One of the many mysteries that surrounds the Indian community living in Quanzhou is what kind of religion they practiced. Today, we classify one of the major Indic religions as "Hindu;" however, this is just a large and unwieldy designation, as there hundreds of gods, each with its own set of religious practices. Trust me, this is really complicated. If one was to try and break down normative Hindu practice into distinct categories, you could say that there are 3 important contingents, these are: Sivaites, Vaisnavites, and Goddess worshipers. Well, in the Indian temple of Quanzhou, we have imagery from all of the above, and no answers. There is this thing though:
What is it? What an interesting question. . . some scholars have argued that this is a lingam, the aniconic symbol of the God Siva, which would prove that the Indian community was composed primarily of Siva worshipers. This would be particularly interesting since we believe that the temple was built by Tamils, and Siva worship is preeminent in Tamil Nadu today. The monument is about 13 feet tall, and has been referred to as "the bamboo stone shoot" in several historical journals of Quanzhou. Personally, I think that this looks nothing like your average south Indian lingam, and there is very little possibility it played a major role in whatever religion was practiced.
Here is something weird but cool--I can't exactly explain now without posting a lot of pictures (which is a somewhat tedious affair), but by looking at this little monster guy and comparing it to 3 other nearly identical architectural elements, I think I've come up with a vague theory on how to distinguish the different hands of craftsmen. This is good news, I think.
What is it? What an interesting question. . . some scholars have argued that this is a lingam, the aniconic symbol of the God Siva, which would prove that the Indian community was composed primarily of Siva worshipers. This would be particularly interesting since we believe that the temple was built by Tamils, and Siva worship is preeminent in Tamil Nadu today. The monument is about 13 feet tall, and has been referred to as "the bamboo stone shoot" in several historical journals of Quanzhou. Personally, I think that this looks nothing like your average south Indian lingam, and there is very little possibility it played a major role in whatever religion was practiced.
Here is something weird but cool--I can't exactly explain now without posting a lot of pictures (which is a somewhat tedious affair), but by looking at this little monster guy and comparing it to 3 other nearly identical architectural elements, I think I've come up with a vague theory on how to distinguish the different hands of craftsmen. This is good news, I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment