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

This little group, including the small donor figure, stood at the base, on one side of the surround of a large image, most likely Viṣṇu. Such elaborately carved surrounds are a feature of large stele after the Gupta period and with their superimposed figures and motifs and elaborate symbolism they have much in common with the doorways of the period [see EAO.S. 71].

The figures are easily recognizable as Kṛṣṇa, holding the discus in his right hand, or more likely Vāsudeva, because of his crown, Subhadrā, holding what appears to be a lotus, and Balarāma, identifiable by the hala (plough) he is holding and his serpent hood. They are thus clearly representative, even at this comparatively late date, of members of the family group of five folk heroes at the origin of much of the cult of Viṣṇu [see EAOS.38.a]. Their relation to the iconographical grouping known as Ekānaṃśa (“the single portionless, or undivided one”), with the goddess as the central figure, cannot be discerned in this fragmentary context.