The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.36

c16.36

The iconographic types of the Gandharvas, as preserved in Indian art from a very early period, conform partially to the description given in the Mānasāra. Some of the garland-bearers (mālādhāris), shown hovering in the air round such symbolic representations of the Buddha as a stūpa, etc., in the early Buddhist monuments of Central India (Bharhut, Sanchi), are very often shown with bird-like lower parts, with wings attached to their arms, with a human head and torso, and adorned with crowns, ear-rings and other ornaments. The musical instrument is no doubt absent here, but it should be noted that their hands are shown holding garlands in these reliefs. Gandharvas, both male and female, however, are painted in the Ajanta frescoes with similar hybrid forms, but are shown playing on the vīṇā with their hands. This is also the way in which they are represented in early and late mediaeval relief compositions as accessories to the central figures of different cult-icons, Viṣṇu, Śiva and others. To heighten the emotional effect of such representations, they are often shown in pairs on the prabhāvalī of the cult image, the male playing on a musical instrument and the female dancing to its tune. A Gandharva or Kinnara couple from Deogarh (Lalitpur sub-division, Jhansi district, Madhya Bharat) of the late Gupta period, illustrated here (Pl. XVI, Fig. 1), is of great interest in this connection. The pair stand facing each other on either side of a tall tree inside a beautifully designed arc of a medallion; their upper part is human with wings (the arms are not distinct, but the wings are), the legs below the knee are also human, the feet only being those of a bird; they have ‘goggle eyes’, like those of a Garuḍa as represented in early and late mediaeval art. Grünwedel’s remark about the Gandharva-Kinnara type, which he considers to be a purely Indian one, should be quoted here: ‘These secondary deities may have been originally represented in the costume of the aborigines of India. . . .’ It is based on the representation of a Kinnara couple in one of the reliefs on the coping stone of the Bharhut railing, illustrating the Kinnara Jātaka; the couple are ‘so represented as to be seen only to the knees and who appear to be wearing leaves of trees round the body (parṇa : leaf and feather)’.¹ The Apsarasas did not appear to have had any peculiar iconographic trait of their own, inasmuch as they are usually shown in the forms of exceedingly beautiful damsels from the early period onwards. The Bharhut relief depicting the joy and merriment among the gods after Māra’s defeat contains the dancing figures of the four Apsarasas described by the artist as: (1) Miśrakeśī, (2) Alambuṣā, (3) Subhadrā and (4) Padmāvatī (cf. Pl. II, Fig. 23). They appear as so many beautiful danseuse and very similar is the way in which they are represented in Indian art of later times. The river goddess, Gaṅgā and Yamunā, so frequently shown on the temple doors of the Gupta and the early mediaeval periods can justifiably be traced to these proto-types, though they are not depicted in the dancing pose. Their gracefully standing figures as architectural decorations (*cf.* the Besnagar Gaṅgā) are afterwards endowed with the hieratic form of cult deities (*cf.* the Isvaripur Gaṅgā) or exceedingly beautiful women of a voluptuous type (*cf.* the figure of Gaṅgā in the Rajshahi Museum; Pl. XVII, Fig. 3). The Besnagar Gaṅgā stands in a very graceful pose on the back of a Makara, a mythical crocodile, with legs crossed (? the vidgala pose as described in the Viṣṇudharmottara); her right elbow rests on the shoulder of an attendant, and a male figure on the left corner is striking a blow to the snout of the animal (this may be Bhagīratha goading it to move swiftly (Pl. XV, Fig. 4).