Studies in Indian Art c12.s4: 17. A New Bodhisattva and a Bacchanalian Group from Mathurā

Studies in Indian Art c12.s4

Language: English

c12.s4.t1 A New Bacchanalian Group — 11 parts

17. A New Bodhisattva and a Bacchanalian Group from Mathurā

c12.s4.1

The sculptors of Mathura took their cue from the ancient art schools of Sāñchī and Bharhut for the symbols, decorative motifs, and patterns of architecture. They also vigorously assimilated the foreign art forms assembled in the phenomenal culture complex brought about by the introduction of the Iranian and Hellenistic elements into Indian life. The ancient indigenous art heritage was carried forward with an exceptionally prolific enrichment of its contents by the artists of the Śaka-Kushāṇa epoch.

c12.s4.2

About two and a half miles to the south-west of Mathurā city is situated the ancient village of Madhuvan-Maholi. About two furlongs outside the Maholi village towards Mathurā city is a group of old mounds of considerable dimensions.

c12.s4.3

Recently, in the first week of July 1938, an image of colossal size came to light from one of the above mounds (Fig. 76). The leg stumps disclosing themselves first to view led to the eventual discovery of the whole statue by the villagers. It was subsequently taken possession of on behalf of the Government and removed to the Mathurā Museum. The height of the image from the feet to the head is 8'-3" or in all 9'-6" including the tenon by which it was at one time fixed in its brick pedestal. The image is carved in the round and made of the spotted red sandstone of Mathurā. The right hand which was most probably held in the attitude of protection (abhayamudrā) is broken away. The left hand holds the drapery at the waist. The figure is draped in the Buddha's usual tri-chīvara, leaving the right shoulder bare, with the lower garment reaching down to a little below the knee-joint, held at the waist by a knotted girdle. Between the feet there is a prominent cluster of lotus buds surmounting a coiled lotus garland. On the exterior side of the left leg is a dwarf Aśoka tree. The head of the Buddha is of the shaven type. The uṣṇīṣa protuberance is broken away leaving a shallow depression in the skull. There is a faint ūrṇā dot between the eye-brows, and the earlobes are prominently elongated. There are also traces of a halo at the back.

c12.s4.4

An adequate idea of the style and appearance of the new discovery can be had by making a reference to the well known colossal Bodhisattva statue found at Sārnāth (ht. 9'-5") which is inscribed in the year 3 of Kanishka and was established at the place of the Buddha's chaṅkrama at Vārāṇasī by friar Bala, who was most probably a resident of Mathurā. A similar free standing colossal Bodhisattva statue of Mathurā red sandstone was discovered by General Cunningham during 1862-63 from the ruins of ancient Śrāvastī in Gonda district which is also inscribed and was established by the same Bhikshu Bala, a master of the Tripiṭaka. General Cunningham felt satisfied that the Śrāvastī colossus must have been transported from Mathurā. (Arch. Survey Report, Vol. I, page 339). Thus a family likeness between these three colossal Bodhisattva images is established.

c12.s4.5

Fig. 76. Maholi Bodhisattva

c12.s4.6

Fig 77. Sarnath Bodhisattva

c12.s4.7

Unlike the other two statues the Maholi Bodhisattva bears no inscription either on the pedestal or on the main body of the image. But a search for the broken pedestal brought to light a piece of stone (10"×4") bearing four lines of Brāhmī inscription which was found sticking in mud to the pedestal at its side. It is dated in the year 92 and states that a monk named Grahadāsika, resident of the Khaṇḍa Vihāra monastery "established" in the Stūpa, the object so established being left unspecified in the epigraph. But there seems little doubt that the inscription referred to the statue with which it has remained associated under the earth for so long a time. The name of the reigning king is not given, but referring the year to the Śaka era of 78 A. D. the inscription would belong to 170 A. D. which coincides with the reign of the Kushāṇa Emperor Vāsudeva. Although stylistically the Sārnāth and the Maholi statues form part of one independent group they are separated from each other by a period of 89 years. The date of the Śrāvastī statue is unfortunately lost, and it is not possible to say by how much time it was separated from the other two images. In the Museum at Mathurā there are three other Bodhisattva statues, A. 40, A. 41, and A. 63, which are similar in style to the Maholi Bodhisattva and must be assigned to the same group. The image No. A. 63 (ht. 6'-4") from Lākhnau, district Aligarh, is dated in the year 35 of Huvishka. It is thus evident that the style of making colossal freestanding Bodhisattva images inaugurated by the Sārnāth Bodhisattva in the year 3 of Kanishka continued throughout the Kushāṇa period down to the reign of the last king Vāsudeva. This type of the indigenous Buddha image is akin to the colossal Yaksha statue from Parkham, in which no affinities with the Gandhāra Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can be traced. It is both in its plastic language and conception completely a product of the Mathurā school.

c12.s4.8

The inscriptions on the Sārnāth and Śrāvastī statues make reference to the post and umbrella ('daṇḍa' and 'chhatra') set up with the main statues. No such details are available in the short Maholi epigraph, but the Bodhisattva was certainly crowned by a large parasol which was square and not circular like the one at Sārnāth. A fragment of this parasol carved with the same symbols as at Sārnāth (four of which namely the lotus garland, fruit vase, svastika and pūrṇaghaṭa have survived) has been discovered. (Fig 80)

c12.s4.9

A search for the pedestal of the Bodhisattva statue led to another still more important discovery at a distance of about 6 feet from the original site of the Bodhisattva.

A New Bacchanalian Group

c12.s4.t1.1

[Figure: Figs. 78-79] This is a sculpture carved on both sides, measuring 3'-4"×2'-6"×1'-2". It supported a bowl, now partially damaged, resting on the topof the trunk of a tree carved in the background. On the obverse side there are four figures, the middle one showing a graceful female in half kneeling posture. She is evidently intoxicated, and her left hand finds rest on the shoulders of a girlish figure holding a drinking cup, and the right one is held by a standing male figure, obviously her husband, who supports her. The fourth figure on the left side carved in the background and shown in the attitude of 'vismaya' represents a female attendant. She is apparently a hermaphrodite as seen from her undeveloped breasts, masculine shoulders, and hips. Such attendants under the appellations of ‘shandha’ and ‘varshadhara’ were employed in royal harems (Fig. 78).

c12.s4.t1.2

Fig. 78. Bacchanalian Group from Mathura

c12.s4.t1.3

Fig. 79. Bacchanalian Group from Mathura

c12.s4.t1.4

Fig. 80. Fragment of Chhatra

c12.s4.t1.5

Fig. 81. New Inscribed Image of Kaśyapa Buddha

c12.s4.t1.6

On the reverse side there is a scene involving four figures in a joyous dance (Fig. 79).

c12.s4.t1.7

The whole group bears the class name “Bacchanalian” (*madhupāna*) and is a valuable addition to the already known specimens of this type from Mathurā, namely Stacy’s Silenus group found in 1836 from Mathurā and now in the Calcutta Museum, and the well known Palikhera group, in the Mathurā Museum No. C. 2. The present sculpture is in excellent preservation and reveals an unknown standard of achievement of the Mathurā artists during the Kushāṇa period. In the Maholi group the dress and the features of the male and female figures that make up the group on the two sides are purely Indian and do not betray a clumsy mixture of Greek and Indian elements as in the other Mathurā groups previously found. The interest of this find is enhanced by the fact that a somewhat mutilated specimen carved on both sides and similar to this group was found from Naroli village, about half a mile southeast of Maholi in 1922-23, and is now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta.¹

c12.s4.t1.8

¹ Archaeol. Survey of India, Annual Report, 1922-23, p. 161, pl. XXXVIII (b).

c12.s4.t1.9

It may also be stated that an exact copy of the reverse side of the Maholi Bacchanalian group is reproduced in the upper panel of a jamb fragment (No. 371, Mathurā Museum) which was rescued from the well of the famous Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā in 1914, which place also lies within a radius of two miles from Maholi. The three villages Maholi, Palikhera and Naroli situated within less than a mile of each other, have each produced a remarkable Bacchanalian group of its own.

c12.s4.t1.10

The Maholi Bacchanalian group unearthed at a distance of about 6 feet from the Bodhisattva statue and from about the same level must have stood inside the temple of the Khaṇḍa Vihāra monastery. Since the circumstances of its find are known with such absolute certainty it may not be unwarranted to interpret the intended purpose of setting up a Bacchanalian group inside a Buddhist shrine in the heart of a Buddhist monastery. The Bacchanalian group stands for the sensuous and material side of life symbolising the pleasures that overflow the bowl of life which these groups invariably depict. The Buddha on the other hand represents the ascetic ideals of internal peace attained by self mastery and his defeat of Māra, the genius of worldly temptations. After the Buddha’s victory and final enlightenment Māra pays homage at the feet of the great teacher, which according to the beautiful synthetic ideals of the Mahāyāna Buddhism represented a lasting compromise between the life of the world and the life of restraint preached by the Buddha, both of which were consequently enshrined under a common roof inside the same religious edifice. It was this ideal which inspired the works of the Kushāṇa artists and which found its most suitable expression in the line of the poet:

c12.s4.t1.11

प्राप्तो गृहस्थैरपि मोक्षमार्गः ।