The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s2.9

c19.s2.9

Some of the earliest representations of Śakra or Indra are to be found in the Buddhist relief compositions of Gandhāra and Mathura. He and Brahmā are the two acolytes of Buddha, and his iconography has some fixed character in these reliefs. His so-called ‘basket-like’ head-dress is nothing but an alien adaptation of the kirīṭa, and vajra is one of his constant emblems there. In the red sandstone relief from Mathura illustrating the scene of the visit of Indra to Buddha residing in the Indraśālaguhā, the god is accompanied by his mount, the elephant Airāvata. Some of the stone reliefs in the Paharpur basement illustrate a few of the Dikpālas, and one of them shows two-armed Indra standing, facing east, before his mount, holding an indistinct object (? a citrus) in his left hand, his right hand being in the varada pose; he has a jewelled kirīṭamukuṭa on his head with a halo behind it and the horizontally placed third eye on the forehead (K. N. Dikshit, *Paharpur*, p. 46, Pl. XXVIId). The four-armed figure of Indra seated astride on the back of his elephant from the Chidambaram temple has its front hands in the *varada* and *abhaya* poses, the back ones carrying the *aṅkuśa* and *vajra* (Rao, *op. cit.*, Vol. II, p. 520, Pl. CL).