The Development of Hindu Iconography c14.95

c14.95

One or two words about the ideology underlying this custom of placing the diverse objects in the hands of their divinities by the Hindu worshippers will not be out of place here. I have already drawn the attention of my readers in a previous chapter to the views of Macdonell, Rao and Hocart about the multiplicity of arms of the Hindu divinities, which feature was regarded by some writers like V. A. Smith as a monstrosity of the Indian iconographic art. The views of Rao and after him Hocart are far more acceptable than that of Macdonell. Coomaraswamy has fully shown in his article on ‘ Buddhist Primitives ’ in his *Dance of Siva*, how Smith’s charge is absolutely untenable. The idea of symbolising the manifold activities of the deity, in however imperfect a manner, undoubtedly lies at the root of placing in these multiple hands the variety of objects noted above. In the developed concepts about the numerous members of the Hindu pantheon, particular activities were associated with the individual units among them. It is no wonder then that one or more of these objects came to be regarded as special to different gods, though it must not be forgotten that the same objects could also appear in the hands of other deities in a secondary rôle. The mythology at the root of the varieties of divinities also determined the allocation of the objects. Thus, Brahmā, one of the members of the Hindu Triad in the post-Vedic age, was undoubtedly derived from Prajāpati, the Vedic god of sacrifice; so, the *sruk*, *sruva* and *pustaka* (really the Vedas in manuscript form) became his special emblems. Viṣṇu, really a composition of Viṣṇu (a Vedic Āditya), Vāsudeva and Nārāyaṇa, and one of the two prominent members in the Triad (Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Siva), has, in his *cakra* and his mount Garuḍa, his Vedic trait of an aspect of the Sun-god fully emphasised, for the former is the sun in the shape of a wheel and the latter the same deity in his theriomorphic form. But the *cakra* was also conceived as a weapon of war along with his other emblem *gadā*, in order to emphasise his character as the chastiser of the wicked. Siva, the last of the Triad, an amalgam of the awe-inspiring Rudra of the Vedic texts, the pre-Vedic god of the Indus valley and several other god concepts, could very appropriately be endowed with a cudgel, a trident and a thunderbolt, the weapons with which he destroys the world. But as side by side with this destructive aspect, his benignity and omniscience are also characteristic of him according to the epic and purāṇic literature, emblems indicative of these traits are not wanting in his mediæval representations. Saṃkarṣaṇa (Balarāma), the elder brother of Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa and one of the Vyūhas in the Pāñcarātra system, had certainly in his composition the traits of a harvest or bucolic deity. This idea seems to be at the root of his characteristic emblems, viz., a plough-share (hala), sometimes a pestle used in pounding corn (muṣala) and the drinking vessel (pānapātra) emphasising his inebriety (Varāhamihira describes him as *Baladevo halapāṇirmadavi-bhramalocanaśca karttavyaḥ | Vibhratkuṇḍalamekaṃ śaṅkhendumṛṇālagauratanuḥ*, Bṛhatsaṃhitā, Ch. 57, V. 36).