The Development of Hindu Iconography c9.47

c9.47

But, the word of caution previously sounded is worth reiterating. The peculiar mystico-philosophical beliefs which are expressed in this class of literature only confine themselves to undoubtedly a smaller section of the people, obviously the higher intellectuals. Scholars are often prone to generalise and assume that what can be said about these few is applicable to all the Indians of a particular period. Grünwedel makes this observation about the general artistic activities of the Indians of the period to which the Vedas and Upaniṣads belong: “Though a religio-mystical element may serve as a scanty foil for fully perfected or decadent artistic efforts, the philosophical-scientific tendency, especially with the practical side which it had in ancient India, is an altogether barren soil for art.”² We have practically no means of ascertaining from this class of literature the religious practices of the other larger section, though we shall see afterwards that the religious texts of the later heterodox sects like Buddhism and Jainism throw a flood of light on this subject. But, in the latest section of the Vedic literature, the Khilas (supplements) to the earlier authoritative Brāhmaṇas and Āraṇyakas, and the Gṛhyasūtras, we have clear and unmistakable evidence about the recognition of the images of the gods and their shrines by the orthodox Vedic Brahmans (Snātakas and Gṛhasthas). The Ṣaḍviṃśa Brāhmaṇa is a comparatively late addition to the Tāṇḍya or Pañcaviṃśa Mahābrāhmaṇa, one of the oldest Brāhmaṇas. In that part of the former which is known as ‘Adbhuta Brāhmaṇa,’ really a Vedāṅga text dealing with miracles and omens, we find reference to the performance of various rites for removing the evil effects of certain omens such as the trembling of the temples, the laughing, weeping, dancing, splitting, perspiring, opening and closing of the eyes of the divine images.¹ This passage certainly presupposes the partial recognition of the practice of image-worship. In the Sūtra literature, the Gṛhyasūtras (not the Śrautasūtras which are conversant about the rituals connected with sacrifice) which deal with the rites to be performed by the householders, we find this recognition more thorough. The Pāraskara Gṛhyasūtra (III. 14, 8) tells us that the student (snātaka), when going in his chariot towards the images of gods (daivatāni), should descend from the chariot before he has reached them; if towards Brahmans, just before reaching them; if towards cows, when amid them; if towards fathers, when he has reached them. The daivatas, Brahmans, cows and fathers are mentioned in such a manner that the first one appears to be the most honoured among them. References also are to be found in this kind of literature to the shrines of the gods, and the terms used to denote them are ‘devagṛha’, ‘devāyatana’, ‘devakula’ (its Prākṛta form is ‘deul’). But even here it is doubtful whether those images and shrines were in any way associated with the well-known members of the Vedic hierarchy like Indra, Agni, Mitra, Varuṇa, Uṣas, Aditi and others. The connection in which those gods are mentioned in the above texts does not mean that their images are referred to, and many are the new entrants such as Īśāna, Kṣetrapati, Mīḍhuṣī, Jayanta, Śrī, Dhanapati, Bhadrakālī and others, most of whom, it is presumable, had their icons and shrines. The whole of the Āpastamba Gṛhyasūtra, VII. 20, deals with the carrying about of the images of the bucolic deities like Īśāna, Mīḍhuṣī and Jayanta by the householder and placing them in huts built for them and offering to them boiled rice from the *sthālīpaka*. More about this change of outlook in religion among the Vedic initiates will be discussed in the next chapter.¹