Читать книгу The Rise of Wisdom Moon - Krishna mishra - Страница 43

introduction

tion, apart from its affirmation of Advaita Vedanta.) In act five (5.32), as Intuition’s armies advance, the Shaiva traditions, on an equal footing with the Vaishnava, are arrayed within the victorious ranks. And the ultimate equivalence of the three great Hindu divinities—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—is unambiguously asserted some lines later:

The Light, at peace and limitless,

without duality, unborn,

By the admixture of qualities varies,

and is praised as “Brahma,”

“Vishnu,” or “Uma’s Lord.” (5.40 [9])

Moreover, the play’s many references to Vishnu’s incarnations—including boar, dwarf, man-lion, Axman Rama, and Rama—all follow well-established conventions whereby these avatars were analogized to the figure of the King. For Vishnu as the preserver of the world is the member of the trinity who provides the best template for righteous kingship, upholding the order of the cosmos and granting peace and security to its creatures.

These last observations allow us, I believe, to put Krishna· mishra’s Vaishnavism into its proper perspective. The rulers of the Chandella dynasty generally seem to have favored the worship of Shiva, but they were tolerant monarchs, who extended their patronage to the several major Brahmanical and Hindu traditions and to Jainism, and even countenanced a Buddhist presence within their domains as well.18 Vaishnavism was, however, a strong current within Chandella religion, and several of the monarchs appear to have regarded Vishnu as their personal tutelary divinity. ________

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