Hindu Art

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I'm Quinn Rose, and I didn't go to art school, but I still love learning about art and hearing all about it from my cohost.

Betty: Hi, and I'm Betty. I also didn't go to art school, but I obviously also love learning about art. I actually learned a lot this week. Most of it are stuff that I didn't know before, so I'm very excited to talk about it.

Quinn: Today's the very last day of our little mini series on religious art traditions. And I am so excited to hear all about Hindu art.

Betty: Like we talked about last episode, we kind of inadvertently, or, you know, didn't plan it, but like we went back in time in terms of like going from, I guess, the newest religion to the oldest or one of the oldest, most likely the oldest—I’ll talk about that in a second—which is Hinduism. And it is a religion that, you know, I obviously have heard of, but just don't know very much about. So it was, it was very exciting to kind of learn an overview about Hinduism and then look at some of the artworks that have been created over the thousands of years that it's been around. So the interesting thing about Hinduism is that unlike some of the other religions we talked about like Christianity or Islam, like as far as we know, there's no known single founder, no spokesperson or prophet. So like its origins are of, of like a mixture of origins basically, and it's quite complex. And as I mentioned before, it is really old. So according to historians and archeologists it's believed that it probably originated as far back as the third to second millennium BCE during the Indus Valley civilization. So that's like 5,000 years ago. So that's the earliest sources that they can find of Hindu traditions. So although it didn't really become like a dominant religion in Southeast Asia until around the fourth century CE. I didn't even know it was that old.

Quinn: It is really funny how we keep going back in time with these. Cause I remember talking in the Islamic art episode, being like this stuff is so old and like we've gone back literally thousands of years from that point to here. And I'm like, I don't know. I'm American, everything seems so old to me.

Betty: I know, it's so funny. We like, even in the Christianity episode, I was like, oh, this is from the Roman catacombs from the year 200. It is so long ago, like, you know, it is a long time ago, but this is more than double the oldness of Christianity. Like I said before, like it has a mixture of different influences. And so like, one of the things about Hinduism is also that it's not, I guess it's not as strict in terms of its like dogma and traditions. Like, it actually accepts a lot of traditions from other cultures and other religions and it isn't so much, like, it isn't so much like stringent on, it has to follow a certain set of rules. There obviously are certain traditions and certain rituals which we'll talk about in a little bit. But one of the things is that it shares a lot of similar characteristics as Buddhism. And apparently both of these religions go back to the foundational texts, which are the Vedas and the Upanishads. Hinduism differs from Buddhism in a lot of different ways. And we don't have time to get into that right now, but one of the major differences is that Hinduism follows a caste system whereas Buddhism doesn’t. That's not the only difference, but it's probably one that most people have heard of. So I had thought that unlike the other religions we talked about that Hinduism is polytheistic, which means that there's not just one God, but apparently this is not technically true. I welcome anyone who knows more about Hinduism to correct me. Because what I've read is that there actually is one true God in Hinduism called Brahma. But Brahma can manifest itself in different forms. So I guess he can transform into other gods. Like he can even transform like genders and like all kinds of, I guess like abilities and different things. So it's more like there is one God, but people pray to all these different gods because the one God transforms into all these other ones. That is the way I understand it.

Quinn: Oh, I feel like that's a really cool kind of system, because I feel like that’s—I mean, as we talked about before, like my major religious framework is Christianity and I feel like that's the function of saints in Christianity where you have like, they're not gods, but they're specific holy figures for specific causes. And they're like the agents of the capital G God. And so it feels like a similar framework, but instead of being like, oh, like these are, these are saints who are just dead people. It's like, oh, it's the one God who’s transforming for different purposes.

Betty: It is kind of like that. Although it is probably similar to the Trinity, how’s there’s the father and son and holy ghost, but they're like one entity is what most Christians believe. So in Hinduism is kind of like that cause there is also a trinity system which I think is Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. Like they are different gods, but they transform into each other. So I think it's more like that they're on equal levels with each other, although there are like lesser gods in Hinduism as well, which we won't have time to talk about all of them. I'm probably just going to cover some of the major ones. So there are about 1 billion people who are Hindus in the world. But also it is 80% of India's population. But obviously there's other countries in Southeast Asia that also have a lot of people that practice Hinduism, but probably a lot of the examples I'll be talking about today are from India. And what I want to start with are Hindu temples because they are similar to what we talked about before. Like mosques and synagogues and churches and places of worship. Like there's just, it's a significant part of Hinduism. And the architecture and the sculptures quite often in these temples are morphing into each other. Like it's a very interconnected system. There's again, there are so many Hindu temples and I'm going to just talk about one today. Cause it is one of the coolest places that I have ever seen. I'm going to—so sorry, before I talk about this temple, like an overview of Hindu temple is is that the sculptors, they're not just decoration and adornment. They're like an important part of the temple’s meaning and an important part of the people's worship. And then they're frequently like really organic in terms of design and basically every temple is dedicated to one of the gods. So there will be a temple dedicated to Shiva. There'll be a temple dedicated to Vishnu. So I just sent you a link to this temple. So it's called the Kailasa Temple at Ellora. And it is located in India. So it's in the state of Maharastra and in the district of Aurangabad—I hope I pronounced that correctly because I looked up and there were different pronunciations. But anyway, it's a temple, that from what I read, carved out of the side of a cliff and it's carved out of a single piece of rock. Like it's not like a built masonry—it’s not like people were building stones on top of each other. It's like, it's carved out. So it's kind of like the negative space of this stumble is what was worked on, I guess.

Quinn: That is so cool. How do you even do that? 

Betty: Exactly. I have no idea, or I mean, there are—sorry, there are, I'm not going to talk too much about like the construction and the building of the temple. Cause that's like a lot of information, we could spend this whole episode just talking about this one temple. But it was built in around 757 to 783 CE. Like almost 1300 years ago. So this one is dedicated to the god Shiva and it was commissioned by King Krishna the first, who reigned the Rashtrakuta Dynasty at the time. Like it's a way for the king to show devotion to the god Shiva and then subsequently the worshipers would come to this temple. And I believe people still come to this temple. Like it’s a major destination for Hindus but it's also a UNESCO World Heritage site. So I presume there may be some tourism as well. I mean, it looks so cool that like, if I ever go to India, I want to see this. 

Quinn: Yeah, this is gorgeous. So is this a common way that temples are built or is this one unique?

Betty: As far as I know, like it's not unique as in it's not the only one. Actually in this mountain range, there are like 16 temples. Not all of it are Hindu temple. Some of it are Buddhist temples, but a lot of it are Hindu temples. So it does exist. There's definitely more than one, but it does—I don't think all Hindu temples are like, some are actually built from the ground up, in places not next to mountains and cliffs. 

Quinn: Wow. A mountain range of temples is a very cool idea.

Betty: Yeah. That's the thing is like in this the Ellora caves, there are apparently like 16 temples, like you could spend a month just exploring all the temples in this one area. So one of the cool things is you see like a lot of these like free standing columns that shoot up. And again they, and then they have sculptures of like the God that's carved on top of them and like around them as well. And like, it's basically—Hindu art and architecture is very complex. Like if anyone's ever seen a Hindu sculpture, they're often, they have like multiple heads and multiple limbs. And you can view it from like 360 degrees, there's like a face or a figure like on every side. So it's, it's almost like there is no space in this temple that wasn't used to like depict something, whether it's like a God or there's actually like panels that have scenes from the scripture that I mentioned earlier on some of the temple walls.

Quinn: It’s hard to try to think of how to describe this for someone who's not looking at it right now, because it's like, okay, like it's a temple and it's carved out of rock. And that’s like very clear, but it's so interesting cause it's so different than like, if you just told me to imagine it a stone temple, right. Like I can do that and this doesn't not look like that, but there's also something about it. Like it's so clear that this was just carved out of the stone here. Like there's a lot of it, even though it’s very detailed work and very beautiful work. There is something about it that's still a bit rough. It's still a bit like, oh, you can, when you say like, oh, this was just carved out of the rock here. It’s like, yeah, that makes sense. It doesn't look unnaturally smooth, like there's something about it that still looks quite natural which it almost creates this illusion in your mind of that this just naturally formed out of this cliff face here, which is such a cool effect. And also, I don't know if I'm just like nature starved because I live in Chicago, even seeing this picture where it's like carved out of this mountain range and you can see like the lush green in the background and I'm like, oh my God, that's beautiful. That's not even about the art, that's just about trees.

Betty: But yeah, exactly. It's like a lot of times architecture and nature are seen as like, basically opposite things because there's the outside and there's the inside, but this one, like it integrates so well with the surrounding landscape. It's really cool. And yet, yeah, actually one of the reasons why this temple is really famous and also like a UNESCO site is that apparently it is one of the most well-preserved Hindu temples, as in like almost all the sculptures that were originally there are still there. And then there are apparently also paintings on the inside, although I couldn't really find any pictures. But apparently the paintings are also really well-preserved. Unlike a lot of other temples where the paintings would have just like faded away.

Quinn: Hey, you love to see some good preservation of things that are thousands of years old.

Betty: For sure. And yeah, like last thing I'll say about the temple is that, so I did learn that there's a, like there's like a main arcade area. And then there's like, I guess like an entry, and then it does go like deeper and deeper. There's layers and layers of chambers. And it goes all the way to this inner sanctum, which has a sculpture or multiple sculptures of the god Shiva in this particular case. But apparently so only the members of the highest caste in Hindu… sorry, in Hinduism, which are the priestly cast are technically allowed to go in the inner sanctum. So I'm actually not sure if we go there if we would be allowed into the inner sanctum.

Quinn: Oh I’m sure not, no.

Betty: [both laughing] So yeah, exactly. Like it would be cool to see, but you know, it is a very important religious ritual for Hindus. I have some examples of sculptures and mostly of the gods. There's again, there are so many different Hindu art from so many different places. But I probably going to only going to show maybe about like four or five pieces of sculptures that are depicting some of the most famous gods in Hinduism. As I mentioned before, Brahma is known as like the one true God or the, the original creator is what he's known as. But he is a part of a trinity of gods, which is called the Trimurti and that’s composed of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. And I'll talk about what Vishnu and Shiva represent when we see some of their works later on. But basically Brahma is known as the creator, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer. So that's like, they kind of make up… the world is created and then it's preserved, but then there's also destruction. So there's like these opposing forces that these gods represent. And usually Brahma, so you can tell that a sculpture is Brahma because he's usually depicted with four sides. So if you see Hindu sculpture with four faces, now there's other characteristics, but it's quite likely it's Brahma. This particular sculpture they actually believe was probably in the outer of a wall of a temple that was dedicated to Shiva or Vishnu, but for some reason Brahma became a side character in those situations.

Quinn: It kind of feels like a little acknowledgement of like, okay yeah, this is temple to somebody else, but like you're also very important. So like, here's your statue.

Betty: Like I mentioned earlier there is Brahma, and then Vishnu is known as the god who represents preservation in the universe. So and again, he's like one of the highest Hindu deities, I guess his role is to maintain order in the world. So apparently when negative forces threaten the order, he descends onto the earth in this form to overcome the negative force. 

Quinn: Oh my God, where is he? [both laugh] Sorry, I don't know if that's sacrilegious.

Betty: It’s like we really could use Vishnu in the world. But I think I can see this is why I can understand maybe more people pray to Vishnu cause he is kind of, no, I don't want to say more useful. Cause it's like the creator’s like, okay the world's already created. It's already here.

Quinn: We don't need like the day-to-day maintenance kind of, you know?

Betty: Yeah. So the way you can tell the sculpture is Vishnu is that he's usually depicted with a conch, which he apparently uses to, blows on it to alert troops to a war. He often holds a club, a mace, and a discus. So basically a lot of weapons. I presume it's to fight the negative forces. And in this particular sculpture that I showed you, he's actually also depicted with his two wives Lakshmi and Saraswati. So, and again, we don't really have too much time to get into them, but they are also goddesses that are worshiped in Hinduism. And he apparently, so this is the thing is Brahma transforms into, or becomes Vishnu in certain circumstances, but then Vishnu also can take different forms. So apparently sometimes he is like a man lion. So if you see a figure that's depicted, I guess as half man, half lion, that could also be a Vishnu, but not in this particular case. The next one I have is the, like I mentioned before, is the deity Shiva, which is what the temple we talked about earlier was dedicated to. So Shiva represents destructive force in the universe. So the opposite of creation and also the opposite of maintenance. Basically apparently Shiva’s role is to destroy things whose time has come to be destroyed.

Quinn: Uh oh.

Betty: And this is because so Hinduism have this belief, which is called samskara, which is the cycle of death and rebirth. So Hindus don't see life and death as like a linear progression. They more associate it as a cycle. So I guess in a way I believe this means being destroyed, it doesn't have like the same representation or the same connotation as we think of as like destruction and everything's over, like, it's more like going into the next phase of the cycle.

Quinn: That's a really nice interpretation. That feels, that's a lot less… I’ve heard this from some people and I think it probably traces back to Hinduism. And this idea is like the idea of the apocalypse and defining that not as the end of the world, but sort of like a rebirth of the world and a transition into like a new age or a new whatever it is. Which sounds like it's very much rooted perhaps in this idea in Hinduism.

Betty: Exactly. And apparently it's the reason why Shiva sometimes takes on the form of apparently like more phallic shaped or sometimes a more vaginal form, because like it's also supposed to represent this rebirth. So like death also leads to rebirth. The other thing that's interesting about Shiva is that if you go to a Hindu temple quite often the sculpture is placed on Southern walls of the temples because apparently the Sanskrit characters for Shiva also has a secondary meaning, which means south facing. So that's another way you can tell if the sculpture is Shiva, because if it's on the south face and it has these other characteristics—oh, sorry. I didn't mention, so Shiva is known as he's quite often carrying a trident which I guess represents the destruction. So if you see a figure with a trident and if you see it on a south wall, it's probably Shiva.

Quinn: Oh, okay.

Betty: But the other thing about Shiva though and I guess another form or another interpretation of what Shiva represents. So I just sent you a link to another sculpture. So this one is a copper alloy sculpture, and it apparently represents Shiva as Lord of the dance. So apparently Shiva is also known as a Lord of yoga.

Quinn: Cool.

Betty: Yeah. So apparently, so mostly it's Tamil sculptures of the Chola dynasty often, like they tend to depict Shiva as this like dancer. Again, it's interesting how like, Shiva like represents destruction, but there's also the I guess like fun dancing side of Shiva.

Quinn: I guess this ties into like the dual sides of like destruction, but also restoration and like the sort of cyclical nature of things. Cause it feels like it falls into that. I find yoga very restorative, so I see it.

Betty: This is actually one of the Hindu gods I’d known a little bit about before. Cause I've seen, I've seen this sculpture, like I'm assuming like maybe like in businesses that’s owned by someone who is Hindu because I've seen the sculpture placed as I presume, you know, for like good luck or something like in people's homes or in their businesses. So this is the Hindu deity Ganesha, apparently he is the god that is the remover of obstacles. Basically, he kind of symbolizes that he'll help you to achieve success. So I can kind of understand why like a lot of people would put it like in their place of business, because they want success in their work. So Ganesha is usually represented as like as a figure that has an elephant head.

Quinn: Yeah! Everybody loves elephants.

Betty: Exactly. So I'll talk about kind of why, because these other gods all have humanoid faces, even though some of them have four faces, or multiple limbs. But this is an example of a major Hindu god that does not have a human face. So yeah, he's often depicted with a battleax, a lotus, a bowl of sweets, and a broken tusk, like a broken elephant tusk. And apparently that is representing like  a story in one of the epics of Hinduism. The reason why he has an elephant head is because he is the son of one of the Hindu goddesses, Parvati, who is the wife of Shiva. And she apparently wanted a child. And I'm assuming Shiva didn't because Parvati basically just like had Ganesha herself, like she just gave birth to Ganesha without the assistance of Shiva which is, it’s like good work. Very impressive. But then Shiva I guess was confused about who it is. And so he beheaded Ganesha, but then he was like, oh no. Oh no, this is Parvati’s son. Sorry. So he replaced his head with an elephant head. So that is how he got the elephant head.

Quinn: That really reminds me of stuff from Greek mythology kind of stories because it just seems like the kind of stuff that's happening in Greek mythology a lot too, where, you know, babies are being born single-handedly and then also sometimes they swap limb sometimes like just kind of the vibe. And it's like, okay. I mean, they're gods, I guess they, you know, they don't abide by our rules.

Betty: Yeah, exactly. They managed to survive without a head and then got another head from an elephant.

Quinn: And now he has a really cool elephant head and he has the power to make you successful if you prioritize him, which I can understand. Listen, if I accidentally got beheaded. I would also make it part of my thing that people needed to prioritize me before I do them any favors. I maybe would have trust issues.

Betty: Yeah. So and then the other thing I learned about is that elephants apparently in like Indian culture also have been associated with fertility. So possibly somebody could pray to Ganesha for the success of being able to have children.

Quinn: That makes sense too, because he was born like divinely as well. So, you know, I feel like it all, that all works out. 

Betty: Yeah, exactly. In addition to some of the other gods that I talked about, especially the very important ones like Shiva and Vishnu and Brahma. There is also a god called the Goddess, but the Goddess is another one of these gods that can take on different forms. So sometimes they are the god Devy, sometimes it’s Durga. And so this particular sculpture that I'm showing you right now is a sandstone sculpture from India. And this one is depicting Durga killing the buffalo demon.

Quinn: Cool. I mean, I assume. I assume this is positive. 

Betty: Yeah. So I think, so the goddess Durga represents the warrior goddess. So that's why quite often when she's depicted she's like killing something. Cause she's the warrior.

Quinn: Nice.

Betty: Because of this representation as the warrior God. So the Goddess is represents an energizing force in the universe that causes action to occur. So, so like, again, she's quite often in some sort of active form again, in this case, killing a buffalo demon. But like she could be, sometimes she's accompanied by Elian and she's like struggling with the demon, like while she's like fighting it. Very often, there is, there's a battle and there's something like crazy going on in, in sculptors depicting Durga.

Quinn: Wow. Considering that I feel like pretty much everything else you looked at has just been the god kind of posed and just kind of sitting or standing there. It's really interesting to see this action shot sculpture of like, no, this person is in motion. 

Betty: Yeah. So I like, I presume she's worshiped maybe for people to have like motivation for things to happen. Like she's like, it seems like she gets things done, so maybe someone wants to really accomplish something active.

Quinn: When you need to really kill a buffalo.

Betty: That could be one of the things. So yeah, apparently there's also a festival, a six day festival in India called the Durga Puja, which is a six day continuous celebration of Durga as well.

Quinn: Oh, that’s nice.

Betty: I basically kind of shows you like a bunch of different sculptures that's like made at—so the Shiva sculpture was from like 1300 to 1400. And then the Durga sculpture is from 900 so like they're they're from again, they're from like different times and different places in Southeast Asia. You know, I didn't really get into kind of like the carving styles of a lot of these, because again, like there is no one defining style of Hindu sculptures, but some of the consistent motifs are these different ways that these guys are represented. And the, what is interesting is that, like, a lot of these sculptures are, would have been a part of these Hindu temples. So the ones I'm showing you are from the, mostly from the Asian art museum in San Francisco, which I have been to, I believe I've actually seen some of these in-person. I can't remember which ones. But like when you see these sculptures, you are in the context of a museum, you are seeing it out of the context of the temple. And they are quite often supposed to work in conjunction with everything else that is in the temple. But again, it still gives us like an insight into you know, how they were depicted over the centuries. 

Quinn: Yeah. I can definitely see how these works of art would be more impactful in their original setting and in their original meaning. I mean, it's interesting because like, if you haven't been looking at them alongside us, like they are all literally taken out of walls. The background, the back of every single one of, pretty much everything that we looked at today, has been like flat stone because it's literally something that was carved into a wall. And so yeah, you can definitely tell that context missing from it, which is a shame. But this has been a very interesting rundown of like sort of these major motifs in the way that these major deities are depicted in art. Cause like, as you said, how can you even begin to try to like express the major themes from Hinduism, which is even considering some of the other religions we've talked about, like unbelievably old and covers so much ground. But this has been a really cool way to check out just a couple of highlights. 

Betty: Yeah. It's been really fun, like also for me to just learn about a lot of things in about Hinduism that I didn't know before. And I think in the future, hopefully I'll be able to tell what Hindu gods it is that I'm looking at just based on, you know, what they're holding in their hands. I get my research, I looked at a whole bunch of different gods as well, but again, just like hundreds, so we don't have time to talk about them all. But it is, that's what makes it so fascinating, there’s just so much to learn.

Quinn: Yeah, now we have a challenge. So we've gone through sort of like these major markers of how these gods are depicted. And so next time you go to a museum, you go to the Hindu art section and then you say, okay, like, let's see how many of these I can name. And then you check the label to compare and see if you got it right.

Betty: Yeah, that's a good exercise.

Quinn: That's what I'm going to be doing. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Pictorial. And if you have been here for the last four episodes, our whole little mini-series about religious art, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled modernist abstract ridiculousness soon.

Betty: Most likely.

Quinn: You can find our show notes at relay.fm/pictorial, or you can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @PictorialPod. And if you'd like you to also follow me on Instagram @aspiringrobotfm.

Betty: And you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram @articulationsv. I'm also on YouTube as ARTiculations. And speaking of YouTube, we also have a YouTube channel, Pictorial Podcasts, where you can see video versions of our episodes and look at the art as we as we go along. Most recently there have been a episode on net dot art, which showcase some stuff that actually we didn't talk about in the episode. So I encourage everyone to check out the video versions as well. 

Quinn: Yeah, that one's really cool. We're catching up on that, on the back catalog with the video ones. And there's all sorts of fun stuff in those. Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts!