Vaṭapatraśāyī
Different versions of this myth are narrated in the Mahābhārata (Araṇyaka-parva), Matsyapurāṇa, and the Bhāgavata-purāṇa.
In the Mahābhārata and the Matsya-purāṇa, the child is seen on a branch (śākhā) of a banyan tree, while in the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, as a baby (bālaka) as he reclines on a leaf (patra) of the tree formed in the shape of a cup (vaṭapatrapuṭa). This change from the branch to the leaf of the banyan tree can possibly attributed to the influence of the Āḷvārs, the Vaiṣnava poet-saints of South India, who lived during the 7th-9th centuries. The story is as follows:
Rajasthan, Nathadwara — Harvard Art Museums
Mārkaṇḍeya Ṛṣi’s vision of Viṣṇu’s Māya (from the Bhāgavata-purāṇa)
Satisfied by the prayers Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya had offered, Lord Viṣṇu told him to ask for a boon, and the sage said he wished to experience the Lord’s illusory energy or maya. Śrī Hari, present before Mārkaṇḍeya in the form of Nara-Nārāyaṇa, said, “So be it,” and then he left for his hermitage at Badarikāśrama.
One day, as Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya was offering his evening worship on the banks of the River Puṣpabhadrā, a great wind suddenly arose. That wind created a terrible sound and brought in its wake fearsome clouds that were accompanied by lightning and roaring thunder and that poured down on all sides torrents of rain as heavy as wagon wheels.
ततो व्यदृश्यन्त चतु:समुद्रा:
समन्तत: क्ष्मातलमाग्रसन्त: |
समीरवेगोर्मिभिरुग्रनक्र-
महाभयावर्तगभीरघोषा: || ŚB 12.9.12
“Then the waters of the four great oceans appeared on all sides, swallowing up the surface of the earth with their wind-tossed waves. In these oceans were terrible sea monsters, fearful whirlpools and ominous rumblings.”
The sage saw all the inhabitants of the universe, including himself, tormented within and without by the harsh winds, the bolts of lightning, and the great waves rising beyond the sky. The waters of devastation had flooded the three worlds. With great difficulty Mārkaṇḍeya wandered about in that deluge for millions of years, his mind bewildered and fearful. His matted hair scattered, the great sage wandered about alone in the water as if dumb and blind.
Tormented by hunger and thirst, attacked by monstrous makaras and timiṅgila fish and battered by the wind and waves, he moved aimlessly through the infinite darkness into which he had fallen. As he grew increasingly exhausted, he lost all sense of direction and could not tell the sky from the earth.
अयुतायुतवर्षाणां सहस्राणि शतानि च ।
व्यतीयुर्भ्रमतस्तस्मिन् विष्णुमायावृतात्मन: ॥ ŚB 12.9.19
“Countless millions of years passed as Mārkaṇḍeya wandered about in that deluge, his mind bewildered by the illusory energy (māya) of Lord Viṣṇu.”
While wading through the water, the brāhmaṇa Mārkaṇḍeya discovered a small island, upon which stood a young banyan tree bearing blossoms and fruits. Lying upon a leaf of that tree was an infant boy glowing with a charming effulgence.
प्रागुत्तरस्यां शाखायां तस्यापि ददृशे शिशुम् ।
शयानं पर्णपुटके ग्रसन्तं प्रभया तम: ॥ŚB 12.9.21
“Upon a branch of the northeast portion of that tree he saw an infant boy lying within a leaf. The child’s effulgence swallowed up the darkness.”
The infant’s dark-blue complexion was the color of a flawless emerald, His lotus face shone with a wealth of beauty, and His throat bore marks like the lines on a conchshell. He had a broad chest, a finely shaped nose, beautiful eyebrows, and lovely ears that resembled pomegranate flowers that had inner folds like a conchshell’s spirals. The corners of His eyes were reddish like the whorl of a lotus, and the effulgence of His coral lips slightly reddened the enchanting smile on His face. The exalted brāhmaṇa watched with amazement as the infant took hold of one of His lotus feet with His graceful fingers, placed a toe within His mouth and began to suck.
As Mārkaṇḍeya beheld the child, all his weariness vanished. Indeed, so great was his pleasure that the lotus of his heart, along with his lotus eyes, fully blossomed and the hairs on his body stood on end. Confused as to the identity of the wonderful infant, the sage approached Him. Just then the child inhaled, drawing Mārkaṇḍeya into His body as if he were a mosquito. There, Mārkaṇḍeya was amazed to see the entire universe just as it had been before the annihilation: the sky, heavens and earth, the stars, mountains, oceans, great islands and continents, the expanses in every direction, the saintly and demoniac beings, the forests, countries, rivers, cities and mines, the agricultural villages and cow pastures, and the occupational and spiritual activities of the various social divisions. He also saw the basic elements of creation along with all their by-products, as well as time itself, which regulates the progression of countless ages within the days of Brahmā.
As Mārkaṇḍeya beheld the entire universe, the infant exhaled, expelling the sage from His body and casting him back into the ocean of dissolution.
In that vast sea he once again saw the banyan tree growing on the tiny island and the infant boy lying within the leaf. Then, seeing that the child on the leaf was actually Śrī Hari, the transcendental Lord situated within his own heart, Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya tried to embrace Him. At that moment Viṣṇu, who is the Supreme master of all mysticism (māya) and who is hidden within everyone’s heart, became invisible to the sage, just as the achievements of an incompetent person can suddenly vanish.
The moment Hari disappeared, the banyan tree, the great water and the dissolution of the universe all vanished as well, and Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya found himself in his own āśrama, just as before.
Vaṭapatraśāyī in South Indian Bronzes
Vaṭapatraśāyī in Temple Sculpture
The theme of Vaṭapatraśāyī, the divine child reclining on the banyan leaf, was popularized by the Āḷvārs, who invoked the baby Kṛṣṇa as the ‘lord of the banyan leaf ’ in their hymns. The first Āḷvār, Poighāi, in his work, Mutal Tiruvantati wonders how, even after swallowing all the seven worlds at the time of pralaya, Kṛṣṇa still steals butter from the houses of cowherds as his hunger is not satisfied. Here, the concept of Kṛṣṇa (Viṣṇu) on the leaf at the time of pralaya is fused with that of the child Kṛṣṇa of Gokul.
In the eighth century, Periyāḷvār adored Viṣṇu as Vaṭapatraśāyī in a temple known by that name at Srivilliputtur near Madurai. Āṇḍāl, his daughter, composed passionate hymns addressed Kṛṣṇa in her Tiruppāvai, referring to him in several verses as ‘one lying on the banyan leaf’:
“Love incarnate Lord, blue-sapphire-coloured One, O Lord of the Banyan Leaf… Long ago as an infant you slept on the cosmic ocean upon the banyan leaf”.
In Āṇḍāl’s Nācciyār Tirumoḷī, ‘The anguish of separation’, she says:
“Do not break our sandcastles. You slept on the banyan leaf…Eternal Lord, do not dampen our desire. Long ago, as an infant, you slept on the cosmic ocean upon the banyan leaf.”
Curiously, Vaṭapatraśāyī, a theme of great cosmological, philosophical, and devotional significance, is not represented in the contemporaneous art of the Pallavas, Pāṇḍyas, or Calukyas. Incidentally, the birth of the first Pallava ruler is shown reclining on a leaf in the Vaikuṇṭha Perumāl temple of Kanchipuram (latter half of the 8th century). But a representation of the infant Kṛṣṇa resting on a leaf is not seen in the early visual art of India. We find the theme of Vaṭapatraśāyī in temple sculptures from the ninth century onwards, all in South India, pointing to the possibility of Āḷvār influence in the adoption of this motif in temple art.
The earliest known sculpture of Vaṭapatraśāyī is seen on the adhiṣṭhāna (base mouldings) of the Nāgeśvara temple in Kumbakonam (886 CE) in Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu. Child Kṛṣṇa is shown with his raised left foot, which he holds with his right hand. The banyan leaf (vaṭapatra) is clearly carved there.
A lovely depiction of Vaṭapatraśāyī is seen on the Brahmapurīśvara temple in Pullamangai (Paśupatikoil, c. 910 ce). It is carved on the toraṇa above a Brahmā image in the cardinal devakoṣṭha (niche) facing north. The divine child is shown reclining on a vaṭa leaf but he is not sucking his toe.
Vaṭapatraśāyī on the Cennakeśava temple at Belur (c. 1117 ce). It is seen in the makara-toraṇa9 above the image of Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa. The child is reclining on a vaṭa leaf, holding his right foot with two hands and sucking his toe. His stomach is quite big and noticeable, reminding us of the Āḷvār hymn quoted above, in which it is mentioned that he swallowed all the seven worlds at the time of pralaya.
Some more representations of the Vaṭapatraśāyī theme are seen in the 16th-century sculptures of Vijayanagara and mural paintings of Lepakshi. However, sage Mārkaṇḍeya does not appear near the divine child in these representations. At Vijayanagara, on the grand Kṛṣṇa temple built by Emperor Kṛṣṇadevarāya (1510–29 ce), there is a depiction of child Kṛṣṇa standing and sucking his toe, but a leaf is not shown and the child does not wear a crown. The temple is dated to 1515 ce, so this is the earliest known image of Kṛṣṇa sucking his toe at Vijayanagara.
Notably, Emperor Kṛṣṇadevarāya was an ardent devotee of Āṇḍāl and wrote a Telugu poem, Āmuktamālyada, about Āṇḍāl. So, its possible he could have been influenced by Āṇḍāl’s devotional hymns on Vaṭapatraśāyī.
Another representation of the theme at Vijayanagara, some years later than that of the Kṛṣṇa temple, is on the plinth of the maṇḍapa (hall) of the Viṭṭhala temple of 1554 ce, in which Kṛṣṇa is shown reclining on a banyan leaf. He has raised his left leg up and holds it with his right hand.
Vaṭapatraśāyī Kṛṣṇa has been depicted in a painting on the Vīrabhadra temple at Lepakshi of around 1530–40 ce, during the time of the Vijayanagara king Acyutadevarāya.10 Here, the child Kṛṣṇa is not portrayed in small size as in the sculptural reliefs, but in the same size as that of his human devotees standing nearby, thus giving him considerable importance in the composition.
In the Vijayanagara period again, there is a sweet and tiny sculpture of Vaṭapatraśāyī on the plinth of the Khetapai Nārāyaṇa temple at Bhatkal in coastal Karnataka.11 It is dated to c. 1540 ce.
There is a depiction of Vaṭapatraśāyī on a pillar of the Ādināthasvāmī temple at Āḷvār Tirunagari in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu. The temple is dedicated to Viṣṇu as Ādināthasvāmī and its present structure is built in medieval Pāṇḍya style (c. 1500 CE). This is situated on the Tāmraparṇī river, 20 miles east of Tirunelveli. It was the birth place of Nammāḷvār, whose shrine exists from the time of the Pāṇḍya ruler Jaṭāvarman Kulaśekhara (1190–1220 CE).
The Jalakanṭeśvara temple at Vellore in North Arcot district, datable to c. third quarter of the 16th century, preserves a very significant representation of the Vaṭapatraśāyī theme.
At Gingee (Senji) in Villupuram district, the east gopura (gateway) of the Veṅkaṭaramaṇa temple (mid-16th century) has a depiction of the Vaṭapatraśāyī at the commencement of the panel, indicating the beginning of creation.
Sources:
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa translated by Swami Prabhupāda
2. Vaṭapatraśāyī : Lord of the Banyan Leaf in Temple Sculpture, by Dr. Devangana Desai
3. The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasatranslated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
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