Kurmastakadvyam

Author(s): Bhojdev Maharaj
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Both the Satakas begin with an invocation to Śiva. The first hails Śiva as Lord of Parvati, "by whose will and supreme, unequalled power, the world is supported". The second Śataka begins with a prayer to the Kankala-mūrti of Śiva, "that god Śiva who easily (helaya) carries the skeleton (kańkāla) of that very Krsna (Kanha) who carries the (three) worlds." Here Krsna is synonymous with Visnu. This form of Śiva is noticeable in the temples of south India, but is not prevalent in the north. The south Indian Śaivagamas give detailed descriptions of the Kankala-murti of Śiva.' Probably the poet who composed the invocatory verse for Bhoja hailed from south India. In this context we may mention that King Bhoja's kingdom extended up to the upper course of the River Godavari and he had formed an alliance with the Cola king of Tanjavur at the time of his invasion to the kingdom of the Calukya king of Kalyāṇa and that of the Somavamśī ruler of Mukhalingam in the Ganjam district. It is likely that he may have brought or invited poets from south India to his capital.
From the internal evidence of the Satakas, it can be said that the poems do not seem to refer to the Tortoise incarnation of Visnu, as Pischel believed, but to the universal aspect of the tortoise (ādi-kūrma) as support of the earth.11 The Earth Goddess, Pṛthvi, sits on ādi-kūrma in central Indian sculptures (Figure 1). It is important to remember that kūrma is a symbol of stability and is placed in the form of kūrmaśilā in the foundation of buildings. 12 It is also a mount of the river goddess Yamuna and the lañchana (cognizance) of the Jina Suvrata, Jaina Yakṣas Pārsva, (Dharana) and Ajita, and Mahāvidyā Gāndhārī. These aspects of kurma are independent of his incarnation as Visņu. Nowhere in these two Śatakas do we come across any reference to the myth of Samudra-manthana or Churning of the Milky Ocean, in which Visnu, as Kürma, supports Mount Mandara (and not the earth) at the request of gods and demons. However, we may point out here that the medieval poets, for instance, Vākpatirāja in his work Gaüḍavaho (see below) in the 8th century and Jayadeva in his well-known Gitagovinda (Aṣṭapadi, verse 2) in the 12th century, have referred to the dharanidhara aspect of Kurma when invoking the Kurma avatāra of Visņu. These two roles of Kurma, namely, 1] as dharani-dhara, support of the earth, and 2] as support of Mount Mandara, which is specifically Kurma's role as incarnation of Visnu in the Purāņas, get fused here.
But in the Avani-Kūrma Śataka, it is on the word of Śiva that the Chief of tortoises supports the earth (A, 3), not Mount Mandara. This reference to