The recitation of dhāraṇīs continues to be part of the religious practice of Newar Buddhists and to form part of the daily worship ritual in temples.Footnote 1 One group of dhāraṇīs is associated with the seven days (saptavāra) of the week,Footnote 2 with each dhāraṇī being recited on a specific day. The actual texts, occasionally termed dhāraṇī-stotras or hṛdayas, are mostlyFootnote 3 linked as follows:
Text Day of the week
Vasudhārādhāraṇīstotra Ādityavāra (Sunday)
(also known as Vasudhārānāmāṣṭottaraśatam, Vasudhārā's 108 names)Footnote 4
Vajravidāraṇā-nāma-dhāraṇīFootnote 5 Somavāra (Monday)
GaṇapatihṛdayaFootnote 6 Maṅgalavāra (Tuesday)
UṣṇīṣavijayādhāraṇīFootnote 7 Budhavāra (Wednesday)
ParṇaśavarīdhāraṇīFootnote 8 or PrajñāpāramitādhāraṇīFootnote 9 Bṛhaspativāra (Thursday)
MārīcīdhāraṇīFootnote 10 Śukravāra (Friday)
GrahamātṛkādhāraṇīFootnote 11 Śanivāra (Saturday)
Manuscripts containing these seven texts are often catalogued as Grahamātṛkādhāraṇī because cataloguers recorded only the title in the colophon of the last of the seven texts.
The practice of reciting a specific dhāraṇī on a certain day of the week was briefly mentioned by David Gellner (Reference Gellner1992: 127), who observed two decades ago that it was in a state of decline. It appears to be limited to Newar Buddhism and is undocumented in Indian manuscripts (Grönbold Reference Grönbold and Torella2001: 373). The practice helps to integrate the recitation of religious texts, especially protective formulas, into the practitioner's everyday life. In a somewhat similar way, Newar Buddhists have linked the twelve Lokeśvaras (and Newar Hindus, the twelve forms of Nārāyaṇa) with the lunar months (Bühnemann Reference Bühnemann2012: 68–73, 150–51; 15–16; 155).
The process of assigning the seven dhāraṇī texts to the days of the week, which are presided over by specific planets, must have been accompanied by some speculation regarding possible astral connections, even though Günter Grönbold (Reference Grönbold and Torella2001: 375) rejects this notion. In fact, there is evidence that divinities were associated with all of the nine heavenly bodies, as the following list,Footnote 12 which is included in a book by Pandit Hemrāj Śākya (1991: 8), shows:
Heavenly body Deity
Āditya Vasu(n)dharā
Soma Vajravidāriṇī
Maṅgala Gaṇapati
Budha Uṣṇīṣavijayā
Bṛhaspati Dhvajāgrakeyūrī
Śukra Mārīcī
Śani Grahamātṛkā
Rāhu Parṇaśavarī
Ketu Pratyaṅgirā
In this list it is Dhvajāgrakeyūrī who is associated with Bṛhaspati/Jupiter, not Parṇaśavarī or Prajñāpāramitā as before. It is unclear why the heavenly bodies are paired with these particular divinities, but the arrangement could imply that the divinities including Gaṇapati were considered female and assumed a function comparable to that of female consorts (śakti). In a similar manner, a diagram in a pūjāvidhi text pairs the mother goddesses (mātṛkā) with eight heavenly bodies (in a tradition which excludes Ketu) (Pal and Bhattacharyya Reference Pal and Bhattacharyya1969: 32, 39–40).
Miniature paintings in manuscripts
Manuscripts of the saptavāra texts often contain miniature paintings illustrating the visual forms of the dhāraṇīs, one painting corresponding to each text. The iconography varies somewhat, since most texts do not include descriptions, while in addition Uṣṇīṣavijayā and others are known to have multiple forms.Footnote 13 In these manuscripts the days of the week on which the dhāraṇī texts are recited may be spelled in an abbreviated form in the margins. An example is manuscript 4/1483, labelled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī, in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18), dated N.S. 763 (1642/43 ce), from which Figures 1 to 7 of this article are taken.
1) The first text in the manuscript is the Vasudhārā-dhāraṇī, to be recited on Sundays. Misled by the reference to ādityavāra (Sunday) in the margin, the Nepalese artist painted the Sun God (Figure 1) holding a lotus in each hand and seated on a green horse. But Vasudhārā is clearly seen as the first of the seven dhāraṇīs, for example, in a painting in manuscript 258 in storage at the N.C. Mehta Gallery of the Gujarat Museum Society (Bühnemann Reference Bühnemann and Gail2006: plate IX). The miniature shows the yellow-complexioned Vasudhārā seated on a lotus. The goddess has one head and six arms. She exhibits the gestures of veneration (tathāgatavandanā) and wish-granting (varada) with two of her right hands and holds a jewel in the third right hand. She carries a manuscript, ear of corn and a vase in her left hands.Footnote 14
2) The Vajravidāraṇā-nāma-dhāraṇī is recited on Mondays. The miniature painting shows a three-headed, twenty-armed Vajravidāraṇā (Figure 2). In other manuscript paintings this lesser-known divinity (discussed in more detail below) is often portrayed with five heads and ten arms.
3) The third text is the Gaṇapatihṛdaya (also written as Gaṇapatihṛdayā), literally “heart mantra of Gaṇapati”, to be recited on Tuesdays. The miniature painting (Figure 3) shows a six-armed Gaṇapati, with each foot on a rat. The deity is clearly male,Footnote 15 an issue I will return to later.
4) The Uṣṇīṣavijayādhāraṇī is the fourth text in the group and is recited on Wednesdays (Figure 4). The miniature shows a three-headed, eight-armed goddess seated on a lotus.
5) The fifth text, to be recited on Thursdays, is either the Parṇaśavarīdhāraṇī or the Prajñāpāramitādhāraṇī. Our manuscript portrays a four-armed Prajñāpāramitā (Figure 5) seated on a double lotus. Parṇaśavarī is seen in a painting in manuscript 258 in storage at the N.C. Mehta Gallery of the Gujarat Museum Society (Bühnemann Reference Bühnemann and Gail2006: plate XIV). The miniature portrays a three-headed, six-armed benevolent goddess. Parṇaśavarī, “the woman of the Śavara (also written Śabara) (tribe) with a leaf (parṇa) (garment)”, is a goddess known in both Buddhism and Hinduism.
6) The sixth dhāraṇī is that of Mārīcī and is recited on Fridays. The three-headed goddess is seated in a chariot pulled by five pigs (Figure 6).
7) The last dhāraṇī, to be recited on Saturdays, teaches the mantras of the nine heavenly bodies and is called Grahamātṛkā, the mother of planets, also known as Navagrahamātṛkā in other sources. The goddess appears relatively late in the Buddhist pantheon. She is first described in Jagaddarpaṇa's c. twelfth-century Kriyāsamuccaya, and the oldest visual representation dates from the twelfth/thirteenth century (Mevissen Reference Mevissen and Gail2006: 66, 69). The divinity has three heads and six arms. The upper pair of hands holds a vajra and lotus, and the one below an arrow and bow, while the main pair displays the dharmacakra- or vyākhyānamudrā (Figure 7). The iconography corresponds roughly to type 2 as classified by Mevissen (Reference Mevissen and Gail2006: 67–9), dating back to the second quarter of the fifteenth century.
(Colour online) Sūrya (instead of Vasudhārā). Fol. 1, manuscript 4/1483 titled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18). Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
(Colour online) Vajravidāraṇī. Fol. 4, manuscript 4/1483 titled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18). Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
(Colour online) Gaṇapati. Fol. 8, manuscript 4/1483 titled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18). Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
(Colour online) Uṣṇīṣavijayā. Fol. 11, manuscript 4/1483 titled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18). Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
(Colour online) Prajñāpāramitā. Fol. 13, manuscript 4/1483 titled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18). Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
(Colour online) Mārīcī. Fol. 19, manuscript 4/1483 titled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18). Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
(Colour online) Grahamātṛkā. Fol. 22, manuscript 4/1483 titled Ādityādigrahamātṛkādhāraṇī in the National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu (Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. B 107/18). Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
Representations in woodcarvings
Representations of the seven members of the group are also found as woodcarvings on the struts of two Newar Buddhist monasteries (vihāra) in Kathmandu.
a) One set is found in the seventeenth-century Chuṣyā Bahāl, also called Guṇākara(mahā)vihāra, and has been documented by Kooij (Reference van Kooij1977: 60-66)Footnote 16 and Bajracharya (Reference Bajracharya2004);Footnote 17 photographs of the struts are also reproduced in Kooij Reference van Kooij1978: plates XLV–XLV; and
b) Another set is found in the c. late-sixteenth-century Khuñ Bahāl,Footnote 18 also known as Pinchẽ Bahāl, Manijū Bahāl or Jāmbūnadavana Vihāra in Wotu (Vaṭu/Baṭu) Tole. Modern versions of the name include Pīcche Bahāl and Pūrṇabuddhamahāvihāra. The struts of this vihāra are not as well preserved as those in Chuṣyā Bahāl, and the arms of several of the wooden figures have broken off.
In contrast to the more complex iconographic forms represented in manuscript paintings, most of the divinities on the wooden struts are merely one-headed and two-armed and stand with crossed legs under a bough of leaves or reach up into the crown of a tree.
Karel van Kooij (Reference van Kooij1977: 82) assumed that the entire iconographic programme of Chuṣyā Bahāl was determined by some collection of dhāraṇīs and had a protective function. He further speculated that the act of moving around in the courtyard while reciting the names of the divinities whose names are inscribed on the struts and making offerings to them was possibly believed to yield the same result as the recitation of the dhāraṇī texts, namely protection. I am not convinced that this was the case, because the struts are positioned high up below the roof and out of the practitioner's normal range of sight, and do not easily allow for the inscriptions to be read or for offerings to be placed before the divinities. I would assume that the struts with the figures of the divinities were installed for protective purposes, following prescriptions in ritual manuals dealing with the construction and consecration (pratiṣṭhā) of monasteries.
The question of gender
All members of the group came to be conceived of as feminine in Nepal. Already Brian Hodgson (1874 [Reference Hodgson and Saha1972]: 19) characterizes the “Saptavāradhāraṇī” as “an account of the seven Devís (Buddha Saktis) called Vasundhará, Vajra Vidáriní, Ganapati Hridayá, Ushnisha Vijayá, Parna Savarí, Maríchi, Graha Mátriká, together with their Víja mantras”. Here the terms devī and buddhaśakti clearly indicate a feminine gender. The word buddhaśakti is often used in popular speech in Nepal instead of prajñā.Footnote 19 The use of both terms would also suggest that the seven goddesses were paired with Buddhas.
A. Vajravidāraṇā
As noted above, the text to be recited on Mondays is the Vajravidāraṇā-nāma-dhāraṇī. Although the two versions of the printed text are preceded by an invocation of (Bhagavatī) Vajravidāraṇā, not found in all manuscripts from Nepal, the dhāraṇī itself does not mention such a goddess. It addresses the male divinities Vajrapāṇi (the lord of the Yakṣas) and Caṇḍavajrapāṇi, and further invokes Vajravidāraṇa and Caṇḍavajrakrodha.
A male deity Vajravidāraṇa is attested in a number of textual and visual sources, and a considerable amount of material on both fierce and occasionally benevolent forms is found in Lokesh Chandra's Dictionary of Buddhist Iconography (Reference Chandra1999–2005, 14: 4205–11). Vajravidāraṇa is a form of Vajrapāṇi that frequently features a double vajra (or multi-pronged vajra) in the right hand and a bell in the left. He is represented, for instance, in the Great Stūpa of Gyantse (Ricca and Lo Bue Reference Ricca and Lo Bue1993: 78, 256 and plate 40) with these hand-held attributes. But as a member of the saptavāra group in Nepal, the divinity is clearly considered female. The feminine form of the name also appears as Vajravidāraṇī in the titles of several sādhana texts in Tibetan.Footnote 20
A few variants of the feminine form of the name have been transmitted. Along with Vajravidāraṇā and the form Vajravidāraṇī, the variant Vajravidāriṇī appears. Pandit Amṛtānanda, describing the iconography of the goddess in his Dharmakośasaṃgraha written in 1826 ce, refers to her once as Vajravidrāviṇī (fol. 43b.7) and later uses the name Vajravidāriṇī (fol. 67b.6). (The dhāraṇī text published in Dhīḥ 40, 2005: 161, 7–8 lists the epithet vidrāvaṇakara twice.) The pandit's description is as follows (fol. 43b.7–8):
vajravidrāviṇi paṃcamukhi daśabhujā dakṣe aṃkuśa khaḍgaśara vajravarada vāme pāśa carma dhanu dhvajā abhaya pratyālīḍhāsana
Vajravidrāviṇī (for Vajravidāriṇī) has five heads (and) ten arms. In the right (hands she holds) a goad, sword, arrow, vajra (and displays) the wish-granting (gesture); in the left (hands she holds) a noose, shield (carman), bow, banner (and displays the gesture of) protection. She is standing in pratyālīḍha.
Based on Amṛtānanda's text, Lokesh Chandra describes a five-headed, ten-armed form of the goddess under the entry Vajravidrāviṇī (Reference Chandra1999–2005: 14: 4212). On the same page, under the entry Vajravidāraṇī, he lists the two-armed form represented on an inscribed wooden strut of Chuṣyā Bahāl.
A painting in manuscript 258 in storage at the N.C. Mehta Gallery of the Gujarat Museum Society (Bühnemann Reference Bühnemann and Gail2006: plate X) conforms to most aspects of this description. The miniature shows the red-complexioned Vajravidāriṇī on a lotus in the act of stepping to her right. The goddess has five heads (coloured white, yellow, red, blue and green) and ten arms. She holds the attributes listed in Pandit Amṛtānanda's description except that an axe replaces the banner. The goddess's female breasts are clearly discernible.
B. Gaṇapatihṛdayā
The Gaṇapatihṛdayā, which is the dhāraṇī text recited on Tuesday, teaches several mantras, referred to as heart mantras of Gaṇapati. These invoke aspects of the deity, including Mahāgaṇapati, Gaṇapati, Gaṇādhipa, Gaṇeśvara and Gaṇapūjita. There is no reference to a female divinity called Gaṇapatihṛdayā, but the text is corrupt in many places.Footnote 21 Miniature paintings which accompany the dhāraṇī text in manuscripts show the regular iconography of a male Gaṇapati.Footnote 22 Based on manuscript evidence, Tsukamoto et al. (Reference Tsukamoto, Matsunaga and Isoda1989: 67) include the male Gaṇapatihṛdaya among the deities of the saptavāra group.Footnote 23 Karel van Kooij (Reference van Kooij1977: fig. 32) takes the word Gaṇapati inscribed below the figure on a wooden strut of Chuṣyā Bahāl (Figure 8) as a short form of Gaṇapatihṛdayā. However, the figure does not exhibit female characteristics. Likewise, the Gaṇapati on the wooden strut in Khuñ Bahāl (Figure 9) is male.
(Colour online) Gaṇapati. Wooden strut in Chuṣyā Bahāl, Kathmandu. Photo courtesy of Gudrun Bühnemann.
(Colour online) Gaṇapati. Wooden strut in Pinchẽ Bahāl, Kathmandu. Photo courtesy of Manik Bajracharya.
Some manuscripts of the dhāraṇī text use the feminine dative of the noun Gaṇapatihṛdayā in their initial invocation āryagaṇapatihṛdayāyai namaḥ, while others invoke the male Gaṇapatihṛdaya with the formula āryagaṇapatihṛdayāya namaḥ. The feminine form Gaṇapatihṛdayā appears occasionally also in the colophons of the text. In both instances it can be understood as modifying the feminine noun dhāraṇī: iti gaṇapatihṛdayādhāraṇī samāptā.Footnote 24 In some texts the masculine and feminine forms alternate.
When did the concept of a female Gaṇapatihṛdayā develop? It is well known that Brian Hodgson collected information and material from his informant Pandit Amṛtānanda (see further below). The pandit lists “Gaṇapatihṛdayādevī” as one of the saptavāra divinities in his Dharmakośasaṃgraha (fol. 67b.5–7).Footnote 25 The final component, -devī, clearly shows the female gender of the divinity. The iconographic description of the goddess called Gaṇapatihṛdayā (fol. 44a.4–5) appears in the context of a group of nine goddesses whose function is unclear, listed as Vasundharā, Vajravidāriṇī (written Vajravidrāviṇi), Parṇaśavarī, Mārīcī (written Mārici), Dhvajāgrakeyūrī, Gaṇapatihṛdayā, Uṣṇīṣavijayā, Grahamātṛkā and Pratyaṅgirā. The description is as follows: gaṇapatihṛdayā ekamukha dvibhuja varada abhaya nṛtyāsana. The pandit's characteristic “stenographic” text, frequently lacking case endings, can be translated as: “Gaṇapatihṛdayā: one head, two arms, wish-granting, protection, dancing pose”. Here the name Gaṇapatihṛdayā is clearly feminine in gender.
Based on the Dharmakośasaṃgraha, whose text he improved by adding case endings as he thought fit, Benoytosh Bhattacharyya (Reference Bhattacharyya1924: 157–8)Footnote 26 incorporated Gaṇapatihṛdayā into the Buddhist pantheon he described in his widely known The Indian Buddhist Iconography. The description in the first edition of the book contains the following rather short paragraphs which include a description and a reference to a manuscript painting:
Like Gaṇapati himself Gaṇapatihṛdayā, who, in all probability, is his Śakti, does not bear any image of a Dhyānī Buddha. She is described in the work as: [158]:
“Gaṇapatihṛdayā ekamukhā dvibhujā varadā abhayā nṛtyāsanā.” Dharmakoṣasaṅgraha, Fol. 43.
“Gaṇapatihṛdayā is one-faced, two-armed, exhibits the Varada and the Abhaya poses, and a dancing attitude.”
The miniature, (Plate XLII,d) however, does not tally with the above description. In this miniature she has sixteen arms and one face. The symbols, beings [sic] indistinct, cannot be recognised in all details.
The second paragraph, addressing the iconography in the miniature painting, was not included in the second edition of Bhattacharyya's book.
Many authors of iconographic handbooks and studies adopted B. Bhattacharyya's description of or reference to the goddess Gaṇapatihṛdayā, including D.C. Bhattacharyya Reference Bhattacharyya1974: 9–10 and Reference Bhattacharyya1978: 20; Agrawala Reference Agrawala1978: 2, 33–4; Mallmann Reference Mallmann1975: 167; Getty Reference Getty1936: 37; Grönbold Reference Grönbold and Haussig1984: 353; Kirfel Reference Kirfel1948: 64; Liebert Reference Liebert1976: 89; Nagar Reference Nagar1989: 119; and Kooij Reference van Kooij1977: 61, note 49. However, Mallmann (Reference Mallmann1975: 167) was careful to note that the description of Gaṇapatihṛdayā in the Dharmakośasaṃgraha does not specify the deity's complexion, the presence of an elephant head or a presiding Tathāgata. She added (1975: 167, n. 6), that the Nepalese painting reproduced in B. Bhattacharyya's book (from the collection of W.Y. Evans-WentzFootnote 27) does not correspond with the description cited from the Dharmakośasaṃgraha but shows the regular iconography of (a male) Gaṇapati, as found, for example, in manuscript Sanscrit 1814 in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. The illustration in Bhattacharyya's book, which does not correspond with the Dharmakośasaṃgraha's description, shows a multiple-armed dancing Gaṇapati. This form appears to be the twelve-armed dancing (male) Gaṇapati known from Buddhist iconography and described in Bühnemann Reference Bühnemann1994: 201–04,Footnote 28 and not a sixteen-armed female Gaṇapati as B. Bhattacharyya states, since female features cannot be discerned. The only reason why the painting was identified as Gaṇapatihṛdayā was apparently that it was found in a manuscript with the dhāraṇīs devoted to the saptavāra deities.
Another Nepalese painting identified as “Gaṇapatihṛdayā (Śakti-Gaṇapati)” was published by D.C. Bhattacharyya (Reference Bhattacharyya1980: fig. 25).Footnote 29 It shows a four-armed seated deity whose iconography does not correspond with that of the dancing two-armed form described in the Dharmakośasaṃgraha. This miniature can be identified as belonging to manuscript 10741 (“A number of Dhāraṇīs with illustrations”) in the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kolkata, dating from 1843 ce. The image does not exhibit any female features. As before, the reason why the painting was labelled Gaṇapatihṛdayā is that it accompanies the text of the Gaṇapatihṛdayadhāraṇī, which in the manuscript begins with the invocation namo bhagavatyai āryagaṇapatihṛdayāyai.
The text of the dhāraṇī printed in a devotional booklet (Dharmarāj Bajrācārya Reference Bajrācārya1997/1998: 12–19), begins with the same invocation as the manuscript from the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kolkata. However, the dhyāna verses prefixed to the text of the dhāraṇī describe the male Gaṇapati.
The dhāraṇī in manuscript Cod. sanscr. 423, preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, fol. 11b, invokes a male Gaṇapati, while the colophon names the text as gaṇapatihṛdayā-(nāma)-dhāraṇī. The form Gaṇapatihṛdayā here modifies the feminine noun dhāraṇī. The miniature on fol. 11b shows an eight-armed male Gaṇapati, not a female form as Grönbold (Reference Grönbold and Torella2001: 373) assumes. Sharma (Reference Sharma1979: 48) quotes Lokesh Chandra as having informed him that Gaṇapatihṛdayā is mentioned in the Hevajratantra. However, as Lokesh ChandraFootnote 30 communicated to me, no such reference appears in the Tantra. Singh (Reference Singh1968: 208) reproduces a seventeenth-century painting from the Taleju Bhavani Temple in Nepal and identifies the divinity as Gaṇapatihṛdayā, Gaṇapati's śakti (1968: 218). However, no female features are discernible in the painting and the name Gaṇapatihṛdayā is not inscribed. Van Ham (Reference van Ham2011: 108) reproduces a blue female “Ganapatihrdaya” found on the outer part of a version of the Trailokyavijayamaṇḍala painted on the wall of Vairocana Temple II (c. 12th to 13th century?) at the village of Mangyu in Ladakh. The divinity, riding a mouse, appears below a white male Gaṇapati seated on a ram. The divinity is clearly female but the name Gaṇapatihṛdayā is not inscribed.Footnote 31 A few female forms of Gaṇeśa are also known from other traditions. A Brahmanical goddess Vināyakī/Gaṇeśvarī is described by Agrawala Reference Agrawala1978, and an (East Asian) Buddhist Vināyakī in Sanford (Reference Sanford and Brown1991: 315–16 and 325–6). However, the conception of these goddesses is different and none of them is a personification of Gaṇapati's heart mantras.
It thus appears that when the text teaching the heart mantras of Gaṇapati, the Gaṇapatihṛdaya, was incorporated into the group of seven dhāraṇīs, the deity's gender was assimilated to that of the other members of the group. The grammatically feminine gender of the word dhāraṇī must have played a major role in this process. So far no representation of a Gaṇapati with female characteristics has been found in manuscript illustrations of the saptavāra group, and the wooden struts of the two monasteries in Kathmandu each bear a male Gaṇapati. It seems, then, that the goddess Gaṇapatihṛdayā had no significance outside the saptavāra group, and even as a member of that group she was recognized by only a few individuals.
Conclusion
Thus it is likely that the gender of Vajravidāraṇa and Gaṇapati, as personifications of two of the seven dhāraṇīs, was changed to feminine, although this does not correspond with the gender of the divinities invoked in the dhāraṇī texts themselves. Cases of gender change of divinities, however, are not uncommon. Hidas notes, for example, that the originally male gender of Pratisarā (Hidas Reference Hidas2003: 266; Reference Hidas and Dezsö2007: 187–8), Mahāsāhasrapramardanī (Hidas Reference Hidas and Mirnig2012) and Mahāśītavatī (Hidas forthcoming) was probably changed into a feminine one.
The assimilation of the gender of Vajravidāraṇa and Gaṇapati allowed for the uniform feminine gender of all seven divinities in the group. It further enabled a pairing of the seven divinities, with the heavenly bodies presiding over the weekdays, in the manner in which Tantric traditions pair female with male deities.
Gerd Mevissen (Reference Mevissen2004: 59; Reference Mevissen and Gail2006: 76, 91–2) has already noted that three of the deities in the saptavāra group, namely Vasudhārā, Uṣṇīṣavijayā and Grahamātṛkā, appear together in certain Buddhist maṇḍalas. He has further observed that chapels of the Great Stūpa of Gyantse are dedicated to five of the deities who feature in the saptavāra group, namely Vasudhārā, Uṣṇīṣavijayā, Mārīcī, Parṇaśavarī and Grahamātṛkā, although they do not yet form a group. The chapels of these five divinities are all located on the first storey of the Great Stūpa (Ricca and Lo Bue Reference Ricca and Lo Bue1993: 224 = fig. A). In addition, a chapel of the male Vajravidāraṇa is located on the second storey, directly above the chapel of Grahamātṛkā (Ricca and Lo Bue Reference Ricca and Lo Bue1993: 78, 256, plate 40 and 246 = fig. B). Thus six of the seven divinities appear as solitary forms in chapels in the Great Stūpa. Moreover, Dhvajāgrakeyūrā (who appeared as Dhvajāgrakeyūrī earlier in a list reproduced from Pandit Hemrāj Śākya's book) and the Pañcarakṣā goddesses (whose dhāraṇīs are often combined with those of the saptavāra deities in manuscripts) are represented nearby. Since the construction of the Great Stūpa (for whose art work Newar artists were also employed) dates from the second quarter of the fifteenth century, we can perhaps assume that the saptavāra group of divinities became popular only after that date. If the dating of the struts in Kathmandu's Khuñ Bahāl is accurate, the group was known in Nepal by at least the late sixteenth century.
