The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.23.4

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.