The Development of Hindu Iconography c13.67

Language: English

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The phenomenal increase in the number of divinities comprising the Brahmanic pantheon, which were highly venerated by the different sectaries, necessitated the construction of sculptures for representing one or other of them. The Vedic Indo-Aryans believed in multiple gods; an attempt is made in many of the early and late Vedic texts to fix the aggregate of thirty-three gods divided in one list into three groups of eleven each, one connected with heaven, the second with earth and the third with waters or sometimes with the antarīkṣa region equated with the last. But this number is never strictly adhered to, and Yāska’s enumeration of three orders based on the above, viz., pṛthivīsthāna, antarīkṣasthāna or madhyamasthāna and dyusthāna, centering round three principal deities, viz., Agni on earth, Vāyu or Indra in air and Sūrya in heaven, contains a number of minor deities and deified objects which far exceeded the stereotyped list. It may be argued that as these gods were not iconically represented, the question of their number does not arise at all. But many were the Vedic divinities who came to be intimately associated with one or other of the later cult-deities and lent their characteristic traits to the latter in their multifarious iconic representations.

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An epithet, which served to emphasise one particular trait of a Vedic god, later gave rise to the composition of an elaborate story for emphasising that trait of the same deity in his Purāṇic setting, and reliefs illustrating it were constructed in large numbers. To refer to one particular instance: Rudra in the Vēdas, especially in the *Śatarudrīya* section, is given an epithet called *kṛttivāsa* which means one that has a skin for his garment. Now, there can be little doubt that here was the nucleus of the elaborate story of Gajāsurasaṃhāramūrti in illustration whereof so many images of Śiva, in which he is shown as using the hide of the slain elephant-demon as his outer covering, were made. In the Vājasaneyī recension of the White Yajurveda (III. 63), Rudra the fearful is described as *Śiva*, thus, ‘Thou art gracious by name; the thunderbolt is thy father; reverence to thee; destroy us not’ (*Śivo nāmāsi svadhitiste pitā namaste astu mā mā hiṃsīḥ*). In the *Ṛgveda*, Rudra is described as *kṣayad-vīra*, generally explained by scholars as the ruler over heroes, and wise, his terrific aspect being also much emphasised; thus the hymnist prays to the god, ‘Oh Rudra, do not, out of thy anger, injure our children and descendants, our people, our cattle, our houses, and do not kill our men, we invoke thee always with offerings’ (I. 114, 8—*Mā nastoke tanaye mā na āyau mā no goṣu mā no aśveṣu rīriṣaḥ | Vīrān mā no Rudro bhāmito badhīr haviṣmantaḥ sadamit tvā havāmahe*).

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In the *Mahābhārata* (Anuśāsana Parvan), Kṛṣṇa praises the god before Yudhiṣṭhira thus, ‘Brāhmaṇas versed in the Vedas know two bodies of this god, one awful, one auspicious; and these two bodies again have many forms’ (*Dve tanū tasya devasya vedajñāḥ brāhmaṇāḥ vidūḥ | Ghorāṃ anyāṃ śivāṃ anyāṃ te tanū bahudhā punaḥ*). Now, this idea is consistently given expression to in many of the multifarious reliefs of Śiva where the great god is depicted as the destroyer (*cf.* his so many Saṃhāramūrtis), or as the bestower of favour (*cf.* his multifarious Anugrahamūrtis). Viṣṇu in the early Vedic texts is simply mentioned as Trivikrama and is often extolled there for his feat of having taken three strides and thus covering the whole universe (*tredhā nidadhe padam*). Subsequently, elaborate mythology grew up round this, and interesting sculptures in illustration thereof were made, which were classed as the transformed phase of his Vāmana incarnation. It will be needless to multiply instances here, as this aspect of iconic representations of the Brahmanical gods will be discussed later in this book. But one point should always be borne in mind, viz., that the purpose of these reliefs and sculptures in many cases was decorative and subsidiary;

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thus, it being the general order to enshrine the Liṅga of Śiva as the principal cult object in the main sanctum of Śaiva shrines, many of the mythological stories connected with him were plastically represented and used as so many accessories for the edification of the devotees in the different parts of the same. But, in the case of Viṣṇuite icons, the same iconic motif, which could in one place serve as a Pārśvadevatā (i.e., a deity serving as an accessory and placed in a side-niche of the main sanctum), could in another shrine be the principal object of worship. Thus, the Śeṣaśayanamūrti of Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa—that again a mythological elaboration of the Ṛgveda, X. 82, 5 and 6—is used in one of the three niches of the Deogarh temple (Lalitpur subdivision, Jhansi district); but in most of the South Indian Vaiṣṇava shrines, the chief icon in the main sanctum is Raṅganātha which is one of the names of the above type of Viṣṇu images in South India.