Yoga and Yantra: Their Interrelation and Their Significance for Indian Archaeology

198 Pages·1966·10.16 MB·English

by  Dr. P. H. Pott (auth.)

YOGA AND Y ANTRA
KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT
VOOR TAAL·, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE
TRANSLATION SERIES 8
Dr. P. H. POTT
YOGA AND YANTRA
THEIR INTERRELATION AND THEIR
SIGNIFICANCE FOR INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH BY
RODNEY N.EEDHAM
PUBLISHED UNDER A GRANT
FROM THE NETHERLANDS MINISTRY
OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCES
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V. 1966
Original title :
YOGA EN YANTRA
in hunne beteekenis voor de Indische archaeologie
Published by E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1946
Additional material to this book can be downloaded from http://extras.springer.com
ISBN 978-94-017-5626-6 ISBN 978-94-017-5868-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-5868-0
Softcover reprint ofthe bardeover 1st edition 1946
"Yad ihästi tad anyatra, yan nehästi na tat kvacit"
(Viivcz.sära Tantra)
Dedicated to the memory of my parents
and of Ir. J. L. Moens
PREFACE
It isarather long time since I wrote this study, and tobe confronted
with it once again certainly involves some feelings of disappointment
about the way in which, twenty years ago, I tried to formulate my
ideas and arguments. If I had to deal with the same topic now, I believe
I would write another book. For this reason, I have refrained from
making essential alterations in the original text, which has been so
carefully translated into English by Dr. Needham. It was given its
form at a certain moment, it should keep its same composition now,
however much I should prefer to change some parts of the text and
to add better and more convincing examples which I have at my
disposal now. Nevertheless, I venture to hope that this study may
contribute a little to the furtherance of the understanding of Indian
art in general, and of later Buddhist iconography in particular, and
that it may be of some help to him who sets hirnself to the task of
compiling a comprehensive Buddhist iconographical handbook, while
trying at the same time to get at its most fundamental sources. There
is a special satisfaction in this approach, for it discerns the essential
elements in the construction of this enormous pantheon, testifying to
spiritual activity of the human mind which is hardly to be equalled.
This may teach us to be humble, but at the same time to be thankful
for the possibility of learning to understand the rnanifestations of the
human intellect in cultures outside our own. It may help tobring about
that period in which - to quote the words of the famous orientalist
Sylvian Levi - "man by his better insight will have lost the right
of improper judgment".l May this study contribute a little to promote
the advent of such a period !
P. H. POTT
Leiden
September, 1965
1 Sylvain Levi, Les Etudes Orientales, leurs le,ons, leurs resultats. Paris 1937,
p. 93.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
A translator should not, in all prudence and consdence, undertake
to render into another language a work that he does not fully com
prehend. For my own part, however, although an orientalist of a kind,
I fear I have not the education or the competence to understand certain
abstruse and exotic ideas with which Dr. Pott deals in this book,
and I am conscious that this ignorance may have led to uncertainties,
or at least to an impairment of fluency, in my translation. I ought
therefore to explain, by way of apology, what, apart from the obvious
merits of the book itself, induced me to translate Yoga en Y antra.
The first consideration was the desire to be of service to my colleagues
in the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, a
learned body for which I have a high regard, and the concomitant
sense of compliment that it should think an English social anthropolo
gist fit for the commission ; and the second was the technical challenge
of submitring myself to a further and protracted discipline, a scholarly
necessity for my own subject but not to be had so rigorously in any
other way, in the rendering of academic Dutch into English. These
personal factors cannot make up for a Iack of command of the subject
matter which may well betray itself to Indologists, but if the latter
should feel their confidence in the translation affected by lapses which
an expert would have avoided, at least they deserve to know something
of the reasons for such failings.
The translation has been carried out in the plainest fashion. Since
the book is not a work of literary imagination, in which case questions
of style, allusion, idiom, and other such subtleties may be paramount,
I have stayed as close as possible to the form and expression of the
original. The author's divisions of his exposition into sentences and
paragraphs have been adhered to, and for the most part what he writes
has been fairly directly transposed into English. The result may not
be English prose of the most polished kind, but it should convey an
impression of the way in which the author hirnself conceived and
framed the argument, and it will also permit easier reference to the
original on points of difficulty or special importance.
X YOGA AND YANTRA
The Dutch edition includes many quotations, sometimes of consider
able length, from works in English, French, and German. Since these
are taken over as they stand in the languages of the sources, such
passages have not been exposed to the dangers of double translation
(e.g., from German into Dutch, and then by another hand from Dutch
into English) but have merely had to be translated immediately from
the French or the German.
I owe a particular recognition to Dr. J. C. Harle of the Department
of Eastern Art, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, for his
generosity in reading through the manuscript in draft. My gratitude is
also due to Dr. Pott and to the Editorial Committee of the Koninklijk
Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde for the patience and sym
pathy displayed to me during the long delays which the prior demands
of my profession imposed upon the completion of the translation.
R. N.
Merton College, Oxford
April, 1%5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
Preface . . . . VII
Translator;s note . IX
Table of contents . XI
List of figures in the text XI
List of plates XII
Introduction XIII
CHAPTER I : Yoga . 1
n: Yantra 28
III: Symbols of Lamaist Ritual . 51
IV: The Sacred Cemeteries of Nepal . 76
v: Pantheons in Java and Bali . 102
Conclusions . 137
Bibliography 143
List of abbreviations . 157
Index. . . . 159
Plates I-XV
Tables I and II
LIST OF FIGURES IN THE TEXT
1. Drawing of the ViSuddhi-cakra (after Avalon) . 10
2. Drawing of the Nabho-dluira1Jlj (-mudrä) (after Schmidt) 12
3. Drawing of the Mülädluira (after Avalon) 31
4. Drawing of the bhü-dhäratJä (-mudrä) (after Schmidt) .. 33
5. Sketch of the Bagalämukh1:-dhära1Jlj-yantra (after Zimmer) 34
6. Drawing of the Äjnä-cakra (after Avalon) 37
7. sr"icakra or Sr"iyantra with letters (after Rao). 41
8. Sketch of the construction of the Sricakra . 42
9. Scheme illustrating the reduction of a stüpa to its elements
(after Fergusson) 52
10. Sign of the "All-powerful ten" on a signet-ring (after Filchner) 59
11. The composition of the sign of the "All-powerful ten" (after
Bleichsteiner) . 61
12. The yantra of smaJäna-Käli (after Avalon). 85
13. Scheme of the "Nava-sanga" system on Bali (after Scholte) 135
LIST OF PLATES
I. Y ogin in vajrasana, showing the location of the cakras and the
main n&fis. Photo: A. A. Bake (Wereldkroniek).
li. The Trawas monument, originally the central fountain of the
Ja latul).ga bathing place. Photo: Claire Holt.
III. Relief representing the Buddha seated under the bodhi-tree,
accompanied by the ~tamahäbodhisattvas. Formerly Deslouis
Collection. Photo : Kern Institute.
IV. Bronze dish for ritual purposes, decorated with the sign of the
'All-powerful ten'. From: Ergebnisse Fileher Expedition, VIII.
V. The 'Dab-brgyad yantra. From: Schlagintweit, 1881.
VI. Tibetan bronze representing Hevajra.
Collection Rotterdam Museum, no. 29922.
VII. Group of Lamaistic bronzes found near Peking, and probably
used in a Hevajravasit:ä, vanished shortly after their discovery.
Photo: E. E. Schlieper.
VIII. Tib etan drawing representing a smasäna-ma1J<Jala. V erbert col-
lection. Photo: Royal Institute for the Tropics.
IX. Naga-stone from Nälandä.
Photo: Arch. Survey of India, Central Circle, 1935-'36, no. 4514.
X. Thanka representing Daisin Tengri with his acolytes. V erbert
collection. Photo: Royal Institute for the Tropics.
XI. Barabudur from the air.
Photo : Royal Dutch Air Force for the Archaeological Service of Indonesia.
XII. The Amoghapäsa stone sculpture from Padang Ca.J).gi.
Photo: Archaeological Service, no. 3779.
XIII. The Cämu1_1<;lä sculpture from Ardimulya, the so-called Guhyes-
varl. Photo : Archaeological Service, no. 9023.
XIV. a. Balinese pedanda during the ngili-ätma ceremony.
Photo: A. A. Bake (Wereldkroniek).
b. Nepalese vajräcärya during a corresponding ceremony.
Photo: A. A. Bake (Kern Institute).
XV. a. Key-stone from the ceiling of Ca.J).gi Ngrimbi with the nava-
sanga emblems. Photo : Archaeological Service, no. 11282.
b. Kekasang from Bali with the nava-sanga emblems.
From: Damste, 1926.