Four-armed Vishnu

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This excellent image, small in size but abounding in minutely rendered enormous details revealing rare precision and delightful contours, represents Lord Vishnu in his usual four-armed manifestation. Except a vajra-like looking beaded rod in his upper right hand in place of his usual chakra – disc, he is holding in his normal right hand his usual attribute lotus carried over a large artistically flowing stem with a bud-like moulded lower end, in normal left hand, his usual mace, and in the upper, his regular attribute conch, all such as the iconographic convention of Vishnu’s images provided. As Vishnu is seen as Sustainer in Tri-murti concept, his images always register priority of lotus, obviously for representing three-aspected cosmic existence and being the symbol of accomplishment, over his other attributes – the instruments of destruction, which is not Vishnu’s regular role. This perception seems to effectively determine the basic form of the statue for besides a lotus pedestal, the image of Vishnu has been installed on, the large halo with which the divine image radiates is also made of lotuses.

The statue has been carved from a piece of deep brown steatite, a soft stone recovered only in small blocks of mixed colour-shades used for carving tiny or moderately sized statues since Indus days. Neither too soft nor too hard and hence involving moderate labour and average skill, and correspondingly affordable under normal budget, this stone is the most ideal medium for divine and semi-divine icons for domestic shrines and other ritual needs, as also for replicas of popular sculptures and for aesthetic artifacts, their most unique feature being their multi-colour-texture. This image of Lord Vishnu is essentially for a domestic shrine, though any art lover might also use it for decorating a space in a drawing hall. The stone used for this statue is harder and has a rarer texture of colours, deep brown with blackish tint mixed. It has been rendered pursuing iconographic idiom of Oriya-Andhrite sculptures, especially in the figure’s round face, flabby cheeks, voluminous anatomy, style of ornaments, especially the crown, and ‘antariya’ – lower wear, besides the style of mace and lotus carried in his normal right hand.

The world’s supreme commander, Lord Vishnu has been portrayed as standing, as if ready to rush to attend a devotee’s call for help. His standing posture is more prevalent in Vaishnava iconography than any of his other forms. His other popular image is as reclining on the surface of Kshirasagara – the mythical ocean of milk, on the coils of the great serpent Shesh, usually with Lakshmi massaging his feet, and Brahma emerging out of a lotus rising from his navel. With his both feet joined the figure is completely in a static posture not inclining to move. His seated postures are far rarer. The entire figure has been modeled as on formal geometrical principles, the shoulders and hips having alike width and volume, from hips down to feet the two sides tapering in great symmetry; not only the two upper arms have identical forms, the width to which they stretch is the same to which stretches the lower half when combining the mace on one side, and unfurling sash, on the other.

The entire figure has been elaborately bejeweled. The three-tiered towering crown, typical of Vaishnava images, Vaishnava ‘tilaka’ on the forehead and ‘kundalas’ – ear-ornaments apart, the deity has been bejeweled with gorgeous ornaments on shoulders, arms, wrists and feet. He has on his breast a number of neck-laces and the known Vaijayanti, a long garland of Parijata flowers. He is wearing on his waist not only an elaborate girdle comprising multiple laces and beaded frills beautifully lying down over and around the ‘antariya’ and the decorative ‘pata’ with a large flower-motif suspending down along the parting of legs but the ‘antariya’ itself has been further adorned by multiple horizontal laces of beads defining its folds. On the right side close to his right leg, balancing the volume of the mace on the other side, the sculptor has carved a tiny image of Garuda, the great bird and Lord Vishnu’s mount.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.