The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.164

Language: English

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**Origin of Indian plastic art:** Of plastic art, a few specimens have been from time time to met with towards the North-Western frontier, which bear more or less traces of Greek character on them. Some time ago a few images were found in the Eusufzai country, which in style and execution seemed very like debased Greek works.⁶⁹ A figure of Buddha in slate stone, found by Dr. J. G. Gerard in the ruins of an ancient town two miles S. E. of Cabul,⁷⁰ is supposed by some to have marks of genuine Bactrian formation. A stucco head found in Peshawar, and exhibited by Major Baker at a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in November, 1851, was also supposed to have the same character.⁷¹ The peculiarities of these figures are, however, not so decidedly Greek, as to leave no room for question. The same cannot be said of a remarkable piece of sculpture in red sandstone found at Mathurā by the late Colonel L. R. Stacy, and now deposited in the Indian Museum. It represents a large *tazza*, surrounded by two groups of men and women. The bowl of the *tazza* is broken; the figures have suffered much from decay; and their faces have been knocked off by the iconoclastic zeal of some fanatics. Enough, however, remains of the whole to attach to this piece of carving peculiar interest in connexion with the history of Indian plastic art. Apparently it embodies the most curious mixture of Indian and foreign ideas and objects that has ever come under notice.

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Its material, the mottled red sandstone, is the same which Huviṣka used in the construction of his great monastery at Mathurā over nineteen hundred years ago, and which the Moghols employed in the erection of their forts at Delhi, Agra, and Allahabad. The Hindu fort of Gwalior and the ancient temple of Govindajī at Vṛndāvana, are built entirely of this stone, and innumerable Hindu and Paṭhān edifices along the banks of the Yamunā attest the fact of its being an Indian material, and the sculpture under notice have been made in India. But a *tazza*, as an article of decoration, as far as there are means of judging, was [ 69 ] unknown in ancient India, and it may therefore be accepted as a proof, as far as such a proof can go, of the presence in India of foreign artists. The subject of representation on one side (obverse) of the stem of the *tazza* is a pot-bellied, stout man, seated in a wine-befuddled style on a rock, or a low stool, with his hands resting on an attendant standing on each side. “The drooping of the head, the lips, and the powerless state of the limbs,” says Col. Stacy, “give an extremely accurate representation of a drunken man.” For dress he has only a *dhuti*, negligently wrapped round his loins below the abdomen, leaving the paunch uncovered and projecting. His feet are partially mutilated; one leg is raised, the other is hanging. Round his head he wears a chaplet of angular-lobed leaves.

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The attendant on the right side is a male, dressed in a *cāpkān*, and having a square scarf tied in front of the neck by a knot, very much in the same style in which the *piṭha-vastras* of the associates of Kṛṣṇa are represented in the present day, and also in old sculptures. Cowherds in the North-Western Provinces tie their blankets also in the same way, and Indian boys, until recently, had their little *cādars* tied on them in the cold weather in a like manner. The writer of this work himself had it when a boy. Col. Stacy describes it as "a kerchief round the neck with a tie in front as worn by sailors".⁷² General Cunningham takes it to be "the short cloak of the Greeks."⁷³ The head and left arm of the figure are mutilated; the right hand is stretched behind the central figure for its support. The attendant on the left side is a female, supporting the right hand of that figure on her breast. She is dressed in a *sāḍi*, whose ample folds lie gracefully on the lower limbs, covering them to the heels. A jacket is seen over it, probably a *kurtā*, which looks like an Ionic *chiton* with short sleeves, but without the usual girdle. The two articles of dress together appear very like the double *chiton* with an ample and following *cholpos* (*Kholpos*). It is evident, however, that the lower garment is not a Greek petticoat, but a *sāḍi*, as the upper end of it passes diagonally over the breast and left arm, whence it hangs down behind the body.

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She has no hymation or scarf over her body clothes. Her feet are covered by the skirt of the *sāḍi*. A necklace of five rows adorns her breast, and thick heavy jewels are pendant from her ears. The face is mutilated. Before her stands sideways a nude boy with his right hand resting on the thigh of the central figure. Before the male attendant there is also a boy, standing in a dancing attitude with the right hand uplifted. The heads of the boys are broken. Before the principal figure, there is an Indian *loṭā* or flagon, apparently serving the purposes of a bottle. On the reverse there are four figures, two male and two female, standing under an umbrageous grove whose foliage is made up of long, lanceolate, pinnate leaflets hanging in masses, and relieved with globular tufts (*capitulums*) formed of small flowers. The leaves can be likened to the young shoots of the *Jonesia aśoka*, but the flowers are more like those of the *Nauclea kadamba* than of former. The first figure to the right is a female, dressed in a *ghāgrā* much in the style of the female attandant already noticed, but having a narrow long *cādar* thrown across the body. Her feet are encased in shoes, and there are thick heavy rings round her ankles. Her left hand holds the hem of her mantle, and the right is in the grasp of a youth who stands beside her in an amatory mood, with crossed legs, resting his left hand on her shoulders.

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He is dressed in a close fitting *dhaḍā* or *jaṅghi* which simply covers his nudity, extending only to about the middle of the thighs, but leaving his protuberant paunch exposed, and a scraf or *pīṭha-vastra* tied before the neck and hanging behind the body. His feet are bare. The third figure is a female dressed exactly as the first, but she has elaborately-worked bangles, which cover nearly half the length of her fore-arms. Her left hand holds a lotus-bud, and the right hangs down straight by her side. Near her feet there are two covered vessels, one on each side. The youth who stands next to her on the extreme left, does not appear to be in any way interested in her. He has no shoes, and on his person is a flowered muslin *cāpkān* which hangs down to the knee. A little above his ankle there are marks showing that his nether garment is a pair of close-fitting drawers or *pāyajāmā*. All the four figures show traces of chaplets which had crowned their heads. The leaves of these crowns are angular-lobed, and may be taken for vine or ivy.