The mythic dimension pdf

Too many incidents have been reported, however, to discount something that was, usually during times of famine, practiced by primal people worldwide. But what purpose would a ritual played out in reverse serve? Although he uses it to make a point, that creativity is to be found among the rebellious, which he unfortunately links to a tasteless joke, the storyteller subsumes the scholar, perhaps leaving a prejudiced reader to wonder.

In his first book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the one that made him a popular culture figure, Campbell presented his inspired theory of the monomyth , c. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, Campbell had had his epiphany; he knew who God was and set out to tell the world. We are talking about our idea of God. All through his ministry Eckhart was threatened with excommunication, but he always defended himself so brilliantly that only after he died was the Church able to extract its pound of soul.

This fate has befallen many great teachers, and indeed, Joseph Campbell was a masterful teacher. The Mythic Dimension was originally published in by HarperCollins. New World Library acquired the rights in order to add it to their series of the Collected Work of Joseph Campbell, which includes ten other titles. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Oxford University Press.

The Cave Bear Story. New York: Columbia University Press. Larsen, Stephen. Kenneth L. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Lloyd, Elizabeth. Mathews, R. Parker, Katie Langloh. The Euahlayi Tribe. London: Archibald Constable and Company, Ltd. The Eternal Ones of the Dream. New York: International Universities Press.

The Cannibalisation. Genealogies of Shamanism. Download PDF. The casting is so perfect that the metal flows effortlessly through constrictions and incorporates the elephant and the lion on the lotus pedestal and connects the floating discs through a squared shaft. While casting, the sculptor is the controller of fire, a function associated with religion and magic.

And by combining raw material in the right quantity and producing a magical object out of fire and alchemy of metal alloy elevates him to the realm of the creator god. Through the process of art, the transmutation of common clay is thus transformed into an enduring image of great power. The Gajasimha motif from a pre-dominantly Buddhist culture of the Pala period has to be studied in its historic context.

The victorious campaigns of Yasovarman of Malawa in the third to fourth decades of the 8th century CE brought Magadha and other areas under his sway and set the stage for a cultural renaissance in the region. During this period stupa, architecture was revived as funerary monuments and monasteries were built in several sites, such as Nalanda Site-3, Maniyar Math at Rajgir, and temples at Bhagalpur and Bodhgaya. The cultural ferment of the period evolved new artistic tradition and style in the art of Bihar, which finds echoes in Central and South-East Asia, attesting to cross-cultural influences.

Yasovarman paved the way for the Pala Dynasty that flourished between the eighth and tenth centuries. Under the Palas, a distinct school in art and architecture developed with Nalanda as the center.

The most distinct form of art of the Pala period is manuscript painting and sculpture. Sculpture in bronze is particularly distinguished coming from Nalanda and Bodhgaya Kurkihara.

Just as the Sarnath capital exemplifies the Mauryan culture, the bronze Gajasimha from Nalanda is emblematic of the Pala period. The small-scale bronze idols from Kurkihara are generally seated on a throne flanked by Gajasimha. The archaeologist S. Gupta and others are convinced that the single specimen of Nalanda Gajasimha is part of a Simhasana, although it lacks the structural components to be part of a throne.

Significantly, no such Simhasana of historic value is available to support the claim. The rare Gajasimha is also believed to be a capital detached from the shaft of a free- standing pillar. Although its correspondence to the Mauryan pillar is striking, the solid metal sculpture has neither tenon nor mortice to anchor it firmly to a shaft. The bronze sculpture lacks structural features to identify it as part of either a throne or a pillar.

In comparison, the religious iconography proves its cult significance and establishes its identity as an icon originally used in worship. It should be noted, however, apart from its religious significance, the identity of the Nalanda Gajsimha as a cult image is just as hypothetical as its identification as part of a throne or a pillar.

Despite the arguments regarding the function of the enigmatic Pala bronze, the symbolic structure of an empty throne, a non-structural pillar, and Gajasimha have identical meanings. They all denote divinity, whether seen as independent units or as part of a whole. In the sculpture the elephant participates in the solar quality of the lion and instead of suffering the fate of the vanquished, he glorifies in the act of carrying the solar deity. As such the elephant is depicted in a joyful posture as he accommodates the lion on his back by sinking low on his hind legs and rising gallantly on his forelegs.

The trunk of the elephant, which is curled inward is modeled with such sensitivity that it captures the suspended moment when the elephant is about to raise the trunk to trumpet its triumph. The artist had intimate knowledge of the living animal. The wide flare of ears, the smiling countenance, and the sensuous form of the elephant denote the scudding clouds on which the fierce solar lion with flaming mane rides the sky from dawn to dusk.

The sun, symbolized as the sun, is the supreme lord of heaven, the creator who confers immortality upon his offspring.

The Nalanda bronze is a metaphor for the ruler of heaven and earth, Surya who begets life on earth and holds out the promise of eternity; hence worthy of adoration and appeasement. As an object of worship, the bronze icon was probably placed on a plinth within a shrine and was worshipped with flowers and libation of consecrated water from the Ganges, to the accompaniment of invocation and prayer.

The Buddha is not a personal name and according to the Buddhist tradition, a Buddha has appeared from time to time and will continue to do so, whenever Dharma is lost.

Since all have the potential to become a Buddha, the values inherent in Amitabha are a quest to all the devotees of the Buddha. Seen in this context, the bronze Gajasimha is emblematic of the radiant and immortal Amitabha Buddha and as such a spiritually endowed icon. The symbolic nature of the Buddhist icon has been established at the foundation of the Buddhist tradition that proscribed representation of the Buddha in anthropomorphic form.

All the ideas enumerated here are coded in the Nalanda Gajasimha, which serves as a symbol of the solar deity. Ananda Coomaraswamy has rightly observed that when the meaning of a symbol is lost, the form becomes a mere ornament. Nevertheless, from the dawn of civilization art has been inseparable from the spiritual aspirations of man and the lion has been one of the zoomorphic forms of the solar deity in ancient cultures. In the Nalanda bronze, the corresponding energy of the sun is transferred to the lotus pedestal, which is inexorably linked to the twin discs that rise like an umbrella above the lion.

While the lotus symbolizes the sun as well as signifies the presence of germinating water, the two discs symbolize celestial bodies, in particular, the sun at its zenith and sunset.

The upper-most disc is designed like the vault of heaven and is ornamented by lotus boss finial, while the lower disc is placed under its shadow. In between the two discs is a short shaft, square in section, which signifies the four corners of the universe, over which the solar deity reigns supreme. However, the Gajasimha is not an exercise to differentiate positive and negative forces but an invocation to propitiate cosmic forces to assist 2 Pramod Chanda, The Sculpture of India BCAD.

It is important to note that among the four sacred creatures of good omen, lion and elephant are inseparable and co-exist with the bull and the horse, all invariably associated with the sun.

Thus, the Gajasimha is an emblem of the sun and was obviously at the focus of sun worship. Concept and image are so closely interlinked that the elephant is incorporated as an astral symbol and occurs in conjecture with the solar lion and the lotus as a dendromorphic form of the sun. Though the sculpture is a museum object and is reputed to be part of an imperial throne, the spiritual element inherent in the sculpture is palpable enough to link it to the sun cult, which is still prevalent in several parts of India, including Bihar.

Solar energy is often worshipped as an emblematic pillar, such as the Suriakanta Shila in Bengal. It is not surprising that the compact form of the Nalanda Gajasimha evokes the form of a column, hence its allusion to the Ashoka Pillar 0. The first form of the sun is Indra, Lord of Gods and the destroyer of enemies.

He is also the creator and giver of rain. Indra rides on a cloud, personified as a white elephant called Airawata. Above all, he lives in all corporeal forms. Hence the bronze Gajasimha is not only a symbol of the supreme Indra but is also the dwelling of Surya worthy of worship. As Varuna, he resides in the waters and vivifies the universe and like Mitra, he dwells in the orb of the moon, for the benefit of the three worlds. The Sumerian idea of the graded stages of a universe survives through many transformations of myths of Gajasimha.

Through symbolic means, Gajasimha is an extraordinary rendering of a solar deity known to culminate in the anthropomorphic form after several animal Avatars. The primeval elephant and the lion as a predator are symbols of power; however, combined as a solar symbol, the Gajasimha is a fabulous vehicle of ascension. Just as an abstract representation of a throne indicates the presence of a divine being, the bronze sculpture of Gajasimha also operates independently as a symbol of divine presence.

The juxtaposition of the elephant and the lion in friendly co-existence dissolves the barrier, which is perceived in nature. There is no rigid division between the phantom and reality, truth and falsehood, at least not where human purpose and human action come into their own. Art and Illusion London: Phaidon, p. In the world of symbols, the distinction between reality and make-believe is itself unreal. In the communication of abstract ideas, the visual perception is generalized into a schema in which the nature of cosmic reality is articulated using a particular symbol, or an image that goes beyond a particular feat of abstraction.

Man, poised between instinct and rationality finds expression in the twin world of symbolism with its suspension of disbelief. The abstraction of a symbolic message demonstrates the propensity of the human mind to offer various interpretations to a subject. In this idea, we may find the roots of art in the mechanism of projection, in the filing system of our mind.

The Gajasimha is the complete embodiment of an idea that is typical in its most lasting and changeless form to ensure its magic validity to people of all faiths, Buddhist, Hindu, and others, hopefully, untouched by the flux of time. An Orissan temple deul consists of a sanctum, one or several front porches jagamohana usually with pyramidal roofs, a dancing hall nata mandir , and a hall for offerings bhog mandir.