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In the course of the study referred to in the last chapter,^[1] Coomaraswamy incidentally examines another symbol, the meaning of which relates to the _Janua Cæli_. This is a 'monster's head' which, in various forms, often more or less conventionalised, is to be found in the most widely different lands where it has received correspondingly diverse names, such as _Kāla-mukha_ and _Kīrti-mukha_ in India and _T'ao t'ieh_ in China; it is likewise to be found not only in Cambodia and Java, but also even in Central America, nor is it alien to European art of the Middle Ages. What is important to note before all else is that this representation is generally placed on the lintel of a doorway or on the key of the vault of an arch (_torana_) containing the image of a divinity. In one way or another, it most often appears as linked to the idea of the door, which clearly determines its symbolic value.^[2]

A number of explanations of this figure have been given (we are not, needless to say, speaking of those which see in it no more than a mere decorative motif), which may contain part of the truth, but which for the most part are insufficient, if only because they cannot be applied without distinction in every case. Thus, K. Marchal has remarked that, in the representations he has studied in greatest detail the lower jaw was almost always missing. Adding to this fact the round shape of the eyes^[3] and the prominence of the teeth, he concludes that it must have been originally the image of a human skull.^[4] The lower jaw, however, is not always absent, and it exists for example in the Chinese _T'ao t'ieh_, even though it there has quite a singular appearance, as if it were cut into two symmetrical parts that were folded back on each side of the head, which Carl Hentze explains as corresponding to the stretched hide of a flayed tiger or bear.^[5] That may be accurate in this particular case, but it cannot hold in other instances, where the monster has a normally shaped mouth more or less widely open; and even as regards the _T'ao t'ieh_, this explanation has only an 'historical' value after all, and naturally in no way touches the symbolic interpretation.

The _T'ao t'ieh_, moreover, is really neither a tiger nor a bear, nor is it any other determinate animal, and Hentze describes the composite character of this fantastic mask thus: 'mouth of a carnivore armed with great fangs, horns of a buffalo or of a ram, face and tufts of an owl, wing stumps and claws of a bird of prey, frontal ornament in the form of a cicada'. This figure is very ancient in China, as it is found almost constantly in the bronzes of the Chang dynasty.^[6] The common translation of the name _T'ao t'ieh_, 'glutton' or 'ogre', seems to have been given it only much later; but this appellation is no less exact, for it is indeed a question of a 'devouring' monster. This is also true for its equivalents belonging to other traditions which, even if they do not exhibit so composite a character as the _T'ao t'ieh_, in any case seem never to be reduced to the representation of a single animal. Thus, in India, it may be a lion (and there, conventionally, it is given the name of _Kala_ especially), or a _Makara_ (symbol of _Varuna_, which should be kept in mind in view of the considerations which are to follow), or even an eagle, that is to say a _Garuda_; but under all these forms the essential meaning remains always the same.

As to this meaning, Hentze (in the cited article) sees in the _T'ao t'ieh_ a 'demon of darkness'. This may be true in a certain sense, but on condition of being explained and made more precise, as he has himself done in a subsequent work.^[7] This was not at all a 'demon' in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather in the original sense of the Vedic _asura_, and the darkness in question is in reality the 'higher darkness';^[8] in other words, it is a symbol of the 'Supreme Identy' insofar as it absorbs and sends forth by turns the 'Light of the World'. The _T'ao t'ieh_ and other similar monsters thus correspond to _Vritra_ and to his diverse equivalents, and also to _Varuna_, by whom the light or the rain is alternately retained or released, an alternation which is that of the involutive and evolutive cycles of universal manifestation.^[9] Coomaraswamy has thus rightly said that this face, whatever its diverse appearances, is truly the 'Face of God' which both 'kills and vivifies'.^[10] It is not, therefore, exactly a 'death's head', as Marchal would have it, at least insofar as it is not taken symbol-ically; it is rather, as Coomaraswamy goes on to say, the 'head of Death', that is to say of _Mrityu_, of whom _Kāla_ is also a name.^[11]

_Kāla_ is strictly 'all-consuming Time';^[12] but by transposition it also designates the very Principle itself insofar as it is 'destroyer', or rather 'transformer', in relation to manifestation which it reduces to the non-manifested state by reabsorbing it, as it were, into itself; this is the most exalted sense in which Death can be understood. It is also assimilated symbolically to the sun, and it is known furthermore that the lion, whose mask (_sinha-mukha_) it borrows, is more especially a solar symbol. This leads us back to what we explained previously on the subject of the _Janua Cæli_, and Coomaraswamy recalls in this connection that the Christ who said 'I am the Door', is at the same time the 'Lion of Judah' and the 'Sun of men'.^[13] In Byzantine churches, the figure of the _Pancrator_ or of Christ 'in majesty' occupies the central position of the vault, that is to say, that which corresponds precisely to the 'eye' of the dome. Now this, as we have explained elsewhere, represents, at the upper extremity of the World Axis, the gate by which the 'exit from the cosmos'^[14] is made.

Footnotes

[15]This intermediary world along with the earth (_Bhūmi_) both belong to the human state, of which they constitute respectively the subtle and gross modalities. This is why, as Coomaraswamy quite rightly remarks in noting the correspondence of the Vedic symbolism of the perforated bricks with the ritual jades _pi_ and _ts'ung_ of the Chinese tradition (which represent respectively heaven and earth), the _pi_, which is a disc with pierced centre, corresponds to the upper brick, while the _ts'ung_, the form of which is that of a hollow cylinder and of a parallelepiped with a square base on the outside, must be considered as corresponding to the two other bricks taken together, the entire human domain thus being represented by a single object.

[1][See note 1 to the last chapter.]

[2]Coomaraswamy gives the reproduction of a figure of _T'ao t'ieh_ from the Han dynasty, from which a ring is as if suspended, and which can be regarded in some manner as the prototype of the common form of door-knockers in use up to our own times, that of an animal mask holding a ring in its mouth. Here this ring is itself a symbol of the 'narrow gate', as the open mouth of the monster is in other cases.

[3]In reality, this form is in a general way a characteristic of traditional representations of 'terrible' entities; thus the Hindu tradition attributes it to the Yakshas and other guardian spirits, as does the Islamic tradition to the Jinn.

[4]'The Head of the Monster in Khmer and Far Eastern Decoration' in _Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art_, 1948.

[5]'Le Culte de l'ours et du tigre et le 'T'ao t'ie'', in _Zalmoxis_, 1, 1938.

[6]H. G. Creel, _Studies in Early Chinese Culture_. This author stresses particularly the elements of this representation borrowed from the ox and the ram, and he sees there a possible relationship with the fact that these animals were, during the Chang dynasty, those most often used in sacrifices.

[7]Die Sakralbronzen und ihre Bedeutung in der frühchinesichen Kulturen, Anvers, 1941. We do not have direct knowledge of this book, but we are indebted to Coomaraswamy for his indication concerning the sense in which the T'ao t'ieh is interpreted there.

[8]See our study 'Les deux nuits' [ch. 31 in the author's Initiation et Réalisation spirituelle].

[9]Light and rain are two symbols of celestial influences. We shall return to this concordance [see the following chapter, 'Light and Rain', below].

[10]Al-Muhyi and al-Mumīt are two divine names in the Islamic tradition.

[11]Coomaraswamy calls attention to Indonesian sabre handles in this connection, handles on which devouring monsters are represented. Obviously, a symbol of Death is particularly appropriate here. On the other hand, a comparison also can be made with certain representations of Shinje, the Tibetan form of Yama, holding before him the 'wheel of existence' and apparently readying himself to devour all the beings represented there (see Marco Pallis, _Peaks and Lamas_, p. 146).

[12]The primary meaning of this word is 'black', which brings us back again to the symbolism of 'darkness', which, moreover, even within manifestation, is applicable to every passage from one state to another.

[13]The 'solar gate' (_surya-dvāra_) is the gate of Deliverance' (_mukti-dvāra_); the gate or door and the mouth (_mukha_) are equivalent symbols here. The sun, as 'Face of God', is likewise represented by a lion mask on a Christian sarcophagus at Ravenna.

[14]See 'The Narrow Gate' [43 above].

61 § Kāla-mukha

Footnotes