The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.3.2

c8.3.2

In the very first instance, the discussion about the presence or absence of the practice of image worship among the early Indo-Aryan races in connection with the study of this subject will enable the student of Indian Iconography to get hold of positive data for the true evaluation and appraisement of their religion. An intensive and historical study of this subject will throw much valuable light on the gradual changes which were constantly being introduced in certain well-defined religious practices of the Hindus. The ever-increasing pantheon of a particular cult and the constant increase in mythological stories associated with it will find a ready illustration in the iconographic representations, which will throw very interesting sidelight on these transformations. Sometimes, a proper and scientific study of this subject will help us in correcting errors made by previous scholars in the understanding of the religious practices of different peoples. Thus, Fergusson, after a close observation of the reliefs of Bharhut, Sanchi and Amaravati, remarked that about one-half of the bas-reliefs of Sanchi. . . represented religious acts such as the worship of the dāgoba or of trees; once or twice the wheel was the object of adoration and once the serpent. Now, this explanation of the significance of many of the above reliefs has been proved to be erroneous by the patient researches of subsequent scholars. No student of iconography would interpret them in that way at present;