The Development of Hindu Iconography c12.2.3

c12.2.3

on his neck and breast is placed a series of necklaces or torques in a manner similar to that of the graiveyaka ornament placed on the neck and breast of the Yakṣa figures of the Śuṅga and the post-Śuṅga period; the lower limbs seem to be bare and the figure appears to be ithyphallic; his head is crowned by a pair of horns meeting in a tall head-dress. To either side of the god are four animals, an elephant and a tiger on his proper right, a rhinoceros and a buffalo on his left. Beneath the throne are two deer standing with heads regardant and horns turned to the centre. Just below the trunk of the elephant on the top left corner and above the tiger is the crude outline of a human figure (Pl. VII, fig. 1). Marshall is justifiably sure about the divine character of the figure, and from its peculiarly distinctive attributes, such as three faces, the Yogic āsana, its association with animals, as many as five or six in number, its deer-throne and its horns, he concludes that the figure is a prototype of the historic Śiva-Paśupati.¹ The seal just noticed at length is the same as No. 420 in Mackay's list of seals discovered by him at Mohenjo-daro. Two other seals (Nos. 222 and 235) in the same list, contain different representations of apparently the same deity, though many of the details of Mackay's No. 420 are omitted. The figure on seal No. 235 bears only one face, and the head, adorned with a pig-tail hanging down on one side, is shown in profile.