The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.11.2

c8.11.2

Figures of divinities on the coins of particular localities belonging to different periods will indicate the manner of their representation that was in vogue in different times and places. It is very often the case that we do not light upon comparatively early specimens of images in various localities of northern India; in such cases, the coins discovered in those places are sure to help us in a very remarkable manner to determine the early iconographic types of various gods and goddesses worshipped there. It is needless to remark further that these numismatic depictions of deities are in many cases really based on the actual sculptural representations of them. Where both the early sculptural type and its numismatic counterpart are extant, we do not fail to find very close parallelism. Thus, the figure of Buddha belonging to the second century A.D. is well represented in plastic form among the Gandhāra sculptures; when we compare it with the numismatic type appearing on the coins of Kanishka and clearly described by the Kushan die-cutter as CAKAYMO BOΔΔO (Śākyamuni Buddha), we are struck by the great similarity between these two. The figure of a Śiva or a Mahāsena has not so far been discovered among the extant Gandhāra sculptures of the second or the third century A.D.;