Studies in Indian Art c12.s6.16

c12.s6.16

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.