The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.23

Language: English

c19.s6.23.1

Arising out of the topic of syncretistic icons and partly allied to it is the theme of inter-relation between Brahmanical Hindu iconography on the one hand and Buddhist and Jaina iconography on the other, and a few words about the latter topic may not be out of place in the end of this book. If a careful analysis is made of a good many of the images associated with the developed phases of Buddhism and Jainism, it can be shown how they are close adaptations of Brahmanical Hindu cult icons. Grünwedel, while speaking about the genesis of the ‘rather superfluous creations of the northern schools of Buddhism’, the Bodhisattvas associated with the Mahāyāna schools, observes that with the spread of Buddhism, ‘the converts naturally carried into their new religion much of their reverence for the old Hindu gods.’ The Hīnayāna sects introduced little change in the nomenclature and iconography of these deities, and Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Nārāyaṇa and others were accepted under their Hindu names, but they were almost invariably regarded as mere acolytes or attendants of Buddha.

c19.s6.23.2

‘But with the Mahāyāna schools, whilst these gods were received, they were made to fit into an elaborate system of nomenclature and myth by which each was assigned a place in the illimitable aeons of their cosmogony.’ Then he comments on the transference of the attributes of Indra or Śakra to Vajrapāṇi, of those of Brahmā to Mañjuśrī, of those of Viṣṇu to Avalokiteśvara, of the attributes of Śiva to Virūpākṣa, one of the four Mahārājas or Lokapālas in the Mahāyāna pantheon.¹ A comparative study of many of the Brahmanical Hindu icons and the corresponding groups of Mahāyāna or Vajrayāna Buddhist images will enable us to throw more light on this subject. Numerous varieties of the Dhyāni-Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Padmapāṇi) have been described in the Sādhanamālā. Their iconographic traits enumerated in these texts, and some of their names mentioned in them, easily help us to find their counterparts or rather prototypes in the Hindu pantheon. The general form of Padmapāṇi-Avalokiteśvara appears to have been derived from Viṣṇu, but there is no doubt that such aspects of the Bodhisattva as Siṃhanāda, Nīlakaṇṭha, Halāhala, Padmanartteśvara, etc. were mere adaptations of Śiva. The sādhanas describe Siṃhanāda as nirbhūṣaṇa (‘without any ornaments’), wearing a jaṭāmukuṭa and a tiger-skin, having three eyes and a trident entwined by a white snake (sitaphaniveṣṭitaṃ triśūlam) by his side.

c19.s6.23.3

These features are all peculiar to Śiva, and inspite of the additional traits like his lion mount, lotus emblem, etc., there is no difficulty in recognising in him one of the most prominent members of the Brahmanical triad. The ideology behind Siṃhanāda is explained in the *dhāraṇīs* in this way; he is the ‘healer of diseases’ (one of the traits of Śiva is also this). The names and iconographic traits of the other three varieties of Avalokiteśvara mentioned above leave little doubt about their being the Mahāyānist or Vajrayānist adaptations of the Hindu god. The fierce god Heruka, whose two-armed figures have been found in Eastern India, is usually shown as dancing on a corpse with *vajra* and *kapāla* in his hands, a *khaṭvāṅga* placed along the left part of his body, and with a garland of skulls (*muṇḍamālā*) on his breast; these features emphasise his Śaiva association. Yamāri, another fierce Vajrayāna deity, as its name indicates, is derived from Kālārimūrti of Śiva described in Chapter XI of this book. Some of the iconographic features of Yamāri, however, were adopted from the very god of Death, whose enemy he was supposed to have been. Like the Hindu god Yama he has a buffalo for his mount, and a mace with a skull painted on it with a *vajra* on its top, and a noose (*pāśa*) for his emblems; like Śiva he wears a tiger-skin and snake-ornaments.

c19.s6.23.4

Mañjuśrī might have had some concrete human base (his human original is said to have been instrumental in the introduction of civilisation into Nepal from outside) unlike the Buddhist deities mentioned above, who had abstract ideological background; but his principal emblem, the book of knowledge (*prajñā*), seems to show that he was in a way the Mahāyāna counterpart of Brahmā and Sarasvatī of the Hindu pantheon. The Saptaśatika Hayagrīva, an emanation of Amitābha, and Jambhala, an emanation of Akṣobhya, have their prototypes in Hindu Hayagrīva and Kubera. Hayagrīva, according to the Purāṇic mythology, was primarily a demon, to kill whom Viṣṇu assumed the form of a horse-headed man. The special cognisance of Saptaśatika Hayagrīva is the scalp of a horse over his head. Another aspect of the same god, this time associated with Akṣobhya, is three-faced and eight-armed, and the number of arms as well as the attributes placed in his hands clearly associate him with Viṣṇu. The iconographic peculiarities of Jambhala distinctly connect him with Kubera-Vaiśravaṇa.