Matangalila and Hastyayurveda (study)
by Chandrima Das | 2021 | 98,676 words
This page relates ‘Gaja-Lakshmi motif’ of the study on the Matangalina and Hastyayurveda in the light of available epigraphic data on elephants in ancient India. Both the Matanga-Lila (by Nilakantha) and and the Hasti-Ayurveda (by Palakapya) represent technical Sanskrit works deal with the treatment of elephants. This thesis deals with their natural abode, capturing techniques, myths and metaphors, and other text related to elephants reflected from a historical and chronological cultural framework.
Gaja-Lakṣmī motif
Purāṇic accounts stated that during the churning of Milk Ocean, appeared the goddess–Śrī, delight of Viṣṇu, radiant, seated on an open lotus, the great sky elephants anointed her with water brought by Gaṅgā and poured from golden vessels.[1] Numerous epigraphic records bear Gaja-Lakṣmī symbol on their seals. The adoration of Gaja-Lakṣmī, is a recurring motif in Buddhist, Jain and Brahmanical iconography. One of the railing medallions of stūpa 2, a pilaster medallion on the Daśāvatāra Temple in Deogara, doorway of the seventh century CE Buddhist vihāra in Ratnagiri, Orissa, ādināth Temple (western India), in Kailāśnāth Temple at Ellora and other sculptural motifs hold Gaja-Lakṣmī emblem on them.
Image given below is from an early medieval Śiva temple in Malhar, Chhattisgarh, this not only depicts a Gaja-Lakṣmī / Abhiṣeka-Lakṣmī sculpture, but also shows how a row of elephants took water in queue to pour it on the head of the goddess under the supervision of māhuts or elephants riders seen on the back of elephants standing near the goddess. The most interesting feature is the water-pots in the trunks of two elephants beside Goddess Lakṣmī, are very clear in the picture. This picture also indicates that abhiṣeka of Lakṣmī was not just a sculptural concept but it was one of the prevailed rituals in early India.
[16. Gaja-Lakṣmī image from an early medieval Śiva temple, Malhar. Courtesy: Susmita Basu Majumdar]