The Development of Hindu Iconography c10.35

c10.35

³ Watters, ‘On Yuan Chwang,’ Vol. I, pp. 221-22. The Bhīmā-devī shrine is evidently identical with the Bhīmasthāna beyond Pañcanada mentioned in the *Mahābhārata*, Vanaparva, Ch. 82, verses 84-85, and probably also with Bhiṣaṇa of the *Mahāmāyūrī* text. According to the *Mahābhārata*, there was a Yoṇitīrtha there, a dip into whose kuṇḍa was regarded as highly auspicious in character. These details are important for the religious history of India; the Yoṇipīṭha is now at Kāmākhyā, near Gauhati, Assam, and the particular Bhairava of the Devī is Umānanda on a rock in the midst of the Brahmaputra near by. In the 7th century A.D. there was a similar shrine in the heart of Gandhāra with the adjacent shrine of the Bhairava (Śiva). For detailed discussions about these, cf. my article in Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIV, 1938, pp. 751-3.