The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s1.11.1

c19.s1.11.1

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.