The Development of Hindu Iconography c12.2.1

c12.2.1

Like the numismatic remains of ancient India, her glyptic ones also throw a flood of light on the mode of representing her divinities in different periods. The innumerable varieties of seals and similar objects that have been unearthed in various parts of Northern India and that can be dated from the third or fourth millenium B.C. to the late Gupta period and afterwards contain numerous figures, many of which have been assumed with a great deal of justification to stand for various divinities in their anthropomorphic, theriomorphic and sometimes therio-anthropomorphic forms. On many seals of the Kushan and the Gupta periods, most of these gods and goddesses as also their emblems can be definitely recognised as belonging to one or other of the different religious creeds that were current in the period when they were manufactured. I have already drawn the attention of my readers, in the previous chapter, to the Sirkap bronze seal of Śivarakṣita, that gave me the necessary clue for the identification of Śiva in certain coin-devices of Maues. Mention has also been made by me there of a few other metal and terracotta seals of the Kushan and the Gupta periods, which supply us with characteristic representations of such Hindu gods as Viṣṇu and Śiva, as well as a few of their emblems.