The Development of Hindu Iconography c11.2

c11.2

The way in which the ancient Indian coins and seals can be utilised for the study of Indian iconography has already been indicated in the first chapter. The value of the earliest Indian coins in this respect has also been briefly assayed.¹ The one substantial fact which is supplied to us by them, if we accept the view sponsored by several scholars that many of the symbols are religious in character, is that they fully corroborate the conclusion already arrived at with the help of textual and monumental evidence with regard to the earlier aniconic tradition of a large section of the Indians. Even when iconism had come to be accepted by the majority of the Indian people, they continued the earlier practice. Some of the animals appearing on them may stand for theriomorphic representations of deities while others appearing on mountain symbols, three-, five- or six-arched ones, may also have some cult significance; the wheel, lotus and rayed disc may well be accepted as depicting the Sun god; the tree within railing may stand for vṛkṣa caityas or sthalavṛkṣas; we find even a human figure holding a staff and a vase in his two hands, depicted almost in the same manner as on the coins of Ujjayinī where we can justifiably identify it as Śiva; the three-arched mountain symbol with a crescent above it may typify the aniconic representation of the same god (he is sometimes described as triśṛṅga parvata, cf. Coomaraswamy, O. Z., 1927-28, p. 179) with the lunar crescent on his crest, Śaśāṅkaśekhara (Pl. I, figs. 1-4); some other symbols again as the second from the top on the left column of page 300 of Allan’s Catalogue may be taken to depict schematically a garuḍa- or a makara-dhvaja. But all these suggestions are, by their very nature, conjectural in character, and no certainty can be arrived at in the present state of our knowledge. It seems, however, there is a great resemblance between some of them and others appearing on the pictographic seals of the Indus Valley, and if we can ever recognise the exact significance of the latter, then more light may be thrown on the former. But this uncertainty and hesitation disappear to a very great extent when we take up the study of the local and tribal coins. Some at least of the figures appearing on them can be explained with much greater confidence, and when this is done it will appear that these are associated with particular religious practices or cults. Thus, the bull standing before a symbol (Pl. II, fig. 2) differently represented (Allan, op. cit., p. 307, Col. II, Nos. 3-6) on the earliest coins of the Ārjunāyanas and the Yaudheyas (collectively to be dated in the 2nd-3rd century B.C. or a little later) may very well represent the bull before the yūpa, i.e., sacrificial post. Allan has offered two suggestions for the symbol—a liṅga or a yūpa, the latter of which is acceptable. He has noticed this symbol on the reverse of one round copper coin of Viṣṇumitra, collected by Prinsep from Kanauj; he correctly remarks, ‘The reverse has a horse apparently before a sacrificial post (yūpa) and may commemorate an aśvamedha sacrifice.¹ One can compare the representation of this Vedic yūpa with figures appearing on some other early coins in the tribal series, which were certainly based on plastic types and which were also cult objects. Stone yūpas belonging to the third century A.D. have been discovered at Badva, old Kotah State, Rajputana; their shape supports my suggestion to a great extent (for some symbols appearing on punch-marked, local, tribal and other coins of ancient India, refer to Plates I and II).