The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.1

c19.s6.1

It has been shown briefly in Chapter I of this book how extant images belonging to various cults illustrate a feeling of rivalry and jealousy among their respective followers. One or two groups of such images have also been noticed in some of the chapters dealing with the cult icons, which belong to this category. Many are such Brahmanical Hindu images which emphasise this sectarian ill-feeling, and many are also the Vajrayāna Buddhist icons of the mediaeval period, which are blatant examples of morbid sectarianism. One among the numerous forms of Avalokiteśvara or Lokeśvara in the Vajrayāna pantheon is known by the curious name of Hari-Hari-Hari-vāhanodbhava Lokeśvara; it depicts Padmapāṇi-Avalokiteśvara, the spiritual son of the Dhyānī-Buddha Amitābha, riding on the shoulders of Viṣṇu (Hari) who has Garuḍa (Hari) as his mount, the divine bird-man again being mounted on the back of a lion (Hari). Advantage was thus taken of some of the various synonyms of the word hari by the sectarian iconographer in order to formulate such a type of icon in which the principal object of worship of the followers of one of the major Hindu cults was shown as a mere mount of a Buddhist divinity.