Studies in Indian Art c12.s8.34

c12.s8.34

This was a favourite palace amusement in ancient India. Besides its artistic representation on this pillar and elsewhere literary reference to it also found in the Kādambarī of Bāṇabhaṭṭa. A detailed description of a similar scene on a terracotta panel from Mathura was given by me in an article in the J.I.S.O.A., 1942, pp. 69-73. The inmates of the harem regaled themsleves by practising such light jokes on the palace chamberlains (kanchuki), jesters (vidushaka) and such other attendants (cheṭa, viṭa). The cap with a frontal plume and the conspicuous pricked ears projecting at right angles from the head are intended to emphasise the humorous character of the male figure who appears to be a Vidūshaka. The scene on this Kushāṇa pillar presents an earlier version of the scene on the Gupta terracotta panel, both from Mathura.