Bumgadyah and Cobahahdyahis echoed in the degree to which humans intervene in the reconsecration and ongoing transforming of these images. I suggest that these accounts and the human interventions they describe can serve our understandingof the physical forms in which these deities are manifest as well as the transformationsthese forms undergo through ongoing devotion and reconsecration. Because Bumgadyah is clearly the more important of these two deities and arguably the one whose accounts of origin involve the most extensive human intervention, this analysis returns to focus on him.
45 Inden
(n. 9 above), p. 23.
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THE IMAGEOF BUMGADYAH
The actual composition of the image of Bumgadyah is a popular topic of speculation. The earliest description we have of the image, supplied by the Tibetan monk Dharmasvamin, who visited Nepal in 1226, tells us that it was "a miraculous image of Avalokitesvara made of sandalwood of red colour, in the aspect of a five year old boy" and that after bathing the image, when "the bright vermillion red paint is washed away ... they again paint the image with red dye."46 Except for twice a year when the image is being painted and once when it is being bathed, its composition and shape are impossible to discern because of the many layers of donated ornaments, flowers, and clothes that usually conceal all but its face. A. K. Vajracarya'spublished account of Bumgadyah's origins provides details concerning the image's creation beyond those included in the brief summary above. According to his text, when Santikar Vajracarya advised the king how to alleviate the twelve-year drought, he told the king that he had, in a previous life, served "Yogesvar Sri Yogambar" at Mhaipi Ajima47and that while attending this shrine, the "mothergoddesses of the pith" (pithesvari matrka devipim) commanded Santikarto make them a sacrificial offering of his son. When Santikar protested, Yogambar assured him that the young boy in question was actually an avatar of Karunamaya. The goddess stipulated that Santikar should offer them only the boy's blood and flesh and that he should save the bones so that an image for Karunimaya could be made with them upon the god's returnto Nepal, when a chariot festival would be inaugurated in his honor.48 When Bandhudattaand the others finally brought Bumgadyah to Nepal to end the drought, Bandhudatta reminded the king of Santikar's words and asked him who should make Karunamaya'simage (mirti). The king instructed him to take the "flask womb" (kalas garbha) to
46 Biography of Dharmasvamin, ed. and trans. George Roerich (Patna: K. P. Jyaswal Research Institute, 1959), pp. 54-55. 47 This hilltop shrine, northof central Kathmanduon the easternbank of the Vishnumati, features many deities, including the nava durgas, but the principaldeity honoredhere is Yoand it is this deity that is connected in particularwith Bumgadyah. gambara-Jiinandakini, 48 A. K. Vajracarya(n. 18 above), pp. 34-37. N. J. Allen (n. 20 above) has focused on this and other "threateningsubterranean"aspects of Bumgadyah in attempting to draw a parallel between beliefs concerning Bumgadyah and Himalayan shamanic traditions. Gerard Toffin stresses the political implications and manipulations of mythology in an effective response to Allen's thesis, which he presents in his article "L'usage politique du mythe au Nepal: Une lecture ethno-historique du dieu Matsyendranath," Annales, economies, socidtes, civilisations 4 (July-August 1990): 951-74. I have not here further explored this fascinating aspect of this account of origin of Bumgadyah because it does not appearto be widely known, although it does constitute furtherevidence of the complexity and of human/divine interdependencyand the importance of human agency in the conceptualization and constitution of Bumgadyah.
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I Bahi of the "pure-mindedfollower of the dharma,"49Subhasri Misra. So, in accordance with Santikar's instructions, a "Sakyabhiksu" of I Bahi, using the powdered bone relics (asthidatu) taken from Mhaipi Ajima, gold, and the kalas containing "Sri Loknath Karunamaya," made an image with thirty-two auspicious features (laksanamr)for/of Bumgadyah.50Members of the I Bahi samgha affirm that one of their ancestors made Bumgadyah's image, and the Niyekhus who refurbish Bumgadyah continue to use clay from Mhaipi Ajima to patch and resurface the image each year, repeatedly refashioning and adding to its shape in subtle ways, but details concerning the incorporation of bones into the image, much less the bones of an avatar of Karunamaya,are not widely recounted. Although some say that a statue of pure gold lies within the outer layers of paint and clay, the fact that one priest can lift the image of Bumgadyah with relative ease suggests that this is not so. Whatever may lie under its surface,51the torso and arms of the image are remarkably bulky, and armor-likejoints between the shoulders and upper arms are quite conspicuous in spite of the layers of paint and clay that have accumulated on top of them over the centuries (see fig. 1). The surfaces of the torso, arms, and top of the head are also quite crudely finished, doppled unevenly with patches of clay. The head is conspicuously oversized, accounting for about one-fourth of the image's overall height of approximately one meter. These proportions are consistent, although to an exaggerated degree, with the description of Bumgadyah as a young child.52 The shape of the head (fig. 6) is also distinctive, bearing little resemblance to the idealized human proportions typical of most images of bodhisattvas. The relatively flat facial surfaces are smoothly finished,
49 "suddhacittamdharmayana... Sakyavamsa,"A. K. Vajracarya,p. 84. See Gellner, Monk, Householder, Priest (n. 5 above), pp. 164-65, concerning these various Sakya appellations. 5A. K. Vajracarya,p. 84. See also John K. Locke, S.J., Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal (Kathmandu:Sahayogi Press, 1985), pp. 203-5, for further details of I Bahi and its possible connection with Bumgadyah. I must note that my own observations concerning the offering of a cow during Bumgadyah's festival differ from his and did not include members of the I Bahi samgha. See Bruce McCoy Owens, "The Politics of Divinity in the Kathmandu Valley: The Festival of Bungadya/Rato Matsyendranath"(Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1989), p. 374. 51 Locke somewhat offhandedly mentions that the image is made of wood (Karunamaya [n. 7 above], p. 205). Although it is possible that inner portions of the torso and head are wooden, this is by no means certain, unless one is willing to take Dharmasvamin at his word. Furthermore,Locke's point that the entire image may have been replaced in "the past 1300 years" is well taken, but a close examination of the image suggests that it is likely that only certain parts of the image were changed at any one time. 52 Similar proportionsare to be found in the image of PadmapaniLokesar located in the southeastern corner of Kwa Bahah, the one of a set of four in the bahah that is identified with Bumgadyah.
FIG.6.-Bumgadyah, detail of head, May 1983. (Photo by author.)
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and the chin, eyebrows, and nose are suggested sculpturally in a very subtle fashion. The head as a whole has three slightly rounded vertical surfaces, with the two flattened surfaces of the face meeting at a slight angle along the protrudingvertical axis of the nose, surmountedby a curiously bulging brow and a turbanlikecrown. The most conspicuous features of the face are its large eyes. Nostrils are suggested by two small dots of black paint, and the mouth is defined by one thin line. It would be very difficult to identify the thirty-two auspicious features that the Sakya at I Bahi was enjoined to include in the image of Bumgadyah. The overall effect of the finish, proportions, and discontinuities of the image encourages speculation concerning what might lie under its surface. Some priests who attend Bumgadyah say that, at one time, one could hear the buzzing of a bee enclosed within the image, whereas others say that you could once hear the sloshing of water. Both of these stories suggest that the kalas within which Bumgadyah came to Nepal was incorporated into the figure; A. K. Vajracarya'saccount can be interpreted in this way as well, although it is somewhat ambiguous on this point. The transference of the deity's life into a kalas is also featured in the accounts of origin of Cobahahdyah. Though Cobahahdyah's image is clearly made of metal, it, too, is bulky and crudely shaped, apparently made in sections of beaten metal joined with conspicuous seams at the elbows and shoulders (see fig. 2). Although the torso is shaped more conventionally (i.e., with human proportions) than Bumgadyah's and includes repousse and intaglio details that define a necklace and nipples, Cobahahdyah'sarms are also oddly cylindrical, and his head is also covered with clay, oversized, and shaped much like Bumgadyah's. Whether the distinctive forms of these two deities could be related to the incorporation of the kalases that are said to have played distinctively significant roles in the origins of these gods can only be a matterof speculation. But, as noted above, it is striking that the images of the two most important bodhisattvas of the valley are not graceful exemplars of canonically "perfect" proportions but are, moreover, obvious products of relatively crude human crafting, the shapes and surfaces of which suggest the concealment of something within. The rough shape of Bumgadyah'sbody, to which clay is applied every year, contrasts with the relatively finely sculpted and naturally proportioned silver hands and feet that protrudefrom it (fig. 7).53 The positions of the hands that emerge from the tubelike arms conform with the gestures (mudras) that are conventionally characteristic of Padmapani
53 Cobahaihdyah's hands are also delicately rendered and emerge abruptly from the deity's bulky arms.
FIG.7.-Bumgadyah, detail of hands, May
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Lokesvar. Bumgadyah's feet (fig. 8) are apparently a part of the silver platform on which they stand. An inscription on this platform appears to indicate that the platform, and thus the feet themselves, were donated by a king.54 These silver appendages could indicate that a silver image lies within Bumgadyah'splastered shape, or they could be additions attached to an image made of anothermaterial. The latter possibility is consistent with the theory that Bumgadyah was originally simply a local rain god and suggests that Bumgadyah'shands and feet are elaborations designed to assert its Buddhist identity.55 It is also possible that these elements that are clearly made of silver are replacement parts for a deity partially destroyed in a chariot procession mishap or one of Nepal's many earthquakes.56 That the arms can be moved slightly suggests that the latter two possibilities are more likely, although by no means proves either of them. It might also be that the hands and feet are the remnantsof a more refined, earlier image whose torso and head were destroyed in some calamity. Although it is impossible, given the evidence available, to determine which of these hypotheses is correct, the very composition and structureof Bumgadyah's image suggests that it has undergone substantial transformationthrough time at the hands of its attendants,occasionally at the behest of kings.
THE RECONSECRATION AND RE-CREATION OF BUMGADYAH
In addition to the infrastructuraltransformationsthat the image appears to have undergone, Bumgadyah is also subject to the more typical annual reconsecration rituals that effect more subtle changes in his physical form. Although these rites are in many ways typically south Asian, they are also exceptional by virtue of their extensiveness and, I would suggest, in the degree to which they stress the indispensability of human agency in the manifestation and maintenance of divine presence.57 All of the pengu thay lokesvars undergo an annual bathing, but it is Bumgadyah's, performed the afternoon of the first day of the dark half of Baisdkh (April-May), that is referred to in the astrological calendars as the mahdsndn, or "great bathing." The evening before this grand event, the presiding Vajricarya pdnju priest uses the technique of
54 This worn inscription, normally completely obscured by ornaments and clothing, was only partially visible on the one occasion that I was able to see it. 55 Much has been made of the fact that bumgdh means "spring"or "watering place" in Newari, suggesting to some that Bumgadyah was originally a local rain god, having later been identified as Avalokitesvara and then Matsyendranath.But see Locke, Karunamaya, p. 328. 56 Locke notes, for example, that in 1862 the rath caught fire and that the god was damaged p. 322). 57 This(Karunamaya, is not to suggest that no other deities in South Asia undergo elaborate reconsecration rites that explicitly entail human intervention. The cycle of renewal rites for
FIG.
8.-Bumgadyah, detail of feet, May 19
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sadhana to transfer Bumgadyah's life from his image into a kalas. After performing this rite inside the Ta Bhahh temple, he performs a secret protective pacification rite at the bathing platform in Lagankhel, where legend has it that Bumgadyah's mother was discovered in a tree and anchored to the spot lest she attempt to take back her son. The next afternoon, before the bathing, the presiding panju once again uses his power of sadhana to transferthe life of Bumgadyah from the kalas into a large silver urn upon which eyes and other facial features have been painted. Once the urn containing Bumgadyah's spirit is placed in the sanctum where the god normally resides, the panju temple attendantdecorates it with the ornaments that normally adorn Bumgadyah, and people worship this giant urn instead of Bumgadyah's image until the image is reconsecrated. The bathing itself is a major spectacle viewed by thousands, among whom is a ceremonial sword signifying the king's presence, and for "whom" a clear line of "sight" is maintained by the honor guard of the king's priest (rajguru). Late at night after the bathing, following secret rites performed at the bathing site, the image is brought back to the temple in a procession that no one other than the officiants should view lest they die vomiting blood. Among the pengu thay lokesvars, these rites and the procession that follows are secret only for Bumgadyah and Cakvadyah, whose rites normally transpire only a few hundred meters apart. For the other lokesvars, these rites and the processions back to their respective temples from their bathing sites are public and clearly funereal.58 That Bumgadyah's secret procession probably shares this funereal aspect is suggested by the offerings for the dead (pindas) that are preparedfor the secret puja that precedes his returnto his Ta Bahah temple. An image of a god without life is typically treated in some ways as a lifeless human, but to represent the lifelessness of the image worshiped as Bumgadyah would be in some sense too dangerous for the public to witness. The secrecy that shrouds this rite makes it impossible to do more than speculate why this might be so. Perhaps Bumgadyah's extraordinarypopularity, which extends beyond the valley and across
Jagannathis an obvious example. Though much of this Orrisan god's renewal process is concealed from all but a few officiants, the fact that the images are completely carved anew is well known, and the logs used for this purpose are brought to the temple in public procession. See G. C. Tripathi, "Navakalevara:The Unique Ceremony of the 'Birth' and 'Death' of the 'Lord of the World,"' in The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa, ed. Anncharlott Eshmann, Hermann Kulke, and Gaya Charan Tripathi (New Delhi: Manohar, 1986), pp. 223-64. 58 Naladyah's returnprocession, which I have not been able to witness personally, may not feature this funereal aspect, although the image is shrouded prior to the reinvestiture of the deity's life force.
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ethnic boundaries, makes it prudent for ritual officiants to conceal rites subject to provocative misinterpretation.59 The image is first placed out of view in a chamber of the Ta Bahah temple for a period of seven days referred to as the deity's bardy tdye, a rite of confinement that many higher caste Newar girls undergo upon reaching puberty. The image is then brought out to a side chamber that is open to public view. Here it undergoes a five-day process of preparation for the return of Bumgadyah's life force. Two high-caste Hindu Sresthas, called Niyekhus, perform this task, beginning by completely obliterating the facial features of the image and plastering over the face and body with clay from the hill where Mhaipi Ajima's shrine is located. The Niyekhus then spend the next five days slowly repairing, replastering, and painting the image. Important for this analysis and contrary to previous reports, these processes of obliteration and restoration are public for all five of the pengu thdy lokesvars.60Bumgadyah's is the most elaborate and prolonged of these procedures, and many people come by to witness the process and offer their comments on the painters' work. Among the items incorporated in the restoration of the image are two thin pieces of gold that are cemented onto his forehead. The accumulation of these metal pieces over the centuries may account, in part, for Bumgadyah's curiously protrudingforehead. On the day before Bumgadyah's life is restored to his image, the chief panju officiant, assisted by another pdnju, conducts an elaborate kalas pujd in which he invokes protective deities into seventy-two clay pots lined up in a large square formation in front of the Ta Bahah temple. One panju maintains a vigil inside this square the entire night to ensure that its integrity is not disturbed. While he is maintaining his vigil, others in Bungamati are conducting a sacrifice to the Bhairabs, who are featured in the mythology of Bumgadyah as protectors instrumental in his coming to Nepal. The reinstallation of the life force of Bumgadyah begins late at night on the fourteenth day of the dark half of Baisdkh and continues until early the next morning. After further protective rites are performed, the Niyekhus bring the image, now swathed as if a corpse, into a chamber next to the main sanctum where the image is normally located. After once again using the technique of sidhana in order to transfer the life of Bumgadyah back into his image
59 Inden's extensive discussion of bathing rites ([n. 9 above], pp. 233-39) raises many issues that cannot be adequately addressed here. Among them is the question of whether those who attend Bumgadyah's bathing rites conceptualize the bathing water prasad with which they are sprinkled as charged with kind of tejas that Inden describes as emanating from such rites, for they are likely to be aware of the fact that the jivan of Bumgadyah is, at the time of the bathing, located in the urn residing in his temple sanctum. 60 These procedures are described as concealed from public view in Slusser (n. 25 above), p. 377; and Locke, Rato Matsyendranath (n. 23 above), p. ix.
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from the large urn in which it has been residing, the Niyekhus remove the shroud from the image, and a "descendant" of King Narendradeva ritually opens the deity's eyes with his sword. From this point on, the Niyekhus and the image undergo a series of life-cycle rites performed for both Newar males and females and collectively known as the dasa karmapujia.While these rites are being performed open to public view, other panjus are conducting another series of rituals at Swayambhu in preparation for "bringing Swayambhu" to Bumgadyah. These rites include a secret sacrifice to Yogambara and other secret rituals at the shrines of Vayupur, Basundhara, Nagpur, and Agnipur that surround the central stupa. The morning after the night-long dasa karma puja with the Niyekhus, the dasa karma is once again performed publicly, this time with the panjus who will attend to the god during his chariot festival.61 The afternoon of the panju's dasa karma pujd, a group including the panju who is to sit to the right of Bumgadyah in his chariot, the panju piujari, a jyipu girl (called the mdlini), and a jydpu man of the suwdh subcaste all proceed to the gorge through which the Bagmati exits the valley, called Kotwa Daham, located several miles south of Bungamati. These people, representing the king (Narendradeva), priest (Bandhudatta), farmer's wife, and farmer (respectively) who first brought Bumgadyah to Nepal, all perform a series of rites beginning at dawn of the next day. This being mathutirtha, the day on which people go "to see their mother's face" (mdya khwdh swaye), they first worship Bumgadyah's mother, representedby a hand carved into the rock of the gorge wall. In a rite that is attended by hundreds of people in spite of its remote location, they then reenact the capture of the bee/Karunamayain a kalas by using kalases to catch flowers floating down the river that have been released by the pdnju pijari/Bandhudatta. This is followed by a secret sacrifice to appease the denizens of Kamarupand a feast. The priests, mdlini, and suwah then reenact the entry of Bumgadyah into the valley by carrying these kalases in procession to Bungamati and Patan, a process they refer to as "bringing Bumgadyah" (to Ta Bahah). Many wait along the path of this procession for "the god" to come by, hoping for darsan and possibly prasdd.62 The god in the kalas is finally brought to Ta Bahah where Bumgadyah resides, although no significant ritual is performed when the god in the flask comes to the god in the temple.
61 I have never been given any explanation for the second dasa karma puja, other than the assertion that it must be done. This second rite would seem to reinforce the notion that Bumgadyah is also a panju, but there is no such conventional understanding about the identity of the Niyekhus. 62 This is an example of the complexity of Newar ideas about the location and manifestation of gods. The "god" these people await is presentin water contained in a artists.Al-
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Later that afternoon, panjus in a state of purity carry Bumgadyah in a palanquin to his chariot, escorted by the rijguru's guard and ritual officiants, and the festival of Bumgadyah (Bumgayah) begins. This brief outline only touches on the major features of the numerous rites that transpire between bathing and reconsecrating Bumgadyah's image. Although it is not unusual for images to undergo such "human" rites of passage as the dasa karma puja during their reconsecration, only Bumgadyah undergoes two series of such initiations, the second of which articulates his identity as a pdnju. Bumgadyah's reconsecration is also intensively associated with protective rites; procedures wherein humans enlist the power of other gods to ensure their access to the deity of their principal concern. Finally, the manner in which humans first brought Bumgadyah to Nepal is reenacted, people once again deploying the technique of sddhana as well as physically conveying some aspect of Bumgadyah's power to his image in order to complete his final consecration and begin his procession.
THE PROCESSION
Bumgadyah's annual chariot festival is, by any measure, the largest in Nepal. Once every twelve years it begins and ends in Bungamati, proceeding back and forth from Bungamati to Patan in addition to following the route that it covers every year through Patan's narrow streets. The chariot in which Bumgadyah is processed is, as far as I know, unique in that its unwieldy form makes it prone to fall over. At least 200 people are required to pull the massive yet precarious rath, which stands over sixty-five feet tall on a ten-foot-square wheelbase. Bumgadyah's rath jatra is thus fraught with risk and danger. Chronicles from the eighteenth century link jdtra mishaps with misfortune for the king and country.63 This interpretation of jdtrd disasters persists in popular belief, as became apparentto me in interviews and from spontaneous exclamations made by people in festival crowds in 1984 when the chariot yoke broke and again in 1991 when the chariot fell over. The potential for mishap is a salient aspect of the jdtrd, and many homes boast collections of rathjatra disaster photos that can readily be found for sale at photo shops. More recent interpretations of jdtra accidents extend the range of their implications to include the newly constituted democratic government, the future of which is very much on the minds of many Nepalese.
though they well know that the image of Bumgadyah sits in Ta Bahah in Patan during this procession from Kotwa daham, they wait along its route eight or nine miles south of Patan, asking, dyah gana thenka ("where has the god reached")? 63 See Locke, Karunamaya, pp. 303-25, for examples.
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The fate of the deity is in some ways in the hands of those who pull him along the procession route, for humans pull the chariot and direct its movement, either into or away from disaster. Those who pull the chariot usually live in the area for which the chariot is destined at the time. Their zealous efforts to bring the god near their homes, and thus begin the round of feasting that marks the completion of each leg of the procession journey, are often impatient and reckless and can put the chariot and image into jeopardy. Brakemen who are critical to controlling the movement of the chariot are fearful that they might be blamed for a jatra accident, and the cane workers who lash the chariot together occasionally must defend themselves against accusations that their carelessness has caused the chariot spire to lean precariously. However, there is a disjuncture between assessments of cause and interpretations of meaning. The same individuals who wondered what misfortune might befall the palace and country when the chariot yoke broke in 1984 also cited physical factors that might have played a role in its breaking. Though many attributedthe chariot falling over during the twelve-year jdtra of 1991 to drunken young men pulling the chariot too quickly in the dark after they should have stopped for the day, these same people interpreted the event as having negative implications for the government. I have never heard it suggested, however, that people deliberately sabotage the jdtra in order to make a political statement or to undermine people's confidence in their king or their government. Although it is impossible to determine conclusively that such sabotage has not taken place, it is striking that the infamous rumor mill of the Kathmandu Valley has never, to my knowledge, even produced gossip suggesting such a thing. It is the suspicions of some of my Western colleagues that compel me to even consider this possibility. Whatever the symbolic political implications of jdtrd mishaps may be, to provoke a jatra disaster would clearly set one at odds with Bumgadyah (who, although compassionate, is also capable of displeasure) as well as anger other participants and the thousands of onlookers. What the jdtrd reveals, either by proceeding smoothly or by virtue of disasters that befall it, is the relationship between a king (and/or government) and another kind of power represented by Bumgadyah: the power to bring rain and thus the rice that is vital to everyone. The capacity of this jdtra to reveal the deity's disposition is dependent upon human activity, although the agency of that activity is partially displaced; chariot pullers and builders do not intend for the chariot to fall, but they make its fall possible. Only a well-built and competently guided chariot can serve Bumgadyah adequately to reveal his favor or displeasure or, more precisely, the nature of the interrelationship between god, king, and
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kingdom. There is a tension between attributionsof events to human or divine agency in interpretations of what transpires during a jatra, but the outcome is clearly interpreted as the result of a collaborative effort that entails human-divine interdependence.64 Evidence of royal concern with the success of this collaboration is abundant. Chronicles from the mid-seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries that associate jdtra mishaps with calamities in the royal family also note that kings attempted to avert such misfortune by directly intervening in problematic processions or by donating extraordinarygifts to the god.65 This material also suggests that kings personally participated in only the twelve-year festivals on a regular basis, these processions being both the most auspicious and the most dangerous, owing to their greater length and the difficult terrainover which they had to pass. In 1673, Srinivas Malla installed a copperplate inscription in Bumgadyah's Patan temple detailing the various obligations of the diverse groups involved in the festival and included the injunction that "not even the king can excuse himself from his duties toward the deity."66 When the Ranas usurped the power of the throne in 1846, both the king and the Rana prime minister, whose position became hereditary, began to participate in the festival on a more regular basis, and some of the most conspicuous extant donations to the deity were made by the Rana most directly responsible for the takeover: Jung BahadurRana himself. Those who were responsible for the workings of the chariot festival under the Ranas report them to have been exacting and harsh overseers. In the latter period of their rule, one Rana prime minister, Juddah Shamsher, took it upon himself to personally display Bumgadyah's vest at the
64 By using the phrase human-divine interdependence, I do not intend to imply that there is a simple oppositional relationship between king and subjects, on the one hand, and deities, on the other. Kings in the KathmanduValley have declared themselves to be incarnationsof Visnu at least since Sthitimalla of the late fourteenthcentury (Slusser, p. 67), and to some extent this identification is still recognized by Newars. Neither should one consider the king simply as a quasi-divine mediatorbetween gods and his subjects. Inden's interpretationof bathing rituals performed in the Rastrakiuta "imperial formation" of the Deccan of the ninth and tenth centuries strikes me as very much to this point, for he states that "the king of kings [was not] the only one to be bathed with the will of the gods. That was also the purpose of the daily bath supposed to be taken by every Hindu and of a large variety of other baths for different kinds and degrees of persons ranging from the images of gods in temples down to animals and weapons and tools. In other words, an Indian polity was constituted as a scale of divine and human wills and not as a dichotomy between a divine and absolute ruler on the one hand and a secular and powerless officialdom or populace on the other" (Inden, p. 237). 65 See Locke, Karunamaya,pp. 306-18, passim, for summaries of some of these accounts. See Owens, "Politics of Divinity" (n. 50 above), pp. 305-13, for furthercommentary and analysis. 66 Locke, Karunamaya,p. 310. Hemraj Sakya has recently published this inscription in his KarundmayaSri BungamalokesvarayaMahattvapuirna-Silapatraya Bhasanuvad (Kathmandu: Dharma Ratna Silpakar, 1992).
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festival's concluding ceremony (which is attended by thousands), rather than have the usual functionary perform the task. The Rana's extraordinary participation in Bumgadyah's festival was consistent with their need to legitimize their ill-gotten status as the rulers of Nepal, particularly among the Newar, who were especially resentful of the Rana regime owing to its discriminatory practices toward them. Although ultimately powerless to dictate the outcome of the festival, the Ranas appear to have taken extraordinarymeasures to prevent jatra disasters that might reflect poorly upon them and to proclaim publicly their devotion to Bumgadyah. The present king has persisted in participating in the massively attended concluding ceremony of the festival through the politically restive decades that culminated in his acceptance of democracy in 1991, in spite of the personal risk that this participation has entailed. In addition to his highly conspicuous (and vulnerable) presence during this ceremony, the concern of the state (in which he still wields considerable power) is visibly evident in the guards posted on the chariot. More recently, trucks full of riot police have stood by in case the arena of the festival, traditionally a venue for competition and settling old scores, might be employed for engaging in struggles on a more massive scale. The state's interest in the success of the festival is also evident in a feature that has become regular only in the past ten years; a large yellow crane, emblazoned with the name "Tadano," follows the procession at a discreet distance in case of emergencies that might threaten the security of the chariot or the god within.
GIFTS, REPAIRS, AND TRANSFORMATIONS
During the jdtra, people hurl offerings of coins into the chariot sanctum, many of which strike the image. The violent shaking that the chariot undergoes while being pulled not only threatens the integrity of the chariot but also damages the clay surface of the image. In short, the intensive adoration of Bumgadyah during his jdtra as well as the precarious nature of his vehicle are deleterious to his appearance and potentially highly transformative. Once the jdtra is over, either pdnjus carry Bumgadyah in a palanquin back to his Bungamati temple or, once every twelve years, he returnsto Bungamati in his chariot. In eleven of every twelve years, pdnjus take Bumgadyah back to Patan from Bungamati in a palanquin after he has stayed in Bungamati for about six months. Prior to this winter journey to Patan, the deleterious effects of the adoration of Bumgadyah's image are repaired.This time, however, the image, with power intact, is simply brought to the side of his temple, where the Niyekhus once again publicly patch and repaint the image. This restoration, although far less
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elaborate than that which precedes the image's reconsecration, is nonetheless extraordinarybecause it transformsthe image while it is in every sense a god: its life is intact, and there is no proxy in the temple sanctum for worshipers to honor in its stead. This renovation also provides an opportunity for another kind of offering that transforms the appearance of the image: the presentation of clothing for the god. After the Niyekhus complete the renovation, a dozen or more donors typically offer the deity clothes, in which the priests dress him. These clothes can be quite modest, made of handprinted cotton, or quite expensive, tailored from Chinese silk. Bumgadyah's wardrobe is renewed every year, and his old clothes join a repository of his many treasures stored in large iron cases that are carried back and forth with the god like luggage between Bungamati and Patan. Bumgadyah is also festooned with jewelry that his devotees continue to offer. His jewelry includes a royal crown, masculine bracelets, feminine anklets, and even the large-linked chain necklace typically worn by Newar women of the farmer caste. He also wears jewelry normally worn only by gods, such as a repousse serpent said to be a ndga who came to the festival in disguise only to be trapped as an adornment of Bumgadyah as a result of a quarrel among gods. The largesse and creativity of donors have dramatically affected the appearance of the image through a steady accretion of clothes and ornaments and, as noted above, may have transformed the image itself. Just as Bumgadyah's image is susceptible to transformationby virtue of its fragility and the donations offered by worshipers, so, too, is his chariot. Banners of metal, one donated by a king, another by a commoner, decorate the chariot spire, and, akin to Bumgadyah's annual change of clothing, the chariot spire is also decorated with cloth banners that are renewed each year. By far the most significant form of donation made to adorn the chariot are the gold-gilt repousse panels (Ihusa) that compose the sides of the chariot deck and sanctum walls. These are also highly susceptible to damage and have recently been replaced.67
CONCLUSION
The accounts of origin, reconsecration rites, festival interpretations,and popular devotional practices outlined above demonstrate the extraordinary degree to which human agency is credited for the presence, form, protection, and even disposition of Bumgadyah. The image and the
67 A resident of Pode tol in Patan donated an entirely new set of Ihusa for the chariot on the occasion of the twelve-year festival of 1991 at a cost of nearly 90,000 U.S. dollars. These Ihusa, however, were faithful reproductions of those that had previously adorned the chariot since 1746 when they were donated by King RajyaprakashMalla.
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chariot used to transportit undergo continual transformation.They are both mediums of devotional expression as repositories of gifts. The fragility of both image and chariot and their susceptibility to obliteration are vital to their power as augurs of the pleasure or displeasure of the god within. A crack or bubble in Bumgadyah's visage or the collapse of his chariot traditionally signal misfortune for the king and kingdom. The largesse of kings and lesser devotees covers Bumgadyah's image with clothes and jewelry. Chronicles record that festival mishaps have often prompted kings to donate particularly conspicuous accoutrements that, at least temporarily, alter the god's appearance, even as the mishaps themselves have more directly changed the image through destructive transformations. One answer to the unresolved riddle of Bumgadyah's odd form suggests that its extremities may have been added to a relatively amorphous image in order to assert or officially recognize the god's Buddhist identity. Another suggests that the image was literally as well as figuratively created as a vessel to contain the kalas into which a priest drew Karunamaya'slife force. The physical appearanceof Bumgadyah's image does not merely portray a god but the crystallized history of ritual interaction between gods and humans as well. Human agency is not only evident in the role humans play in accounts of origin and in the rites of consecration and worship but is also inscribed in the very form of the deity itself, a form that is continuously changing as it is caught up in the ongoing assertions, negotiations, and contestations of power relations that Inden has cautioned us not to ignore.68 So how does one make sense of the various dimensions through which human intervention shapes the fate and form of this particular deity? How are they interrelated,if they are at all, and how are we to understandthe power of this deity in relation to its susceptibility to human intervention? The accounts that explain Bumgadyah's presence in Nepal offer a possible clue. Over and over again, the ritual technique of sadhana is referred to in these stories and, of course, used in the rituals connected with Bumgadyah. For the Newar Buddhists I know, sddhana is considered to be primarily a technique for the coercion of deities to achieve desired ends. The visualization through which the tantric priest achieves identity with a deity is, for them, primarily instrumental and directed toward accomplishing relatively mundane outcomes.69 Just as the visualization of a deity in sadhana is a product of human effort and virtuosity, so, it seems, is the presence and form of Bumgadyah. The ritual and legends that surroundthis deity, ratherthan distancing the god
Inden, p. 2. Though Gellner suggests that the Vajracdrya priests he consulted have a more esoteric understanding of sadhana, he agrees that most people do not, and he reenforces my
69
68
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from human agency as a means of confirming its superhuman power, seem to be in many ways a kind of celebration of some human power over gods. This is totally consistent with the complete lack of pretense about Bumgadyah's image being anything other than a human creation, moreover, an image that people continue to create. The jatra and worship of Bumgadyah at once honor his power and celebrate the human agency that manipulates it and creates the material form in which it is worshiped. The Newar order their world, in part, through gods, not simply as conceptual devices or as symbols of powers to which they are subject but also as coercible agents of human will that they deploy in the ongoing negotiation of power relations among gods, kings, royal subjects, and, now, democratic citizens.70 The oddly shaped image of clay, silver, paint, and gold worshiped as Bumgadyah is itself evidence of these ongoing negotiations. Franklin and Marshall College
assessment of its importance in Newar religious practice, stating that "without the motor of Visualization the whole religion would grind to a halt" (Monk, Householder, Priest [n. 5 above], p. 290). Gellner's discussion of the "routinization" of tantric Buddhism strikes me as largely consistent with my claims concerning popular interpretations of sadhana, especially insofar as he asserts that "the routinization of Tantric symbolism requires not only the development of different levels of interpretation but also of social functions of those same symbols" (ibid., p. 304). 70 I am sympathetic to Inden's suggestion that citizenship and subjecthood are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories (Inden, p. 218) and differentiate the contemporary Nepalese "democratic citizen" from "royal subject" in order to distinguish the shifts in relationships between the general public and the palace that have come about from the emergence of a democratically elected government. Nepalis were citizens prior to the jana andolan that transformedtheir government and remain subjects after this transformation. This is true not only in the narrow legal sense but also in the broader sense entailed in Inden's argument that caste membership can be regarded as a kind of citizenship combined with subjecthood (ibid.).

Human Agency and Divine Power Transforming Images and Recreating Gods Among TheNewar

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Human Agency and Divine Power Transforming Images and Recreating Gods Among TheNewar

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Human Agency and Divine Power: Transforming Images and Recreating Gods among the Newar Author(s): Bruce

Bruce McCoy Owens

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

(n. 9 above), p. 23.

Human Agency and Divine Power

FIG.6.-Bumgadyah, detail of head, May 1983. (Photo by author.)

FIG.7.-Bumgadyah, detail of hands, May

8.-Bumgadyah, detail of feet, May 19

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

Human Agency and Divine Power

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