Gommateshvara Commemoration Volume

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Parshwanath Shodhpith Varanasi

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Gommatesvara Commemoration Volume
statue of Bāhubali, has held a mirror upto Nature, nay upto Heaven, in which the erstwhile human personality of Lord Bahubali is reflected with perfect accuracy, faultless proportion of each limb, each organ, nay all parts of the body matching in full harmony with each other in their shape and size--imperceptibly revealing all the qualities of Lord Bāhubali, such as his huge physical body and its strength coupled with his heroism and compassion, spirit of self-denial, renunciation, universal love and kindness. The hidden Master Sculptor hehind the statue never intended to sermonize or preach any moral lesson to the admirers of his art, though unknowingly the silent Holy statue enlightens our inner faculties, ennobles our hidden powers. He must have intended completely to dedicate himself as a Divine Architect, and become one with Bahubali through his statue. The statue, cut to perfection one thousand years ago, stands as the earthly reflection of Lord Bahubali but irresistably revealing his divine qualities to many an observer in general and to gifted poets in particular like Kuvempu, the Kannad poet and winner of the covetable Jñānapitha Award, in whom poetry has rolled from heart with ease and naturalness to sing freely in praise of both Lord Bahubali and his statue with the aid of his inward vision, thereby immortalising the statue and the sculptor together with his own musical songs, which may require a separate article for their elucidation.
The Nude Statue at the top of the mountain is left open to the sky infinite, neither fury of Nature, such as heavy rains or violent storms, nor the earth-quake, has affected the majestic statue in the least, nor has the age staled its glory and grandeur. Does it not baffle our thinking mind as to how this statue has withstood the onslaught of both Nature in its fury and man in his wickedness or brutality?
How the extra-sensory powers of Lord Bahubali are revealed through this silent statue :
Mythology records how Lord Bahubali after renouncing the transitory worldly life and its illusory royal pleasures took to strict austere life of penance and meditation with a view to obtaining omniscience (Kevalajñāna) ultimately leading to his spiritual liberation free forever from the earthly journey of birth and death and existing only in the form of Infinite Bliss, Infinite Knowledge, Infinite Vision, and Infinite Strength. Strange, but true that Bahubali could attain final salvation even during his father's life time.
His perfect life in the form of his Statue, with all its sublimity, appears to a thinking mind to have been almost vivified or personified for the deliverance of suffering, ignorant, erring human race itself. In its holy presence only holy thoughts can arise even in the ordinarily wicked mind. One feels in its presence as if Bahubali himself is present, with his Clairvoyance, an extra sensory faculty of seeing mentally through the gaze of his statue all that is happening or existing