On excavations of Village Ikkas (District Jind, Haryana, India)

City of Jind is situated approximately 200 KM north of New Delhi.
(All images are copy righted by the author.  Kindly obtain permission before using them).

The above photo shows a window/ ventillator screen of a village house (Ikkas Village, Jind District, Haryana, India) decorated with hindu deity images, birds, elephant, and other flora.  Indeed, it shows a highly developed decorative sense of people living and constructing these houses, which now seem to be in dilapidated state.
The image of the women on the ventilator screen is perhaps that of "Gajalakshmi" as she is shown along with elephant images.


The above photo is of a stone image of a royal, possibly goddess Parvati.  This bust was reportedly found in the Ikkas village pond when the pond's base surface was de- silted.  Ikkas village is known to be an old village in the area.  Before it was called Ikkas (i.e., a twisted pronounciation of the prakrit word ikkis i.e., 21), the village was reportedly known as Ajitpur.  A belief goes that it took 21 days for the villagers to find evidence related to the link between the village and Mahabarata character Yudhistir.  Since that find, the village has been called Ikkas.


Regarding the date to which this stone image pertains, an educated guess work based on previously found and dated stone image of lord Shiva and wife Parvati (10 C.E, now kept in National Museum, New Delhi and its photo shown below)  from the near by area (of Rohtak district, Haryana) places it at 10th C.E.




The ear ring jewellery of Shiv and Parvati and that of the stone image of the Ikkas goddess, is identical (i.e., clockwise spiral forming circular ear rings called kundal in sanskrit).  Further, the Ikkas image also shows the goddess having 3 distinct creases on her neck (ref: Acceptable Indian Iconography).  Such neck creases are said to bestow deity status on the individual.

The head dress of the Ikkas stone image is quite elaborate and the decorated hair bun also stands out.  It consists of a three distict, longitudinal attachments from near the forehead to a veil covering the back side of her head.  The central one resembles peacock feather or possibly a snake head.  There or  seems to be a band like structure near the hairline of the forehead, which perhaps is part of the crown.



The eye brows are joined together.  There appears serenity on the face, typical of majority of deity images (unless bhairav or kali etc is shown).  There is no 'bindi' on the forehead.  The eyes are big and look opened.There seems to be one jewellery chain around the neck (or it could also be the outline of a blouse since she is shown covering her head with a veil too).  The unusually large hair bun and the ear kundalas, auspicious neck creases, serene countenance, snake head shaped crown, all point to the image being that of goddess Parvati.  Incidentally, the stone image is kept in a Shiva temple in Ikkas village.

The head veil shows it has been decorated with flower motif and the ends are lined with ball shaped design - perhaps small bells - the same kind that are tied around the neck of Nandi, the bull, which is also goddess Parvati's ride..
On closer examination of the breast area of the figure, one can see a similar floral motif near the left nipple location.  Hence, in all liklihood, the Ikkas goddess figure is shown wearing a blouse.Now when that is settled ( :) ), there are some photographs below of the Ikkas village residents.  People of the village went out of their way to show their hospitality and made me thoroughly comfortable.  It is their generosity that allowed me to see and photograph the sculpture.




In the above photograph, the incredible chef of the household, who prepared the delicious meal (photographed here too) that was so lovingly served to me.