Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.178

c12.178

And this is not the only link with contemporary Hinduism. There is more than one representation on seals from Mohenjo-daro and Harappā of a male god, horned and three-faced, sitting in the position of a yogi, his legs bent double, heel-to-heel, and surrounded on one seal by four beasts, the elephant, the tiger, the rhinoceros and the buffalo, with a couple of deer by the throne at his feet. There can be little doubt that we have here the prototype of the great god Shiva as Lord of the Beasts and Prince of Yogis; he may have been conceived as four-faced, and with his four animals looks to the four quarters of the earth. This would indeed recall the symbolical elephant, lion, horse, and bull on the Mauryan column of the third century B.C. at Sarnath. The deer by the god's throne make another significant link with later religion, and with Sarnath for, similarly placed, they are the inevitable accompaniment of Buddha in representations of the Deer Park Sermon.