SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This paper examines closely a stone relief carving found in 1919 at the Pyu city of Śrīkṣetra in Myanmar, which appears to be an unusual variant of the Viṣṇu Anantaśāyin iconographic type — the lotus stem germinating from the reclining Viṣṇu’s navel sprouts not one, but three lotus seats, with a recursion of Viṣṇu now flanked by Brahmā on the right and Śiva on the left. Only six images depicting this iconographic variant of Viṣṇu Anantaśāyin have been found in Myanmar. Taking to heart Elizabeth Moore’s calls to complicate the “ethnic and linguistic homogeneity of ‘Pyu culture’ [which] has become entrenched in Burmese archaeology,” this paper seeks to suggest alternative ways of thinking about such Pyu art. It considers the apparent reinterpretation of Viṣṇu’s Creator-function in this particular Viṣṇu Anantaśāyin image in relation to his possible cadastral functions, to the Bagan king Kyanzittha’s conceptions of kingship which are clearly linked to the foundation of Śrīkṣetra, and to Buddhist lineages as reflected in, for example, the succession of the four Buddhas of the Past.