Nature's Spokesman

by M Krishnan

  Unfortunately for those with romantic inclinations, these birds have no claims to looks, in spite of their whiteness and the saillike spread of their black-pinioned wings. They are not even kites, as the railway guide calls them, but are Scavenger Vultures, perhaps the least prepossessing of our birds. On the wing they look handsome enough, circling with effortless ease or swooping along the skyline at a terrific pace, breeze-borne. But the weak, yellow beak and face, the dirty hackles and the clumsy, waddling gait proclaim their ugliness when they are on the ground and near. In their youth they are less hideous, a decent, dark-brown all over, but even then you can tell them apart from kites and other brown birds of the sky by their wedge-shaped tail. I do not remember the saint-names given to them at Tirukkalukunram, but can give you their other aliases—the neophron, or, more specifically Neophron percnopterus ginginanus, Pharaoh’s Chicken, the Lesser White Scavenger Vulture, and, according to Eha, the bird known to Mr Thomas Atkins as ‘The Shawk’.

  The last name, I think, is derived from the bird’s habit of frequenting heaps of garbage and ordure. If I am right in my etymology, it is a name truly indicative of this vulture’s disposition. Wherever there are mounds of manure or other assorted filth, offal and refuse lying around, you are likely to find the neophron. It is commonest outside the city and industrial centre, where there are broad acres of what the engineers call ‘rubbish’, and around hilltop shrines and country marketplaces. It is a very useful bird, indeed, and no one who realizes the public good that scavengers do will ever dream of looking down upon it.

  Incidentally, it is not only at Tirukkalukunram that it is held sacred: it was venerated in ancient Egypt. Unlike most other birds of its profession, it is not gregarious, but usually goes about with its mate, in a close pair. Like all vultures, it is long-lived and has wonderful powers of sight and flight.

  It is likely that the pair at Tirukkalukunram have long been in residence, and it is a fact that they are most punctual in their attendance at the shrine. But there is nothing remarkable in all this. Many birds have an instinctive sense of time, and these vultures deeply appreciate regular provision of food. I have seen several pairs of these birds in and around Tirukkalukunram, so that it is quite conceivable that when the seniormost pair dies, their territory and ‘prasad’ is taken over by the pair next in the order of precedence among local neophrons—that way one can understand how for generations these birds have been attending at the shrine each day, and set up the tradition of immortality.

  I can even testify to the fallibility of the daily visits of the pious birds. One day, in the winter of 1935, no birds turned up at the feeding rock, in spite of the priest’s loud invitations and widely waved arms. No vulture of any sort was visible in the skies, and I concluded that a cow must have died on the hillside beyond, that day. The priest made no comment, beyond pointing to the slight drizzle that there was, but an elderly gentleman by my side volunteered a complete explanation. He was a native, and assured us that the absence of the birds was most exceptional; in fact, they were absent only when some major sinner, who should never have been admitted to the precincts, was there. And I must say I did not like the rather pointed look he gave me.

  1956

  5

  The Southern Lions

  In temples and places famous for their stone carvings in south India, you will find as many lions in the round and in bas-relief as in the north. All of them are both realistic and formalized—that is, in their proportions, especially in the relative size of the head to the body and the massive but quite natural conformation of the body and limbs, they are realistic; and in the surface treatment of the lineaments of the face, and particularly in the rendering of the mane in tight little spirals or close wavy lines, they are formal, even stylized. I have neither seen nor heard of a lioness in old southern stone, nor, so far as I know, are there any in the north. Moreover, except for the lions of the Sarnath capital and related beasts (which are formalized even in build and clearly betray Hellenic influences in the surface treatment of the mane and paws), the lions of northern classical sculpture are very similar to those of the south.

  From these facts, a naturalist seeking a clue to the distribution of lions in ancient India would reach altogether mistaken conclusions. The absence (or rarity) of lionesses he would ascribe to the more arresting looks of the male in this strongly dimorphic species, and from the plentiful representations of lions in the south, and their realism of build, he would conclude that long ago, long before the records of the lion-hunts of the Muslim emperors in the north, there were lions in south India. How else would so many generations of carvers have rendered so faithfully a beast they had not seen?

  The answer to that question is that the lion, the vahana of Durga, the beast that lends its visage to Narasimha, and the traditional emblem of sovereignty, belongs so much to the mythology and iconography of the land (undoubtedly the south absorbed much of its traditional culture from the north in early times), that the leonine form and features were well known to those carvers, though they had not seen the beast in the flesh. Perhaps some of them were even familiar with live lions, for there is evidence to show that in the distant past master carvers from the north, and even from foreign countries, were ‘imported’ by southern potentates, and there is no reason to presume that such traffic could have been only one-way and that southern carvers of special renown could not have gone up north on a commission.

  Let me tell you of a personal experience. Years ago, I met the son and apprentice of a traditional stonemason (one of the few of his tribe still practising) in Nattarasankottai in the far south. While I waited (long and in vain) to meet his father, I questioned the boy on his attainments in the ancestral art. There is an old temple at this place, the stone pavilion of which is supported by pillars, each decorated with the figure of a rampant Yali, with smooth stone boluses rolling free within its jaws. The Yali is a wholly mythical beast, part-lion, part-elephant. Each Yali in that pavilion was exquisitely carved, and reared up in exuberant animation, and though the temple was old the pillars were recent and had been carved by the grandfather of the boy with me. The apprentice informed me that he too had learned, over painstaking years, to carve Yalis, though the cunning of the hand that enabled his father to insert a thin chisel between the slightly gaping jaws and fashion five perfectly spherical free-rolling balls from the stone within, eluded him—he showed me an almost finished Yali in miniature that he had carved himself, and except for the boluses it was an exact replica of the grandparental beast. There is nothing improbable in the hereditary transmission of fidelity of forms and figures through several generations of carvers.

  In old literature we find better evidence. Of course the traditional lion occurs as freely in Tamilian literature and folklore as it does in Tamilian stone, but if one is familiar with the conceits and formalisms of the Sangam period, it is not hard to distinguish the realistic passages from the purely formal ones—and there are many such realistic passages in the literature of that period, some seventeen centuries old.

  There are references to elephants in plenty, to tigers (one poet comments on the great strength of the tiger, that can kill a wild boar and carry away a bullock), panthers, wild pig, deer, antelope and all sorts of other creatures that lived, and still live, in the south. It is significant that there is no mention of beasts like the rhinoceros and nilgai that do not range so far south. There are many terse, vivid word-pictures that prove the acute personal observation of the poets—Paranar writes of the round-footed jungle cat waiting with hungry patience in the millet field in the evening, waiting for the village poultry to stray near; Nakkeerar has a line about monkeys huddled together and shivering in the cold and wet. Nowhere in all this wealth of naturalistic poetry can I find a reference to a lion.

  Nor can I find it in the old prescriptive rules (based solidly on facts) that tell poets of the plants and animals peculiar to each of the five types of country. Nor even in the semi-formal adulatory passages address
ed to famous chieftains, such as the one that tells of how the arrow of Val-vil Ori (literally, Ori of the Mighty Bow), the celebrated archer, pierced an elephant, then a tiger, then a boar, then a deer, and finally a monitor, slaying them all—such was the power of his arm!

  It is futile trying to explain a conviction based on long familiarity with a language—it is like trying to set down logically something known empirically. Take it from me that the men who would most certainly have mentioned, and described, the lion, had it been known in the south two thousand years ago or afterwards, have not done so, and that this is sufficient proof that the lion was unknown in that part of India within this period.

  1956

  6

  Asoka’s Lions

  To one familiar with India’s fauna the choice of the Sarnath lion capital as the national emblem must seem somewhat remote. Even to one familiar with Indian art and the Mauryan period this must seem far-fetched. Only those who know the political history of the country during the last decade can find justification for the choice.

  Let us consider the aesthetics of the matter before its natural aptness, for there is no doubt that lions roamed the country in the past and that they have had an honoured place as symbols of kingly estate in our traditions. The lions of Asoka, however, do not belong to our traditions—they are foreign in build and feature.

  One of the early critics of our art, E.B. Havell, thinks it likely that Persian craftsmen fashioned this capital. Another early writer, Vincent Smith, thinks it shows Hellenistic influences, prevalent in Asia Minor in Asoka’s time. He says: ‘The art of Asokan monoliths is essentially foreign with nothing Indian except details … . I think that the brilliant work typified by the Sarnath capital may have been designed in its main lines by foreign artists acting under the orders of Asoka, while the details were left to the taste of the Indian workmen.’

  Smith is positive in contradicting Marshall’s view that Asiatic Greeks fashioned the Sarnath capital. Earlier in his book he says, of this capital: ‘It would be difficult to find in any country an example of ancient animal sculpture superior or even equal to this beautiful work of art, which successfully combines realistic modelling with ideal dignity, and is finished in every detail with perfect accuracy. The bas-reliefs on the abacus are as good in their way as the noble lions in the round. The design, while obviously reminiscent of Assyrian and Persian prototypes, is modified by Indian sentiment, the bas-reliefs being purely Indian. Mr Marshall’s conjecture that the composition may be the work of an Asiatic Greek is not supported by the style of the relief figures. The ability of an Asiatic Greek to represent Indian animals so well may be doubted.’

  I must say I prefer Smith later to Smith earlier. The bull and the horse shown in relief on the abacus are typically Indian in style, but that does not establish the nationality of the lions (incidentally, Smith is out in his natural history in considering the animals shown alien to the habitat of an Asiatic Greek). The influence of foreign art and craftsmanship is manifest in the design and superfinish of this capital, and it is now accepted that while much of the Mauryan sculpture was indigenous, Asoka’s edict pillars are in Persipolitan style.

  I have cited the opinion of these experts only to say that we need not depend upon them. The lion is by no means an unfamiliar animal in Indian stone, and the lions of the south may be safely taken as typical of the Indian conception of the animal. That they are far removed in time or place from Sarnath and the Mauryan period does not detract from their value as types—there is sufficient fundamental affinity between south Indian and the undoubtedly indigenous Mauryan figures.

  Strangely enough, none of the critics mentioned seems to have compared Asoka’s lion with other lions in our art. Such a comparison reveals striking differences at once. The Sarnath lions are slimmer in build and have noticeably thin necks in a front view; their heads are smaller and the tongue-of-flame patterning of their manes is peculiar and foreign—the manes of typically Indian lions and Yalis are rendered in formal, circular curls, or else in parallel wavy lines. The large eyes with natural similitude, the unfurrowed forehead and nose, the pronounced down-face and the squarely angled lips are all foreign. The feet are even more revealing than the heads—in their taut modelling of muscle and tendon, and specific, detailed depiction of each toe and nail, they are very Greek. The innermost toe, raised laterally, somewhat in the manner of a dog’s dew-claw, is a feature of the feet of the greater cats—this detail is displayed in the feet of the Sarnath lions, though the half-sheathed nails are semi-heroic and not natural. Show me a single undoubted Indian lion whose toes are anything like equally realistic, and I accept defeat.

  As said already, lions were common in India, especially in north India, within historic recollection, and no doubt they were there in Asoka’s time. There is no need to labour the point that the Indian lion, extinct except for a few carefully preserved families in the Gir Forests of Saurashtra, is an inopportune symbol for a new hopeful democracy with great aspirations.

  Have we no animal more representative of the nation, more nobly rendered in our stone, that could have taken the place of Asoka’s lions, which are not Indian in their art and which are third-rate as lions?

  I may be hurting national feeling and outraging accepted aesthetic values in my condemnation of Asoka’s lions as lions. I can only say that I intend no sort of affront, that I hope I am as patriotic as my readers, and that to accept the realistic, maned Cheetah-like lions of the Sarnath capital as just depictions of the noble beast requires more sophistry than I can command. A glossy perfection of finish and meticulous detail do not constitute art.

  The lion is a magnificent animal. Its looks and proportions are so superb that art can do little to improve upon nature in adopting it as the symbol of kingly might and majesty. Many countries have exploited the leonine figure effectively in designing their symbols of state—but not the carvers responsible for the highly polished, svelte lions of Sarnath; they just had no appreciation at all of the beast.

  Apart from all this, the lion, indicative of royal, totalitarian power in our traditions as in those of other countries, would seem an inapposite emblem for a democracy whose pride is its freedom for all.

  Looking for other animals in our art that might have been nationally honoured, one must, reluctantly, give up the tiger, so inseparably associated with India in big-game lore. We do have depictions of tigers but none that is sufficiently masterly as a tiger for heraldic adaptation. Some of them might well be leopards—they are unmarked, and their size in comparison to the human figure in the relief is non-committal, relative size being in no way indicative in a depiction where the human victor is shown, heroically, larger than the beast. Moreover it is possible that when the national government had to choose its animal emblem, someone of the native states then independently sovereign had a tiger on its coat of arms.

  Boars, horses, cattle and blackbuck (the last shabbily treated on the ten-rupee note, and frequently miscalled ‘deer’ by our art critics) are the other animals that commonly figure in our art, but perhaps they were not considered noble enough in looks.

  How about the lordly Indian elephant, the unquestioned king of our forests, entirely Indian, anciently associated with power in our country, the most brilliantly rendered of all beasts in our art, magnificent in bulk, might and willingness to serve, august, lovable and universally beloved? It is impossible to think of an animal more representative of India or one with more imposing looks. What kept the elephant back, very likely, was the same political reason, that it figured already in the coats of arms of certain states. Is it now too late to take a broader view of its claims to represent the nation?

  1953

  7

  A Bird Emblem for India

  The choice of a ‘National Bird’ for India was referred to the Indian Board for Wildlife which, at its recent session at Ootacamund, tentatively elected the peacock. My newspaper, reporting this, says ‘the consensus of the board was in favour of the pea
cock, although some members had suggested the Indian Bustard, Brahminy Kite and the hansa (swan) for the honour. A final decision would be taken at the next meeting of the Board.’ Earlier news reports said that the Sarus Crane had also been named.

  I think the choice of the peacock, tentatively and probably finally, is almost inevitable. However, since the choice of a bird emblem for the nation is something that is of interest to every Indian, and since anyway the ultimate recommendation of the IBWL will need governmental sanction before the bird is proclaimed a national emblem, it is quite in order to discuss the question here.

  Whatever the comparative claims of these and other birds for the honour, it is highly desirable to do a spell of clear thinking first, and decide the criteria that should guide the choice, before going on to consider the actual birds themselves. Naturally the bird chosen must be an Indian bird, but should it be exclusively Indian? I think it need not—if it is typically Indian, that should do. This point is best made by analogy.

  Asked to name an Indian beast for the same honour, I would unhesitatingly pick the Indian Elephant, though it is also to be found in many other south-eastern countries of Asia. (I must confess, in an aside, that the exclusively Indian Blackbuck seems almost as good a choice to me, but let us not bother about it—it weakens my argument!) That the elephant is very much at home in our forests, that it is to be found all over India, and that it has been associated with our life and culture from time immemorial are considerations that far outweigh the fact that it is also to be found in Burma, Ceylon, and other neighbouring countries. An exclusively Indian beast, like the Nilgiri Black Langur or Nilgiri Tahr, would be a bad choice, because it is restricted in its distribution, and is neither familiar to our people nor intimately associated with our life and legends. Actually, it is the highly Greek lions of Asoka’s capital that have achieved emblematic status among our wild beasts; never did the lion enjoy an all-India range, and today it is even more restricted in its distribution, being more or less confined to the Gir sanctuary. But all the same its choice as a national emblem can be defended on the grounds that it was not uncommon in the north and west of India 150 years ago, that the Asiatic strain of the lion, Panthera leofersica, is now to be found only in India, and that in our country (as in some others) it has been the symbol of sovereignty from ancient times, and that in legend and sculpture it is a beast familiar to everyone, even in south India.