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Chapter 2 the Fire Ritual in a Newar Buddhist Context

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Chapter 2 the Fire Ritual in a Newar Buddhist Context 25 2 3 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 5 1.1. Research questions, aims and methods ......................................................................... 5 1.2. Sources: Visual materials ................................................................................................ 8 1.3. Sources: The Kriyāsaṃgrahapañjikā and a priest’s manual ........................................... 8 1.4. Sources: Anthropological accounts................................................................................. 9 1.5. Terminology .................................................................................................................. 10 Chapter 2 The fire ritual in a Newar Buddhist context ...................................................... 11 2.1. Homa as a tantric ritual and its place in Newar Buddhist practice .............................. 12 2.1.1. Tantric homa .......................................................................................................... 12 2.1.2. Classifying homa .................................................................................................... 13 2.1.3. Homa in Newar rituals of consecration ................................................................. 14 2.2. Key aspects of homa in Newar fire rituals .................................................................... 19 2.2.1. Actors: Priest and patron ....................................................................................... 19 2.2.2. Place: Establishing the fire pit ................................................................................ 21 2.2.3. Attributes: The ritual implements ......................................................................... 22 2.2.4. Actions: The offerings ............................................................................................ 23 Chapter 3 The iconography of homa in Nepalese paubhās .............................................. 27 3.1. Selection of materials ................................................................................................... 27 3.2. The composition of the lower register ......................................................................... 28 3.2.1. Category 1: A lower register divided into panels .................................................. 29 3.2.2. Category 2: A continuous lower register ............................................................... 30 3.3. Actors and actions: The priest offering oblations into the fire .................................... 31 3.4. Actors and actions: The assistant to the priest............................................................. 33 3.5. Actors and actions: The yajamāna and his family ........................................................ 35 3.6. Attributes: Ritual implements in the fire sacrifice ........................................................ 36 3.6.1. Offering a seat to the deities: The pūrṇakalaśa and kalaśa .................................. 37 3.6.2. Worshipping the deities through a maṇḍala ......................................................... 39 3.7. Place: The sacrificial fire as the virtual centre of action ............................................... 42 3.8. A canopy covering a sacred space ................................................................................ 44 3.9. Images ........................................................................................................................... 47 4 Chapter 4 Nepalese paubhās as historical evidence on fire rituals ................................... 59 4.1. The artistic tradition ..................................................................................................... 60 4.1.1. Composing the artworks: An Inner Asian International Style ............................... 60 4.1.2. Composition and motifs in Indian and Nepalese manuscript covers .................... 61 4.1.3. Composition and motifs in pedestals and a stone slab from Pāla India................ 63 4.2. Artistic conventions: Rules on iconography and idealisation ....................................... 68 4.3. Paubhās as sacred icons ............................................................................................... 70 4.4. The nature of homa images: Eyewitness accounts or artistic motifs? ......................... 71 4.5. Images ........................................................................................................................... 75 Chapter 5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 85 5.1. Homa as an artistic motif .............................................................................................. 85 5.1.1. Positioning and composing the homa image ........................................................ 85 5.1.2. Central features of Newar homa and parallel iconographies ............................... 86 5.2. Rituals of consecration? ................................................................................................ 87 5.3. Ritual realities: Homa as an eyewitness account ......................................................... 88 5.3.1. A unique Newar development? ............................................................................. 88 5.3.2. Between artistic rules and ritual realities .............................................................. 89 5.4. Further research ........................................................................................................... 90 6. Glossary ....................................................................................................... 93 7. References ................................................................................................... 99 8. Images ....................................................................................................... 107 Appendix 1: Sanskrit texts .............................................................................. 111 Appendix 2: Selected paubhās ....................................................................... 115 5 Chapter 1 Introduction The Kathmandu Valley (Nepal) has been hosting a unique painting tradition with testimonies being preserved up until today, such as scroll-paintings on cloth (Skt.: paṭa; New.: paubhā).1 These paintings contain a unique image, that does not seem to be present in the more popularly known, Tibetan scroll-painting, the thangka. Nepalese paubhās display a lower register in which several motifs appear, such as the donors of the artwork. Another pattern recurring in these registers is homa, the fire sacrifice. The images of fire rituals in the lower registers of paubhās are the object of study of this thesis. 1.1. Research questions, aims and methods Many Nepalese paintings have been studied in the later half of the 20th century up until today, but only a few scholars have paid attention to the iconography of the homa images.2 These paintings, minor though they are, appear to show us the performance of a fire ritual in a specific South Asian cultural context. The study of rituals tends to focus on textual sources, and to ignore the material culture attached to a religious tradition. David Morgan, Professor of Religious Studies and Art History at Duke University (North Carolina, USA), argues that both texts and images make a religion manifest to its followers. A priority of one medium over the other in the study of religion is therefore not desirable. A much richer picture on belief emerges out of a study of the interaction between the two media, as they are closely intertwined and nourish one another (Morgan 2005, 21). In the case of the material culture of the Kathmandu Valley, scholars have equally signalled the tendency to study only the iconography of Buddhist and Hindu images, without taking into account the ritual context in which these functioned and of which they are testimonies.3 1 In this thesis, I use the Newari term paubhā instead of the Sanskrit paṭa as these paintings were made by Newars. According to Margriet Blom, painters in the Kathmandu Valley “were always Newars” and “invariably Buddhists” (1989, 5). They belong to the hereditary group (jāti) of the Citrakārs (New. Pũ) and are responsible for religious paintings in particular (Toffin 1995, 240-242). 2 Detailed studies of the iconography of homa scenes in the lower registers of paubhās are included in the following publications: Monod-Bruhl 1959, Huntington and Bangdel 2003, and Bühnemann 2008. 3 Macdonald and Vergati-Stahl 1979, 2; von Rospatt, A Survival of Mahāyāna Buddhism in Nepal: A Fresh Appraisal, 173: https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/4- publikationen/buddhismus-in-geschichte-und-gegenwart/bd6-k10rospatt.pdf. Accessed June 27, 2017. 6 When studying the homa images, scholars have related them either to the rituals of consecrating the paubhā, or to specific rituals performed for the deities or sacred events in the central section of the painting. Pratapaditya Pal for instance, relates the homa scene in a Candra-maṇḍala paubhā to rituals of consecration,4 while Dina Bangdel states that the painted fire sacrifice in the lower register of a Vasundharā-maṇḍala scroll can be related to the performance of a ritual dedicated to the central goddess.5 This information is primarily gained from a reading of the inscriptions found in the paubhās themselves.6 No systematic study has been made of this motif
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