The Development of Hindu Iconography c10.45

c10.45

It has been shown above how some of the post-Vedic literature of India furnish us with valuable data regarding the prevalence of concrete representations of gods as the objects of worship in India during a few centuries before and after the Christian era. It may be argued that all of these passages do not definitely prove that actual images were being worshipped, and some of them may only refer to the aniconic symbols that might have served the same purpose as well. Archæological data will now help us to throw fresh light on this question, and a careful study of these, divisible into three groups, viz., epigraphic, monumental and numismatic, will show that in India of the pre-Christian and early post-Christian period, worship was being conducted by the various sectaries among her people through media, both iconic and aniconic in character. In some cases the data supply us with direct evidence while in others with indirect. Before a reference is made to a few inscriptions associated with one particular sect, it will be of interest to refer to the interpretation of one or two passages of Aśoka's edicts, which have been taken by some scholars as alluding to the representations of divine figures. In the first part of the Fourth Rock Edict of Aśoka occurs a passage which has been translated by Hultzsch as follows:—' showing the people representations of aerial chariots, representations of elephants, masses of fire and other divine figures' (*Vimāna-darsaṇā ca hastida(r)saṇā ca agikhamdhāni ca añāni ca divyāni rūpāni dasayitpā janam*). He suggests that the figures of elephants stood for the celestial elephants, the usual vehicles of the four Mahārājas or Lokapālas, mentioned above; *agikhamdhāni*, according to him, may be taken in the sense of radiant beings of another world, and *divyāni rūpāni* (identical in sense with *deva* in the Rupnath edict, E) means the gods in effigy (*i.e.*, the images of the gods). It may be observed in this connection that the same sense is indicated by the word *daivata*, used in the Gṛhyasūtras and some Smṛti works, as is done by the words *divyāni rūpāni* and *deva* found in Aśoka's edicts. By exhibition of these objects in large gatherings of his subjects (these *samājas* were considered meritorious by Aśoka), Aśoka desired to remind them of the gods whose abodes they would be able to reach by the zealous practice of *dhamma*.¹ These divine images and other representations had merely edificatory value and were not objects of regular worship in shrines.