Studies in Indian Art c12.s5: 18. A New Inscribed Image of Kāśyapa Buddha from Mathura

Studies in Indian Art c12.s5

Language: English

18. A New Inscribed Image of Kāśyapa Buddha from Mathura

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In the month of May, 1937, the Mathura Municipal Board performed digging operations in the main street of the city from Kanskhar to Chhatta Bazar for laying their sewage line. At a depth of about eight feet below the surface, were discovered about fifteen fragmentary antiquities, mostly of the Kuṣāṇa period. The following pieces may be noted:--

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(1) An image of Kāśyapa Buddha carved in the round, showing a male figure standing on a pedestal and preserved remarkably well from the *meḍhramūla* to the feet. He wears a dhoti, a *mekhalā* and a scarf. On the pedestal is an inscription presently to be described. (Fig. 79).

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(2) An inscribed pedestal of a Bodhisattva image broken vertically into two pieces.

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(3) Fragment of a frieze carved with three Buddha figures seated in *padmāsana*, each placed between two attendants. Traces of two more attendants on either end of the broken frieze. It may be persumed that it depicted the panel of the seven Buddhas, and may be compared with the two friezes numbering 1·7 and 1·37 in the Mathura Museum. (*Vogel's Catalogue*, p. 135 and 139).

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(4) End of a *toraṇa* architrave carved on one face with a yawning crocodile having a curled up fish-tail (*jhaṣa makara*) and by its side another panel containing a human being with a forked tail ending in a dragon's head.

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(5) Fragment showing a *Bodhighara* with a few branches and leaves of the Bodhi tree coming out of an ogee arch and others from behind the temple facade. The foliage of the pipal is exquisitely carved.

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(6) A slab with foot-prints showing such auspicious marks as the lotus, *aṅkuśa*, *dhvaja*, etc.

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(7) Railing pillar showing a female figure, preserved below the *nābhi-sūtra*, standing on a postrate dwarf.

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(8) Several cross-bars and a fragment of a Buddha image.

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The first antiquity is of great importance for the purpose of Buddhist iconography. For the first time it introduces us to an actual image of one of the previous Buddhas, viz., Kāśyapa Buddha in Mathura art. The inscription is boldly carved in Brāhmī script of the Kuṣāṇa period in one and a half line on the front face of the pedestal, which I propose to read as follows:--

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*l. 1*—[रु] वकस दानं देव पुत्रो माघो [ : ] बुधस कशपस

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*l. 2*—पव महस्यकेन

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i.e., Gift of an image of the Buddha Kāśyapa by Ruvaka, Chief of the village, of the Devaputra Māgha.

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The order of words in the sentence is somewhat faulty. Ruvaka is connected with dānam and must be the name of the donor. The phrase Devaputro Māgho is not intelligible except as proper name to be connected with padra-mahasthakena, but I confess inability to identify this Devaputra Māgho. I wonder if the reading could be amended as deva pratimāyāḥ but for this I see little warrant. The words Buddhasa Kasapasa constitute the soul of the record and happily do not present any difficulty. The last word padra-mahasthakena is in the instrumental case and must rofer to the donor who it appears was an officer placed in charge of a village. The word padra, according to Dr. Sten Konow, occurs in the Shakardarra Well Inscription and consequently in its copy, viz., the Rawal Kharashthi Inscription from Mathura. [Sten Konow, Corpus of Kharoshṭhī Inscriptions, p. 160]. It is also found in the inscriptions of the Gupta period in such terms as Śivaka-padrake (cf. Fleet, Corpus III, Ins38, line 22, p. 170, note 3). Its dictionary meaning is ‘village’ and that suits the sense in the present context. Mahasthaka seems to be a title and is met with for the first time. Curiously enough, in line 20 of the very inscription quoted above from Fleet, the word mahattara has been used. Fleet takes it as a class of officers, and accepts Monier Williams’ meaning of it as ‘the head or oldest man of a village.’ (Ibid., p. 169, Note 7). I think the title mahasthaka is an earlier form of mahattara, and padra mahasthaka would therefore be a real village official in the system of Kushāṇa polity, corresponding to the grāmaṇī of the still earlier epochs.

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According to the Buddhotpāda doctrine, the Buddhists believe in a list of seven Buddhas who incarnated in the past in successive kalpas. They still think that the eighth to come will be Maitreya, who is at present a Bodhisattva on the way to Buddhahood.

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We have also the valuable evidence of Aśoka’s Nigali Sāgar Pillar inscription that a Stūpa, dedicated to the Buddha Konakmana (which had existed from an earlier epoch), was enlarged by the Emperor to the double of its original size.

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The evidence for the Śuṅga period is far more perfect. We get a full list of the Seven Buddhas in the inscriptions at Bharhut together with their symbolic representations. A list of them is given below:—

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(Cf. Barua, Barhut, Book II, pp. 1—7).

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The belief in the Seven Buddhas seems to have been later on supplemented by a hierarchy of numerous Bodhisattvas. During the Kushāṇa period we find in Mathurā art, on the one hand friezes depicting the past, present and future Buddhas in one single sculpture, and on the other several Bodhisattvas treated independently. Of the former class frieze No. 1.7 in Vogel's *Catalogue* is a typical specimen. He says, 'The figure to the proper left wearing royal dress must be the future Buddha or Bodhisattva Maitreya. In his left hand we recognise the vessel, which is his emblem in the Graeco-Buddhist sculptures of Gandhāra. The other five figures wear monk's dress; that next to Maitreya seated in meditation must be Śākyamuni, the Buddha of the present age, and the other three his immediate predecessors, Krakuchchhanda, Kanakamuni and Kāśyapa. Probably three Buddha figures are lost to the proper right.' (Vogel, *Catalogue of the Mathura Museum*, p. 135; also 1.37, p. 139). The present image of Kāśyapa Buddha rightly belongs to the class of representations of the previous Buddhas in Kushāṇa art. We have already found from Mathurā the image of Dipaṅkara Buddha who was the first of the twenty-four Buddhas. This statue was dedicated by the Buddhist nun Dhavasrī in the Kushāṇa period, and is now deposited in the Lucknow Museum, B. 23.

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Of the new Bodhisattvas carved in the form of independent images we have several examples of the Bodhisattva Maitreya who is always distinguished by an *amṛta-ghaṭa* held in his left hand. (Vogel's *Catalogue*, A. 63, p. 64). Gautama Buddha, too, is called a Bodhisattva in his earliest images and is seated under a Bodhi tree, similar to the tree found at Bharhut. Mathura has also produced about a dozen specimens of Kushāṇa period Bodhisattvas of the type bearing the Dhyānī Buddhas in their crown, but this phase of the Buddha-Bodhisattva iconography reflects the beginnings of the more complex Bodhisattva cult of which we find a fuller development in the arts of Sarnath and Nalanda.

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It is thus evident that at a time when, owing to the portrayal of the Buddha in his human form, the worship of the Buddha's image was extremely popular, there was a tendency to worship the previous Buddhas on the one hand, and to develop a pantheon of many new Bodhisattvas on the other.

Linked texts (3)

Nigālī Sāgar pillar inscription — Prakrit
Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum
Bharhut