IT is difficult for those who are unacquainted with the iconography of the gods of the Mahayana Pantheon to realize the degree of interest that may be attached to even a crude representation of a Northern Buddhist divinity. To the uninitiated the images of these deities are only of value as works Of art, or as grotesque curios, with their various heads and many arms but to the initiated, apart from their artistic merit, they furnish an almost inexhaustible fund for study and research.