The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.19.4

c19.s6.19.4

The image can be dated in the 11th century A.D., on the basis of stylistic grounds, as well as of the palaeography of a short inscription engraved on its back.¹ The twenty-armed Viṣṇu image in the V. R. S. Museum (No. 1492) tentatively named as Viśvarūpa and described earlier in this book (Chapter X, p. 426, illustrated in Pl. XXVI, Fig. 2) evinces also these syncretistic traits. The pose of the two pot-bellied attendants of the god and a few other general characteristics appear also to emphasise the blending of Brahmanical Hindu and Mahāyāna elements. These and similar other images leave little doubt about the fact that their worshippers were making definite and conscious efforts to rise above the well-defined limits of sectarianism, while they were using them in their religious rituals.