Deities: Shiva, Vishnu
Known As: Hayagriva Madhava
Location: Hajo, Guwahati
Best time to Visit: Best to check with Kamrup District office, Assam
Introduction:Hajo, a village in Kamrup district, is about fourteen miles to the northwest of Guwahati. It was a great centre of culture and learning. It served as the camp of the Mohammadans during there in vasions of Assam and was included in the Koc kingdom. It is now one of the important centres of Community Development. There is an excellent bus service to Hajo from Guwahati. There are no good hotels or rest-house at Hajo and therefore the visitor has to halt at Guwahati itself.
There are two temples at Hajo, the Hayagriva Madhava temple and the Kedareshwar temple, of which the temple of Hayagriva Madhava figures more prominently in the religious history of Assam. The existence of this temple attests to the prevalence of Vaisnavism in Kamarupa.
Vaisnavism prevailed in Kamarupa at a time when the Brahmanical culture made considerable progress in the country and as evidence shows, the worship of both Vishnu and his incarnations (avataras), was prevalent in the land from early times. In the Santiparva section of the Mahabharata Vishnu is called Pragjyotisa Jyestha.
Harsacarita of Bana describes Bhaskara- varman (7th century A.D.) as belonging to Vaishnava family (Vaishnava vantsa). Yuan Chwang, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, also states that Bhaskara varman descended from Nara yanadeva. However, Vaisnavism occupied only a subordinate position in the subsequent centuries and was revived again in the 13th century.
Vaisnavism became the popular religion of the land in the 15th century when Sankaradeva, the founder of the neo Vaisnavism began preaching his Bhakti Cult. The worship of the incarnation is a significant feature of Vaisnavism and this was introduced into Assam in about the 4th century A.D.
The most celebrated incarnation in the Vaishnava cult of the province is Krishna. In fact the Krishna legend formed an essential element of Vaisnavism in Kamarupa. Hayagriva (Vishnu with horse head) is the name of one of the incarnations of Vishnu. Under this name, he is specially worshipped in Assam even to day in the Hayagriva Madhava temple at Hajo. It is built on a hill called Manikuta.
As regards the origin of this avatar (incarnation) the Santiparva section of the Mahabharata relates that at one time, while Vishnu was sleeping and Brahma was on the lotus, issued out of the navel of Vishnu, two demons Madhu and Kaitabha, who took away the Vedas from Brahma and went to Rasatala. Brahma, being much aggrieved at this, awoke Vishnu, and prayed for the recovery of the Vedas. Vishnu assumed the Hayagriva form, recovered the Vedas, and gave them to Brahma.
He then went to sleep in the northeast corner of the great sea in his Hayagriva form. The demons came to him and invited him to fight, in which they were killed. According to other accounts, it was the Asura Hayagriva who stole away the Vedas, which were subsequently recovered by Vishnu.
According to Matsya Purana (Chapter 53) the Hayagriva avatar of Vishnu preceded Matsya; when the worlds were burnt down, Vishnu in the form of a horse re-compiled the four Vedas, Vedangas, etc. The Devi Bhagavata and the Skanda Purana in its Dharnmranya Khanda, however, allude to two different accounts on the origin of the Hayagriva form of Vishnu.
The Kalika Purana records that Vishnu in the form of Hayagriva killed the Fever-Demon (Jvarasura) in the Manikuta hill and lived there for the benefit of men, gods and Asuras. Afflicted with fever and killing the Fever-Demon, Vishnu took an agada or recovery bath. It is called Apunarbhava because whosoever bathes here suffers no second birth.
The Kalika Purana says:Na purarjayate yasamattatra Matva narottainah
Apunarbhava samjnam tat sarastu parikirttitam
Kalika Purana, Chapter 77The Yogini Tantra gives a beautiful description of the sacred city Apunarbhava which has been identified with modern Hajo, to quote’ the text:-
Nilal raktaistatha subhraih prasadairupasobhitam
raksitam sastrasamghaisca parikhabhiralamkrtam
sitai raktaistatha pitaih krsnaiscanyaisca varnakaih
dhumraih samiranairdhumaih patakaisca svalamkrtam
Nityotsavapramuditam nanavaditranihsvanam
vinavenumrdangaisca ksepanibhiralamkrtam
devatayatanairdivyaih prakrstodytatmanditaih
pujavaicityaracitaih, sarvatah samalamkrtam
nanayalasayaihscanyaih padminisatamanditaih
sarovarairmanaisca prasannasaliaistatha
kumudaih pundarikaisca tatha nilotpalaih subhaih
kadambaiscakravakaisca tathaiva jalakukkutaih
karandavotkarairhamsaistathaiva sthalacaribhih,
evam nanavidhai vrksaih punyairnavavidhai raraih
nanajalasayaiscanyaih sobhitam tatsamantatah
Yogini Tantra, II. 9.22-25. 28-21As a free rendering has it, the city of Apunarbhava was beautified with blue, red wide white palaces, defended by weapons and surrounded by moats. Day and night there was the uproar of festivities. It was full of temples, parks and lakes. Various kinds of lotuses were in the lakes where were seen swans sporting. The women of the city were very handsome with large eyes; their necks were adorned with diverse ornaments.
Their glow and the music of their anklets ever charmed the mind of the populace. Here dwelt Janardhan Hayagriva. It is a place where one can get rid of re births even if he enjoys all the denied things. There is another reference to the killing of a demon named Hayagriva near about Visvanatha; The Lord of the world (Jagatpita) is said to have fought with Hayagriva and after having killed him migrated to Manikuta.
However, it is not clear whether the Lord of the world refers to Vishnu or Siva. The context appears to point to Siva as the ‘killer of Hayagriva.29 The Harivamsa (the Vishnu Parva, Ch. 64) records that Sri Krishna after having killed Naraka, Nisunda and Hayagriva went to Maniparvata where Naraka kept confined the daughters of the Gandharvas and Asura chiefs.
The Yogini Tantra gives an account of the origin of the Vishnu image in the Manikuta. King Indradyumma of Orissa dreamt a dream at night that a big nameless tree would come floating by the sea shore. He was to take an axe and cut it into seven pieces in the morning- He did so and of the seven pieces, two were brought over to Kamarupa. With one piece the Hayagriva. Image was made and the other the Fish-god named Madhava.
The Manikuta is considered holy by the Buddhists of Tibet and even now Buddhists of the neighbouring Bhutan hills come own in cold season and do worship the god whom they regard as Mahamuni Buddha. Waddell mentions in his work Lamaism that there is a tradition in Tibet that Buddha had his parinirvana in Kamarupa. But the Kalika Purana and Yogini Tantra make several references to Manikuta.
The Kalika Purana says:Etatte kathitam punyam. manikutahvayam param
Varanasito hyadhikam siddhavidyadhara sritam
Chapter 78The original temple of Hayagriva-Madhava was destroyed by the Kalapahar, who also destroyed the temple of Kamakhya. The present temple, according to an inscription in the temple itself, was rebuilt by King Raghudeva Narayana, son of Sukladhwaj, in Saka 1505 (1583 A.D.). When it was completed, it was consecrated by the sacrifice of numerous human victims.
The king also endowed the temple with grants of land. The translation of the inscription reads:
"There was a ruler on earth named Bisva Singh his illustrious son, the most wise king Malla Deb, was the conqueror of all enemies. In gravity and liberality and for heroism he had a great reputation, and he was purified by religious deeds. After him was born his brother Sukladhwaj, who subdued many countries.
The son of this Sukladhwaj was King Raghudeb, who was like the greatest man of the Raghu race: his glories spread out in all directions; the Lord of Kamarupa, in obedience to the order of the destiny, is the slayer of the wicked, who was like water to the flames of the fire of sorrow of the vast populace. Of the seed of Sukladhwaj, a king was born of the name of Raghudeb, who consoles innumerable persons and is a worshipper of the feet of Krishna; the king coming of age has a temple built on the hillock called Mani hillock in 1505 Saka (1583 A.D.). The most skilled and efficient artisan Sridhar himself built it."Its modem votaries have, to conceal mutilation, given it a pair of silver goggle- eyes, and a hooked, gilt or silvered nose, and the form is concealed from view by cloths and chaplets of flowers: but remove these and there is no doubt of the image having been intended for the "ruler of all, the propitious, the asylum of clemency, the all-wise,’ the lotus-eyed, the comprehensive Buddha.” But some hold the view that ‘at least from the sixteenth century, the temple has been considered to be one dedicated to Hayagriva Madhava" The principle of general layout of the temple and its adjuncts is quite in keeping with other temples met elsewhere in Kamarupa. The temple, as mentioned before, is built on a small hillock and a flight of stone steps composed of slab leads to the main precincts of the temple.
The temple is built in stone, octagonal in plan, about thirty feet in diameter and crowned with a pyramidal roof. It appears "from the disarrangement of many of the mouldings and cornices, and awkward position of several bas-reliefs, that the upper portion of the temple has been reconstructed from the old materials, without much precision of arrangement.”
In its vertical elevation, the temple consists of three parts, the high basement, and the middle portion of the temple and the Shikhara. As in many other temples. A row of elephants, gajathara, appears as a basement moulding. On a moulding of about two feet above the plinth, a row of caparisoned elephants in high relief encircles the building and appears to bear the full brunt of the edifice. The elephants, all tuskers, are facing outwards, and standing each 16" in height, and are finely designed and executed showing only their tusks, trunks and front legs. The basement moulding is identical with the decorative style of the Kailash cave temple at Ellora.
The Garbhagriha "is a crypt, 14 feet square, into which you descend by a flight of stone steps. It contains the image and its pedestal. The door case to this shrine, is formed of four blocks of granite, and is ten feet high by five feet wide: a lotus over the door- in the entrance of the lintel is the only ornament. The door opens into an anteroom, also of stone, ten feet by ten feet, having niches of four feet square, stone screens, one on each side with apertures for the admission of light and air, cut in form of lotus flowers."
The Shikhara of this imposing Hayagriva temple has a pyramidal plane face, which continues right upto an apex point.
The Shikhara of this imposing Hayagriva temple has a pyramidal plane face, which continues right upto an apex point. In its horizontal aspect, the temple, in addition to the Garbhagriha and the anteroom just described, has a large vestibule measuring 40 feet by 20 feet built of brick and resting on massive brick pillars. This is a new addition to the original structure, perhaps constructed by Naranarayan, the Koc king in 1550 A.D.
The upper walls of the exterior of the temple contain life-size sculptured figures. Here are re presented the ten avataras with Buddha as the ninth. The rest of the figures are of a non-descript character, but they are mostly male, and nearly all figures carry a trident (Trisula). According to the Lamas, these figures were originally inside the temple, but were ejected by the Buddha.
The temple derives its revenue from the land endowed on it by the kings. Artisans and. others are supported out of the temple funds. The chief priest of the temple is called Dalai. He is elected from among the local priests and holds office till his death. He resides in a large house situated at the foot of the hill, just below the temple. The temples of the Kamrup, district could be conveniently seen by camping at Guwahati which has all the tourist facilities.
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