Maurya and Shunga Art c5.15

c5.15

Excavations at the Bhir mound at Taxila long ago yielded from the pre-Hellenistic strata a scaraboid of steatite exhibiting a winged stag which is reminiscent of similar objects of Achaemenian origin.²⁸ "The Indian punch-marked silver coinage struck on the Persian standard represented perhaps the Achaemenian coinage for India."²⁹ But even after the extinction of Achaemenian power importation of Achaemenian art objects to India seems to have continued. Curtius, Diodorous and Arrian state that Alexander presented to the king of Taxila among other things a large number of gold and silver vessels and an enormous quantity of Babylonian and Persian embroideries from the treasury of old Persian monarchs.³⁰ It has also been pointed out that a few minor antiquities found in the upper strata of the Bhir mound excavations "reflect the influence of Achaemenian art." Among these four bangles of thin beaten gold with their heads terminating in lion's heads and a few fragments of pottery from the side of a vase decorated with the conventional leaf design and reminiscent of the capitals of well-known Aśoka pillars, are particularly noteworthy. Moreover, a polished sandstone head from Sarnath wearing a crenellated crown, the method of wearing the waist cloth without the 'kachchha' as we find in the two Patna 'yaksha' statues in the Indian Museum and the coiled armlets of the same figures inevitably recall Achaemenian parallels.³¹ It is evident that the trade routes referred to above opened up avenues through which Maurya India came to acquire more direct and intimate contact with Medo-Achaemenian art and culture, perhaps through Greek intermediaries.