The Development of Hindu Iconography c12.41.2

c12.41.2

Buffalo is the usual mount of Yama, the god of death, as well as that of Vārāhī, one of the Sapta- Mātṛkās, but here the goddess does not look like her. Another buffalo-riding four-armed Devī appears on a sealing (S.I., 547) with a sword and a wheel (cakra) in her upper right and left hands, and a trident (triśūla) in her lower right, the object in the lower left being indistinct. She also does not look like Vārāhī, and the emblems held by her hands are indicative of cult amalgam. A fragmentary seal (S.I., 915) has a six-armed goddess riding on a bull, and she may stand for Māheśwarī, a śakti of Śiva and one of the Mātṛkās, the number of hands being unusual. A round burnt red clay sealing (S. 9, R. 92) contains a seated goddess with a noose (pāśa), a trident, a lotus bud and a water-vessel (kamaṇḍalu) respectively in her four hands from the lower right onwards; the two-line legend is Brāhmaṇī-grāmajanapadasya (the legend and at least two of her attributes may partially associate her with Brahmāṇī, another of the Mātṛkās). An eight-armed goddess seated on a lion, presumably the goddess Durgā, appears on an ‘elongated oval’ sealing of a grāmajanapada (S. 9, R. 19); a wheel, a bow and a trident can be recognised among her emblems. Devices on two seals (S. 9, R. 55 and S. 9, R. 144) with the respective legends Kālī-grāmakīya-janapada and Śrī Nālandā-pratibaddha-Bhūtikā-(grāma......)...janapadasya are very interesting from the iconographic point of view.