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Studies in Indian Art c12.s6: 19. Mathura Railing Pillars

Studies in Indian Art c12.s6

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19. Mathura Railing Pillars

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The great school of Mathura sculpture representing one of the most illustrious periods of India's artistic achievement is distinguished by its production of a large number of railing pillars carved in high relief on the obverse and generally in low relief on the reverse. In ancient times these pillars formed part of stone enclosures erected round Buddhist and Jaina monuments. Each pillar had three mortices on the two sides in which cross-bars were fitted to join with other similar pillars. They were held in position by a basement below and they supported a coping stone at the top. The entire structure of the railing was pierced in the centre by four elaborate gateways each of which stood facing in one cardinal direction. The earliest specimens of monumental railings and gateways have been discovered at Sanchi, Bharhut and Bodh Gaya. At Mathura with the advent of the Kushāṇa period independent figure sculpture achieved important development, but still the railing continued for another two centuries as the principal medium of expression for the work of the artists.

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Besides their superb excellence for aesthetic beauty the railing pillars stand out as interesting documents for the study of human life in its social and cultural spheres as lived in those days. Here one can see preserved in stone sketches of contemporary life showing men and women engaged in their favourite sports and pastimes, dance and music which reveal their joyous outlook on life and testify to their faith in a creed of freedom and sun-shine. It is also pleasing to notice on these pillars some of the familiar scenes with which our classical poets have acquainted us in a variety of most beautiful descriptions.

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The following scenes may be recognised to be of unusual interest, and their portrayal in places where religious things as a matter of course should have predominated, points to the great hold which themes of this nature enjoyed on the lives of the people. In fact, it may be said to the credit of India's creative genius that her great thinkers took a balanced view of life and evolved a frame-work in which the material and positive sides of life were harmonised with its spiritual and religious ideals. India has, therefore, boldly stood for assigning an honourable place to paintings and sculptures as well as to dance and music in her gigantic experiments of religion as unfolded in her long creative traditions through the ages. Religion is viewed not as a negation of life, but as a potent factor which by its magic touch ennobles all that which life stands for. This synthesis demonstrates itself in the extraordinary interest which religious art shows for the contents of womanly life, marked by a genuine attempt to probe deeper into her mystry and to present her as the mother and sustainer of creation. It is apparent from the study of the scenes on Mathura railing pillars that the artists do not approach their delicate subject in a light-hearted manner; they evince a respect and restraint which does not permit works of art to be degraded into scenes of mere sensuous narration.

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A

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Fig. 82

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B

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Fig. 83

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C

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Fig. 84

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D

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Fig. 85

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E

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Fig. 86

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Fig. 87

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The scenes which are interpreted here are carved on pillars which although originating from Mathura, have got distributed over three different museums, viz., those at Lucknow and Calcutta besides the local museum at Mathura. This awkward arrangement is a serious handicap to the pillars being viewed as a unit for realising the full effect of their artistic perfection, and also hinders a comparative study on the basis of the entire material easily accessible in one place. We now proceed to describe the more important of the pillars :—

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1. *Aśoka-dohada*,—Pregnancy or desire of the Aśoka tree. This scene is carved on railing pillar J. 55 in the Mathura museum, sculptured with a graceful female figure wearing a bead girdle and standing under an Aśoka tree of which she clasps a branch with her left hand, and leans with her back against its trunk. With her left foot she touches the Aśoka, thus illustrating the poetic description expressed in the *Meghadūta* as *Vāma-pādābhilāshī Aśokaḥ*. The most eloquent description of this theme is found in the drama of Kālidāsa treating of the love of Mālavikā and Agnimitra. According to an old śloka quoted by the commentator Mallinātha, it is said that the Aśoka tree longed to kiss the left foot of a beautiful maiden before its time of efflorescence. Although literary tradition is uniform in the matter that only the left foot was employed for this purpose, there is another railing pillar in the Mathura museum, No. 2345, in which the woman touches the tree with her right foot. Surely the poetic fancy behind this scene seems to have had strong hold in the cultural life of Kushāṇa and Gupta periods. Recently Dr. J. Hackin has discovered from the site of Begram (ancient Kapiśā), about 40 miles north of Kabul, a carved ivory plaque illustrating the scene of Aśoka-dohada, in which the figure of the maiden with her peculiar spiral chignon is greatly similar to the figure on the Mathura railing pillar.

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2. *Sadyah-snātā*,—Woman after bath. This scene carved on pillar No. 1509 in the Mathura museum depicts a woman wearing a short petti-coat and wringing out water from her wet locks after bath (*keśa-nistoya-kāriṇī*); a swan is shown receiving the drops in its beak. This idea has found favourite repetition in classical Hindi poetry and continued as a motif in Indian art right upto the 19th century. It was fancied that Kṛishṇa himself incarnated as a *haṃsa* to drink the drops of water from Rādhā's hair.

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3. *Nirjhara-snāna*,—Bath under a water-fall. This scene is carved on two pillars now preserved in the Lucknow museum. Of these J. 278 shows a female figure in three-quarters profile standing to right under a projecting precipice and receiving on her back a stream of water coming down in swift torrents.

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4. *Aśoka-pushpa-prachāyikā*,—Gathering of Aśoka flowers. This scene is represented on pillar No. J. 55 and 2345 in the Mathura museum and B. 80 in the Lucknow museum. The woman stands on Aśoka tree in full blossom and is gathering flowers with her right hand raised up in a basket held in left hand. She stands in a very graceful manner with her back towards the visitor and head and face shown in profile. The gathering of flowers was one of the most popular sports with women in ancient India. In such scenes the Aśoka tree plays a prominent part, although *kadamba*, mango and other garden trees also must have formed part of floral amusements. *Pushpa-prachāyikā* and also *Pushpa-bhañjikā* were the special names for such diversions which we find recorded even in the grammatical literature. For example, on Pāṇini’s *sūtra*, *Prāchām krīḍāyām*, we find such illustrations as *Aśhoka-pushpa-prachāyikā*, *Uddālaka-pushpa-bhañjikā*, etc. The lovely poetic expression *Śāla-bhañjikā* which we find both in Aśvaghosha and in Bāṇa’s *Kādambarī*, must have been derived originally from such sports in which the peculiarly graceful motif of a beautiful woman standing with *tribhaṅgī* curves of the body under a tree and clasping one of its branches, soon came to be recognised as the most delightful thing for the eye both in art and life.

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5. *Madanotsava*,—Dance of Love. On pillar No. B. 92 in the Lucknow museum we see a female figure dancing in one of her happy love ecstasies. A parrot who is the vehcil of the god of love, Kāmadeva, has conveyed to her the message of love, thus initiating the youthful maiden into the consciousness of a new world. Like the princess in the fable she wakes up after a long spell of maidenly innocence, and the intense activity of her heart bursts forth into rhythmic dance. The bird is perched on her girdle and is shown to be nibbling at the central binding knot. The whole idea is most delicately and beautifully executed.

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6. *Śuka-krīḍā*,—Diversion with a parrot. This is a very common scene represented on Mathura railing pillar. Generally the parrot rests on the left hand or shoulder of the woman who tempts it with a fruit held in right hand. On a well known specimen now in the Indian Museum the woman is actually holding a cage in right hand while the parrot sits on the left arm as if whispering into her ear (Dr. Vogel, *La Sculpture de Mathurā*, Pl. XIXA).

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7. *Khaḍgābhinaya*,—Dance of the sword. On railing pillar No. 152 in the Mathura museum found from Bhūteshwar we find a female figure standing in a dance posture holding a sword in her left hand. The obvious meaning of such a motif is the demonstration of sword-dance. On a pillar in the Lucknow museum No. J.275, the same scene is repeated, the woman being shown standing under a *kadamba* tree.

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8. *Nartakī*,—Court Danseuse. Pillar B. 75 in the Lucknow museum illustrates a very typical dance pose common in court dances which have survived to this day, and in which the dancer with great rapidity of movement doubles her legs at the knees and rests her body on the ground.

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9. *Gopa-yoshit*,—A female Gopi. On railing pillar B. 86 in the Lucknow museum we have the representation of a woman wearing a rustic petti-coat (*lehngā*) and a scarf (*oṛhṇī*) falling back from the head, and carrying a big pitcher on her head. Her features and the well-built limbs make her out to be a village woman lacking in the finer graces of city life. She should be identified as a *gopī* or a typical country-woman in the land of Braja, where powerful living traditions about her have survived both in religion and in literature in relation to the legend of the divine cow-herd Kṛishṇa. The conception of *gopīs* certainly goes back to the Kushāṇa period. The *Buddhacharita* of Aśvaghosha refers to gopa-women and their dalliances (IV. 14). In the famous Tamil classic *Śilappadhikaram* (Epic of the Anklet) which is one of the five great Mahākāvyas of Tamil literature and is definitely assigned to the 2nd century A.D., there is distinct reference to a cow-herd Kṛiṣhṇa and his dance with the *gopīs*. [English translation by V. R. R. Dikshitar, Canto XVII, p. 228.]

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10. *Prasādhikā*,—Toilet-attendant. The scenes of *prasādhana* are common enough on Mathura railing pillars. We find separate pillars devoted to the *Nāyikā* or the Queen herself looking in a mirror doing her coiffure or applying toilet paste, and also to her attendants carrying the *śṛiṅgārapeṭikā* (toilet-basket) in one hand and a jug of water in the other. The specimen in the Bharat Kala Bhavan is in perfect state of perservation. (Vogel, *La Sculpture de Mathurā*, Pl. L. also Plate XVIII E).

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11. *Kanduka-krīḍā*,—Playing with the ball. This scene is represented on railing pillar No. I, 61 in the Mathura museum. Kālidāsa has referred to Pārvatī’s *kanduka-krīḍā* in the *Kumārasambhava* (I. 29) and it appears that playig with balls was favourite sports of girls in ancient India.

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12. *Vaṃśī-vīṇā-vādinī*,—Woman playing the flute and the harp. The flute has special association in the history of music at Mathura, and it is therefore gratifying to find several fragments of railing pillars on which woman playing the flute are shown. The harp or the *sapta-tantrī vīṇā* is common not only at Mathura but at almost all other centres of ancient Indian art, and its representation at Mathura also is fairly common both in stone and clay.

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The number of railing pillars is pretty large, and other miscellaneous scenes may also be gathered. For example, we have the representation of a mother amusing her child with a rattle (I. 16), or women adorning themselves with heavy garlands or with a conspicuous necklace and still others characterised by a sensuous appeal displaying erotic charms of various descriptions.

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