The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s5.1.2

c19.s5.1.2

But it is a fact that such a personification of vajra has not been found in later reliefs. Of the different Vaiṣṇava emblems usually represented in art, some are depicted as male and others as female, their gender being determined by that of the respective word denoting them. Thus, the word gadā being in feminine gender, its personified form is shown as a beautiful woman, śaṅkha being masculine, it is represented as a male figure. Cakra and padma are in the neuter gender, and the texts enjoin that they should be shown as eunuchs, but for all practical purposes they appear as male figures in late Gupta and mediaeval art. The texts also emphasise that weapons like śakti, aṅkuśa, pāśa, vajra, etc., should be personified on the basis of the above criterion; but there is hardly any means of testing this textual injunction as they are seldom represented in human form. Rao recognised in some of the accessory figures, shown in the Śeṣaśayana relief at Deogarh, the Āyudhapuruṣas, Dhanuṣ, Cakra, Śaṅkha, Gadā and Khaḍga; the first and the fourth stand by the side of the central figure, the last three standing below in fighting attitude in front of the demons Madhu and Kaiṭabha. The character of some of the accessory figures as Āyudhapuruṣas standing by the composite deity is usually determined by the showing of their real forms (a wheel, a mace, a conch-shell, etc.) either behind or on the head of the personifications;