Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c9.s3.65

c9.s3.65

7. Animals with interlacing necks (*Ekagrīva Bahūdara*) which were depicted in Sumerian art, also in the Atharva Veda we read of ten calves with a single head (*Eka-śīrṣāṇaḥ daśavatsāḥ*, AV. 13. 4. 6.), a motif referring to the single principle of *Prāṇa* with its ten aspects. At Ajanta is a figure of four deer with one neck. [Fig. 30]. This motif continued in medieval art under the name of *Pañcha-śarīrī*, etc.