Pandanus ’09: Nature in Literature, Art, Myth and Ritual

It is a pleasure to present the Indological public with the first set of papers read at the Pandanus International Seminar, which was held in Prague in the beginning of June 2009 and which is the result of broad international co-operation between several European and also Indian Universities (cf. http://iu.ff.cuni.cz/pandanus/publications/pandanus-mission-statement.php). The Pandanus Seminar was held in commemoration of Prof. Kamil V. Zvelebil, the founder of Czech Tamil studies and an internationally respected scholar in Tamil language and literature and Dravidian studies, who passed away in January 2009. These two issues of Pandanus ’09 are dedicated to Prof. K.V. Zvelebil’s memory.

The papers are arranged topically in agreement with the sections of the Seminar (the Program is attached to the second volume), with only a few exceptions dictated by the need of having the coloured photos in one volume. However, this is only the first set of papers read at the Pandanus Seminar; the remaining papers will be published in the next volume of Pandanus ’10. Besides the Seminar papers, we have also included the review section and one contribution to the discussion on a recent discovery of Aśoka’s Minor Rock Edict I in India.

The Pandanus Seminars are organised as part of the Project ‘The Foundations of Modern World in the Mirror of Literature and Philosophy’ supported by the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic. The 2009 Pandanus Seminar was co-sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi. The organisers would like to express their gratitude for this support to Dr. Neeru Misra, Director of the I.C.C.R., and to the Indian Embassy in Prague, particularly to the Indian Ambassador H.E. Mr. D.P. Srivastava, and to the First Secretary of the Indian Embassy, Mr. Manish, for their active co-operation.

Gardens in early India were conceived as pieces of nature which served as ideal places for religious life, refreshment for the body and mind and for pleasure. They are either a piece of nature or artificial forests embellished with certain artifacts. The superb gardens are imagined as replicas of Nandana, Indra’s celestial garden, or Caitratha, Kubera’s heavenly garden. A close investigation is being made into the semantical field of the key terms denoting various types of gardens such as akrida, arama, upavana, kanana, pramadavana / pramadavana and vata / vatika in Sanskrit kavya literature. Although these terms reveal a great deal of functional differences of gardens, kavya authors frequently use them as synonyms. This latter usage markedly differs from that of the Sanskrit kośakaras. Special attention is paid to the plants and various appurtenances in gardens.

In spite of appearances, Veda and kavya share some crucial features. Amongst these features one notes the importance of cosmopoietic function. In fact the Vedic seers are said to be "creators of beings". Moreover, they are the base of royalty. Nevertheless, it is the Word that possesses the real cosmopoietic power: the seers possess this power only insofar as they manifest the Word, which creates and orders the natural world. The Word's cosmopoietic power transfers ideally from the rsi to the kavi. The figure of kavi was probably deliberately modelled on that of rsi, so that it matched particular socio-political projects: the re-foundation of royal power, the elaboration of a model of universal domination, the universalization of a learned community.

This is an attempt to re-order the Sangam corpus of eighteen texts based on textual readings informed by the concept of ritual as performed in the different landscapes. Prof. Vaiyapuripillai and others have classified the texts and dated them based on content and stylistic aspects. His school has established the need to read the Sangam texts in the context of the chronology each of them belongs to. This article attempts to reiterate that methodology by establishing the interconnections between rituals found in the texts and the socio-historical changes that were taking place in the Tamil country in that period. By establishing the dates of the texts within the corpus, this paper attempts to undo the prevalent reading of these texts as belonging to one homogenous context cutting through centuries.

As in the case of its great predecessor, the Ramayana of Valmiki, the very title of the Forest Book (Aranyakanda) of the 16th-century Ramcaritmanas by Tulsidas (1532–1623) seems to suggest that it provides its reader with descriptions of flora and fauna, landscapes and natural phenomena typical of wilderness. However, the actual situation stands in sharp contrast with this presupposition – this book contains only a few descriptions of nature per se, although relatively rich ‘natural’ terminology can be easily found scattered all over it.

The main aim of this article is to investigate these passages in which Tulsidas uses the descriptions and terms relating to forest and other natural phenomena, as well as to consider what purpose they serve.

Landscapes obviously play a very important role in cinematic representation. In Hindi popular cinema the choice of a landscape – as background, or as part of the scene itself – is meant to convey some definite conventional meanings. As in classical drama and literature, for example, so also in cinema paradisiacal natural settings are the traditional locations of romantic love. Contemporary Bollywood films seem to have extended and refined the selection of landscapes to depict new themes and more complex feelings. This paper proposes to identify the conscious use of some of these landscapes, in connection with the themes of romance and cultural identity in a more globalized scenario.

A globular object held by Visnu in his lower right hand has troubled scholars for decades. No text, neither a narrative nor an iconographic one, provides any information about that attribute. This situation generated a wide range of suggestions: bijapuraka (citrus fruit), bilva (bel fruit), citraphala (bright or spotted fruit), seed of lotus, boss, vibhuti (ball of ashes). From the 7th century onwards this object is replaced by a lotus in India.

In Khmer tradition this object, attested by inscriptions, was unanimously taken to be the earth (mahi, dharani). In Cambodia it was never replaced by a lotus.

So the question came up: is there any intrinsic affinity between the round object, considered to be the earth, and a lotus? Indeed many puranic accounts of the creation of the universe identify the earth with a lotus. Not any lotus, but that one on which Brahma was seated when rising from Visnu’s navel. This Vaisnava-flavoured doctrine replaces – in the period after Kalidasa – an independent creator, Brahma Svayambhu, with a dependent creator, Brahma Padmasambhava, acting on behalf of Visnu.

Brahma’s lotus is the highest form of the earth (Matsyapurana 169.3). The round object in Visnu’s hand represents, both in India and Cambodia, the earth.

This research focuses on the figure of the ‘woman and tree’, derived from the old pan-Indian substrate of the yaksi, as elaborated and developed in the architectural complex of Cenna Keśava, Belur, Karnataka. In this temple are the so-called madanikas; they are stelae about 1.5m high each, representing a female figure in a finely engraved arboreal frame, and located in a very prominent position. The evolution of the theme contributes towards making these madanikas rather different from the classical Buddhist and Hindu model of the “woman and tree”, and this could slightly shift their meaning, or show unexpected connections. In fact, they are not portrayed in the canonical standing posture, but while performing some action: dancing, combing their hair or hunting.

This study will focus especially on the representation, among these madanikas, of the figure of the huntress as a key element which appears to be still open to various possible interpretations.

The description of a garden in kavya literature usually goes hand in hand with the subject of love. This is not the case with the Sarvadevavilasa, however. This late eighteenth century Sanskrit work, although introduced as a campu, has its own specific features. In a very realistic manner it depicts life in Madras (Cennapuri) in the time of the East India Company at the turn of the century. It seems that the gardens which belonged to the local nobles were the centres of intellectual life of the city. There is no remark about the gardens owned by Englishmen but as is well known the Company directors as well as the Company itself possessed some of them. In the 19th century the idea of raising garden houses set on huge pieces of land became popular. It is still possible to find the old garden houses, even if some of them are well-hidden or dilapidated and the gardens reduced, in Chennai today.