Sacred Images

Brahmanic ritual handbooks mention two important types of images i.e. the achala or immovable and chala or movable ones. Generally the central stone image installed in the temple belongs to the former class whereas the smaller metal ones belong to the class of movable images which are used for everyday temple ritual, chariot festival as well as for household worship. The ritual handbooks forbid the use of stone images for household worship as well as for certain modes of worship even in the temple. Due to this ritual constraint, a whole class of bronze icons of Hindus came into existence. Over the centuries, several pre-Hindu, Hindu and non-Hindu beliefs and practices have existed side by side in India and their iconographies have merged and mingled with one another. It would be proper to describe the icons presented here as belonging to the entire continuum of different currents of culture rather than to a specific segment such as ‘Hindu’ or ‘folk’.
The section of the sacred images includes those of Ganesha in his various iconographic forms, of Shiva-both in his anthropomorphic as well as emblematic form (as phallus symbol), a whole pantheon of goddesses, mother goddesses, divine consorts etc, and a number of images of Krishna-an incarnation of Vishnu.