Elements of Hindu Iconography v1.c7.71

v1.c7.71

Again, the worship of images, it is said, brings on re-births and is not therefore to be resorted to by the *yōgin*, who desires to free himself from them.[*] Accordingly, the images of the Hindu gods and goddesses are representations of the various conceptions of divine attributes. It is plain that the thought of thinkers is made manifest and concretised by various means, such as speech, pictorial and sculptural representations, and signs and symbols. All these means have been utilised in the history of humanity for bringing divinity down to the level of the common man and lifting him up gradually to the sublime height of true divine realisation. This is indeed what the seers of India have done. Sculpturally it may be said, the number of hands in an image represents the number of attributes belonging to the deity, and their nature is denoted by the *āyudha* held in the hand or by the pose maintained by it. The larger the number of hands, the more numerous are the attributes conceived; and the image with many hands is considered to be *tāmasic* in character. Similarly, the less the number of hands, the less numerous are the *guṇas* conceived; and the image may thus be made