The Development of Hindu Iconography c12.32

c12.32

The above survey of a few representative seals of the Indus Valley has partially acquainted us with the nature of the beliefs and practices of the pre-historic people of India in that region. Several conclusions have been drawn about the iconographic presentation of some of their gods and goddesses after a careful study of the devices appearing on the seals and amulets; the nature of these conclusions, however, is still a tentative one to a certain extent. As I have said in the second chapter, the unravelling of the mystery of the script and language of the seals, if it is ever unravelled at all, will shed more definite light on the problem.² Marshall makes the interesting remark about the representation of the Indus Valley divinities of the remote past that ‘the people of Mohenjo-daro had not only reached the stage of anthropomorphising their deities, but were worshipping them in that form as well as in the aniconic’; for, the highly conventionalized type of the image of what he justifiably describes as the prototype of Śiva-Paśupati, ‘its stylized details and the fact that the kindred image portrayed on the faience sealing is being worshipped by the Nāgas clearly point to its being a copy of a cult idol.’¹ The decoration (cf. the armlets, head-dress, etc.), the sitting posture, the mode of showing the hands, the horns on the head, etc., appear also in other figures, some of which may depict the different aspects of the same god. The nude goddess, either in association with a tree or not, with some of the above characteristics, is shown as an object of veneration. Many composite human and animal figures found on the seals and amulets very probably stand for divinities in their theriomorphic or therio-anthropomorphic forms, though many others are to be regarded as mere accessories. Most, if not all, of the above types of figures appear to have been based on actual icons of cult gods which were being worshipped by the people in those days.