Sorting Supernaturals—Some Preliminary Remarks

To consider a particular divinity as a member of a pantheon or of some larger domain of supernaturals in a certain community during a certain segment of that community's history is radically different from considering that divinity throughout its long history and its South Asian (and beyond) areal variations. Siva as a member of Bhaktapur's pantheon is not the same as the Siva considered in a general and unrooted

sense, through, say, a compendium of his various mythological accounts and his historical usages and forms throughout South Asia.

When Hindu divinities are considered from an historical or South Asian areal viewpoint, they have a very great number of accumulated forms, names, meanings, myths, aspects, philosophical implications, and contradictions. Several attempts have been made at encyclopedic approaches to the whole Hindu pantheon (e.g., Banerjea 19.56; Mani 1975; Rao 1971; Daniélou 1964) and to individual divinities or to some of their aspects (such as O'Flaherty's exhaustive survey of materials on asceticism and eroticism in the mythology of Siva [1973]). Bhaktapur has selected only certain deities from the Hindu tradition for emphasis. For the particular deities it has selected, it further selects and emphasizes only certain aspects of their potential—variously realized elsewhere—for meaning, form, and use. For some of them Bhaktapur sometimes even adds its own attributes, perhaps borrowed from other deities, sometimes ancient local ones.

It is possible for some purposes to consider Bhaktapur's pantheon as a sort of museum, a collection of divine South Asian flotsam that has drifted into the Valley. We cannot avoid our general knowledge of important aspects of the meaning of the divinities in space and time beyond the city, a knowledge shared by the people in Bhaktapur who introduced these figures and who continue to use them, but what is important for us is what is done with the deities in Bhaktapur, their local uses and relations.

The sorting of Bhaktapur's divinities and other assorted "supernatural" figures that follow in this chapter is a sorting, then, for that purpose. We will sort the supernatural beings into several large groups that have morphological and functional contrasts. The groups are:

1. "Major city gods."

These are familiar major gods of Puranic^[*] , post-Vedic, Hinduism. They have, at least in some of their important city forms, anthropomorphic or creatural forms, and are located in named temples and shrines known to the city as a whole. These "major city gods" are divided into two contrasting groups, "ordinary gods" and "dangerous gods." The latter require blood sacrifice, are attended by a special class of priests, and are the loci of a special set of ideas and procedures (chap. 9).

2. "Stone gods."

This is a group of deities represented by natural stones. They are related to other natural objects (as opposed to objects created through human craft, like statues) that have divine properties

(springs, lakes, ponds, trees, etc.) but, in contrast to such other natural divinities, have systematic placements and usages.

3. "Astral divinities."

These are associated with the sun, moon, and various heavenly objects and events; are associated mostly with astrological ideas and practices; and have their own special priests.

4. "Ghosts and spirits."

These are a miscellaneous group of vague entities that may be usefully introduced here, and that have some significant contrasts with the other supernaturals.