The Development of Hindu Iconography c19.s6.8.1

c19.s6.8.1

Before some notice is taken of the other extant composite Hindu icons in which Mahāyāna Buddhist influence is clearly discernible, it will be useful to discuss the iconographic features of some syncretistic images where the constituent elements are all Brahmanical Hindu in character. Features of the Sun god are traceable in the representations of many of the cult deities. This is naïvely explained by the myth-maker by saying that from the ‘parings’ of the resplendent body of the Sun (the effulgent body of the god had to be trimmed by his father-in-law Viśvakarmā in order that his daughter Saṃjñā, the principal consort of Sūrya, could bear her husband's company) many characteristic traits by way of weapons, attributes, etc. were made for the other Brahmanical Hindu deities. The Gāyatrī mantra itself is conceived by orthodox Brahmans as Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Siva, in the morning, midday and evening respectively, each of which deity shines resplendent within the flaming solar orb. The close connection of Sūrya with Viṣṇu, or Viṣṇu as Nārāyaṇa, has already been commented on in Chapter X of this book. Images of Sūrya-Nārāyaṇa hailing from different parts of India are well known. But the composite icons combining in them the features of Sūrya and Śiva are comparatively few. One such can be recognised in the description by Hiralal of a six-armed composite image found by him at Madhia in the old Panna State in Bundelkhand region.