Re: divya-katha

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Posted by Catherien Cartwright Jones on November 27, 1999 at 22:52:41:

In Reply to: divya-katha posted by karin on November 27, 1999 at 19:02:17:

The origin of the myth, is simply that women in India used henna as a
beautification from at least c. 500, and probably far earlier than
that. As religions form, they tend to include the practices of the
society they reflect. Islam also has a "henna origin" myth also,
though henna's use predates Islam by at least 4000 years in that
region.

Siva does not appear in the Vedas, (ancient India) and there is no
clear single source for his character and worship. The first
scriptures involving Shiva are from the 1st century C.E. His consort
(one of her names being Parvati) parallels his mythology. Since henna
use in India probably predates the 1st century, Parvati's use of henna
simply reflects women's use of henna as a beautifying cosmetic as it
was already present.

Statues of Parvati dating at c. 1000 do not indicate henna use, though
that does not necessarilly indicate absence of Hindu henna use. Propr
to that time in India, henna was prominently used in Budhist art, on
the Buddha, Boddhisattvas, the mother of the Buddha, Taras, demons,
lamas, Kings, queens, regular men and regular women. That henna was
not patterned, and it also does not seem to have been particularly
significant on women; their hair styles, clothing and jewelery are
given far more attention in paintings.

It seems that in India, the use of henna changed from being unisex and
unpatterned in the early centuries to being predominantly female and
patterned (possibly through through Persian contact, sometime between
from c. 600 to c. 1400. It's quite difficult to date such from Indian
artifacts, because India's climate is VERY rough on antiquities! Hindu
paintings of goddesses consistantly have hennaed hands from about
though women are portrayed as hennaed in the Buddhist Ajanta caves
from c. 500.

I've not been able to find an artifact that shows henna in India
before c. 400, but artifacts from the older periods are sparse.
The ones that are present from Mohenjo-Daro and other Neolithic
and Bronze age sites don't indicate henna in any way. But, India had
trade relations with countries to the west from the Bronze age on, if
not earlier, and those countries were certainly using henna. The
earliest literary mention of a goddess using henna is from the poetic
epics of Ugarit (Syria), composed in the 4th millenium. These epics
seem to reach back to the red hands found in the fertility goddess
chambers of Catal Huyuk, 7th millinneum in Turkey. There are many
elements of the fertility goddesses and their consorts from Ugarit
present in Hindu mythology ..... but the whole group of languages and
legends is called "Indo-European", after all. There was enough
cultural diaspora and interchange for the stories and habits to slosh
back and forth across the land mass century after century.




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