Vishwakarma — Vanamali

The word “vishwakarma” means “the one who created the world”. This was originally an epithet of Brahma who is the creator of the world in the Hindu Trinity consisting of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswara.

Later on this name was given to one particular person who was designated as the architect of the gods. He is said to be the son of Brahma, the divine draftsman of the whole universe and the official builder of all the gods’ palaces as well as their flying chariots and their divine weapons. He is said to have revealed the Sthapatyaveda or fourth Upa-Veda which describes in detail the construction of temples and other buildings. He presides over the sixty-four mechanical arts.

In the Puranas he is described as “The Lord of arts, executer of a thousand handicrafts, carpenter of the gods and the most eminent of artisans, the fashioner of all ornaments!”

In our Puranas we see that his name spans across the four yugas. In Satya Yuga he built Swarga Loka or heaven, the abode of the gods which is ruled by Indra, the king of the gods. In Treta Yuga he designed the golden Lanka, the capital of Ravana, king of Lanka. There is a story behind this. After he married Parvati, Lord Shiva asked Vishwakarma to build a beautiful palace for them. He built a magnificent golden palace. Shiva invited Ravana, who was his great devotee, to come and perform the Grihapravesha (housewarming) ceremony. After it was over, Shiva asked Ravana what he wanted as “dakshina”. True to his nature, Ravana promptly asked for the palace itself. Shiva was obliged to keep his word and Ravana took off the golden palace to Lanka!

In the Dwapara Yuga, it was Vishwakarma who built the golden city of Dwaraka at Lord Krishna’s request which has been now discovered by divers off the coast of the present day Dwaraka. Thanks to the fact that the sea had kept its secrets well for all these years, this city can be seen in all its glory as has been described in the Mahabharata and Bhagavad Purana.

In Kali Yuga he built the wonderful city of Indraprastha, capital of the Pandavas, again at Lord Krishna’s behest. Ruins of this city can still be seen in Old Delhi.

Of course we know that the lives of our rishis spanned a period of a couple of yugas but could an ordinary human being like an engineer or architect do this?

This leads us to conjecture that this name might be a generic one that describes all architects who were the successors of the original person with that name. There is a theory that all our craftsman have come from the five sons of Vishwakarma. Their names are Manu, from whom came the black smiths, Maya, the carpenters, Twashta, the tin smiths, Silpy, the sculptors and Viswajna, the gold smiths. In fact there used to be a “vishwakarma” community or “jati” that used to exist in olden days. Somehow they are not to be found any more.

Hinduism is famous for keeping one special day to honour our gods, our gurus, our parents, our ancestors and so on. Since we worship him as the presiding deity of all craftsmen, we have kept a special day for honouring him. This is known as Vishwakarma Day and this year it falls on the 17th September 2021.

When we see the ancient monuments and temples of Bharat one cannot fail to be astounded at the magnificent way they have been built and the great mathematical precision in which every detail has been seen to. Who were the engineers who were able to make these grand creations? Without the use of modern measuring tools how were they able to make such fantastic constructions which have stood the test of time not just for a few years but for centuries and sometimes millennia. All Puranas reiterate that all these creations were made by the divine architect, Vishwakarma. He was also the one who built the great cities of Dwaraka, Ayodhya and Mathura.

The modern mind likes to look down upon all our ancient knowledge and assert that the earliest craftsmen and engineers used very basic instruments. But anyone who has gone to our old Hindu temples and seen the magnificent way in which they have been built cannot help but wonder how they could have made such marvellous creations using only basic tools. We must also remember that these temples have stood the test of time unless they have been deliberately destroyed and defaced by western vandals who failed to see the amazing beauty of these fantastic creations. Is it possible that they possessed techniques which we have not recognised or refuse to believe?

The fact is that the sub-continent of Bharat was protected by the Himalayas in the North and surrounded by seas on all other sides so for a long period of time we were left in peace. This atmosphere was conducive to the blossoming of all types of knowledge. Our only fault was that our religion was not aggressive so we did not learn how to defend ourselves. When the invaders and aggressive religions swept over our country we were in no position to defend ourselves and thus became a prey to their senseless massacres. Many of our craftsmen became extinct and our inspiration seemed to have dried up since we were forced to spend all our time in defending ourselves. But anyone who looks at our ancient splendour with an open mind cannot help but admit that our ancient civilization must have been far superior to our modern one. It is a fact that we did not choose to spend our scientific knowledge in making our lives more comfortable (as we do now) but we chose to spend our time in making our lives more worthwhile. We spent more time in the pursuit of the true dharmic values of life rather than frittering it on the production of physical comforts.

If we can let go of our superiority complex that we of the modern world are the best engineers and architects and the ancients were illiterate fools who knew nothing and used primitive tools, we would be able to see these sculptures and temples with a different eye. Actually we should be filled with humility when we look at our earliest Hindu temples and sculptures. We should also be filled with pride that our ancestors were capable of creating such fantastic works of art. But unfortunately the modern Indian youth sees everything through the eyes of the western scientist and western technology so they tend to scoff. In fact they simply refuse to face facts – that these creations were done by people who were highly intelligent and highly advanced in engineering skills and they most probably used tools that were similar if not superior to the ones we are using now. In any case they obviously had some techniques that have been lost through time so we are certainly not in a position to scoff at them. Mentally we should be falling at their feet and begging them to reveal their knowledge to us.

Let us examine some of the sculptures of Vishwakarma in our temples and see if they can give us a clue as to the type of tools that were used in those times. The statues of Vishwakarma show him as having three heads with hands holding various weapons. If we examine these heads we will see that each head is different as if to show that they are not representing the same person but pointing to three different people. The central head has a beard and seems older than the other two. So could it be that these sculptures actually show a team of architects? This is very possible since we see that each head is doing something different. The head on the left seems to be peering through an instrument which resembles a modern theodolite which is a kind of telescope which modern engineers use in order to verify the flatness of the land on which they are supposed to build.

*Civil engineer with a theodolite (left) | Vishwakarma state (right)*

It is always a mystery to us how our ancient builders achieved such flatness even on mountain tops before they built these amazing temples. Obviously they had some type of sophisticated tool like the theodolite. The person whose head is on the right side is shown as holding a long rod with markings. This again is very similar to the levelling rod which modern engineers use in order to ensure that they get a perfectly flat surface on which to build. If you have ever watched engineers working on construction site before the construction begins you will see one person at one side peering through the theodolite and the other one standing on the opposite side of the field holding a levelling rod. These two are very important to get a flat surface on which to build.

In some statues of Vishwakarma the markings on the rod are clearly seen but in some others they have been erased through time. So obviously the three headed statue of Viswakarma is to show that there were at least three people working on the site, one looking through the theodolite and the other standing on the opposite side with the levelling rod thus ensuring that the ground was perfectly flat. Now let us see how they achieved perfection on the vertical level. Probably the third man with the older head in the middle was the one in charge of this.

We never find tilted buildings amongst the ancient temples unless the builder actually wanted to make it that way like one of the temples we see in Varanasi standing at an angle on the banks of the Ganga.

Modern engineers use something called a plumb bob to get this vertical perfection. This is very similar to the one which is being held in Vishwakarma’s hand which people mistake to be a water pot. It resembles an old fashioned spinning top that children used to play with in the last century with the upper half looking like a bulb and a pointed end at the bottom. Today we have mechanised versions of this so that when you press a button the pointed end automatically comes down and touches the ground. Strangely enough the sculptures of Viswakarma show something very much like this modern device. In fact you can clearly see his finger pressing something on the device! People say that he is holding a water pot but why should an architect hold a water pot? And why should his finger press the side of the water pot? If we examine this closely we see that it is indeed a plumb bob. The fact that his finger is pressing something clearly shows that they also had a button which when pressed would release the pointed end and make it drop vertically to the ground.

Another of his hands holds a long cylinder which resembles the tool modern engineers use known as a soil probe. This is put deep into the ground and taken out to find out what type of soil is there. There are records to prove that this was used on the soil before the construction of the great temple of Brihadeeswara in Tanjore. And obviously this must have been in use long before that which is how they were able to gauge the type of soil.

In another hand Viswakarma holds a rosary or mala with 108 beads which we normally use for prayers. This obviously was used to calculate the sacred geometry which was a must before the construction of any building or temple. All Hindu temples have to follow this type of mathematical precision which is always related to the divine principles by which the whole universe has been constructed. The number 108 is found in all our calculations and our shastras which shows the importance we placed on this number. It is closely related to the way in which our whole universe works. This is why our temples have withstood the ravages of countless centuries.

Another of his hands holds something which actually resembles a tuning fork at the bottom. The tops differ in different sculptures but the bottoms are always the same. We cannot guess what this is for the simple reason that we have not yet discovered a tool like this! This might seem blasphemous to the modern mind which likes to think that it knows everything but the fact is that we still don’t know half of what the ancient builders seemed to know. Can we ever construct a temple like the Kailasa temple in Ellora? This was constructed by carving the whole temple out of one rock starting from the top of the huge mountain of rock!

What about the amazing rock carvings of Elephanta? How did they carve such perfect faces which are so high that it would need huge ladders to reach the top? But they are all perfectly symmetrical. They have not been built by people who had no knowledge of modern tools and techniques! They were done by people who were expert mathematicians. There are so many other wonders in our ancient temples that we would discover if we had the time and patience to go and study them instead of going for holidays abroad.

Therefore we can suspect that these things that resemble tuning forks might have enabled them to manipulate sounds in order to build these great edifices. Of course it is a fact that the ancient rishis were well aware of the power of sounds. The mantras are a standing proof of the fact that they had perfected this science of “sonology” which is still a baby science in the west. With the use of mantras they were able to shatter rocks at a distance according to our shastras! This is still an unexplored area in today’s scientific world but perhaps we will come to it in time! But we can be sure that our ancient architects did make use of all types of precision instruments as well as their superior knowledge of sounds in order to create these magnificent citadels and cities and edifices which are living proofs of the advanced techniques used by Vishwakarma, the divine architect!

All of us use some type of instruments for our work so on this Viswakarma Day let us all worship our instruments even if it’s a computer or a knife for cutting vegetables and ask for divine blessings to help us in our work! Let us remember that “work is worship” as Lord Krishna told Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita and thus let us learn to offer all our actions to the Lord of action – the master architect – Viswakarma – the creator of the universe!

Hari Aum Tat Sat

A lovely video essay on Vishwakarma by Parveen Mohan elaborates on these ideas. You can watch it here.

Vishwakarma Din

Mahalaya Paksha

Ganesha Chaturthi

Vanamali