The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s5.1.1

c19.s5.1.1

The phenomenal development of the practice of making images and worshipping them is interestingly indicated by the fact that even the attributes or weapons meant to be placed in the hands of the deities were personified and represented anthropomorphically. Such representations came to be designated generally as the Āyudhapuruṣas, and it is worthy of note that this feature was mostly associated with the icons of Viṣṇu. Cakra and gadā in human form are found as early as the Gupta period; śaṅkha and rarely padma are also anthropomorphised in the Viṣṇuite reliefs of the early and late mediaeval periods of Eastern and Northern India. Various other emblems, such as vajra, śakti, daṇḍa, khaḍga, pāśa, aṅkuśa, triśūla, etc., are also personified in late iconographic texts, but they are seldom shown in human form. The earliest representation of an Āyudhapuruṣa, however, seems to go back to the Indo-Scythic period. Vajra appears on some copper coins of Maues as a man behind whom is carved a double-pronged thunderbolt, just in front of Zeus-Indra whose right hand is placed over his head. Gardner describes this device as, ‘Zeus laureate, seated to left, on throne; holds in left hand sceptre; right extended towards small winged female figure, who seems to be an embodiment of the thunderbolt’ (B.M.C., p. 70, Pl. XVI. 9). In the introduction to his Catalogue (p. vii), the same author emphasises on this ‘impersonation of the thunderbolt’.