The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s1.11

Language: English

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Some of the earliest representations of Brahmā are found in the Buddhist reliefs of Gandhāra; his figure is used there either in the Nativity scene of Buddha or as one of Buddha's acolytes. He is invariably shown in them as having profuse dishevelled hair, beard and moustache, being dressed in the garments of a Brahman, one of his two hands holding a water-vessel. Such figures are, however, not hieratic, for they are presented from the unorthodox Buddhist point of view. The later Jaina representations of Brahmā, either as a Yakṣa attendant of the Jina Śītalanātha or as one of the Dikpālas are endowed with a great deal of hieratism, even perhaps more pronounced than in their originals in the Brahmanical pantheon. The earliest ones of these originals are mostly two-armed and three- or four-faced, the faces being usually shown without a beard; the four-armed images are, as a class, of a later period. The stone image of Brahmā in the collection of the Mathura Museum (No. 382) shows the four-faced god with faces arranged in a peculiar manner. Three of them are put in one line, the fourth one being placed over the central head; none of the faces, however, is shown bearded (the figure is of the Kushan period).² The standing Brahmā image of the Gupta period in the same Museum (No. 2481) shows him three-faced, its middle face only being bearded; the god is two-armed, the right hand being in the *abhaya* pose.

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An image of the god belonging to the early Chālukya period hailing from Aihole is illustrated by Rao. The god is seated astride on the back of his swan mount (an unusual sitting posture) his four hands holding a rosary, a manuscript and two other indistinct objects; he is surrounded by a number of Ṛṣis in bowing and praising poses, who are all shown bearded (Rao, *op. cit.*, Vol. II, p. 506, Pl. CXLIV). The other Brahmā relief from the same place illustrated by him shows some variations; the three beardless faces are there, but the god is seated in *lalitāsana* on a lotus-seat, and his four hands show a rosary, a noose, a water-vessel and *varamudrā* (ibid, Pl. CXLVI). The Kumbakonam and Halebidu reliefs of Brahmā of the early Chola and late Hoysala schools, reproduced by Rao (ibid, Pl. CXLVII) are *Sthānakamūrtis* of the god, the latter showing his two consorts, Sāvitrī and Sarasvatī; but the faces of the god have no beards. One of the most remarkable and earliest figures of the god is the metal image found at Mirpur Khas in Sindh (it is now in the Karachi Museum). It is of great iconographic interest, for it does not correspond to the usual mode of representation of the deity. As the image is fully in the round, all four beardless faces of the god are shown;

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it is two-armed, the right hand being bent with the palm turned inwards as if holding a book (this pose is not described in the texts), the left hand holding probably a water-vessel (it is broken, its handle only being shown). Clad in diaphanously treated garments, and probably wearing a deer skin in the *upavītī* fashion, this bronze figure of the god presents to us a fine specimen of the Indian metallurgists' art of the late Gupta or early mediaeval period (Pl. XLV, Fig. 3). Brahmā in the lintel piece from Gauḍ (Malda) previously noted has three beardless faces, the left hands carrying a water-vessel and a sacrificial ladle, the two right ones being broken; both Sarasvatī and Sāvitrī are four-armed, the former showing *varamudrā*, *akṣamālā*, *vīṇā* and *kamaṇḍalu* in her four hands, while the latter holds *caurī*, *akṣamālā* and *pustaka* by three of her hands, the lower left one being in the *kaṭihasta* pose. An elaborately carved image of Brahmā seated on a *viśvapadma* in the *lalitākṣepa* pose in the Rajshahi Museum collection is interesting. Though it is of the late mediaeval period, the carving is not indifferent, and such details as the pot-bellied character of the god, the two-armed standing female attendants holding *caurī* in their hands, the swan mount, the donor couple, the garland-bearing flying Vidyādharas, etc. are all systematically displayed (*DHB*, Vol. I, p. 439, Pl. V, Fig. 15).