Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c14.18

c14.18

Two other sites in the cluster of Kāpiśī are Paitāwā where in 1925 a Buddha image was found, and Khair Khaneh, twelve miles north of Kabul, where in 1936, a Brāhmanical temple with the statue of Sūrya in white marble was exposed. Sūrya is squatting in lalitāsana between his acolytes Daṇḍa and Piṅgala, on a chariot drawn by two horses between whom sits the charioteer Aruṇa shown without legs and holding the reins. He is wearing the costume of the Sassanian kings of 4th cent. A.D. This was the grand epoch of the worship of the Sun god in the Oriental world to which numerous references are found in the Purāṇas and testified by the actual monument. Hackin observed that this was the first Brāhmanical temple in this area showing architectural and iconographical similarity between Khair-khaneh and Gupta art, specially of Bhūmrā.