The Development of Hindu Iconography c14.41

Language: English

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The Dhruva-beras or the principal types of Viṣṇu images are grouped under three broad heads, viz., sthānaka (standing), āsana (seated) and śayana (recumbent), in the Vaikhānasāgama text. The images of the other gods and their attendants also are represented in one or other of the first two attitudes, the recumbent ones being very rare. Several varieties of images also are to be found in dancing or flying pose, the latter being mostly used in the representation of such accessories as the Vidyādharas and others. In the case of standing images, different kinds of stance are met with, while there are also numerous varieties of sitting postures in which the seated images are shown. Four different standing poses were usually shown by the Indian iconographer in representing the sthānakamūrtis; they are called bhaṅgas, i.e., ‘flexions’ or ‘attitudes’. These are sama-bhaṅga or samapāda, ābhaṅga, tribhaṅga and atibhaṅga. The first denotes the equipoised body where ‘the right and left of the figure are disposed symmetrically, the sūtra or plumb line passing through the navel, from the crown of the head to a point midway between the heels’ (A. N. Tagore). Thus, the weight of the whole body is equally distributed on both the legs and the poise is firm and erect, there being no bend in the body.

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Many are the Indian images which are shown in this attitude, the most typical being the early and late figures of the Jain Tīrthaṅkaras whose hands also hang straight down by their sides without showing the least bend in them (kāyotsarga). The Brahmanical and Buddhist divinities, when they are depicted in this attitude, usually show various dispositions of their hands, either according to the nature of the ideas expressed by them, or according to the type of the weapon or emblem held by them. Sirimā-devatā and many other Vyantara-devatās on the Bharhut railing stand in the samabhaṅga attitude. Figures 7, 8 and 20 in Plate I (varieties of Śiva on Ujjayinī and Audumbara coins), Figure 6 in Plate XI (Gaja-Lakṣmī on some coins of Azilises), Figure 9 in Plate X (Mahāsena on Huvishka’s coins) and Figure 1 in Plate XI (Gaja-Lakṣmī on a Bhita seal) are shown in the above pose. Ābhaṅga is that form of standing pose in which the plumb-line or the centre line, from the crown of the head to a point midway between the heels, passes slightly to the right of the navel (Tagore). In other words, a slight bend both in the upper and the lower halves of the figure is definitely perceptible in this form. Many also are the Indian images which are represented in this pose;

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Figures 13 and 19 in Plate I (Śiva on some Ujjayinī coins and on some coins of Wema Kadphises), Figures 2 and 8 in Plate XI and 2 in Plate IX (composite god on a nicolo seal, Umā on some coins of Huvishka, a goddess with cakra on Maues’ coins), Figures 15-18 in Plate IX (Śiva on a square copper coin of Maues and on a few coins of Huvishka), Figure 7 in Plate XI on a seal of the Śaka period (it has been identified as Poseidon trampling on a bull-shaped river god), the figures of Skanda-Kumāra and Viśākha on Huvishka’s coins reproduced in Plate X, Figure 6, Gaṅgā and Sarasvatī (?) in Plate IX, Figure 3 and in Plate XI, Figure 3 (Gaṅgā rides on the elephantine Makara on the reverse side of the Tiger-slayer type coins of Samudragupta and Sarasvatī (?) appears on the coins of Narendravinata, a Bengal king of the late Gupta period) all these can be described as standing in the ābhaṅga pose. The tribhaṅga pose has been described by A. N. Tagore as one in which the centre line passes through the left (or right) pupil, the middle of the chest, the left (or right) of the navel, down to the heels. The lower limbs, from the hips to the feet, are displaced to the right (or left) of the figure, the trunk between the hips and neck, to the left (or right), while the head leans towards the right (or left).’ It should be noted that the number of bends in the figure is three and so the name is quite appropriate.

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The pose may not be as common as the other two, but it is also used in the iconographic art of ancient and mediaeval India, especially in the representations of goddesses and other attendants of principal deities. Ṛṣyaśṛṅga on the Mathura railing (Pl. IV, Fig. 3) and the goddess on certain copper coins of Azes, tentatively identified by me as Durgā (Pl. VIII, Fig. 6), are undoubtedly depicted in the *tribhaṅga* pose. *Atibhaṅga* has rightly been described by A. N. Tagore as really an emphasised form of the *tribhaṅga*, the sweep of the *tribhaṅga* curve being considerably enhanced. The upper portion of the body above the limbs below are thrown to right or left, backwards or forwards, like ‘a tree caught in a storm’. This type is comparatively rarely represented in Indian art and is used in the depiction of dynamic action of the divinity; several *ugra* (terrific) forms of Śaiva and Śākta deities and the various *krodha-devatās* of Vajrayāna Buddhism are usually depicted in this manner.