The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.23.1

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.