N. Gopala Pillai, M. A
from the Proceedings of the All-India Oriental Conference
Vol. IX (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1937), pp. 955-997
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) was depicted in Greek coinage as ram-headed, (Arabic: Zul-Qarnain 'Lord of Two Horns') indicating that he was regarded as a living deity while yet a man. Called in Arabic al-Sikandar or Iskandar, in pan-Indian context the Sikandar name and legend are equally associated with Indian wargod Skanda.
Missing illustration: Since pre-Alexandrine times, god Skanda has been associated with Agni and his vehicle the ram. Detail of temple painting, Kiran, eastern Sri Lanka
Missing illustration: Al-Khadir (right) and companion Zul-Qarnain (al-Sikandar) marvel at the sight of a salted fish that comes back to life when touched by the Water of Life. "When Alexander sought he did not find what Khizr found unsought" (Sikandar Nâma LXIX.75).
Zeus Ammon is often portrayed with the horned head of a ram. And Alexander, the son of Ammon, came to acquire the image of his father with horns springing up from his head. The coinage of Lysimachushas preserved for us the profile of the two-horned god, the Dhulqarnein of the Arabs and their Koran. Chāga mukha or Chāga vaktra, which means ram-faced, is again one of the synonyms of Skanda.[44]
The Pancatantra (I-45) asks,
“Visnuh sūkararūpena mrgarūpo mahān rsih , Sanmukhah chāgarūpena pūjyate kim na sādhubhih”
“Visnu in the form of a boar, the great seer in the form of a deer and Sanmukha in the form of a ram – are these not worshipped by pious men?” It was evidently a popularly known fact expressed by the author of the Panca Tantra fables that Skanda was worshipped in the form of a ram. It might have been so during his days. But who in India knows now of such a worship as that? Who would not be surprised by the epithet chāga-mukha applied to Skanda as we find in the Mahabharata? These are facts that could not be ignored. These are strange corroborations that stare us in the face.
We pass on from the historical facts of his life to the domain of Mythology and Romance to which his name was transported on the wide-spread wings of popular fancy.
“Around him the whole dream-world of the East took shape and substance; of him every old story of a divine world conqueror was told afresh.” [45] More than eighty versions of the Alexander-romance, in twenty-four languages have been collected, some of them the wildest of fairy tales; they range from Britain to Malaya; no other story in the world has spread like his. Long before Islam, the Bysantines knew that he had traversed the Silk Route and founded Chubhan, the great Han capital of Sianfu; while the Graeco-Egyptian Romance made him subdue both Rome and Carthage, and compensated him for his failure to reach the eastern Ocean by taking him through the gold and silver pillars of his ancestor Heracles to sail the western. In Jewish lore he becomes master of the Throne of Solomon and the High Priest announces him as ruler of the fourth World-Kingdom of Daniel’s Prophecy; he shuts up Gog and Magog behind the Iron Gate of Derbend, and bears on his shoulders the hopes of the whole earth; one thing alone is forbidden to him, to enter the cloud-girdled earthly paradise. The national legend of Iran, in which the man who in fact brought the first knowledge of the Avesta to Europe persecutes the fire-worshippers and burns the sacred book, withers away before the romance of the world-ruler; in Persian story he conquers India, crosses Thibet, and subdues the Faghfur of China with all his dependencies; then he turns and goes northwards across Russia till he comes to the Land of Darkness. But Babylon, as was fitting, took him farthest: for the Babylon-inspired section of the Romance knows that he passed beyond the Darkness and reached the Well of Life at the world’s end on the shores of the furthest ocean of them all.
In the hill-state called Nysa, overshadowed by the triple-peaked Mount Meros, probably the modern Koh-I-Mor,[46] Alexander came into contact with the tradition that the Greek god Dionysus was the founder of the city and was the first to conquer India. Arrian tells us that “he heard that the Arabs venerated only two gods, Uranus and Dionysus; the former because he is visible and contains in himself the heavenly luminaries, especially the sun, from which emanates the greatest and most evident benefit to all things human; and the latter on account of the fame he acquired by his expedition into India. Therefore he thought himself quite worthy to be considered by the Arabs as a third god, since he had performed deeds by no means inferior to those of Dionysus.” [47] Was he not himself the accredited son of Zeus? Arrian refers to a current story of Alexander reeling through Carmania at the head of a drunken rout, dressed as Dionysus.[48] Dionysus too is a ram-headed god, the first to conquer India. And the identification is slowly effected. But Mr W.W. Tarn[49] is inclined to suspect the truth of this identification. He says “Thereon, Alexander was deified at Athens, though the story that he became a particular god Dionysus, seems unfounded”. He concedes the existence of the story. Only he suspects its authenticity.
The truth of the story of this identification is borne out by the Indian account of Skanda. Most of the ideas current in Greek mythology concerning Dionysus are available in the Indian version. What are the salient features of the conception of Dionysus?
The origins of the cult of Dionysus can be traced to prehistoric times. Dionysus was originally a nature god of fruitfulness and reproduction of all trees and vegetation. Thus in Indian tradition, Skanda is equated with ‘Viśākha’ or ‘Bhadraśākha’ (the God of the auspicious or Golden Bough) evidently referring to the deity of vegetal reproduction. These words are remnants reminiscent of the ancient cult of tree-worship, suggestive of Dionysus, Dendrites. Vidyaranya, the philosopher saint speaks of the prevalence of tree-worship which persists even to the present day, in India.
“Antaryāminam ārabhya sthāvarānteśavādinah santy aśvatthā’rka vamśādau kuladaivatadarśinah”
Pancadasi VI, 121
In Europe and Asia, where trees and creepers were worshipped during spring and harvest festivals from the earliest times, a ritual, a symbolic wedding of the tree with some creeper was often celebrated.[50] And poetic imagination everywhere pictured trees and creepers in intimate sexual relation.
“Paryāpta puspa stabaka stanābhyah ,Spurat pravalostha manoharābhyah ,Latāvadhūbhyas tarvo’pyavāpur ,Vinamra śākhā bhuja bandhanāni”
Kumārasambhava
And in South Indian tradition, Skanda, equated with Bhadraśākha (He of the Golden Bough) is represented as marrying Valli, the creeper. The real origin character of this God and his spouse is preserved in tradition as well as in places worship, particularly in Ceylon, where adjoining the temple of Skanda there is a close preserve of cornfield.