The Indus Civilization c6.28

c6.28

A seal-amulet found at Mohenjo-daro makes it fairly certain that the tiger was considered to be the emblem of a goddess, although the opposite seems to have been the case in later Indian mythology. On this object a goddess is seen with the horns of a goat, the usual sprig of flowers and pig-tail, but with the body, hind-legs, and tail of a tiger, the whole figure being so cleverly contrived that no undue prominence is given either to its human or to its animal aspect. We may therefore infer that in those early times the tiger-goddess was looked upon as the consort of the deity already identified as a prehistoric form of Shiva. A tiger also appears on two seals with the horns of a bull, and as this seems to be a type of horn associated with the Shiva figures, it is possible that then, as now, the bull was regarded as the vehicle of the god.