The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.49.2

c8.49.2

The treatment of the same type of an image of a divinity can be shown to differ in essential features in widely different regions of India, and variant iconographic texts can be utilised to explain them. It has been shown already how the Vaikhānasaāgama description of the Dhruva-beras of Viṣṇu closely tallies with the fairly early Viṣṇuite images of the South. But few are the Viṣṇu images of northern India which can be explained by the same text. In the south Indian images of Viṣṇu, his two invariable attendant consorts (except in the Yoga varieties) are Śrīdevī and Bhūdevī holding, besides a fly-whisk, a lotus and a blue-lotus respectively; this characteristic has its textual basis in the Vaikhānasa. But the north Indian varieties of Viṣṇu images, on the other hand, have almost invariably Śrī and Puṣṭi or Sarasvatī holding a lotus and a lute in their respective hands; this particular feature of theirs corresponds to the descriptions of such images given in the Matsya, Agni and Kālikā Purāṇas. The Matsya text lays down that Śrī and Puṣṭi holding lotuses should be made by the side of Viṣṇu (Śrīśca puṣṭiśca kartavye pārśvayoḥ padmasaṃyute: Matsya, 258. 15); the Kālikāpurāṇa says that Śrī should be made to appear on his right while Sarasvatī on his left (dadhānam dakṣiṇe devīṃ Śriyam pārśve tu bibhratam | Sarasvatīm vāmapārśve......); the Agnipurāṇa text, however, closely fits with the actual images when it definitely lays down Śrīpuṣṭī cāpi kartavye padmavīṇākarānvite |