A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s4.24

c13.s4.24

and the mediaeval cult of the Tantric Buddhists has been mentioned already more than once. The subject was treated in a special essay written in 1828 by Brian Hodgson, who, when Resident in Nepāl, showed a picture of the famous Trimūrti, or three-headed god, at Elephanta to a 'well-informed old Bauddha [Buddhist]'. He promptly 'recognized it as a genuine Bauddha image! As he did many others, declared by our writers to be Saiva.'¹ It is quite possible that some of the so-called Brahmanical caves of Western India may be Buddhist in reality.