The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.30

c9.30

tile maturity and maternal prosperity. This is, indeed, how the Indo-Greek sculptors understood it, and the mere choice of this symbol would be sufficient to prove that they were more Greek than Indian : but the meaning of these abridged versions remains evidently the same as that of the more ornate replicas, which encumber with urchins the pedestal, the knees, and even the shoulders of these same persons (cf. pl. XLVIII, 1). The mere sight of the god leaning lovingly on the arm or the shoulder of his companion, and the latter not fearing to caress his knee in public, leaves us in no doubt that popular imagination and cult have in fact united in matrimony the genius who dispenses riches and the fairy who grants posterity.