The Development of Hindu Iconography c12.5

c12.5

days, and in that guise continued to be a special attribute of Śiva’; for the horns as such were also associated with Śiva, as is evident not only from the epic passage which reads: *Svargāduttuṅgamamalaṃ viṣāṇaṃ yatra śūlinaḥ | Svamātmavihitaṃ dṛṣṭvā marttyaḥ śivapuraṃ vrajet* (Mahābhārata, Vanaparva, ch. 88, v. 8), but also from the fact that the horn as an instrument of music is very often placed in one of the hands of the popular representations of Śiva in Bengal. Hopkins thinks that the horn in the epic passage just quoted may refer to the crest of the image o’ Śiva (*Epic Mythology*, p. 73).