Page:South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses.djvu/261

 also a Sudra, comes from KusadvTpa and is born in the lineage of Jaimini. He has an ugly face, rides on a vulture and exhibits in his two arms the club and the varada posture.

The next group of gods, frequently depicted though not as DIKI-AI.AKAS. frequently worshipped as the Planets, are the Dikpalakas, " the eight lords of the quarters." These are mostly found represented on the central panel of the ceiling in the Mahd- mandapa of a temple.

Indra, the lord of the east, is the chief of them. He is a INDRA. Vedic god ; the lord of all the minor gods. But he has long ago lost the high position assigned to him in Vedic times. The story runs that he seduced Ahalya, 1 the wife of sage Gautama, who cursed him for his lewdness to wear about his body marks of his lascivious conduct, but subsequently changed those marks into a thousand eyes dotted all over his body. Accordingly he is still known as " the thousand-eyed " (Sahasr-aksha). Indra is represented with four arms riding on the celestial elephant Airavata of four tusks (fig. 146). According to the Silpasara the symbols which he presents are the bow, the protecting hand, the conch and the discus. 2 Hemadri adds that his wife SachI with two arms must be seated on his left thigh. In three of his hands he holds a lotus, goad and a thunderbolt, while the fourth passes round the back of SachI. One of the arms of SachI, likewise, is passed round the back of Indra, the other holding a bunch of flowers of the wish-giving tree (kalpa-vriksha).

Agni, the lord of the south-east quarter, is also one ot trie AGNI - Vedic gods and perhaps the most prominent of them. As the carrier of offerings to the various other gods in heaven, he plays an important part in the Srauta sacrifices and in the Smarta ceremonials, where fire oblations are essential. Every Brahmana house-holder, strictly so called, is required to maintain the sacred fire in his house without quenching it and to offer oblations regularly three times a day, along with his usual prayers to Gayatrl. Agni, as an image, is represented to be an old man ; he is the oldest of the gods and a counter- part of the Sun on earth. He has a red body, two heads, six eyes, seven arms, seven tongues, four horns and three legs.

1 See also the Journal of Indian Art and Industry, No. 106, Plate 143, fig. 1 020.

2 The Bhiittabhaskariya mentions alhaya, varada, sword and the elephant goad. 16