The Place of the Thunderbolt

Called the ‘Queen of the Hill Stations’, Darjeeling, where the writer resides at present, is a town developed around the precincts of an ancient Boodhist monastery that once stood upon the site now called Observation Hill. The hill, just off the town’s central square and marketplace, is called thus because it is the highest vantage on this particular ridge and so affords direct observation of the mighty Kangchenjunga, which mountain stands snow-capped at over 28,000 feet and is barely fifty miles away. The site was once heavily forested, but from the hill one can obtain an unimpeded view of the sacred mountain. The monastery, it is said, was called ‘Dorje Ling’, a Tibetan name signifying ‘The Place of the Thunderbolt’, and it is from this, it is said, that the name Darjeeling has been derived. The ‘Queen of the Hill Stations’ known to the British, therefore - and most famous for her exceptional tea gardens - was, or is, ‘The Place of the Thunderbolt’ according, that is, to its original Boodhist inhabitants.

Suprisingly, though, this signification has continued under subsequent Hindoo occupation in a remarkable way; it has done so to the extent that it is here in Darjeeling that one finds a particularly unique synthesis of Hindoo and Boodhist sanctity. Where in other places the two creeds are parted, in Darjeeling they not only exist side by side but actually share sacred places with Brahmins and Boodhist Lamas working in concert as if theirs is a single religion. This is most notably the case in the splendid temple, the Mahakal Mandir, which is now found on Observation Hill. The Boodhist monastery that was supposedly once on the site in ancient times has now been relocated further down the slope, and where it was once supposed to stand there is a temple of Shiva, only this temple fully accommodates Boodhist devotions as well. Indeed, the central temple on the site is a combined Hindoo/Boodhist affair featuring the iconography and devotional supports of both religions in undivided combination. At the entrance one finds Tibetan lions along with the Hindoo bull Nandi. The Shiva temple is decorated with Boodhist dragons. Around the outside one find icons of Hindoo deities, Shiva and Ganesh and co. along with Boodhist prayer wheels inscribed with Tibetan mantras. 

The present writer has been assured that this syncretism is very unusual, and he has certainly not encountered it elsewhere. To be frank, it is quite odd. In the inner sanctum sit Lamas on the right and Brahmins on the left. The Lamas chant Boodhist scriptures and at the very same time the Brahmins recite Vedic mantras. In the outer courts are small temples to Kali and other Hindoo gods right next to Boodhist reliquaries and stupas. The entire thing is smothered in a wild array of Boodhist prayer flags. Devotees from both faiths make their way there and revere it as a place of special sanctity. 

So what, one wonders, is going on here? How did this unique synthesis come about? What historical development led to it and, more importantly, by what symbolism and what doctrine are the two religions united in this particular location? It is a very special place, certainly. It is both stunningly picturesque and palpably holy. Evidently, it was a sacred site since earliest times, both the hill (with its view of Kangchenjunga) and – let readers note here – a cave that is found beneath it. Why, when, in the course of its history, it changed hands from Boodhist occupation to Hindoo, was there such a degree of assimilation? This writer has marched up the steep hill several times now and spent hours there, exploring, watching and pondering. Very slowly, the secrets and the meaning of the place have become apparent.

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The first key to this place is to be found in the story of the Shiva temple that is now central to it. While there is really no historical evidence that there was ever a Boodhist monastery on Observation Hill, or that the current monastery lower down the slope was ever on Observation Hill, the Shiva temple’s origins are historically exact and revealing. In 1782, it is said, three Shiva lingams miraculously manifested on the site of the current Temple. This is the date at which the Boodhist occupation gave way to the Hindoo, and in effect the date of the founding of the Mahakal Mandir as it is. It is the date at which the name Mahakal was given to the site, the date at which it became a Hindoo holy place with Shiva claiming it over its pre-existing Boodhist associations. The three lingams are now at the very core of the complex. The stones themselves, though, are not visible, since they are encased in an alloy of eight metals called astdhatu. They represent, respectively, the triunity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and in that, therefore, the three prongs of Shiva’s trident. The devotions of both Boodhists and Hindoos at Mahakal are focused upon these lingams. 

To understand the transition from and the synthesis of Boodhist symbolism to Hindoo/Shaivite in this case, it is simply necessary to appreciate that the trident of Shiva is here a substitute, or rather a parallel to, the vajra of Tibetan symbology. The weapons are interchangeable, and that is what has happened here. The Tibetan vajra is the Boodhist thunderbolt. Vajra is a cognate term for darje = thunderbolt. But in 1782, this Boodist order of symbolism was replaced, or subsumed, by a parallel symbolism from Hindooism, namely the trident of Shiva. When it is said that three Shiva lingams suddenly manifested on Observational Hill in 1782, we are to understand that it was, so to speak, struck by the trident of Shiva in the form of a thunderbolt, real or symbolic. The Temple marks the place where Shiva’s trident – his thunderbolt – struck and marked the ground. Thus, Dar + jeeling = the place of the thunderbolt – was now the place of Shiva’s thunderbolt, Shiva’s trident being to Hindooism what the vajra is to Lamaism. Ordinarily, the parallel made in Hindoo mythology is to Indra’s thunderbolt, but here the assimilation has been done through Shiva’s trident, the trishula. It is a parallel noted by Mr. A. K. Coomaraswamy in his commendable work The Elements of Buddhist Iconography. The town of Darjeeling has a Boodhist name, but the temple is devoted to the equivalent and corresponding cultus in Hindooism. The only odd thing is that the Boodhist elements were retained. 

As for the name Mahakal, it means “the Great Death” or the “Great Time” with the “Great Death” implied. This signifies the particular spirituality of vajraism, if we may put it thus. Namely, the notion of “thunderbolt” here refers to that form of spiritual awakening which is sudden and complete. One may think of St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. There is a particular mode of enlightenment which is like a thunderbolt. Boodhists speak of the sudden falling away of the ‘self ‘ – or the illusion of ‘self’ – and the Tibetans specifically call it the “Great Death” as distinct from the lesser death that occurs at the end of a mortal life. This is to what the temple’s name refers. The “mahakal” – the Great Death – is the annihilation of the illusion of self. In the spirituality typical of this temple, devotees seek the “thunderbolt” of conversion, the sudden rupture of illumination, the death of the ego in a blast of enlightenment. Just as Shiva’s trident struck Observation Hill like a thunderbolt in 1782, so adherents hope to be struck with sudden transformation. 

The second key to understanding this remarkable place is to appreciate that the Shiva Temple – complete with its Boodhist iconography – is oriented very deliberately to the sacred mountain of Kangchenjunga. It is perhaps not so obvious today because of extra buildings and the profusion of prayer flags, but it is a certain fact that the temple points directly to the mountain, as can be checked on any clear day. The association is made explicit by a folkish wall painting in enamel paints on the back of the temple wall which shows the mountain with the trident and cobra of Lord Shiva. The mountain is what is really sacred here. The temple on Observation Hill is only sacred by extension, as it were. This is a key because it reveals the actual operations of the temple from a geomantic point of view and thus the full significance of the site. The entire symbolism, we realise, is axial in the primordial sense. The sacred mountain is the universal axis. The viewpoint from Observation Hill has been made a temple (a platform for seeing in the Latin sense) and acquires this axial significance. Thus do devotees to Mahakal Mandir circumambulate the Shiva Temple thrice. In fact, they are circumambulating the mountain. The temple represents the mountain and the whole iconography of the temple draws out the axial symbolism and significance of the mountain. 

This extends to the cave below, or rather inside, the hill. According to legend there is a ‘Lost Valley of Immortality’ on the slopes of Kangchenjunga. The mountain has its secrets. The secrets of the mountain – also the “esoteric” path to enlightenment – is symbolized by the cave, the inner dimension, the heart. It is, like any cave, a mysterious thing. One must crawl into the narrow opening. The present author did so but was reluctant to go too far into the darkness, lit as it was by only one or two votive candles. It is said, besides, that those who go too far into the cave never return. There is no telling how deep it goes. It clearly extends directly under the temple. There is an interesting local story about a British couple, a man and woman, who ventured into the cave one day and were never seen again. Can it be a coincidence that this story has a direct parallel in the Upanishads with the story of “two who entered the cave”? The two, as Mr Rene Guenon notes, are paramatman and atman, the universal and the individual self. Monsieur Guenon's exposition of the relevant symbolism in his essay The Heart and the Cave is, as usual, profound. It is worth quoting in this context:

..What resides in the heart is both from the standpoint of individual manifestation, and unconditioned Atma or Paramatma from the principial point of view; the distinction between individual and principle is no more than an illusory one; it only exists with regard to manifestation, but they are one in absolute reality. These are the 'two who have entered into the cave' and who at the same time are also said to 'dwell on the highest summit', so that the two symbolisms of the cave and the mountain are here united.


The symbolism of cave and summit are, in a sense, interchangeable. The cave and the temple are assuredly connected. The story illustrates the actual process of the steps to enlightenment. The exoteric adherents pray for the thunderbolt of enlightenment – in this life or in some other – in the temple on top of the hill, leaving their offerings of rice and incense and rupees, but the esoteric process (undertaken by only a few) is illustrated in the symbology of the cave below.

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There is, of course, much more that might be said about this. The symbolism of mountain and cave is extensive and rich, and this location gives an almost textbook case of its application. It would be possible to write an entire exposition on the symbolism and meaning of Mahakal Mandir in Darjeeling. The present sketch, however, is enough to set out the main lines such an exposition would need to explore. The first thing is to explain the unusual synthesis of Hindoo and Boodhist systems in this place. The second is to show the relation of the place to the sacred mountain that looms on the horizon only forty or so miles from Darjeeling and that can be seen with particular clarity from Observation Hill.


Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black