The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c17.124

c17.124

The likelihood that the seal-animals are in most or all instances religious devices is thus suggested by the character of the “unicorn” and its accompanying “standard”, by the offering of food or incense to the bison, elephant, rhinoceros and tiger, and possibly by the splayed eagle. A series of composite animals emphasizes this inference. A recurrent monster has the face of a man, the trunk and tusks of an elephant, the horns of a bull, the forepart of a ram, and the hind quarters of a tiger with erect tail which is in one instance armed with claws.¹ On one seal the beast appears to have three ornamental collars. A three-headed animal on a seal from Mohenjo-daro has the heads of antelopes and the body of a "unicorn". Another shows six animal heads—"unicorn", bison, antelope, tiger, the remaining two broken—radiating from a ring, and recalling a whorl on another seal from the same site with a single "unicorn" and five featureless lobes. Another represents three animals, probably tigers, centrally superimposed rather than composite. On yet another seal, two "unicorns'" heads branch symmetrically from the base of a pipal tree. These various monstrosities sufficiently indicate the range of the series; of them all, the first is the commonest, and is probably represented also by a fragmentary animal-sculpture mentioned above (p. 65).