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The Goddesses of Sravana Belgola
30
John E. CORT
The pilgrimage shrine of Sravana Belgola is, without a doubt, one of the best-known sacred sites of the Jains, and its 58-foot tall colossal icon of Bāhubali, carved out of the very rock in the late tenth century, is one of the sculptural wonders of the world. The periodic great lustration (mahāmastakābhişeka) of the icon attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, tourists and scholars to this otherwise small and quiet town in Karnataka. Photographs of the event, and more recently YouTube postings, spread throughout the world by newspapers, magazines, and now the internet. In many ways the icon of Bahubali has become emblematic of Jainism as a whole. Robert Zydenbos, for example, in his 2006 popular introduction to Jainism, chose a photograph of the most recent (2006) lustration for the cover to the book, and Jeffery Long similarly chose a photograph of the ludic and celebratory response of devotees to the same lustration for the cover of his 2009 introductory textbook on Jainism. Focusing solely on the ways that the icon of Bāhubali graphically demonstrates the Jain renunciatory ideal of liberation (mokşa), however, results in both scholars and most pilgrims overlooking the other living heart of the sacred complex: the goddess.. It is her presence, ritually installed and daily worshiped, at multiple locations that, in the eyes of Jain devotees, protects and vivifies the site. Southern Digambara Jainism is known for the prominent place given to worship of goddesses. In this it stands in distinct contrast to the ways that northern Digambara Jainism has developed in the past three centuries due to the anti-goddess ideology of the Digambara Terāpanth. Goddess worship still maintains a place in the ritual culture of the Digambara Bīspanth, but is much reduced compared both to earlier centuries
* This short essay is based on fieldwork conducted in Sravana Belgola in 1999 and 2008. In both cases,
research was funded by a Senior Short-Term Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. I thank Robert Zydenbos and Nagarajaiah, Hampa, for their assistance in organizing my two visits to Sravana Belgola (and much else). I also thank H. H. Swastishri Carukirti Bhattaraka
and Dharanendra Shastri for their hospitality at Sravana Belgola. This of course exaggerates the extent to which the icon of the liberated Bahubali is "absent" of any divine presence. The evidence of icon consecration (pratisthā) manuals and devotional hymns (stavana, stotra) in many languages clearly indicates that even though according to Jain doctrine Bāhubali now resides in the realm of liberation and is therefore no longer of this world, in the experience of both ritual specialists and countless devotees, he is very much a sacred and powerful presence in the icon (Cort 2006).
