Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 38

supplication or devotion to the tree-being, coincide with other images, in which horned figures are shown mastering wild animals and emerging from vegetation, furthering the likelihood that the horned figure represents some sort of deity or supernatural being (figs. 4,5).
Therefore, these images suggest that as early as the time of the Indus culture the notion that enclosed trees were seats in which divine beings could be made manifest was extant. This realization provides a strikingly similar conception of divinity to what we described as being characteristic of the laukika traditions in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. As we have already seen, these same notions of demarcated sacred space and the importance of the tree as a religious image enter all three of India's emergent and developing religious traditions. These images, which long predate textual mention of caityas or yaksas, retain their importance as symbols of religious and spiritual power throughout the centuries despite the changes in ideology and meaning attributed to them.
However, the exact nature or gender of this horneddeity remains a mystery. To this end an exploration of how males and females are depicted in these Indus seals may provided insights into the nature of Indus culture religious practice. For example, in several seals the horned deity wears armlets which are reminiscent of the bracelets worn by the famous bronze image of the dancing girl from Mohenjo-Daro (fig. 6). Similarly, there is a seal from Kalibangan which shows two men standing on either side of a female and threatening each other with spears (fig. 7). I have identified the central image a female due to the rather clear depiction of bracelets on one arm, long hair and long garment which contrasts with the simple undecorated bodies and short hair of the spear bearers whom I have identified as male. Before we can identify this deity as a goddess due to its armlets and long hair, however, we must examine a second type of figure which wears armlets and, in, some cases, has long hair -- the male meditator (fig. 8).
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