The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.4.4

c19.s6.4.4

The device on the seal of the Heptalite Huṇa chief has already been noticed and commented on by the present writer; it stands for a syncretistic deity, combining in it Viṣṇu, Śiva and Mihira, two of the constituents being Hindu, the third Zoroastrian by name, but very probably Indian in the present set-up (*cf.* pp. 124-25, Pl. XI, Fig. 2). Reference has already been made in Chapter XI to the introduction of the East Iranian Sun cult into India at a fairly early period, and here is a syncretistic figure containing in it the Indianised adaptation of the Iranian Mithra or Mihira. The period to which this intaglio belongs marks an age during which the three cults of Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva and Saura had developed to a great extent. Side by side with the growth of the separatist tendencies evidenced by their formation and systematisation, a substratum of rapprochement and reconciliation was present.