The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.25

c19.s6.25

Like the latter he is a god of wealth and prosperity, and like him he is pot-bellied, though the bag of treasure in his prototype's hand is replaced by a mungoose vomiting jewels. The early mediaeval relief of the two-armed Jambhala reproduced here (Pl. XLVII, Fig. 2) characteristically portrays his Kubera-like features, and his association with wealth is demonstrated by the carving of eight jars full of coins (the third from the left is overturned, from which coins are pouring out) beneath his lotus seat on which he is seated in the *ardhaparyaṅka* pose. The number of the jars, eight, proves that they stand for Aṣṭanidhis (‘eight treasures’), one of the earliest representations of which in a different manner is found in the ‘banyan capital’ recovered from Besnagar by Cunningham (cf. supra, pp. 104-05). In the Brahmanical Hindu mythology, Kubera is associated with Śrī or Lakṣmī, the goddess of fortune and prosperity, who is the presiding deity of the Aṣṭanidhis; in the Mahāyāna adaptation of him, on the other hand, Vasudhārā (another name of Vasundharā, Bhūmi or Pṛthivī, the mother Earth) appears as his consort. Separate representations of this Buddhist goddess have been found in Eastern India, and one such figure of the mediaeval period is being reproduced here (Pl. XLVIII, Fig. 2). A look at it will convince one that she is a proper consort of Jambhala; she is seated like her lord in *ardhaparyaṅka* pose on a double-petalled lotus-seat, her right leg resting upon an upturned jar by the side of which there are seven more inverted jars. Her fore-arms are broken, but there are enough indications to show that she held by her right hand an ear of corn (this object is present in well-preserved images of Vasudhārā), emphasising in this manner her association with plenty, as the cornucopia in the hand of the Roman goddess Abundantia (Ardochso in its Kushan set-up) does in a similar manner.¹