Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

The humped bull (bos indicus) has always been a favourite with Indian artists, going back to the engravers of the Indus Valley seals. After the Gupta period, Nandī, the bull, becomes intimately associated with Śiva as his “vehicle”. This is the rather unfortunate translation of the Sanskrit word vāhana denoting the animal or bird which is particular to a divinity and on which he or she sits or rides. Viṣṇu’s vāhana is Gāruḍa, an anthropomorphized bird [see EA1965.161], and that of Brahmā, the goose (haṃsa) [see EA1969.43].

It is, however, as a large sculpture in the round of a young couchant bull, usually placed facing Śiva temple, that Nandī is best known. Nearly every one of the thousands of temples has its Nandī and there is a gigantic example outside the city of Mysore. He is invariably portrayed, whatever the size of the sculpture, as a young bull, his horns mere stumps, caparisoned with bands, chains or garlands and hung with bells. His pose varies little and, however conventionalized the style of the carving, there rarely fails to emanate from it the deep sympathy, based on close observations, which the Indian sculpture of every age never fails to show for animals. Here, the tongue licking the nostril is a small but compelling touch.