The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s1.6.2

c19.s1.6.2

the presence of a three-headed figure of the bearded Brahmā with his swan mount on the centre of the sanctum doorway and the evidence of an inscription found there recording that the writer paid his adoration to Caturmukha (an appellation of Brahmā) and his wife Sāvitrī, led Cunningham to ascribe this shrine to Brahmā with certainty (A.S.R., Vol. X, pp. 93-4, Pl. XXXI). A small square temple of the god was noticed by the same scholar at Khajuraho, which he thought to have been the oldest of the extant shrines at the place (Ibid., Vol. XXI, p. 57). The Vasantgaḍh (Rajputana) brick temple of the god is as old as the 7th century A.D., which faces east and has a standing life-size image of Brahmā with three faces and a nimbus behind him; the figure is two-armed, the hands holding an akṣamālā and kamaṇḍalu. The interest attaching to the temple of the god at Kheḍ Brahmā (Idar, Mahi Kantha) is great, for it was still functioning in 1906-07, when it was visited by Henry Cousens. Cousens writes that there is a community of Brahmans at the place who have been there for generations, who devote themselves exclusively to the worship of Brahmā; they are Audīcya Brahmans (Brahmans of the north), are followers of the Śukla Yajurveda, and are entrusted with the ritual worship of the shrine deity.