Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c14.27

c14.27

The subject of this notable frieze was inspired by essentially an Indian conception, viz. the Kāma-latā, i.e. the creeper producing the beautiful sons and daughters of the God of Love. Indian versions of this motif were rendered on the door-jambs of the Gupta temples in the form of Mithuna bands but the motif was much older and derived from the wish-fulfilling trees (Kalpa-vriksha) of Uttarakuru whose boughs produced such Mithunas or young men and women (ante 142-6). It appears as if the colossus of Kushāṇa rule under Kanishka had planted its one foot at Mathura and the other in Khwaresm.