#bone ornaments

[archaeologicalnews]

Revealed: 4,000-year-old bone jewels

Archaeologists thrilled at first-time discovery of perfect ornaments near Hyderabad

Ancient jewellery and decoration has a new meaning, with the discovery of bone ornaments in Telangana that go back about 4,000 years. In a find that has excited archaeologists, 50 pieces of bone ornaments have been found in a hamlet of Narmetta, an agricultural village on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Shaped precisely like a rhombus with round holes in the middle and circular indentations, these are thought to have been used as jewellery. Samples of the artefacts are being analysed at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad.

Historian Prof. K.P. Rao, who led the 2005 Gachibowli megalithic excavation that dated the earliest megalithic site to 2200 BC said, “Bone ornaments have not been found till date in India. We had perforated teeth but this I am hearing for the first time.” Read more.

[objectsofdesireresearchlog-blog1]

More info on the bone ornaments

I learn from Loseries-Leick's book that "bone ornaments are the garments or armour of joyous and wrathful divinities of the highest Tantrik order", but to be more specific,

"Wrathful male deities, and semi-wrathful yidam deities, wear 6 different bone ornaments, representing the essence of the six transcendental perfections of paramitas." (318)

Huntington, John C. & Bangdel, Dina. The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art (Serindia Publications, Inc., 2003), p.361.

This table shows the 6 perfections (paramita) as well as the 5 Dhyani Buddhas (kula) represented by each of the 6 bone ornaments.

“The first five perfections are classified into the male ‘accumulation of method’, and the sixth perfection is classified alone as the female ‘accumulation of widsom’”, therefore, “female wrathful deities or dakinis only wear the first five of the bone ornaments, as their bodily form itself represents the perfection of wisdom”

So, actually, male yidam deities wear 6 bone ornaments, and female dakinis wear five bone ornaments. (how I always tend to skip the Tibetan words in italics, however, I went to look up “yidam” and found that its meaning is actually very profound and highly related to the significance of the rituals. I will open another blog to talk about it)

As we all know, bone ornaments “are worn as part of the elaborate ritual costumes used in Tibetan sacred dances. These dances are performed during major sacred festivals” So what dances? Here comes my long awaited answer:

“These dances are classified into the highly symbolic and slow dance movements (gar) of the yidams and dakinis, and the more forceful and dynamic masked dances (cham) of the wrathful deities.”

Gar and cham. These two are the dances that I should check out later.

And only until now do I know for peaceful deities or bodhisattvas, they wear jewel ornaments, in which the six perfections are represented as well. So obviously, the six perfections are of huge importance.

I think my next blog should be a glossary of Tibetan terms.

[objectsofdesireresearchlog-blog1]

Descriptions and symbolism of bone ornaments

"Traditionally, a set of bone ornaments for ritual purposes should be made out of human bones, mirroring the inner meditative process of total identification with the chief divinity of the practised Tantra cycle. For a complete set the femurs (shanks and thighs) of five corpses are necessary", however, sometimes the bones of mules and ivory would be used as substitutes too.

Traditionally, a complete set of bone ornaments consists of six parts:

1) Head ornament 2) Ear ornaments 3) Necklaces 4) Six rings 5) Girdle 6) Cremation ash and Brahma string

It is said that bone ornaments conserved in Western Museums are seldom complete, usually, only the girdle enlarged to an "apron" is preserved. I am quite surprised to learn that "bone apron" is actually an artistic development during later years, and is not a word that is used in this context in Tibetan! That explains why I usually saw "girdle" instead of "apron" in the book. Maybe I should try to do some research using bone girdle as the keyword next time.

There are two types of iconographies applied to the bonesets.

1. Wrathful type, called Dharmakaya-Bone ornaments, demonstrating the Formless Body of Enlightenment (Dharmakaya), which was only worn by high Lamas and Yogis within a closed circle on special and rare initiations.

2. Wrathful or enchanted type, called Sambhogakaya-Bone ornaments, used for the public ritual dances (which is the apron that I am working on), demonstrating the Enjoyment Body of Enlightenment (Sambhogakaya). The decorations of the girdle and the six rings depict angry or semi-wrathful divinities in sexual embrace.

To be continued...

[objectsofdesireresearchlog-blog1]

The Genesis of bone ornaments

There's a full section on bone objects, on their origin and symbolisms. I am just too glad and can't wait to read them all!

The story about the origin of the bone ornaments is actually quite complicated, I am not sure if I can include that whole thing in the podcast, but I will try my best to summarise it here (hopefully).

According to Tibetan Buddhist tradition, bone ornaments are the garments or armour of joyous and wrathful divinities of the highest Tantrik order (Anuttaratantra), the origin of which is described similarly in all Tantras.

So, it is said that our world has reached a state of degeneration and decrease of merit. Rudra, “The Fearful one” with his black consort “Kali” came as the ruler of the world, however, he didn’t try to restore the order of the world, instead, he sent demons to different sites of the empire, and the demons placed stone phalluses to be worshiped by human beings. The world is even more degenerated. The primordial Buddha Vajradhara was moved by compassion and decided to lead the mankind again towards the path of enlightenment. He manifested the glorious form (Sambhogakaya) of Cakrasamvara, in body, wrath and expression identical to Rudra. Cakrasamvara vanquished the demonical king in the end, and as sign of his victory, he appropriated the armours and weapons of the defeated as trophies including the bone ornaments. These are actually the emblems of victory over destructive forces hindering enlightenment.

Phew, end of the story.

Originally, the Indian Siddhas (7th-12th century) were the first to fabricate such bone ornaments as worn by their envisaged deities, however, these were just spontaneous acting and they just moulded in form the victorious emblems of enlightened mind using naked bones, the symbol of absolute nature.

However, after the establishment of the first great monastic centres in Central Tibet (12th 13th century), the original spontaneous use of bones became gradually ritualised, with the first manuals on the ritual use of bone ornaments “The Six Requisites of a Heruka” published. Thus bone carving became a genuine craft in Tibet.

I think it is how thing usually works - as time goes by, it just gets absorbed into the system itself, becoming ritualised and people start to form all sort of rules regarding the practices. Just like the development of churches in Christianity. (Maybe not a perfect metaphor... but it just rings the bell.)