The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c11: Chapter 5. Childhood of Gandhāra Art
The Buddhist Art of Gandhāra: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c11
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Chapter 5. Childhood of Gandhāra Art
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(FIGS. 40-52)
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The artists of the Early Indian School in Mālwā who were commissioned to carve the gateways of the Great Stūpa at Sāñchī, did not hesitate to include among their reliefs scenes of a sensuous and erotic character which were flagrantly opposed to the first principles of Buddhist teaching. With such a well-established precedent to guide them, it is not surprising that, after the revival of Hellenism under the Parthians, the sculptors of Gandhāra followed a like course. At that time a favourite theme of Graeco-Parthian secular art was the drinking-scene, and incongruous as it may seem, this was one of the earliest themes to be adopted for the decoration of Buddhist stūpas. At the outset such themes were incorporated, just as they were and without any modification, among the stūpa-reliefs, though no doubt appropriate labels, based on one or other of the life-stories of the Buddha, were readily invented for them. But it was evidently not long before doubts began to arise as to the propriety of these drinking-scenes on the walls of sacred edifices, and so we find the sculptors giving them a more sober and holier air by putting lotuses instead of wine-cups in the hands of the revellers. The change was a simple and effective one, but it is worth remarking that the drinking-scene was much too popular to be so easily suppressed or camouflaged. We find it recurring time and again in later reliefs of the Gandhāra School.
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A good illustration of such scenes, of a purely Hellenistic character, is afforded by fig. 40. This relief was formerly in the Guides' Mess at Mardān and like the majority of their sculptures probably came from Swāt; but its precise provenance is uncertain; nor have I been able to ascertain the variety of stone of which it is made. It is now in the Peshāwar Museum. The drinking party comprises nine figures, namely, four male and five female. The men wear either a short *chiton*, with a girdle at the waist and a scalloped turn-over edge at the top, leaving the right shoulder bare, or a simple *himation* alone leaving the upper part of the body bare save for the fold over the left shoulder. Two of the men wear hats that look rather like coal-heavers', but the details are damaged. The women wear a long *chiton* and *himation*, and garlands on their heads. The *chiton* is supported by a twisted girdle under the breasts and is long enough completely to cover the feet; the *himation* is draped over the left shoulder and arm, and round the hips and legs. The women also wear numerous bangles on their wrists but not on the upper arm. The man in the centre is holding a metal tankard of a type that is still familiar in Kashmīr and the North-West Frontier. The goblets held by the others are of a peculiarly distinctive shape, numerous specimens of which were found at Taxila in deposits dating from the Parthian period but not from any other period. Some were of earthenware, others of copper or bronze or silver. An example of the silver ones is shown in fig. 42. The characteristic features of these Parthian goblets are their carinated bodies, deeply flared mouths, horizontal flutings or bands, and disproportionately small bases, which were evidently meant to support them only when empty. Although a drinking-party, the men and women composing it make a sedate, dignified group very different from the boisterous orgy depicted on the toilet-tray, fig. 16.
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Now let us go on to the next relief (fig. 41), which is in the British Museum. It is labelled ‘Presentation of the bride to Siddhārtha’, and that may well have been the label attached to it by the sculptor for the edification of the Buddhists. But, whatever the label, the scene portrayed is essentially the same as the drinking-scene of the previous panel, and the style, too, is identical. Indeed, so similar are the figures and faces of the men and women, their dress, ornaments, etc., even down to the scalloped borders of the men’s tunics, that it is virtually certain they must have come from the same atelier. The only material difference between them is that in this relief two of the men are carrying bunches of lotuses in their hands and the three women nothing at all. What the men at the right and left ends have in their hands it is difficult to say, owing to mutilation of the stone. That at the left end looks suspiciously like a drinking vessel, but perhaps it is no more than a silver bowl with some ‘wedding-cake’ in it! But however this may be, it is clear that this slab marks a very early effort on the part of the Buddhists to give a religious complexion to a very mundane subject. Like the majority of sculptures of this period, the relief is made of chloritic mica-schist.
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The next significant step is made apparent in the three following illustrations (figs. 43, 44, 45), in which the Greek setting is retained and
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the form and postures of the figures are Greek rather than local, but men and women alike are wearing local instead of Greek dress and all are carrying lotuses in their hands. The original provenance of these three panels is not known. Along with several other panels of the same kind they were formerly in the collection of the Church Missionary Society at Peshāwar. Figs. 43 and 44 are now in the Peshāwar Museum. The whereabouts of the other panel, said to be of yellowish-grey pot-stone, I have been unable to discover. In each panel there are six figures, three men and three women. All wear the native dhoti, tied with a girdle at the waist and reaching to the ankles. The upper part of the body is bare, except for a long shawl which is usually draped over the left shoulder and arm, and allowed to fall in a graceful fold below the right hip. Some of the women, however, wear the scarf draped over both shoulders, with a loose inflated length behind the head and shoulders, and the ends hanging down evenly on each side instead of both being on the left side. The men wear twisted turbans of the same kind as those worn by the stucco Bodhisattvas in Sirkap. The women wear wreaths above their carefully dressed coiffures. For ornaments, the men wear a necklace and a single bangle on each wrist; the women have a similar kind of necklace but several bangles on their wrists as well as heavy anklets on their ankles. Notwithstanding that the women are in native costume, it is noticeable that they are portrayed with small, firm breasts, not at all in the local tradition.
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Framing the groups on each side is a Corinthian pilaster with rounded shaft and moulded base in a countersunk panel. The plinth below is enriched with a continuous moulding of Hellenistic pattern running round the whole structure. From the differing details of these mouldings and of the smaller mouldings below the pilasters it is evident that the three reliefs we are discussing belonged to separate structures. The Corinthian pilaster with rounded shaft is a constantly recurring feature of the panelled stūpa-reliefs of this and the succeeding period. Later on it tends to give place to the Corinthian pilaster with a flat shaft and usually more stunted proportions. On stūpas of the reign of Azes II in Sirkap both forms of pilaster were used side by side.
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In the foregoing reliefs the lotuses in the hands of the men and women were sufficient to proclaim the Buddhist character of the monument, but in the case of other reliefs there is sometimes nothing at all to indicate a connexion with Buddhism. Thus, in Fig. 46 the six figures appear merely as fine, upstanding fighting men armed with swords and dressed in what is still a national costume on the North-West Frontier. Three of them are bearded and three beardless. Two of the beardless ones have their right hands raised with two fingers extended to signify Good Luck. All wear loose, baggy trousers tied at the ankles, with loosely fitting long-sleeved tunics. The figure at the right end has the sleeves pulled up, leaving the forearms bare; the one at the left end has his right sleeve hanging down, thus hiding the hand from view. In the cold hills of the Frontier such sleeves are serviceable for keeping the hands warm, and are still a common feature of Pathān dress. On their heads the men wear a close-fitting cap with side lapels and ribands hanging in front of the ears. The long, sheathed broadsword is suspended on a cord which passes over the left shoulder and across the back and front of the body above the waist line. The sword seems to resemble the long double-edged weapons found in Sirkap and the *spatha* of Roman auxiliaries in the East (*Taxila*, vol. II, pp. 544-5 and nos. 56-8). Framing the slab on either side is a Corinthian pilaster with rounded shaft in countersunk panel. The continuous base moulding of double torus section is similar to that of fig. 45, which possibly belonged to the same monument—a matter that could probably be decided by comparing their dimensions and the stones of which they are made, neither of which I have been able to ascertain. Let me add that the slab illustrated in fig. 46 used to be in the possession of the Church Missionary Society at Peshāwar; it is now in the Peshāwar Museum.
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Another relief appertaining to the same group which shows no apparent connexion with Buddhism is the well-known one in the British Museum (fig. 47) of the Sea or River deities. There are six of them posed in a row between Corinthian pilasters: all splendidly athletic looking figures, wearing high boots and girt round the middle with acanthus leaves, which appear as if growing out of the body itself. All six are moustached and bearded and have long hair taken back from the forehead, with a small V-shaped device in front. To symbolize their connexion with the waters, each carries a broad-bladed boat paddle such as one can still see in use in Kashmīr, five holding it aloft on the left shoulder and the sixth leaning on it under his right arm. While the above features are common to all six deities, there is one point in which they show a very significant difference. For one only of the six has a normal male body from the hips upwards; the other five are provided with eight female breasts arranged in two lines above the navel, and the navel itself is much exaggerated in size. Other noteworthy points are that three of the figures have their right hands raised with two fingers extended in the gesture of Good Luck, and that one of the figures is holding what has been described as a dolphin—yet another symbol of the waters. That the six figures are sea or river deities can hardly be questioned. The multiple breasts, symbolical of their fertilizing power, though an unusual attribute, are not without parallels. They are found on statues of the Ephesian Artemis and on one of Zeus Stratios of Labranda (see P. Foucart in *Mon. Piot*, XVIII, pp. 145-75), and Mme Bazin-Foucher has ingeniously suggested that the name ‘Thamimasadas’ by which Herodotus tells us the Scythian Poseidon was known, was a compound formed of θαμά, meaning numerous or frequent, and a Scythian equivalent of the Greek μαζός, a breast (see E. Bazin-Foucher, ‘Le nom scythique de Poseidon’, *B.E.F.E.O.*, XLIV, fasc. 1, pp. 13-20). Thus it is possible, and indeed likely, that the five many-breasted figures on this relief present us with the Scythian conception of this god—a conception that must have been familiar to the Śaka peoples in Gandhāra. But why, it may be asked, are five only of the six portrayed as many-breasted? The answer, I suggest, is that the five were meant to represent the five rivers of the Panjāb, with emphasis thus laid on the all-important part they played in fertilizing its wide plains from the Himalayas to the sea. The sixth figure may represent the sea itself to which they are tributary but which does not have the same fertilizing power, though it brings abounding wealth in other ways to the Land of the Five Rivers.
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Linked with the foregoing relief are two triangular panels made, like it, of greenish chloritic stone and carved in precisely the same style with winged Tritons of the traditional Hellenistic type. One of these panels (fig. 48) is in the British Museum, the other in the Peshāwar Museum, to which it was presented by the Church Missionary Society. That all three pieces belonged to the same monument can hardly be doubted; that they came from the hand of the same sculptor seems from their technique and style more than probable. The position occupied by the two triangular panels was no doubt under a raking cornice at the side of the steps leading up to a small stūpa-base. Note that, in fig. 48, the hair of the Triton is treated in exactly the same way as in the preceding relief, with a tufted V-shaped device over the forehead and long tresses behind falling down the back of the neck. Note also the same high cheek-bones, the same shaped nose and the same highly arched eye-brow.
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To return, however, to the drinking-scenes, which enjoyed a wide popularity under the Parthians and exerted an enduring influence on the subsequent Buddhist art of Gandhāra. To the examples of these scenes already given I feel constrained to add three more which seem to me particularly instructive. Two of them (figs. 49 and 50) come from Haḍḍa in Southern Afghānistān. Unlike any of the reliefs from Taxila or the Peshāwar Valley, they are made of a white calcareous limestone, which is somewhat softer and coarser than the chloritic and micaceous schist or than the steatite and does not permit of the same degree of delicacy in the carving.
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Fig. 49 is in the Musée Guimet in Paris. The scene on it comprises five figures, namely, an elderly couple, a younger couple, and a small child, presumably a family group of three generations. The older man is holding a wine-bowl in his hands; the woman by his side carries an amphora in her left arm, while with her right hand she holds out a bunch of grapes to the child. The younger man is playing on what appears to be a tambourine, and keeping time with his left foot. His wife, beside him, is playing on a two-stringed mandoline. The older man wears a himation only, falling from the left shoulder and leaving the body bare. The younger one has a short, sleeved tunic tied with a girdle round the hips. The dress of the women consists of a long, sleeved chiton reaching from the neck to the feet, and over it a himation draped from the left shoulder and across the legs. The wine-bowl held by the elder man is distinguished by a scalloped turn-over rim and two vertical handles. The treatment of the men's hair in small, well-defined but rather rough masses is noteworthy. It calls to mind the hair of the two figures on a triangular slab of chloritic schist in the Calcutta Museum, which depicts a Gigantomachia and is of about the same age as the relief from Haḍḍa (cf. Foucher, A.G.-B.G. vol. I, p. 245, fig. 125). It should also be remarked that none of the figures, on this or the following panel, from Haḍḍa is wearing a garland.
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Fig. 50, which is now in the Kābul Museum, originally carried two groups separated by a Persepolitan pilaster, but it has been broken and only one figure of the right-hand group has survived. The other closely resembles the family group of fig. 49, but there are some slight differences. Thus, both couples are engaged in drinking, but their positions are reversed, the younger couple being on the left, the child in the middle, and the elder couple on the right. Instead of a tunic, the younger man has a *himation*, which his wife is holding open so as to leave his body exposed to view. There is a difference, too, in the dress of his wife, who is wearing a long double tunic instead of a tunic and *himation*. The hair of both men and women is treated in the same way as on the other relief, and the wine-bowls in the hands of the women are similar to the one held by the elder man in the other group. In point of style, design and execution the two reliefs are as characteristically Hellenistic as they are in their subject matter.
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The last of the drinking-scenes that I have chosen for illustration (fig. 51) is carved on a lion-footed pedestal of dark micaceous schist now in the Lahore Museum. The distinctive pose of the two women, with their exposed backs and buttocks, resembles that of the women on the toilet-trays, figs. 16 to 18, and leaves no room for doubt that the pedestal belongs to the same period. We should observe, however, that in this case the women have been easternized to the extent of being provided with anklets and cross-straps on their backs. Round his forehead the elder man wears an ornamental band or *taenia* (the younger man’s head is damaged).
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Finally, and as a tail-piece to this chapter, I append a particularly fine statue of a crouching Atlant in the Lahore Museum (fig. 52). Such Atlants are familiar at all periods in Gandhāra art and afford, as we shall see, an instructive series of pointers for its history (see figs. 108, 145 and 146). This example, made of the same stone and approximately of the same age as fig. 51, is one of the oldest. It is a bold, masterly figure, with narrow waist and powerfully developed chest and limbs, and rather crudely modelled wings. The leafy wreath twined in the hair points to the influence of the Dionysus-Silenus cult.