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Studies in Indian Art c12.s9: 23. The Vine Motif in Mathura Art

Studies in Indian Art c12.s9

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23. The Vine Motif in Mathura Art

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Recently we acquired for the Mathurā Museum a relief carved with a scene of the worship of a Śiva Liṅga (No. 2661, Fig. 97). Two persons wearing Scythian dress, boots, trousers and coat, holding garlands and flowers in their hands are shown as worshippers, paying their homage to the deity, i.e. Śiva Liṅga placed on a pedestal. This is the earliest representation in Mathurā art in which the actual worship of a Brāhmanical deity is depicted. A flying celestial poised in the air showering flowers is also carved in the proper left corner of the sunken arch containing the scene, and is similar to the Deva figures found in Buddhist sculptures of Mathurā. (Cf. Katra Bodhisattva image, Vogel's Catalogue, A. 1).

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What invests this sculpture with an importance in excess of the iconographic value pointed out above, is the vertical border on the proper left side representing the vine creeper (Vitis vinifera). The cinque-foiled compound leaves and the cluster of grapes are shown alternating with each other. On the lower leaf inside a semi-circular tendril is perched a peacock looking towards the worshipping figures and the deity.

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It is of some interest to note that in the repertoire of the decorative motifs familiar to the Mathur sculptors during the Kushāṇa period, the vine occupied an important place, probably next to lotus and Aśoka-tree. It has been possible to trace this feature on the following seven sculptures from Mathura, all of the Kushāṇa period :—

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1. Śiva Liṅga relief described above (No. 2661).

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2. Big stone bowl (No. 97), about 3'-3" in diameter, carved all round with a border of vine, 10'-3" long, of which about 1'-6" is broken away. The encircling creeper is arranged as an undulatings scroll with about thirty-five leaves and eighteen grape-clusters. It issues forth from the navel of a squatting Yaksha and occurs in this specimen as the most luxuriant representation of this motif at Mathurā. The base is conceived of and represented as full-blown lotus, the symbol of cosmic purity and fulness. The surmounting border of the vine-creeper (drākshā-valli) most likely points to the joys of the 'Cup of Life', which offers its exhilaration to the human individual here represented as a Yaksha Fig. 98).

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3. Stone bowl similar to the above (No. 662), from Palikhera (Fig. 99).

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In this the vine motif is shown mixed up with that of Aśoka. The stalk is shown issuing from the mouth of a seated pot-bellied Yaksha, who holds the other end of the stalk in his right hand. The single compound vine leaf and the bunch of grape fruit are clearly visible on the proper left side of the Yaksha figure under the crest of the scroll. The bowl is inscribed on the upper rim and the decipherable portion reads as 'Samghiyānam parigaha' (Annual Pro. Report, H. and B. Monts, N. C., 1917, p. 8; Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, Pt. II, p. 65). but as some letters are broken away in the beginning it is possible that the name originally read *Mahāsaṃghiyānam*, which would show that the gift was given to the priests of the Mahāsaṃghika sect, which was one of the eighteen schools of Buddhism. That it flourished at Mathura is also proved by another inscription engraved on the pedestal of a Buddha image (No. 1612) reading *Āpanaka-vihāre Mahāsaṃghiyānam parigahe*.

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Fig 97 Worship of Śiva liṅga

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Fig. 98 Stone Bowl

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Fig. 99 Stone Bowl

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Fig. 100 Fragment of a doorjamb

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Fig. 101 A Syrinx Player

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Fig. 102 Horned Head

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Fig. 103 Horned Head

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4. Fragment of a proper left doorjamb, which is described in Dr. Vogel's *Catalogue of the Mathura Museum* (p. 2). The front proper left side contains a decorative band of Aśoka design. The proper right side of the stone which was turned to the passage of the doorway is decorated with a vine border, having eleven fully developed leaves and three fruit bunches. The vine is shown coming out from the open jaws of a *Makara*, carved horizontally at the base of the decorative band (Fig. 100).

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The above four sculptures are preserved in the Museum at Mathura and the following three at Lucknow.

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5. Door-jamb (J. 526) carved with a band of undulating vine scroll, in which each curve with the exception of one contains a cluster of grapes and some leaves. The creeper issues out of the navel of a standing Yaksha of corpulent features. It is illustrated in Codrington's *Ancient India*, p. 46, Fig. 17, and in Smith's *Jaina Stupa*, plate 26.

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6. Jaina *Ayāgapaṭṭa* from Kaṅkālī Ṭilā (J. 253); on one side is the border of vine springing from a *Pūrṇa-ghaṭa*. (Coomaraswamy's *Yaksas*, Part II; Smith's *Jaina Stupa*, plate X).

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7. Relief from Kaṅkālī Ṭilā carved with four-petalled and eight-petalled lotuses having on the upper rim the border of Aśoka and on the lower that of vine (Smith's *Jaina Stupa*, plate XXII). As a portion of the relief on the proper left side is broken away, it is not possible to know in this case the source of the vine, whether it was a Yaksha, Makara, or *Pūrṇaghaṭa*.

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It is interesting to note here that viticulture was known in India from very early times. Watts supposed the plant and its products to have been known for perhaps 3000 years in this country (*Dictionary of Economic Products*, Vol. VI. part IV, p. 264). 'That the earliest classic literature of India necessitates our acceptance of the vine or of a vine as having been known to the Sankrit authors, is a matter upon which there can be little room for doubt' (ibid. p. 269). Grapes have been mentioned both by Suśruta and Charaka (ibid. p. 263). The best reference perhaps occurs in Kauṭilya who tells us that this commodity was being imported from the lands of Kāpiśī or Harahūra (northern and western Afghanistan): "*Mṛdvīkā-raso madhu. Tasya svadeśo vyākhyānaṃ Kāpiśāyanaṃ Hārahūrakamiti*" (Book II, ch. XXV).

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Pāṇini derives the word Kāpiśāyana from Kāpiśī (*kāpiśyāḥ sphak*, IV, 2. 99) and the Kāśikā gives *Kāpiśāyanaṃ madhu* and *Kāpiśāyanī drākshā* as illustrations, which show that the adjective was prefixed before nouns alike to those of Kauṭilya. It is not improbable that Pāṇini himself was aware of the grapes of the Kāpiśī region, and that in his own days also the phrase Kāpiśāyanam was prefixed to ‘madhu’ in the then current form of speech. We possess stronger evidence regarding the import of grape wines from the north-west in the Maurya period, as a correspondence between Bindusāra and Antiochus is recorded in which the former requested the Greek king to send him some figs and raisin wine (Smith's *Early History of India*, p. 155), which must have been the same as the *mṛdvīkā raso* of Kauṭilya.

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With the establishment of the Kuṣāṇa empire comprising both Mathura and Kabul under one banner, the import of raisin wine on account of increased intercourse with the north-west appears to have received greater impetus. In the early centuries of the Christian era the importation of Yavana wines is also referred to in the literature of the Tamil land (ibid. p. 463). Even in the far south where commerce with the Roman empire flourished, the importation of these wines from across the seas was a common feature of trade in this period (ibid. p. 463). It is said that during the last years of the Roman Republic Italy had become such a wine country that the relation between wine and corn was reversed; wine was exported and corn imported. Cato was of opinion that of all kinds of culture that of the grapes was the most profitable. The cultivation of the vine in the Roman provinces threatened to choke the cultivation of grain to such a degree that the emperor Domitian in an excess of anxiety, ordered that half and more than half of all the vine-yards outside Italy should be destroyed. (Watt's *Dictionary*, p. 267). The Kuṣāṇa and Roman empires came within six hundred miles of each other. Italy was at this time famed as the favourite land of Bacchus and the evidence of the Kuṣāṇa art in India amply bears out the popularity of Kubera worship as the Indian counter-part of Bacchus. We find a number of Bacchanalian groups discovered from Mathura (*A.S.R.*, 1922-23, R.P. Chanda, ‘The Mathura school of sculpture’, p. 167, and pl. XXXVIII, b.). The one form Palikhera (C. 2) preserved in the Mathura Museum actually shows a grape cluster held in the hand of the female attendant standing beside the wife of Kubera. It must have been at this time that the artists adopted the vine motif as a decorative element of their work.¹

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¹ See Bharhut, foreign soldier with a grape bunch (Barua's *Barhut*, fig. 71. On p. 63 of Vol. III he regards a bunch of grapes as a cognizance of a man of उत्तरापथ). Vine motif in Q. 3 आयागपट्ट (Mathura musuem). Vine motif in P. 70 Jamb ( " ) Vine motif in P. 69 ( " ) Vine motif on Sarnath Lintel C(b)9, plate XXIII of the Museum Catalogue. Vine motif on Vema Takshama statue embroidery design on shoes. See also Drākshārāma in Ganjam Dt. (*Ann. Bib.* 1936, entry 295).

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