S'rivatsa and s'risuktam
S’rivatsa metaphor in hindu civilization and S’risuktam
Apart from s’ankha and cakra (nave of spoked-wheel), four other motifs have continued in the bharatiya tradition, right from the days of Sarasvati hieroglyphs: svastika, s’rivatsa (fish), elephant, endless-knot (entangled).
As hieroglyphs, these motifs have been explained in the context of metallurgical tradition: era ‘nave of wheel’; rebus: era ‘copper’; svastika (sathiya_ (Pkt.); rebus: satva 'zinc' (Ka.); zasta, ‘zinc’(H.), s’rivatsa (depicted as tied fish: bed.a hako = me~r. ayo ‘metal iron’), elephant (ib ‘iron’; ibha ‘elephant), d.ombe ‘entangled’ (Santali); rebus: d.ab, d.himba, d.hompo ‘lump (ingot?)’, clot, make a lump or clot, coagulate, fuse, melt together (Santali)
M0488B m507B (Copper tablet) m1356
[See svastika on a Yaudheya coin http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/indianarms.htm ]
Note on some rebus homonyms, glyphs:
era, eraka = nave of wheel (Ka.); rebus: era, eraka ‘copper’ (Ka.); alternative: kun.d.= the opening in the nave or hub of a wheel to admit the axle (Santali); rebus: gun.d.amu fire-pit; (Inscr.) (Te.)
Bed.a hako (ayo); rebus (1): mer.ed, me~r.ed iron; enga mer.ed soft iron; sand.i mer.ed hard iron; ispa_t mer.ed steel; dul mer.ed cast iron; i mer.ed rusty iron, also the iron of which weights are cast; bicamer.ed iron extracted from stone ore; balimer.ed iron extracted from sand ore; mer.ed-bica = iron stone ore, in contrast to bali-bica, iron sand ore (Mu.lex.) The fetter that ties the fish is be_d.i = a chain, a fetter (Ka.Te.) bed.a = either side of a hearth (G.); be = two (G.) bed.a hako = fish (Santali) ; rebs (2): aduru native metal (Ka.); ayil iron (Ta.) ayir, ayiram any ore (Ma.); ajirda karba very hard iron (Tu.)(DEDR 192). For aduru: acar-u mud, mire; acumpu soft mud, miry place; ayam mud, mire (Ta.); ayam id. ayar-u manure (Ma.); asalu mud, mire (Te.)(DEDR 41). The semantics of ayam ‘mud, mire’ are cognate with the semantics of kardama, cikli_ta (mud, mire) in S’risukta (RV khila).
These motifs of property or wealth of vis’vakarma tradition become abiding metaphors on punch-marked coins, and in vais.n.ava, bauddha, jaina traditions, into the historical periods. Some evidences of these continuing metaphors are presented in this note.
Of 24 tirthankara in the jain tradition, who are normally depicted as seated in yogasana postures, 10th tirthankara s’italanatha has the s’rivatsa symbol (digambara tradition) http://www.herenow4u.de/Images/24_Symbols_for_Tirthankara/10.jpg This image shows four curved W motifs surrounding a circle.
See: Srivastava, A. L., 1979. The Srivatsa Symbol in Indian Art. In: EW, N. S., Vol. XXIX(1-4): 37-60. Bapat, P. V., 1953. Four Auspicious Things of the Buddhists: Srivatsa, Svastika, Nandyavarta and Vardhamana. In: Indica, The Indian Hist. Res. Inst. Silver Jubilee Comm. Vol., Bombay, pp. 38-46.
Divinity Narayana is also shown wearing s’rivatsa motif on his chest on a bronze s’ilpa. This is an evocation of S’ri associated with divinity Narayana in the s’rivaishnava
tradition. http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/EM89/ (cache) bronze statue 14.5" X 8" X 4"; 9.6 Kg
A dhruva beram (standing s’ilpa used as utsava beram) of Tirumala Venkates’wara has s’rivatsa motif shown on the chest. The motif may represent the material objects of enjoyment in the form of ornaments and weapons. Parasara rishi, Vishnu Purana 1.22.69 in what is referred to as astrabhu_s.an.a_dhya_ya. S’rivatsa as a metaphor, is often referred to as Prakriti s’rivatsa.
In fact, the s’rivatsa motif is shown on the chest of all tirthankara. It is so important. (See fn. 37 “Shrivatsa in the earlier images is generally a vertical line with an S- shaped mark on its left, and its mirror image on the right. Later the symbol changed into a lozenge shaped four-petalled flower. In Hinduism it represents "Shri" the Goddess of fortune. It is the special mark of Vishnu. In Jainism Shrivatsa is found on the chests of Tirthankaras all over Northern India but not in South India. The symbol appears sometimes on the images of the Buddha but not on the chest. (C. Siva Ram Murti in Ancient India, No. 6, pp. 44-46).” (loc. cit. Ashok Kumar Roy, 1984, A History of the Jains, New Delhi, Gitanjali Publishing House). Ebook at http://wwwedit.cs.wayne.edu:8080/~manishk/JainismDocuments/HistoryOfJainism.pdf
S’risuktam is a sukta of 15 verses and is a Rigveda khila. Sayana, Prithvidhara and Nanjiyar have commented on this sukta. One view of the sukta is that it is a tribute to the metal, gold – associating s’ri with wealth. Listen to the suktam rendered by MN Venkata Sastry: http://www.ee.duke.edu/%7Evkp/audio/sree.mp3 Also at http://www.divyajivan.org/realaudio/sri_suktam.ram
The suktam and translation are at http://www.srividya.org/slokas/HTML/sri_suktam.htm S’ri is said to have two children: kardama and ciklita. Association is with a_pah, ‘waters’. The very first line refers to: s’ri_m as hiran.yavarn.am, harin.i_m, suvarn.a rajata srajam. This evokes association with gold and silver. The sukta is also an invocation to soma (interpreting cikli_ra as cikri_ta, ‘the purchased one, that is soma’. The literal meanings of kardama and cikli_ta are ‘mud’ and ‘mire, ooze’. At Arikamedu was found one square copper coin with the motifs: an elephant, a ritual umbrella, S’rivatsa symbol, and the front of a horse.[ K. V. Raman, “A Note on the Square Copper Coin from Arikamedu” in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu, p. 391-392.]
A stone s’ilpa of matsya in Dhaka museum may be seen at the exquisite Huntington Archive http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=30020643&detail=large
Suvarn.a matsya or a pair of fishes with their noses touching each other with uplifted tails is an auspicious motif of the bauddha tradition. It is interesting that a metal magnet was called matsya mantra to determine direction while on high seas, indicating the association of matsya with metal. In Pali texts, matsya people are associated with Surasena. Matsya is a mahajanapada mentioned in the bauddha tradition of 16 janapada.
“How can You be purified, therefore, by the dust of the path traversed by the brahmanas, and how can You be glorified or made fortunate by the marks of Srivatsa on Your chest? “ (Srimadbhagavatam, Canto 3, Chapter Sixteen, ‘The two doorkeepers of Vaikuntha, Jaya and VIjaya, cursed by the sages’.
Right quadrant of ayagapatta showing s’rivatsa motif Site: Manoharpura (on the Delhi-Jaipur highway), Kusana late 1st-3rd century, 50 CE - 299 CE Red sandstone, Lucknow state museum (A curving fish-tail enveloping the tied fish in the center, that is, one S motif and its inverse on either side tie up the fish in the center).
http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=30000348&detail=large
This is the cental motif of twin fish enveloping the central motif, thus constituting the s’rivatsa. The second image of the second section of the ayagapatta also found at Manoharpura, is now at National Museum, New Delhi.
http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=30000353&detail=large
These images are definitive indicators of the evolution of the s’rivatsa (or curved W motif) in bharatiya metaphors across the entire gamut of panthas of dharma-dhamma continuum in relating the motif to Narayana, the Buddha (Bauddha) or the Tirthankaras (Jaina).
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/museums/delhi/dm_begram2_th.jpg
S’rivatsa on Jain votive plaque. Ayagapata. Mathura UP, Kankali Tila. Kushana (2nd c. CE). 65 x 57.5 cm. J249 (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1985), no. 39, p. 105
S’ri_vatsa or Nandipa_da glyphs are derived from a pair of fishes as seen on many artifacts and on the necklaces worn by yakshi on sculptures.
S’ri_vatsa symbol [with its hundreds of stylized variants, depicted on Pl. 29 to 32] occurs in Bogazkoi (Central Anatolia) dated ca. 6th to 14th cent. BCE on inscriptions:
The symbol occurs in Mathura (ca. 2nd to 1st cent. BCE) and in Sa_n~ci_ (ca. 2nd –1st cent. BCE).
Sarnath, Va_ra_n.asi, UP, Railing fragment, Sarnath Museum, No. 422 (AIIS, VNS, A27.33)[Pl. XX, 8]
Bharhut Stu_pa, south gate corner pillar, c. 2nd cent. BCE, Indian Museum, Calcutta, 27.72, (AIIS, VNS, 242.34)[Pl. XX, 9]
Sarnath, Rail post, c. 1st cent. BCE, Sarnath Museum No. 420 (AIIS, VNS, 200.13)[Pl. XX, 10]
A Nasik cave inscription has s’ri_vatsa superimposed on nandipa_da symbol and is ascribed to ca. 2nd cent. BCE. [Note: nandipa_da is made up of two fish-tails joined together; s’ri_vatsa encloses a fish within two fish-tails].
The evolution of the s’ri_vatsa symbol is vividly described as related to a pair of ‘fish’. This is apparent from the two fish-tails exquisitely sculpted on Sa_n~ci_ Stu_pa (c. 2nd cent. BCE) and also in Sarnath railings and Bharhut stu_pa.
[Pl. 33, S’rivatsa, Nandipa_da-Triratna at: Bhimbetka, Sa_n~ci_, Sarnath and Mathura]
swastika seal, Mohenjodaro, steatite. National Museum, Karachi. http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=25001555&detail=large
Gold amulet, beaded svastika. Sirkap. ca. first century BCE to fourth century CE, 100 BCE - 300 CE, National Museum, Karachi. http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=10954&detail=large
Architectural fragment with svastika. Sarnath. Beige sandstone. ca. seventh century CE, 601 CE - 700 CE. Sarnath site museum, Uttarpradesh.
http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=2932&detail=large
Apart from s’ankha and cakra (nave of spoked-wheel), four other motifs have continued in the bharatiya tradition, right from the days of Sarasvati hieroglyphs: svastika, s’rivatsa (fish), elephant, endless-knot (entangled).
As hieroglyphs, these motifs have been explained in the context of metallurgical tradition: era ‘nave of wheel’; rebus: era ‘copper’; svastika (sathiya_ (Pkt.); rebus: satva 'zinc' (Ka.); zasta, ‘zinc’(H.), s’rivatsa (depicted as tied fish: bed.a hako = me~r. ayo ‘metal iron’), elephant (ib ‘iron’; ibha ‘elephant), d.ombe ‘entangled’ (Santali); rebus: d.ab, d.himba, d.hompo ‘lump (ingot?)’, clot, make a lump or clot, coagulate, fuse, melt together (Santali)
M0488B m507B (Copper tablet) m1356
[See svastika on a Yaudheya coin http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/indianarms.htm ]
Note on some rebus homonyms, glyphs:
era, eraka = nave of wheel (Ka.); rebus: era, eraka ‘copper’ (Ka.); alternative: kun.d.= the opening in the nave or hub of a wheel to admit the axle (Santali); rebus: gun.d.amu fire-pit; (Inscr.) (Te.)
Bed.a hako (ayo); rebus (1): mer.ed, me~r.ed iron; enga mer.ed soft iron; sand.i mer.ed hard iron; ispa_t mer.ed steel; dul mer.ed cast iron; i mer.ed rusty iron, also the iron of which weights are cast; bicamer.ed iron extracted from stone ore; balimer.ed iron extracted from sand ore; mer.ed-bica = iron stone ore, in contrast to bali-bica, iron sand ore (Mu.lex.) The fetter that ties the fish is be_d.i = a chain, a fetter (Ka.Te.) bed.a = either side of a hearth (G.); be = two (G.) bed.a hako = fish (Santali) ; rebs (2): aduru native metal (Ka.); ayil iron (Ta.) ayir, ayiram any ore (Ma.); ajirda karba very hard iron (Tu.)(DEDR 192). For aduru: acar-u mud, mire; acumpu soft mud, miry place; ayam mud, mire (Ta.); ayam id. ayar-u manure (Ma.); asalu mud, mire (Te.)(DEDR 41). The semantics of ayam ‘mud, mire’ are cognate with the semantics of kardama, cikli_ta (mud, mire) in S’risukta (RV khila).
These motifs of property or wealth of vis’vakarma tradition become abiding metaphors on punch-marked coins, and in vais.n.ava, bauddha, jaina traditions, into the historical periods. Some evidences of these continuing metaphors are presented in this note.
Of 24 tirthankara in the jain tradition, who are normally depicted as seated in yogasana postures, 10th tirthankara s’italanatha has the s’rivatsa symbol (digambara tradition) http://www.herenow4u.de/Images/24_Symbols_for_Tirthankara/10.jpg This image shows four curved W motifs surrounding a circle.
See: Srivastava, A. L., 1979. The Srivatsa Symbol in Indian Art. In: EW, N. S., Vol. XXIX(1-4): 37-60. Bapat, P. V., 1953. Four Auspicious Things of the Buddhists: Srivatsa, Svastika, Nandyavarta and Vardhamana. In: Indica, The Indian Hist. Res. Inst. Silver Jubilee Comm. Vol., Bombay, pp. 38-46.
Divinity Narayana is also shown wearing s’rivatsa motif on his chest on a bronze s’ilpa. This is an evocation of S’ri associated with divinity Narayana in the s’rivaishnava
tradition. http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/EM89/ (cache) bronze statue 14.5" X 8" X 4"; 9.6 Kg
A dhruva beram (standing s’ilpa used as utsava beram) of Tirumala Venkates’wara has s’rivatsa motif shown on the chest. The motif may represent the material objects of enjoyment in the form of ornaments and weapons. Parasara rishi, Vishnu Purana 1.22.69 in what is referred to as astrabhu_s.an.a_dhya_ya. S’rivatsa as a metaphor, is often referred to as Prakriti s’rivatsa.
In fact, the s’rivatsa motif is shown on the chest of all tirthankara. It is so important. (See fn. 37 “Shrivatsa in the earlier images is generally a vertical line with an S- shaped mark on its left, and its mirror image on the right. Later the symbol changed into a lozenge shaped four-petalled flower. In Hinduism it represents "Shri" the Goddess of fortune. It is the special mark of Vishnu. In Jainism Shrivatsa is found on the chests of Tirthankaras all over Northern India but not in South India. The symbol appears sometimes on the images of the Buddha but not on the chest. (C. Siva Ram Murti in Ancient India, No. 6, pp. 44-46).” (loc. cit. Ashok Kumar Roy, 1984, A History of the Jains, New Delhi, Gitanjali Publishing House). Ebook at http://wwwedit.cs.wayne.edu:8080/~manishk/JainismDocuments/HistoryOfJainism.pdf
S’risuktam is a sukta of 15 verses and is a Rigveda khila. Sayana, Prithvidhara and Nanjiyar have commented on this sukta. One view of the sukta is that it is a tribute to the metal, gold – associating s’ri with wealth. Listen to the suktam rendered by MN Venkata Sastry: http://www.ee.duke.edu/%7Evkp/audio/sree.mp3 Also at http://www.divyajivan.org/realaudio/sri_suktam.ram
The suktam and translation are at http://www.srividya.org/slokas/HTML/sri_suktam.htm S’ri is said to have two children: kardama and ciklita. Association is with a_pah, ‘waters’. The very first line refers to: s’ri_m as hiran.yavarn.am, harin.i_m, suvarn.a rajata srajam. This evokes association with gold and silver. The sukta is also an invocation to soma (interpreting cikli_ra as cikri_ta, ‘the purchased one, that is soma’. The literal meanings of kardama and cikli_ta are ‘mud’ and ‘mire, ooze’. At Arikamedu was found one square copper coin with the motifs: an elephant, a ritual umbrella, S’rivatsa symbol, and the front of a horse.[ K. V. Raman, “A Note on the Square Copper Coin from Arikamedu” in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu, p. 391-392.]
A stone s’ilpa of matsya in Dhaka museum may be seen at the exquisite Huntington Archive http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=30020643&detail=large
Suvarn.a matsya or a pair of fishes with their noses touching each other with uplifted tails is an auspicious motif of the bauddha tradition. It is interesting that a metal magnet was called matsya mantra to determine direction while on high seas, indicating the association of matsya with metal. In Pali texts, matsya people are associated with Surasena. Matsya is a mahajanapada mentioned in the bauddha tradition of 16 janapada.
“How can You be purified, therefore, by the dust of the path traversed by the brahmanas, and how can You be glorified or made fortunate by the marks of Srivatsa on Your chest? “ (Srimadbhagavatam, Canto 3, Chapter Sixteen, ‘The two doorkeepers of Vaikuntha, Jaya and VIjaya, cursed by the sages’.
Right quadrant of ayagapatta showing s’rivatsa motif Site: Manoharpura (on the Delhi-Jaipur highway), Kusana late 1st-3rd century, 50 CE - 299 CE Red sandstone, Lucknow state museum (A curving fish-tail enveloping the tied fish in the center, that is, one S motif and its inverse on either side tie up the fish in the center).
http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=30000348&detail=large
This is the cental motif of twin fish enveloping the central motif, thus constituting the s’rivatsa. The second image of the second section of the ayagapatta also found at Manoharpura, is now at National Museum, New Delhi.
http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=30000353&detail=large
These images are definitive indicators of the evolution of the s’rivatsa (or curved W motif) in bharatiya metaphors across the entire gamut of panthas of dharma-dhamma continuum in relating the motif to Narayana, the Buddha (Bauddha) or the Tirthankaras (Jaina).
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/museums/delhi/dm_begram2_th.jpg
S’rivatsa on Jain votive plaque. Ayagapata. Mathura UP, Kankali Tila. Kushana (2nd c. CE). 65 x 57.5 cm. J249 (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1985), no. 39, p. 105
S’ri_vatsa or Nandipa_da glyphs are derived from a pair of fishes as seen on many artifacts and on the necklaces worn by yakshi on sculptures.
S’ri_vatsa symbol [with its hundreds of stylized variants, depicted on Pl. 29 to 32] occurs in Bogazkoi (Central Anatolia) dated ca. 6th to 14th cent. BCE on inscriptions:
The symbol occurs in Mathura (ca. 2nd to 1st cent. BCE) and in Sa_n~ci_ (ca. 2nd –1st cent. BCE).
Sarnath, Va_ra_n.asi, UP, Railing fragment, Sarnath Museum, No. 422 (AIIS, VNS, A27.33)[Pl. XX, 8]
Bharhut Stu_pa, south gate corner pillar, c. 2nd cent. BCE, Indian Museum, Calcutta, 27.72, (AIIS, VNS, 242.34)[Pl. XX, 9]
Sarnath, Rail post, c. 1st cent. BCE, Sarnath Museum No. 420 (AIIS, VNS, 200.13)[Pl. XX, 10]
A Nasik cave inscription has s’ri_vatsa superimposed on nandipa_da symbol and is ascribed to ca. 2nd cent. BCE. [Note: nandipa_da is made up of two fish-tails joined together; s’ri_vatsa encloses a fish within two fish-tails].
The evolution of the s’ri_vatsa symbol is vividly described as related to a pair of ‘fish’. This is apparent from the two fish-tails exquisitely sculpted on Sa_n~ci_ Stu_pa (c. 2nd cent. BCE) and also in Sarnath railings and Bharhut stu_pa.
[Pl. 33, S’rivatsa, Nandipa_da-Triratna at: Bhimbetka, Sa_n~ci_, Sarnath and Mathura]
swastika seal, Mohenjodaro, steatite. National Museum, Karachi. http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=25001555&detail=large
Gold amulet, beaded svastika. Sirkap. ca. first century BCE to fourth century CE, 100 BCE - 300 CE, National Museum, Karachi. http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=10954&detail=large
Architectural fragment with svastika. Sarnath. Beige sandstone. ca. seventh century CE, 601 CE - 700 CE. Sarnath site museum, Uttarpradesh.
http://huntington.wmc.ohio-state.edu/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=showThisDetail&ObjectID=2932&detail=large
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