The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.13.2

c16.13.2

a round pot-like object, it may be a purse or encased treasure (*nidhi*), hangs from his left hand, while his right hand (broken) seems to have held a yak-tail, the latter object being apparently one of the attributes of the Patna Yaksas.¹ The original pedestals, wherever they are preserved, are all very high, and this fact explains Patañjali’s observation about Vaiśravaṇa’s ‘raised pedestal’ (utthitā āsakā Vaiśravaṇasya) noted above. All these images, as also several other extant images of more or less similar types, were cult objects regularly worshipped by their devotees (the pedestal inscription of the Maṇibhadra image clearly proves it), and were set up in different shrines. But shrines might not necessarily mean structural temples in all cases, and many were the images that were placed under big leafy trees with which these Yakṣas were prominently associated. It may be incidentally observed here that the usual association of many of the higher cult deities like Viṣṇu and Śiva with particular trees (referred to in Brahmanical religious texts as sthala vṛkṣas) should be traced to this primitive custom of associating these folk divinities with different trees. Reference has already been made in Chapter VI of this book to the solicitation of the ritualists to the spirits residing in the tree (being felled for its wood to be used for making a divine image) to leave it and reside elsewhere (Bṛhatsaṃhitā, Ch. 57, v. 11).