Studies in Indian Art c12.s12.6

c12.s12.6

First in importance is a terracotta piece (No. 2440, ht. 3½"), showing a male squatting figure grasping firmly in both of his hands the paws of a fullgrown lion, who is standing at the back and whose beastly fury the human figure seems to have subdued. It is easy to recognise in this an Indian adaptation of the well-known greek sculpture of ‘Herakles and Nemean Lion’ found from Mathura and now deposited in the Calcutta Museum. The terracotta should be attributed to the Kuṣāṇa period on account of the similarity of the face of the Herakles having typical ear-rings with other Kuṣāṇa figures.