Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c7.s6.18

c7.s6.18

MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES - On one seal we see a human figure with hoofs, horns and tail of a bison, struggling with a fabulons beast, the greater part of which is tiger-like. On seals and other objects from Sumer *Enkidu* is always shown struggling with a lion and his companion *Gilgamesh* with a bull. It is possible that at Mohenjo-daro the figure of *Enkidu* is represented in an Indian context where tiger is substituted for lion. On another seal is a composite animal, which appears to be a ram with the horns of a bull, a human face and the trunk and tusks of an elephant. There are long locks of wool on its fore-quaters but the hind quaters and hind legs are those of a tiger. The three-headed beast on another seal appears to be composite of three animals, head and horns of an antelope and body of a unicorn, the head being joined to the body very carefully. On one broken seal the heads and the necks of six animals radiate outward from a ring-like motif, the heads being those of a unicorn, a short-horned bull, an antelope, a tiger and probably a rhinoceros and an elephant (Marshall, seal No. 383).