The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.48

Language: English

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A. K. Coomaraswamy has drawn our attention to one of the Gaṇa garland-bearers in a fragmentary relief from Amaravati (2nd century A.D.) now in the collection of the Madras Museum (*Yakṣas*, Part I, p. 42, Pl. 23, 1). This suggests Gaṇeśa, though the iconographic type has not developed here. In the red sandstone sculpture of Gaṇapati from Mathura (A. Getty, *Gaṇeśa*, Pl. 2, Fig. a) and the terracotta plaque from the Bhitargaon brick temple, both of the early Gupta period, we find that a great deal of development has taken place; but almost full hieratic form has been attained in the seated figure of the god in the Siva temple of Bhumara (c. 6th century A.D.). The first of these sculptures shows the nude elephant-headed and pot-bellied god standing erect, and the way he is depicted does not seem to establish his divine nature. The same remark may also be made with regard to the Bhitargaon plaque, where the four-armed figure is shown in the attitude of a flying Gaṇa with his trunk touching a pot of sweetmeat placed in his front left hand; his front right hand is in the *tarjanī* pose, the objects in the other two hands being indistinct (*A.S.I.A.R.*, 1908-09, pp. 10-11, fig. 2). But the Bhumara figure is shown seated on a raised seat with a chain of bells worn in the *upavītī* fashion and having bell-armlets, bell-bracelets and bell-anklets.

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The figure is two-armed, but the hands being broken, the attributes placed in them cannot be seen.¹ A relief showing Gaṇeśa with his consort seated on his left lap was also found at the same place; it looks like a caricature of the early Umā-Maheśvara reliefs (Getty, *op. cit.*, Pl. 3, Fig. a). Another early Gupta relief depicting a seated Gaṇapati is to be found in the facade of the Chandragupta cave at Udayagiri (Bhilsa, Madhya Bharat). The two-armed god is sitting on a raised seat in the *arddhaparyaṅka* pose, holding a cup containing sweetmeat (*modaka-bhāṇḍa*) in his left hand, to which his trunk (now broken) was applied; the god seems to be ithyphallic (Pl. XV, Fig. 1). In both these hieratic sculptures, the mouse is conspicuous by its absence. Seated images of Gaṇapati of the early and late mediaeval periods have been found all over India, and it is no wonder that Indonesian sculptures very closely following these mediaeval Indian prototypes should also be found. The four-armed seated figure of the god reproduced here hailing from Java very closely follows the Indian tradition. The god is squatting on a double-petalled lotus seat, holding a rosary in his back right hand, the other three hands and the fore-part of the trunk being broken. The figure is carved with a great deal of skill, and the ornaments and the design of the garments, though not lavish, are yet very tastefully displayed (Pl. XV, Fig. 3).

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One of the finest standing types of Gaṇapati image is to be found at Khitching (Mayurbhanj District, Orissa), which belongs to the early mediaeval period. The four-armed god stands on a beautifully carved lotus in a slightly bent pose (*ābhaṅga*) having bell-necklets and a few other ornaments gracefully arranged over his different limbs, holding a rosary and his own tusk in the right hands, and a cup of sweetmeat (to which the fore-part of his trunk, now partly broken, is applied) and an indistinct object in his left ones, a snake serving as his sacred thread (*vyālayajñopavītī*). The well-arranged *jaṭā* with a miniature *kīrttimukha* in the centre on the top of the elephant-head, the rows of chain ornaments enclosing the protruding temples, the pose full of grace, and all such details demonstrate in a remarkable manner how such an apparently grotesque iconic type could be converted into an elegant piece of sculpture by the anonymous artist of a corner of Orissa. The cunning twinkle of the oblique eyes, again, seems to endow the elephant-face of the deity with uncanny intelligence; the creeping mouse can be recognised in the extreme right corner of the lotus pedestal (Frontispiece).¹ Another well-carved image of the god belonging to the same locality of Orissa depicts him dancing with vigour on a double-petalled lotus.

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This time the god is eight-armed (some of the hands are broken), the front right hand is in the daṇḍa- or gaja-hasta pose, the other three carrying his own tooth, a rosary (akṣasūtra) and an indistinct object, the front left hand holds a pot of laḍḍukas (a kind of sweet-meat) one of which is being lifted up by his trunk; the sacred thread made up of a long snake has its ends (the head and the tail of the snake) loose evidently due to the vigorous action of the dance. The artist has been eminently successful in emphasising the whirling motion by the pose of the two legs, the three or more bends (atibhaṅga) in the body and the disposition of the number of arms (Pl. XV, Fig. 2). A comparison of this type of Nṛtya-Gaṇapati may be made with such motifs of Bengal of the mediaeval times. The latter may be iconographically more elaborate, but many of them lack the easy grace and beauty of the former.¹ If we compare these naive forms of Gaṇapati with the late and developed renderings of such varieties as Śakti- or Lakṣmī-Gaṇeśa, Unmatta-Ucchiṣṭa and Heramba-Gaṇapati, etc., described and reproduced by T. A. G. Rao, we cannot but have a correct understanding of the process by which the hybrid iconographic type of pre-eminently a folk god was endowed with its much-embellished later hieratic forms.²