SOLD Antique Hindu Garuda Prayer Bell, India (9545)

Description

Hand bells are used in daily puja (rituals), placed on home and temple altars. They are ritually rung to call devotees to worship and to ask the gods to grace the devotees with their presence. Their sound creates a spiritual atmosphere and increases the intensity of the Hindu religious experience, and bells are an important part of Hinduism with considerable symbolic meaning.

A bell’s curved body represents Ananta, the Sanskrit term meaning limitless, eternal and infinity and symbolizes unending expansion. The clapper represents Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom, knowledge and music. It requires much skill to design a good one, as the body may be mold made but the handle, decoration, image atop the handle and designs on the body are all done individually. More difficult, the maker must create a metal alloy not overly brittle to accommodate additions and alterations for decoration, last for generations and produce a pleasing, effective and spiritual sound.

This Hindu prayer bell was likely placed on a home or temple altar and used in daily puja rituals. It has a smooth and undecorated body with only incised parallel rings circling plain surfaces and is topped by a pair of Garudas sheltered by the hoods of Nagas. Garuda is the mythic Hindu winged bird with the body of a man and the head of a falcon celebrated in the Hindu epic the Ramayana. The word Garuda means wings of speech, and in the Hindu tradition it symbolizes Vedic knowledge and the mind.  Garuda is the mount (vahana) of Vishnu, and thus symbolizes the virtue of knowledge, bravery and discipline. In many Hindu myths, as here, gods are protected by nagas-  seven-headed hooded serpents. Garuda and Nagas are natural enemies but when they are represented together, they symbolizes  peace, a very appropriate adornment for the tranquility and serenity elicited by the pleasing sounds of a prayer bell.

This bell is very good condition with a fine patina. There is some loss of definition on the top section due to its considerable use, handling, and age.

Sources

Fredrick Bunce, A Dictionary of Buddhist and Hindu Iconography, New Delhi, D.K. Printworld, 1977.

Subhamoi Das, Deities We Live With: Deities as Symbols.