The Development of Hindu Iconography c10.71

c10.71

It will not be out of place here to put in a few words about a practice which is intimately associated with that of worshipping images in shrines. This is the custom of the erection of the dhvajas or votive columns in honour of various sectarian deities like Vāsudeva-Viṣṇu, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, Kubera, Skanda Mahāsena and others, before their temples. These dhvajas remind us not only of the memorial columns, one of whose early prototypes was the wooden sthūna of the Vedic burial mounds, but also of the Yūpastambhas which were erected by kings and noble men of yore in commemoration of their performance of the various Vedic sacrifices.³ The Garuḍadhvaja that was discovered at Besnagar has already been referred to. But it will be of interest to note here that two other capitals of columns found here, whose shafts have unfortunately not been discovered, are shaped as a *tāla* (fan palm), and as a *makara* (crocodile), and there can be no doubt that these, when they were whole, served as the votive columns dedicated to the two *vyūhas*, viz., Saṃkarṣaṇa and Pradyumna (the former is *Tāladhvaja* and the latter *Makara-ketana*) of the Bhāgavata or the Pāñcarātra cult.¹ D. R. Bhandarkar’s suggestion that the *makara*, itself the pinnacle of the capital, was originally surmounted by a crowning piece, another Garuḍa capital discovered at Besnagar, is *a priori* unlikely. The two small holes behind the eyes of the *makara*, which led Bhandarkar to make that suggestion, were probably meant for the insertion of painted banners or flags. The discovery of the separate *tāla*, *garuḍa* and *makara* capitals proves the probability of either the first three of the four *vyūhas*, viz., Vāsudeva, Saṃkarṣaṇa and Pradyumna having been enshrined in the locality, or, it may indicate the existence of shrines dedicated to the three of the five worshipful Vṛṣṇi-vīras. It is likely that the Besnagar site contained also shrines of Sāmba and Aniruddha. Sāmba’s characteristic *dhvaja* is not mentioned in the Pāñcarātra texts, but Aniruddha’s *dhvaja* is described in them as *ṛṣyadhvaja* (*ṛṣya* is a white antelope). The capital of a stone column shaped like a cluster of palmyra leaves to be dated approximately in the 1st century B.C., discovered by Garde at Pawāyā in Gwalior State, curiously enough substantiates the old practice of erecting *tāladhvajas* in honour of Saṃkarṣaṇa.² Reference ought to be made in this connection to the capital of a stone column, in the form of ‘a banyan tree represented as a *Kalpa-vṛkṣa*, yielding abundance, enclosed by a plaited rail and rising from a square railed base’, which was discovered by Cunningham at Besnagar. Bags and vases overflowing with coins are shown beneath the branches of the tree ; a conch-shell and a lotus flower ‘similarly exuding coins found on the other side of the tree,’ have correctly been identified by Coomaraswamy with the two of the ‘nidhis’ of Kubera, viz., Śaṅkha and Padma. This banyan capital which is usually dated in the 3rd century B. C. might have been originally placed on the top of a column standing in front of a shrine of Kubera-Vaiśravaṇa, whose special cognisance was a bag or a vase full of coins.¹ Another explanation of this sculpture may be offered here. It might have been placed in front of a shrine of the goddess Śrī (Lakṣmī) who was the presiding deity of the ‘science’ described in the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa as Padminī-Vidyā. The Besnagar Yakṣiṇī found within 60 yards of the banyan capital may really stand for the goddess Śrī (for details refer to my article in J.I.S.O.A., Vol. IX, pp. 141-46).