Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c17.28

c17.28

BALARĀMA—Various elements of his iconography consisted of a canopy of serpent hoods taken from the Nāga cult, a long plough from the religious form of the Kshetrapāla gods, a stout club from the Yaksha iconography (cf. Moggarapāṇi Yaksha); seen in a Śuṅga image from village Junsuti of Mathura. In some cases the plough is surmounted by a tailed loin (Siṃhalāṅgūla), a motif described in the Mbh. as an independent emblem of an epic hero, but here fused in the general iconography of Saṅkarshaṇa.