The Development of Hindu Iconography c14.85.2

c14.85.2

It is in the types of figures, undoubtedly representing people foreign to India, a few of which are met with in the early art of Sanchi and Bharhut, that we find the close covering of the whole of the body, from the neck to the feet.¹ This is one method of representing the udīyaveśa named by the authors of the iconographic texts while describing such figures as Sūrya, Citragupta and Dhanada (cf. Hemādri's Caturvargacintāmaṇi, Bibliotheca Indica Edition, Vratakhaṇḍa, Vol. II, Pt. I, pp. 145-46); Varāhamihira characterises it fully as gūḍhaṃ pādāduro yāvat in his description of the Sūrya figures. In the extant images of Sūrya of an earlier date, the costume worn by the God is exactly similar to the dress worn by the Kushan kings like Wema Kadphises and Kanishka (cf. the sculptural and numismatic representations of these kings with the Sūrya relief at Bhumara). The mode of presentation of the costume changes in the later sculptures and varies mostly in details according to the different localities to which they belong. In the case of some late mediæval figures, great care is bestowed by the artist on the carving of the garment; thus, the śārī, i.e., the cloth worn by women, which is shown round the body of the figure of Pārvatī, one of the Pārśvadevatās (deities shown on the side niches) of the Liṅgarāja temple at Bhuvanesvar, Orissa, is an example of the highest skill in carving.