The Development of Hindu Iconography c13.2

c13.2

The data which have been gathered together and presented by me in the three preceding chapters prove that the construction of images and other objects associated with the worship of the deity with deep loving faith was fairly well prevalent in India during the few centuries preceding the Christian era and those immediately succeeding it. From the multiplicity of evidence in support of the above hypothesis it would be natural for us to expect a large number of very early images belonging to the various sectaries, both orthodox and heterodox from the Brahmanical standpoint, from various parts of India. True it is that several free-standing Yakṣa statues or relievo-figures principally associated with early Buddhist funerary monuments have been discovered, which can go back to two or possibly three centuries before the Christian era; it is also true that many Buddhist, and several Jain and Brahmanical images and sculptures have been discovered in stray groups from distant parts of India like Gandhāra, Mathurā and Amaravati that belong to two or three centuries after its commencement. But when we consider the vastness of the Indian continent and think of the religious needs of the majority of her untold millions of people, we cannot but be struck with the fact that the actual discovery of the extant images going back to these earlier times is quite incommensurate with our expectations. The reasons for this extreme paucity have been briefly mentioned by me in passim in the last part of the introductory chapter of this book. The iconoclastic zeal of the image-haters of alien faith, the ever-active spoliation of ancient religious structures for building materials by the utilitarian vandals of mediaeval and modern times and the natural causes of decay and destruction were no doubt responsible to a great extent for this comparative infrequency of early finds of images. The ancient practice of making images in such perishable materials as wood and clay is also one of the main reasons which explain the above fact. In the Vedic times, in the fashioning of the ritual implements that were necessary for the correct performance of particular sacrifices, wood was the principal material that was used, and the altars of various shapes and kinds were made of clay and bricks. In referring to the materials out of which the god Viśvakarmā could have created the universe the one that comes foremost to the mind of the Vedic seer is wood. The hymnist asks, ‘Which was the forest and what was the tree out of whose wood the heaven and earth were carved?’ (R.V., X, 81, 4—Kim svidvanam ka u sa vṛkṣa āsa yato dyāvāpṛthivī niṣṭatakṣuḥ). It is natural that wood should be easily thought of in the construction of structures and other objects, for it is not only one of the easily procurable materials but also is an important one among such, being the easiest to work upon. It is no wonder then that we find so many passages in early Indian iconographic texts expatiating on the selection of wood to be used in the construction of images. Some of these are taken notice of here; attention of the reader, however, needs to be drawn in passim to the extreme care and consideration, which is enjoined by the writers of these texts on the image-makers in the cutting of the particular trees whose wood should be employed by them for the shaping of the arcā of the god.