The Development of Hindu Iconography c11.26

c11.26

Huvishka's gold coin described by Gardner in p. 148 of his book (Pl. XXVIII, 16) has a type of Śiva figure on the reverse, which is of outstanding interest from iconographic as well as cult point of view. His description is as follows, ‘Śiva facing, three headed, nimbate; clad only in waist band, ithyphallic; has four arms and hands, in which are goat, wheel, trident, and thunderbolt’ (Pl. IX, fig. 17). Triśūla, vajra and cakra are recognisable in the front left, back left and back right hands respectively; the goat or antelope in the front right is not so very distinct. There are undoubtedly three-heads encircled by a halo (this is sometimes absent round the heads of different deities); whether the faces are all human is not quite clear. The cakra in one of the hands and the ūrdhvalinga, the latter so common in sculptural representations of Śiva from the late Kushan period onwards appearing here for the first time (no other early coin representations of Śiva in his human form bears it), are noteworthy characteristics. The device seems to show the beginning of the interesting composite icon of Hari-Hara of subsequent days; it may also be of the same nature as that of the Gandhāra sculpture of Trimūrti.¹ But the suggestion that it stands for a composite icon, which is also the nature of the Gandhāra Trimūrti, is fully borne out by the evidence of a unique nicolo seal noticed by Cunningham long ago. Cunningham, however, could not understand its character, and his description of it was not accurate. He described the device in this manner :—‘a Kushan chief (identified by him as Huvishka on account of the similarity of his headdress and garment with those of the Kushan King) standing in a respectful pose with folded hands before the four-armed god Viṣṇu; the god carries in his four hands a wheel (shown exactly like a cart-wheel), a mace, a ring-like object and a globular thing; there is an inscription in illegible characters by the side of the god.’ Cunningham identified the four-armed figure as Viṣṇu on account of the emblems of *cakra* and *gadā*. The inscription which could not be read by him has, however, been deciphered by R. Ghirsman. According to the latter it is written in Tocharian script (an adaptation of Greek of a very cursive character), and it contains in the Tocharian language the names of Mihira (the Iranian form of the Sun god), Viṣṇu, and Śiva. He also differed from Cunningham regarding the identity of the foreign devotee who, in his opinion, stands for some unknown Hephtalite Huṇa chief. The dress and features of the worshipping figure led him to suggest it, and the seal device would thus be two or three centuries later than the time of Huvishka. But the seal device is of unique interest from the cult point of view, for it seems to emphasise a further development in the process of cult amalgam, which probably began in the time of Huvishka. It may be observed incidentally that it was these Kushan rulers (Kanishka and Huvishka specially) who showed a great deal of eclecticism in their religious views, and it is in the fitness of things that we find during their period the beginning of the process of cult amalgam. The iconography of the composite figure of the god is also very interesting, for in the emblems held by the god those of Viṣṇu and Śiva can be clearly recognised; the wheel is the emblem *par excellence* of the former, and the mace is curiously reminiscent of the club held by Śiva in the seal of Śivarakṣita already mentioned. In the two other indistinct objects held by this composite figure may be found the distinctive emblem of the Iranian Mihira (Indian Sūrya; Pl. XI, fig. 2). Such a composite cult icon would also remind us of similar figures of a much later date, one of the most representative of which is the Dula Deo (Khajuraho) temple icon of Brahmā-Viṣṇu-Śiva-Sūrya.¹