VISHNU: HINDUISM\'S BLUE-SKINNED SAVIOR
Hinduism is an ancient and complex religion, constantly evolving as it absorbs and reinterprets many different belief systems. Hinduism is polytheistic, with thousands of different gods and goddesses. Over time, three deities—Vishnu the Preserver, Shiva the Destroyer, and Devi the Great Goddess—have attracted large sectarian followings. For his or her worshippers, the favored deity is the Supreme Power, who is served by all other gods; alternately, the many gods are understood as diverse aspects of the primary deity.
Among the three supreme deities, Vishnu is the most multifaceted, and his character and nature have grown more complex with each century. Although he is celebrated as the great creator of the cosmos, he most often serves as its preserver, descending to save the world—and lesser gods—from powerful demons and other threats. He assumes many different shapes in his quest to maintain order, including a number of limited, earthly bodies called avatars. Although the avatars have individual talents and personalities, they are usually said to share Vishnu's signature skin tone: the blue distinguishes them from mere humans, and it reflects the god's association with the vast expanses of sea and sky as well as his usually cool, tranquil approach to saving the world.
Vishnu has been worshipped for more than two thousand years throughout India, and today his devotees, known as Vaishnavas, can be found all over the world. The god and his avatars have been the inspirations for countless great works of art and literature. This exhibition focuses on works of art from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and is organized by theme, with objects in radically different forms, styles, and media appearing together. It offers an introduction to the sophisticated artisanal practices that developed in varied regions over the course of about 1,600 years while revealing the many ways that one of Hinduism's most important deities was portrayed and celebrated.
Lisa and Bernard Selz Curator of Asian Art
IMAGES OF VISHNU
In Hinduism, supreme deities such as Vishnu are thought to be so vast, varied, and brilliant that their form is incomprehensible to mere mortals. These deities reveal themselves to devoted followers in smaller, more approachable bodies. It is these forms that appear in art. Most depictions of Hindu gods look like humans, but better, with special physical traits that reflect their superior powers.
When Vishnu reveals himself in his primary form, he always has blue skin. While this feature is not portrayed in most stone and bronze sculptures, other identifying characteristics are included. Vishnu wears the tall crown, jewels, and wrapped skirt (dhoti) of an early Indian prince. He often has more than two arms: extra hands represent the ability to do many things and to reach in many directions at once. He holds his preferred weapons and emblems: conch shell, discus, lotus, and mace. Whereas other gods are shown swaying gracefully, Vishnu stands straight, a reference to his role as a maintainer of balance.
In Hinduism, all deities wear or carry special objects that signify aspects of their individual personalities and allow us to identify them. In addition to his blue skin and straight posture, Vishnu can be identified by the four objects he holds. Most gods and goddesses carry a favorite weapon that they use in battles against demons: for Vishnu these are the discus or wheel (called a chakra) and the mace. Vishnu blows the conch shell like a trumpet, while his lotus is an emblem of transcendence. Occasionally one of the objects will be omitted in a representation of Vishnu so that he can make an expressive hand gesture, known as a mudra, signifying reassurance or the granting of wishes.
For the worshippers of Vishnu, the god’s four attributes are so important that sometimes they are revered as separate deities. Vishnu is the only Hindu god whose attributes are personified in images, shown as servants standing at his side.
THE CONSORTS AND FEMALE FORMS OF VISHNU
Hinduism identifies the masculine with the intellect and spirit, and the feminine with emotions and physical energy. The two are complementary and necessary to the well-being and continuity of the cosmos. There are many goddesses in Hinduism. Some are powerful warriors, while others are loving wives and mothers. Icons that depict the gods with their wives allow the worshipper to celebrate masculine and feminine aspects of the divine at the same time.
Most Hindu gods have at least one wife, whose personality reflects and balances that of the god. Vishnu’s primary consort is Lakshmi, an extremely popular goddess who promotes wealth and good fortune. Vishnu is sometimes shown with two wives, Shri Devi and Bhu Devi, who are really Lakshmi split into two complementary parts. It could be said that while Vishnu tends to the well-being of the cosmos, his wives tend to the more humble daily needs of mankind.
Distinct from the worship of wife or consort goddesses is a more esoteric tradition in which the feminine aspect (shakti) of each major Hindu god takes form as a separate goddess. Vishnu’s feminine manifestation is a volatile goddess called Vaishnavi.
Every Hindu deity has an animal that he or she rides: Shiva has a bull, Durga has a lion, and Vishnu has an eagle, whose name is Garuda. These animal vehicles reflect aspects of the god’s character. A figure of a deity’s animal mount is often enshrined just outside the entrance to the god’s temple to face the icon of its master.
Like Vishnu, an eagle swoops down to earth from above, attacking enemies with deadly precision. Images of Vishnu mounted on Garuda usually show the exciting moment when the god appears from above to save the day. Garuda is often depicted as part-man, part-bird, with a human face and arms but with wings, talons for feet, and a beaklike nose. With his speed, strength, flying power, and unswerving dedication to his lord, Garuda has been a popular emblem for kings and their armies for millennia, and the bird can be found on flags, thrones, and airline logos from Mongolia to Bali.
THE LEGENDS OF VISHNU
The objects in this section illustrate narratives that reveal the great scope of Vishnu’s power and influence. Usually when he descends to earth, Vishnu takes the more limited form of an avatar, but at the moments of cosmic creation and destruction, and in select rescues, he acts in his primary form.
In the Indian tradition, painting is far more likely than sculpture to play a storytelling role, so in this section dedicated to narratives of the legends of Vishnu we will begin to see fewer sculptures and more paintings. There were three major types of painting in premodern India: murals (not represented in this exhibition), large-scale paintings on cloth, and smaller paintings on paper. The paintings on cloth were either displayed temporarily in temples or used by bards to provide visuals for storytelling performances. The paintings on paper often served as illustrations for texts, sometimes bound into manuscripts; many shown in this exhibition were originally part of large series. They are sometimes called miniature paintings, but many are actually quite large.
THE AVATARS OF VISHNU
Vishnu’s most distinctive trait is his choice to act through avatars. These earthly manifestations are less glorious than the god, have finite bodies, and are usually mortal. Vishnu’s descent from the heavens in the form of an avatar may be compared to his reaching his hand down: the hand is fully Vishnu, but it is not the god in full.
Most Hindu texts list ten avatars: nine past avatars and one scheduled to arrive in the future. Some Hindus believe that Krishna is more than a mere avatar and do not include him on the roster. The most commonly depicted avatars are the following:
MATSYA the fish
KURMA the tortoise
VARAHA the boar
NARASIMHA the man-lion
VAMANA the dwarf
PARASHURAMA the Brahmin
RAMA the king
KRISHNA the cowherd prince
BALARAMA the brother of Krishna
BUDDHA the preacher
KALKI the avatar of the future
When all ten avatars are shown together, often as small figures surrounding a central image of Vishnu, they serve as illustrations of the god’s manifold powers, or as a celebration of the many times that Vishnu has saved the world.
THE MATSYA AVATAR
Vishnu’s first descent to earth, then a new world consisting primarily of oceans, was as a fish, named Matsya. Although he receives relatively little attention from worshippers, Matsya is celebrated for two heroic deeds.
In one story, Matsya is summoned by the god Brahma, who is the keeper of the Vedas, Hinduism’s most ancient scriptures. A demon named Hayagriva has stolen the sacred texts and hidden them at the bottom of the ocean. Matsya defeats Hayagriva and returns the Vedas to their rightful guardian.
In the second story Matsya saves Manu, the progenitor of all men, from a great flood. Manu finds a small fish and takes care of it until it grows to an enormous size. The fish reveals himself to be an avatar of Vishnu and then rewards Manu by warning him that a great deluge is coming. He tells Manu to bring the most learned Hindu sages, plus two of each type of animal, aboard a boat and tether it to the great fish. With Matsya’s help, Manu and his passengers survive to repopulate the earth.
THE KURMA AVATAR
Among Vishnu’s avatars, Kurma the tortoise has the least developed personality, and as a result he is probably the least worshipped. However, the tortoise (also called a turtle) participates in one of Hinduism’s most important stories.
The legend begins not long after Creation, when an influential sage cursed the gods, causing them to lose some of their powers to the demons. The gods appeal to Vishnu, who tells them to churn the ocean much as people churn cream for butter. They tie a giant snake, Vasuki, around a mountain and pull back and forth on it, causing the peak to rotate like a churning paddle. Vishnu becomes Kurma the tortoise to support the spinning mountain on his back.
The churning produces fourteen magical things, including the nectar of immortality. The gods and demons are supposed to share the nectar, but Vishnu fools the demons out of their portion; as a result, the gods become immortal and the demons do not.
THE VARAHA AVATAR
Vishnu descends as Varaha at the request of Manu, the ancestor of men, because the earth is sinking into the ocean. The Varaha avatar is a giant wild boar, a form suitable for digging down into the water in order to sniff out the earth beneath. Indian hunters have long admired wild boars for their strength and bravery, and Varaha is treated as a dashing superhero, with a muscular body and gallant personality.
Varaha dives into the ocean, grabs the earth—usually shown as the goddess Bhu—and emerges, usually with the goddess hanging from one of his tusks or seated on his shoulder. He places the earth on the surface of the ocean, where she remains to this day. In many accounts, Varaha also battles and defeats a demon named Hiranyaksha, who wants the earth to drown.
Varaha is one of Vishnu’s most popular avatars. The boar appears prominently among the sculptures on Vishnu temples and sometimes has temples of his own.