This brass-cast, an eight-armed image of Vishnu, endowed with great lustre, divine aura and unique majesty, represents him in command of all three worlds, all beings and all elements. The image proper has been installed on a multi-tiered high pedestal composed of variously patterned mouldings, plain and designed, and square and rounded, against a circular fire-arch which with its halo-type form serves as both, a fire-arch and halo – a magnificent frame imparting to the deity-image unique projection. This most artistic part of the statue consists of three parts, the inner circle, comprising a row of uniformly conceived lamp motifs, an outer circle, a recessed channel around the inner ring of lamp-motifs with beaded edges, and the outer-most, consisting of three stylised lamps with flames of larger sizes. Flames are traditionally a motif from Shiva’s iconography, which here in this Vaishnava icon has been added for symbolically denoting Vishnu’s divine aura, symbolising, perhaps, that his lustre is like crores of lamps and that he is the sun and every form of light.

Standing on a towering base and with an uprising flame-motif on the fire-arch’s apex the icon of Lord Vishnu gains unique height-perspective dominating the entire created space, right and left, and up and down. Vishnu’s standing images are closer to his form as visualised in scriptures right from Vedic days. In his standard iconography, which various texts and art traditions have nourished, his seated images are rarely seen. He has been conceived mostly either as standing or as reclining. His reclining images relate contextually to ‘Kshirasagara’ – the ocean of milk. The texts have perceived him as resting on the coils of the great serpent Shesh in Kshirasagara, often his consort Lakshmi or Shri being in attendance. These two major forms of his image seems to have developed out of the Vishnu-related scriptural traditions that perceive him as one who pervades all the known and unknown spaces – the cosmos. When lying over the Kshirasagara and on the great serpent Shesh, one symbolising ‘the known’, and other, the ‘unknown’, he spans the cosmos with his body stretched over and beyond both. His standing posture is symbolic of his move. Not the Rig-Veda alone so acclaims, on many occasions he is known to have spanned the cosmos in three strides. In early texts he has been seen as the other form of the sun that traversed the earth in every eight ‘prahara’, that is, twenty-four hours. Thus, in one form he is seen as pervading the cosmos by his mere presence, and in the other, as treading it across and beyond just by his feet.

This eight-armed image, clad in an artistically plaited ‘antariya’ – lower wear, and richly bejewelled and crowned, represents Lord Vishnu, one of the Great Trinity in his role as the world’s sustainer, protecting life, upholding ‘dharma’ – Law, and maintaining cosmic order. Accordingly his image has been conceived not merely with as many as eight hands, but also with attributes capable of undoing designs of evil and detrimental forces : in three of them, his more characteristic attributes, disc, conch and mace, and in the rest five, battle-axe, dagger, goad, noose and rod. His normal right hand, carrying goad, is in the gesture of ‘abhaya’, assuring freedom from fear. The readiness to move and act and assuring protection subduing all forces of evil, the characteristics of the one in command, are the characteristics of this image of Lord Vishnu. On his face and in his meditative eyes reflects a concern for the world, its weal and order. A muscular anatomy with a well-built figure and a strong helmet like crown with fortified apex and firmly set feet are features befitting the iconography of Vishnu, the protector of the world.

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.

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