The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.3.3

c8.3.3

but what he would find in them is that in most cases the trees within railings, with a rectangular seat underneath them, especially when they are adorned with garlands and parasols, are really the tangible emblems of the Master or his predecessors who are not iconically represented; other trees without these honorific adjuncts are really the *rukkha-cetiyas*, not usually objects of worship by themselves but so many objects of veneration because of their being residences of different Yakṣas. The dāgobas or *dhātugarbhas*, funerary structures, also symbolise the *Mahāparinirvāṇa* of Śākyamuni Buddha or that of the other Buddhas that preceded him. In the case of the Nāgas, Yakṣas, Yakṣiṇīs, etc., who can be recognised in the reliefs, it is to be observed that originally they were no doubt objects of worship, but they are depicted on these monuments in quite an opposite role, *viz.*, in that of so many worshippers of the Bhagavān Buddha. Fergusson, even in that early stage of the study of iconography, could partially hit the truth when he remarked in the same context, "There are also half a dozen scenes that can be identified with more or less certainty as representing events in the life of Śākyamuni"; but his statement that there is "a considerable number of representations of scenes in domestic life, regarding which it will probably be impossible ever to feel sure that we know who the actors in them are,"¹ has been modified to a great extent in the light of subsequent research.