The divine boar: From medieval to modern

Gods watch in awe, the oceans shake and a great tusked snout rises from the waters to reveal a deity with the head of a boar and the body of a man. One of his arms gently cradles Prithvi (Earth), bearing her towards the skies; a heavy, fragrant garland sways around his shoulders, as his legs trample a writhing serpent. Varaha, the Man-Boar incarnation of Vishnu, thus, defeats evil and begins a new cycle of time.

Throughout the early medieval period in South Asia, c 500–1100 CE, sculptures depicting this scene were produced across the subcontinent.

One of the earliest and most dramatic examples can be seen in the caves at Udayagiri, Madhya Pradesh, where the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II commissioned a large sculpture of Varaha trampling a serpent or Naga.

An inscription nearby suggests that the scene was meant to commemorate the emperor’s victory over various chieftains of Naga polities in central India. Varaha probably represents Chandragupta II — who, it is implied, began a new cycle of time through his prowess just as the god did.

The mythology of Varaha rapidly spread to new contexts. He was associated with the beginning of new eras, rescuing the earth from evil and the right to distribute land. Deccan dynasties provide remarkable examples of this.

The early western Chalukyas not only used the boar as their dynastic emblem, they even adopted a unique imperial title identifying themselves with Varaha.

This title, Sri-Prithivi-Vallabha, translates roughly to ‘The Fortunate Lord of the Earth’ or to ‘Fortune’s Favourite and Earth’s Beloved’: as a form of Vishnu, Varaha is married both to the goddess of fortune (Sri) and the goddess of earth (Prithvi).

As the Chalukyas ruled the first imperial polity in present-day northern Karnataka, such a claim — with its links to royal deities — helped establish their legitimacy and distinguish them from their rivals.

The image of Varaha rescuing Prithvi continued to be used for centuries after; every major imperial dynasty used it in the medieval period, including the ninth-century Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta (present-day Malkhed, Karnataka), the 12th-century Chaulukyas of Anahilavada (present-day Patan, Gujarat) and the 13th-century Hoysalas of Dvarasamudra (present-day Halebidu, Karnataka).

In the early modern period, the divine boar lost its preeminent association with royalty but continued to be depicted in paintings. North Indian courts produced several Varaha images, often as parts of Bhagavata Purana manuscripts, which usually depict the earth as a flat surface bearing some buildings.

Persianate influences can be seen in the demons he fights and the gods he leads. Modern images of Varaha often depict the earth as a sphere with India at the centre, as seen in a 1930 oleograph by the Ravi Varma Press.

Thus, over time, the image of the divine boar came full circle — from signalling new eras of medieval kingship and gradually losing political meaning during the early
modern period to finally becoming an emblem of resurgent nationalism and pan-South Asian patriotism.

Discover Indian Art is a fortnightly column that delves into fascinating stories on art from across the sub-continent, curated by the editors of the MAP Academy. Find them on Instagram as @map_academy