I mention the eighteenth and the twenty-second sculpture (eastern staircase, fifth corner, 2 and sixth corner, 1) because of the winged shell, the syankha, provided with payongs and tyĕmaras as a sign of dignity.
Even now Javanese princes carry the tyåkrå, the trisulå and other weapons of deities in their ampilan[62], and so Vishnu’s tyankra doesn’t mean that the person whom it is carried after, should refer to this deity, though it is true that the Buddha of the Mahâyânists must be this god’s avatâra.
Among the following imageries I more especially see Hindu-gods as Buddha’s predecessors. (Bodhisattvas).
The four-armed sculpture we see on 18 (southern staircase, fourth corner 5), in Buddha posture on a throne carried by a bull, the nandi, the vâhana or Shiva’s carriage, makes us think, even without any other characteristic, of a Bodhisattva, perhaps. The lost head might have given more certainty.
Similar images we find on 100, 101, 102 and 104 W. L.[63].
On the first (northern staircase, second corner, 1) we see a four-armed sculpture on a lotus-throne in Buddha posture, with the glory, and in his left hand an elephant’s hook and a flower. The objects in his right hand are to be recognised no more. The throne itself has been adorned with elephants, lions and nâgas. The four arms near the single face may possibly refer to Vishnu or another deity, but not to Brahma which we see generally hewn four-faced: the small Buddha image in the crown only speaks of Buddhism[64].
And as Buddha, according to the northern church, had been Vishnu’s avatâra, this deity may by no means raise our astonishment because of his being represented here as a Bodhisattva.
Even the following sculpture (2 after the second corner) has been hewn four-armed, but too badly damaged to be recognised as the deity it should represent.
This also refers to the third sculpture (3 after the corner). The six arms may point to Shiva.
The fourth sculpture (5 after the same corner, W. L., 104) would not be easily recognised on Wilsen’s drawing. On the ruin itself however, there is no doubt whatever, because we here see clear enough that the upavîta is nothing else but the Cobra (snake) with a nicely modeled and crowned head. And this only speaks of Shiva or of his son Ganesha who has been always represented as an elephant or with an elephant’s head so that here he can’t be meant as such.