The Development of Hindu Iconography c13.53

c13.53

Cast images have been placed by me under the *pākajā* class; another class of images which can also very well come under the same are the terracotta figurines that have been discovered in untold numbers from various parts of India with dates ranging from the remotest times onwards. Some of them have undoubtedly a cult significance, while others are children's toys; numerous others, again, are clay seals which were stamped with the particular signs of royalties, court officials, trade-guilds, religious establishments and others, and lightly burnt afterwards. The last group sometimes bore on their surface the various Brahmanic deities and their emblems which were certainly based on the contemporary mode of their representation. Terracotta plaques bearing figures of cult-deities and mythological stories associated with them were very frequently used in Bengal and many other parts of India as outer decorations of *stūpas*, *vihāras* and temples for the edification of pious sectarian devotees. These were comparatively cheap and easily available, and so the potters' art was extensively patronised by the sectaries. Attention has already been drawn to the terracotta objects described by Mackay as images of gods in the Indus Valley sites; Mackay expressly tells us that the numerousness of such finds shows that they were manufactured in the factories of image-makers of these regions. Excavations in the historic sites of Vaiśālī, Bhita, Śrāvastī, Kauśāmbī, Somapur (Pāhārpur), Puṇḍravarddhana (Mahāsthān), Banaras, Patna, Nalanda, etc., have brought to light large numbers of the terracotta objects belonging to the different categories noticed above, and some of them are particularly useful for the study of Hindu iconography. Thus the diverse representations of a nude female figure in burnt clay, dating from a few centuries before the Christian era, have been taken by Coomaraswamy to stand for the mother goddess whose cult seems to have been much in vogue not only among the original settlers of India, later finding a wider currency there, but also in the countries of the near East and eastern Mediterranean. As regards the seal impressions, reference has already been made in Chapter V to those found at Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Basarh, Bhita, Rajghat, Nalanda, etc., which are of unique interest and importance for the study of Hindu iconography. It has often been said that these were ordinary clay objects which were either sunburnt or burnt in kilns after they had received the impression of the device from the seal matrix, the negative of the plaques, and such other moulds. But it is possible that some sort of preparation was necessary for the ordinary clay and a few other ingredients had to be mixed with it. I have already referred to the formula laid down in the Haya-śīrṣa for preparing clay for image-making; but this was not ordinary clay, but some kind of stucco, and when the image was made out of it, it was not burnt. Brief reference has also been made by me to the clay compound which was used in the casting of metal images as written in the Mānasollāsa; it may be mentioned now in detail. 'To clay should be added charred husk finely rubbed, cotton severed a hundred times and a little salt finely powdered. All these (when mixed with clay) should be finely ground on a smooth stone.' The Śilparatna refers, in connection with making of terracotta *liṅgas* (*pakva-liṅgas*), to the mode of preparing the clay which has special bearing on this question. It says: good earth fit for use should be procured and well ground; then it should be left over for a month in *pañcagavya* (i.e., milk, milk-curd, clarified butter, urine and dung of the cow) and afterwards burnt in fire.¹