The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.19.2

c19.s6.19.2

The much-mutilated twelve-armed figure originally found in Ghiyasabad in the district of Murshidabad (Bengal) and now in the collection of the Indian Museum, shows the central deity standing erect between two plantain trees with several snake-hoods (probably seven, most of them are broken) spread behind his head (broken); some of the twelve hands are gone, but those which are preserved hold stalks of lotuses, on the double-petalled flowers of which are placed tiny figures of a Garuda, a rat, a ploughshare, a conch-shell on the left, and a manuscript (?), a bull, a cup (?) etc. on the right. The figure has usual ornaments including the *vanamālā* or *vaijayantīmālā* of the Viṣṇu images; one hand on either side is placed on two attendant figures in the manner of Viṣṇu's two hands being placed on the heads of the Āyudhapuruṣas. A ten-armed figure hailing from Garui, district Burdwan (Bengal), has great affinity with the Ghiyasabad sculpture from the point of view of its iconography, but many of its details are gone. A well-preserved twelve-armed image of this type originally found at Sonarang (Dacca) and now in the collection of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishat Museum, Calcutta, has the tiny figure of Amitābha over the central hood of the snake-hood canopy, and Garuda is shown with his hands in the *añjali* pose on the right side of the *triratha* pedestal;