The Development of Hindu Iconography c9.26.4

c9.26.4

But these and many other similar concepts are pure and simple imageries without actual concrete bases. These theriomorphic and anthropomorphic descriptions, however, played an important part in the evolution of some of the cult gods in the subsequent religious history of India. Thus, it will be interesting to refer to two typical cases. Rudra, the Vedic base of the cult god Śiva, is very often mythologically connected with Agni in the Epic and Purāṇic literature. Agni has been likened frequently with a bull in the Vedic texts, and Rudra himself is called a bull in some Vedic verses (cf. R.V. II. 33, 8: *Pra babhrave vṛṣabhāya śvitice* etc., or II. 33, 6: *Unmā mamanda vṛṣabho marutvān*, etc.). Now, on the basis of this very fact, Rudra-Śiva is sometimes primarily conceived in the form of a bull, and there are definite numismatic data in support of the representation of Śiva as a bull. But, by a converted mental process of thinking on the part of his worshipper, the theriomorphic form of the deity is assigned the position of a mount of the same god conceived anthropomorphically. Again, in some much later representations, this so-called animal mount of Rudra-Śiva is made to assume the pure human form of the deity himself, with this difference only that its front hands are shown in the *añjali* pose.