The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.80

Language: English

c16.80.1

The handsome figure carved on a railing pillar at Bharhut can be presumed to be an early prototype of the goddess. It is no doubt much mutilated, but enough still remains to give one an idea about its nature. The goddess stands in a graceful pose on what seems to be a lotus pedestal (this undoubtedly emphasises her divine nature) playing on a harp with her two hands; the tastefully displayed ornaments on her body, the graceful bend in her right leg and the air of divine abstraction shown in her face—all these features endow her with a character not easily met with in such reliefs (Pl. XVII, Fig. 2). Barua rightly finds in it ‘an early iconic form of the Hindu deity Sarasvatī (op. cit., Vol. II, p. 75). The descriptive label usually found in such reliefs at Bharhut is unfortunately wanting here. A sculpture much later in point of date (c. 10th century A.D.) hailing from Khitching (Mayurbhanj, Orissa) can be studied along with this Bharhut relief. It shows the half-length figure of a seven-hooded Nāginī playing on an Indian vīṇā; she is beautifully decorated with ornaments and is wearing a karaṇḍamukuṭa (usually worn by goddesses). The number of the hoods behind her head and the type of headdress worn by her distinctly prove that she is not an ordinary snake-maiden, but is a goddess with iconographic affinity to Sarasvatī (Pl. XX, Fig. 2). One of the earliest figures of the goddess Sarasvatī with a manuscript as her emblem was unearthed from the Kaṅkālī Ṭilā, Mathura.

c16.80.2

She ‘is shown sitting squatted, with her knees up, on a rectangular pedestal, holding a manuscript in her left hand. The right hand, which was raised, has been lost. The figure is clothed in very stiffly executed drapery, a small attendant with hair dressed in rolls stands on each side. The attendant on the left wears a tunic and holds a jar—the attendant on the right has his hands clasped in adoration.’ The pedestal bears a six-line inscription in the Brāhmī script of the Kushan period; it records the installation of the image of Sarasvatī, the gift of the Smith Gova, son of Siha at the instance of the preacher Āryya-Deva in the year 54 (or 44 as suggested by Smith).¹ The sculpture thus can be dated in the first half of the 2nd century A.D. (either 132 or 122 A.D.), and be regarded as one of the earliest representations of Sarasvatī, though most probably in its Jaina setting. The pitcher in the hand of one of the attendants may symbolise the receptacle of knowledge (jñānabhāṇḍa) of which she was the presiding deity. In the Bharhut and Khitching figures the folk element remains supreme; but even in this developed hieratic form from Mathura the primitive folk character is clearly discernible in the general outline of the body (nyagrodhaparimaṇḍalā), the sitting posture and the arrangement of the drapery. It will be of interest now to compare with these early prototypes one or two of the fully developed iconographic representations of the goddess of a much later date.

c16.80.3

The two-armed goddess seated erect in the vīrāsana pose is from the Bṛhadīśvara Temple, Tanjore; her right hand is broken, her left hand holding a manuscript is placed on her left thigh; chauri-bearing attendants are on her either side. She wears a tall mukuṭa with a canopied projection, wears jewellery, and has a tree over the canopy; flying Vidyādharas are on her either side at the top, and there are bearded ṛiṣis (sages) and other attendant figures in rows on the side niches (Pl. XX, Fig. 5). The tree above her seems to signify the idea of jñāna as the Bodhi-tree in the Vajrāsana Buddha figures indicates. The whole composition is endowed with sedate and tranquil calm, the resultant of true knowledge, so beautifully expressed in the latter; the sculpture is of the early Chola period. Another beautiful figure of Sarasvatī, now in the collection of Dacca-Museum (3B ia), shows the four-armed goddess seated in lalitākṣepa on a double-petalled lotus, playing on a vīṇā with her two front hands and holding a rosary and a manuscript in her back right and left hands respectively. A tiny swan (haṃsa, the usual vehicle of the goddess in these mediaeval sculptures) is carved in the extreme left corner of the pedestal which is decorated with lotus coils usually found in these 11th or 12th century sculptures.

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The kīrttimukha in the centre of the tapering top of the prabhāvalī, the flying Vidyādharas, the trefoil arch over the head of the goddess, the female chaurī-bearers on her either side, the pañcaratha pedestal, the figure of the donor with folded hands in the extreme right corner,—all these features typify the sculpture as one of the fully developed hieratic forms of Sarasvatī. The sculpture was found in the village of Vajrayoginī, near Dacca, and seems to have been associated with the original home of Atīśa Dīpaṅkara who went to Tibet from the Vikramaśilā monastery in 1040 A.D.¹