Ardhanarishvara is one of the most prevalent forms of the Divine in Indian art since around the beginning of the Christian era or a little before. The earliest Ardhanarishvara images are reported from the period of Kushanas (circa 35-60 AD). A few scholars discover an Ardhanarishvara type figure on the obverse of a largely defaced Kushana coin from this period, which they think could be the ever first reported Ardhanarishvara image. The coin seems to have the Shiva icon but as Ardhanarishvara it has little approval. It is instead a mid-first century Kushana stele, now with the Government Museum, Mathura, which as the earliest reported example of the Ardhanarishvara form in art has greater unanimity. In the Rigveda and the subsequent body of Indian thought, there is a lot suggestive of the unity of male and female elements, which instruments creation. However, besides such symbolic dimensions, the Vedic literature makes no direct allusion to the Ardhanarishvara form or to a term suggestive of such androgynous form. Hence, there are scholars who claim that the Ardhanarishvara form is an art perception, a product of mans queer imagination, a quaint anatomy seeking to reconcile the ever conflicting male and female elements into one Divine form. Ardhanarishvara: The Cosmic Seed The Ardhanarishvara is, thus, the Cosmic Seed, which is both, the pistil and the anther, the Pita and the Mata, the Prana and the Aprana, the Nara and the Nari, the Bhuta and the Prana, the matter and the spirit, the Prakriti and the Purusha and so on, that is, the ultimate perception of the biological union of the outward duality. It is the assertion of the fact that the creation is instrumented only when duality merges into absolute oneness. The single one, even when he is the mighty Shiva, or even two- the male and the female, unless they merge into inseparable oneness, can not instrument creation. For effecting creation, the one is required to split into two and the two to merge into one. The Ardhanarishvara form is constant, which affirms the continuity and the recurrence of the creative process, as the fusion of pistil and anther creates Seed- the Golden Egg and the Seed splits into the pistil and anther and thus the procreative process goes on endlessly. For effecting the creation, the fusion has to be absolute, that is, not only the male and female elements have to merge into oneness but also their act, which the scriptures have identified as copulation, in which all distinctions, even the femaleness and the maleness of the agents, vanish. Copulation has been, hence, considered as the absolute union and the proven instrument of procreation. The bride and her groom also perform one act- the marriage, but in the process their femaleness and maleness do not melt as they do in the act of copulation. Hence, marriage only partially creates. It creates at the most a bond. Copulation creates the seed, which is both, the male and the female, and puts the wheel of creation on move. The act of copulation thus represents not only the androgynous state of mind but, if reduced to a form, also the hermaphroditism of the Ardhanarishvara form. The Matsya Purana, and with a little deviation the Linga Purana, perceive Ardhanarishvara as the composite form of Linga and Yoni. The Ardhanarishvara in such form is suggestive of the same procreative act of copulation, which creates Seed. Otherwise also, Shiva and Parvati- his consort, are perceived as the timeless Linga and Yoni and as symbolizing the unending act of procreation. Thus, the Ardhanarishvara form is not only the Cosmic Seed but it also represents the unending procreative act- the Cosmic Copulation. exoticindiaart/article/ardhanarishvara/
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 01:24:03 +0000
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