South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses c12.s2.17

c12.s2.17

Indra, the lord of the east, is the chief of them. He is a INDRA. Vēdic god; the lord of all the minor gods. But he has long ago lost the high position assigned to him in Vēdic times. The story runs that he seduced Ahalya,¹ the wife of sage Gautama, who cursed him for his lewdness to wear about his body marks of his lascivious conduct, but subsequently changed those marks into a thousand eyes dotted all over his body. Accordingly he is still known as “the thousand-eyed” (Sahasr-āksha). Indra is represented with four arms riding on the celestial elephant Airāvata of four tusks (fig. 146). According to the Silpasāra the symbols which he presents are the bow, the protecting hand, the conch and the discus.² Hēmādri adds that his wife Sachī with two arms must be seated on his left thigh. In three of his hands he holds a lotus, goad and a thunderbolt, while the fourth passes round the back of Sachī. One of the arms of Sachī, likewise, is passed round the back of Indra, the other holding a bunch of flowers of the wish-giving tree (kalpa-vriksha).