The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.47

c8.47

Nagnajit, here, clearly refers to a school of measurement followed in the making of icons in the Drāviḍa country, and we have seen that Varāhamihira speaks of another school of measurement probably followed in the northern country. Gopinath Rao is quite correct when he says, “The author, Nagnajit, quoted by Varāhamihira, must certainly be older than the middle of the sixth century A.D.; the quotation . . . indicates the existence of a school of sculpture in south India then.” But the other remark of his, in this connection, that “the quotation also incidentally informs us that Nagnajit was possibly a Dravidian author on śilpaśāstra” does not bear scrutiny.¹ Had Nagnajit been really a Dravidian author, it is presumable that he would not have referred to this school particularly as Dravidian, in his *Pratimālakṣaṇa*. We have no means, now, of associating Nagnajit with a particular locality, though Vedic, Epic and Purāṇic tradition refers to one Nagnajit as a king in the Gandhāra region; but this king Nagnajit might have been quite a different person from Nagnajit, the author of the works *Citralakṣaṇa* and *Pratimālakṣaṇa*.