The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.72

Language: English

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The representation of Śrī-Lakṣmī in Indian art from the earliest known times onwards has followed several modes. The Bharhut artist describes one standing female figure of the Nyagrodhaparimaṇḍalā type carved on one of the uprights as Sirimā devatā. The goddess stands in the samapādasthānaka pose with her left hand hanging straight by her side and resting on her hip (kaṭihasta), while her right hand holds a flower (Pl. XVIII, Fig. 1). There is a great deal of iconographic affinity between her and the Devatās (Culakokā and others) described above, though the latter are depicted in a more lively pose. Other variants of this type shown in Sanchi, Bodh Gaya, etc., depict her almost in an identical pose, though she is shown sometimes standing in a lotus wood (padma-vana), holding a lotus in one of her hands (padmakarā), etc. The much-mutilated standing female figure found by Cunningham among the ruins of Besnagar along with the Banyan capital has been identified by me as representing the goddess Śrī-Lakṣmī.¹ A female figure seated in a peculiar pose on the raised pericarp of a lotus flower carved on a section of a fragmentary coping stone from Amaravati (beginning of the 2nd century A.D.) can be identified as Śrī; lotus designs are all around the goddess, and the mythical Makara in front of her gazes at her with its wide open eyes (Pl. VIII, Fig. 6).

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The other characteristically developed iconographic type of the goddess so frequently represented in the early Buddhist art of Bharhut, Sanchi, Bodh Gaya, Amaravati and other places depicts her either standing or seated on a lotus usually coming out of a pot (*bhadra-ghaṭa*), holding a lotus in her hand, surrounded by blooming lotus flowers and spreading lotus leaves, and being bathed by two elephants. This ancient type and its variants, ‘always reproduced with a certain evident pleasure’ by the artists, came to stay, and it is still very popular among the Indians.¹ In many mediaeval temples, specially of Orissa, this motif often described as Gaja-Lakṣmī, was carved in the centre of the architrave over the doorway of the main structure, whatever might have been the cult affiliation of the shrines. Separate niches in mediaeval temples were also assigned to the goddess, where she was elaborately depicted. One such elaborate composition meets the eye of the visitor to the Kailāsa temple at Ellora, as soon as he enters the great rock-cut shrine. The goddess bathed by the elephants is seated on a lotus in a lotus pond, and there are other celestial attendants by her side. What is of unique interest in this beautifully carved gigantic relief is the presence of two Nāgas below the lotus-seat of the goddess;

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they, like the two Nāga chiefs, Nanda and Upānanda, of the Buddhist mythology connected with the Great Miracle of Śrāvastī, are supporting, as it were, the lotus on which the goddess is seated.² Another beautiful figure of Gaja-Lakṣmī of the mediaeval period is to be found at Khitching (Mayurbhanj, Orissa). The goddess is shown inside a decorated square frame seated gracefully in lalitākṣepa on a *viśvapadma*; there are the usual elephants bathing her with upturned jars; her right hand placed on the right knee is shown in the *varada* pose, the left hand holding a full-blossomed lotus (Pl. XVIII. Fig. 2). It will be of interest here to take note of two stone and one bronze sculptures all in the collection of the Madras Museum. The stone ones hail from Kāveripakkam (North Arcot District, Madras), and the tiny bronze figure was unearthed from the village of Enadi (Arantangi Taluq, Tanjore District, Madras). The first of the two stone figures and the tiny bronze (Pl. XIX, Figs. 1 & 3) are really symbol-cum-image of the goddess Śrī; for the outline of the auspicious symbol described as śrīvatsa (for my remarks on it and its illustration, see supra, p. 190, and Pl. II, Figs. 11 & 12) can be distinctly recognised in them. In the former the bathing elephants, the lighted lamps (auspicious signs themselves) and the śaṅkha- and padma-nidhis can be faintly recognised;

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in both channavīra is shown across the breast, the curled ends of the symbol simulate arms and legs, and the head and the torso are clearly fitted in the general outline of the śrīvatsa. If we compare them with the third figure (Pl. XIX, Fig. 2) we can at once see how the symbol-cum-image has developed into a full-fledged image of Gaja-Lakṣmī with hands holding lotus and conch-shell (indicative of the two nidhis). She is seated in paryaṅkāsana (so called ‘European fashion’) on a raised lotus, is endowed with kucabandha (breast-band), mekhalā (jewelled waist-band) and other ornaments, with the usual elephants on either top corner. These two Kāveripakkam sculptures and the Tanjore bronze to be dated in the early mediaeval period demonstrate in a very interesting manner how close was the relation between the aniconic symbol and the icon itself, and how, in this case at least, the latter was supposed to evolve from the other.¹