The Role Of Multiplicity In The Iconography Of Hindu Art

Multiplicity has always been a prominent theme in the iconography of Hindu art, and its importance could be seen by the vast prevalence of the images of deities with multiple heads, arms, eyes, and other bodily parts. Such multiplicity convention could be traced back to the Vedic period, where there were textual references that support the existence of the phenomenon then. However, the first recognizable iconographical representation of the gods with their multiple appendages did not seem to appear before the pre-Kusana period. While the early viasnava art, saiva art, and the representation of what Doris Meth Srinivasan calls, “Warrior Goddess”, emerged from the pre-Kusana period and developed throughout the Kusana period onto the Gupta period,

The form of the Warrior Goddess as having multiple heads or limbs did not come forth before the late Kusana period, so did any textual references associated with her. And she is always depicted not with other deities but with a lion or a buffalo. Sometimes she stands straight with an erect pose, resting her feet on the back of a lion. Sometimes she bents one of her legs while she is fighting against a buffalo or gripping its neck, supposedly the buffalo is one form of Asura. Interestingly, she never has multiple heads but always has multiple arms, and the numbers vary from six to eight, and eight to multiple… Six is argued as an odd number in the multiplicity convention since it does not have any divine or cosmic significance; it is rather mathematical instead of symbolical. Srinivasan surmises that the reason why six-armed Warrior Goddess is the most common in her form might be because of another goddess, Skanda/Karttikeya, who has six heads. Since Skanda/Karttikeya already has six heads, it would not make sense for another goddess to do the same, so the Warrior Goddess developed the iconography of six arms (not to say that six arms are quite handy during battles). It is a plausible proposition, yet if it is true it would mean that the multiplicity on the Warrior Goddess would not be of any symbolical meaning. On another hand, no matter how many arms the Warrior Goddess has, it seems that parts of her iconography are a result of foreign—especially western—influences. Take her six-armed form, for instance, she often carries a wreath, which is an attribute never seen before in the imagery of female figures in Brahmanic art or Mathura art but rather frequent in western art. The portrayal of a female deity with a lion is also mostly discovered in foreign influences than in Indian