A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c11.s2: Section II. Mathurā and Sārnāth
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c11.s2
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Section II. Mathurā and Sārnāth
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The most distinctly Hellenistic sculpture from Mathurā is the mutilated group, 2 feet 5 inches high, known as 'Herakles (Hercules) and the Nemean lion', discovered by Cunningham serving a lowly purpose as the side of a cattle-trough, and now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (Fig. 79).
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The hero grasps the beast with his left arm, and presumably threatened it with a club in the missing right hand. He is nude, except for a skin hung behind his back, and fastened by the paws round his neck. He is fairly well modelled in a way that suggests Greek reminiscences, but the lion, so far as can be seen, is a poor, feeble creature.
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[Figure: FIG. 79. Herakles and the Nemean lion, from Mathurā. (Photo. 842, I. M. List.)]
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The only other Indian work of art resembling this group is a corroded bronze or copper statuette, 2¼ feet high, treating of the same subject, which was discovered in a mound at Quetta in Balūchistan.
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The motive is of great antiquity, going back to Assyrian art, which represented Gistubar, the 'Assyrian Hercules', clubbing and strangling a lion in the same way. India, however, probably borrowed the idea from some Hellenistic work of Asia Minor. The Mathurā group was believed by Sir A. Cunningham, whose skilled judgement on the point may be accepted, to date from the time of either Kanishka or Huvishka. But his notion that the sculpture might have been executed on behalf of a hypothetical Greek colony at Mathurā may be dismissed as fanciful, although at present it is not possible to explain the meaning of the group from an Indian point of view. The popular Buddhism of Mathurā indulged in some queer manifestations, and most likely the composition should be classed as Buddhist. The Indian version of the story called by the Greeks the struggle of Herakles with the Nemean lion may turn up somewhere.¹
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¹ The Mathurā group is M. 17 in Indian Museum, Calcutta: Anderson, *Catal.*, Part I, p. 190; Cunningham, *A. S. Rep.*, vol. xvii, p. 139, Pl. XXX. For the 'Assyrian Hercules' see Bonomi, *Nineveh and its Palaces*, 2nd ed., p. 136, Fig. 36; Maspéro, *Ancient Egypt and Assyria*, transl. Morton (London, 1892), p. 302, Fig. 152. The Quetta statuette is described in *J. A. S. B.*, Part I, vol. lvi, p. 163, Pl. X; and vol. lviii (1889), p. 141. It seems to be more ancient than the Mathurā group, and the treatment differs.
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Certain groups and statuettes from Mathurā or the neighbourhood, all dealing with strong drink and intoxication, which may be classed together as 'Bacchanalian', have excited much interest and discussion, in spite of which their interpretation is still far from clear. The supposed Greek character of the composition first discovered was much exaggerated by the early commentators, and some of the connected sculptures have nothing Hellenistic about them. All of them, like the Gandhāra figures, demand explanation as representations of Indian, not Greek subjects, even though certain details may be foreign.
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The block discovered in 1836 by Colonel Stacy, somewhere at Mathurā, and now marked M. 1 in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, was at first supposed to represent Silenus, and so became known as the ‘Stacy Silenus’. But everybody now acknowledges that the subject is Indian, although the sculptor was influenced by the Silenus model. The stone is 3 feet 8 inches high, 3 feet broad, and 1 foot 4 inches thick, with a circular basin on the top 16 inches in diameter and 8 in depth, seemingly intended to serve as the socket for a column. Both this block and its replica, to be described presently, were carved on back as well as front, and were evidently designed to be viewed from both directions. Apparently they were the bases of columns, which may have stood at an entrance, or entrances, the proper position for Yakshas. But the difference of dimensions suggests that the two blocks may have belonged to distinct buildings.
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The front group (Plate XXXI) comprises four persons in two pairs, each consisting of a man and woman standing under an *asoka* tree in flower. The stout man on the right has his left arm round the waist of his female companion, who holds his right hand in hers, thus giving him the support rendered necessary by his intoxicated condition, due to the liquor, pots of which stand on the ground. The couple on the left stand facing, in attitudes apparently indifferent, but their countenances have been destroyed, so that their expression is lost. Traces of chaplets may be discerned on the heads of all.
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The reeling man wears nothing except a pair of short bathing-drawers, and a scarf or cloak (? chlamys) hanging behind his back and fastened round his neck by a knot. The slighter and perfectly sober man on the left is decently dressed in long drawers extending to his ankles, and a close-fitting tunic reaching below his knees. Both of the women are clad in a short tunic coming down a little below the waist, and possibly also in a long skirt. Each holds a piece of loose drapery across her legs. The woman on the left has it thrown over her left arm in the fashion adopted by some of the Gandhāra Bodhisattvas. Both women are adorned with heavy Indian anklets, armlets, and collars.
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The reverse group, much mutilated, comprises five figures, of whom the principal is a fat elderly man sitting on a stone seat with his left leg tucked up, and so drunk that he has to be supported on his left side by a man and a boy, and on his right by a woman dressed like the females in the front group. The drunkard does not wear drawers like the merry fellow in that composition, but has a waistcloth loosely fastened. In style both reliefs are similar, the modelling being life-like, and the action clearly expressed.
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The companion block of nearly the same dimensions, but somewhat larger, was discovered many years later by the late Mr. F. S. Growse at Pālī Khera, a suburb of modern Mathurā included within the limits of the ancient city. The reverse group, exhibiting the effects of deep potations, being almost identical with the reverse of the Stacy block, need not be further described. The front group, however, differs from its companion. Five figures under an *asoka* tree again appear. The principal is a fat man, seemingly nude, seated on a low stool made of stones laid in courses, with his left leg tucked up. The stone seat apparently is intended as a symbol of Mount Kailās, the abode of Kuvera. He is drinking from a noggin, apparently of wood, which a male attendant is ready to replenish. The proceedings are watched by another man, a woman, and a small boy (Fig. 80).
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Two other Bacchanalian groups, found among the sculptures in the Mathurā Museum by Dr. Vogel and described by him, throw welcome light upon the date and meaning of the earlier discoveries described above. One of these groups, 1 foot 2 inches high (Fig. 81), represents a corpulent, coarse-looking man, apparently nude,
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[Figure: FIG. 80. Pālī Khera block, front group. (Photo. 227, I. M. *List*: Mathurā Museum, C. 2, *Catal.*, p. 83, Pl. XIII.)]
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squatted, and holding in his right hand a cup, which a female attendant is about to fill from a jar. His left hand grasps a long object, presumed to be a money-bag. This last attribute and the physique of the obese drinker permit of little doubt that the personage represented is Kuvera, the god of riches, whose podgy form has become familiar from the many images collected of late years in connexion with Buddhist monasteries from the Panjāb to Ceylon. Kuvera (also called Vaisravana and Jambhala) was king of the Yaksha demi-gods or sprites, and forms of his effigy are closely related to certain images from Gandhāra, such as Fig. 1 in Pl. XI of *The Gandhāra Sculptures*. Dr. Vogel probably is right in associating all the Bacchanalian sculptures of Mathurā with Yaksha worship.¹ But the exact meaning of the Stacy and Pālī Khera reliefs is far from clear. Whatever it may be, those sculptures have considerable merits as works of art.
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¹ ‘Études de Sculpture bouddhique’ (*Bull. de l’École française d’Extrême Or.*, t. viii (1908), Nos. 3, 4, Fig. 2); *Ann. Rep. A. S., India*, 1906–7, ‘The Mathurā School of Sculpture,’ pp. 137–60. The second group in the Mathurā Museum differs little from the one figured.
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Mr. Growse published a Mathurā statuette in his collection, 2 feet 8 inches in height, representing a pot-bellied youth with both hands raised, the right holding a bunch of grapes and the left grasping a goblet of calabash shape (Fig. 82).
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The same scholar also published a mutilated statue, 3 feet 1 inch high, lying at Kūkargrāma in the Saadābād *pargana* of the Mathurā District (Fig. 83)—a singularly graceful figure of a Nāga youth with a canopy of seven cobra heads, holding his right
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FIG. 81. Bacchanalian image, ? Kuvera, from Huvishka's monastery, Jamālpur mound. (A. S. photo., No. 33 : Mathurā Museum, C. 5, *Catal.*, p. 85.)
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hand above his head, while his left grasps a cup similar in shape to that seen on the Pālī Khera block, but apparently without the curved handle. A garland of wild flowers is twined round his body, and he wears a high head-dress of ancient pattern. The pose of the youth is essentially the same as that of the female in the Woman and Tree motive, the garland taking the place of the stem of the tree. The worship of the Nāgas, the spirits of the waters, was much favoured by the ancient inhabitants of the Mathurā region.
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The drinking Nāga is related to another fine life-size statue of a Nāga water-sprite from Chhargaon, near Mathurā, now in the Mathurā Museum, the approximate date of which is fixed by an inscription on the back, recorded in the fortieth year during the reign of Huvishka. According to the chronology provisionally adopted in this work, the statue (Fig. 84), which is 5 feet high, may be ascribed to the year A. D. 117 or 118. The modelling is good. The arrangement of the waistcloth in a twisted roll is found in other cases. The broken left hand probably held a cup.¹
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¹ Vogel in *Prog. Rep. A. S., N. Circle*, 1907–8, p. 38; *J. R. A. S.*, 1910, p. 1313 note.
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These so-called 'Bacchanalian' sculptures of Mathurā cannot be at all understood if considered by themselves. They evidently belong to a large class of Buddhist works of art, represented by the 'scènes bacchiques' of Gandhāra, which fill two plates of M. Foucher's book,² several reliefs on railing pillars at Mathurā, the 'Indian
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² Foucher, *L'Art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhāra*, Figs. 127–33 *b*.
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FIG. 82. Bacchanalian statuette. (*J. A. S. B.*, Part I, vol. xliv, Pl. XIV, 2 : Mathurā Museum, C. 6, *Catal.*, p. 87.)
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FIG. 83. Bacchanalian Nāga, from Kūkargrāma. (*J. A. S. B.*, Part I, vol. xliv, Pl. XIV, 1 : Mathurā Museum, C. 15, *Catal.*, p. 90.)
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Bacchus' of the Tank silver dish (*post*, Chap. X, Sec. 5), and the festive scenes depicted in the Aurangabad and Bāgh Caves. All such works appear to be expressive, as Mr. Growse suggested, of a little understood sensual form of popular Buddhism, not indicated by literature until a time seemingly much later than the second century. But when the true history of Indian Buddhism comes to be written it must be based on the evidence of the sculptures and pictures as much as on the books. M. Roller's question, addressed to Christian ecclesiastical archaeologists with reference to the art of the Catacombs, may be repeated to Indianists : 'La pierre ne servirait-elle pas à contrôler le manuscrit ?'³
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³ *Les Catacombes de Rome* (1881), Preface, p. ii.
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The excavations at Mathurā have yielded numerous specimens of pillars of stone railings associated with *stūpas*, both Jain and Buddhist. Most of the Buddhist ones were, I think, found on the site of Huvishka's monastery in the Old Jail or Jamālpur mound, now entirely removed. The Jain specimens came from the Kankālī mound, which included the remains of an early *stūpa* and two temples belonging to the Jains. The pillars have high-relief statuettes, usually of. females, on the front, and other
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FIG. 84. Nāga statue, with inscription of Huvishka's reign, from Chhargaon. (A. S. photo., No. 47: Mathurā Museum, C. 13, *Catal.*, p. 88.)
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FIG. 85. Yakshī on dwarf; Mathurā Museum. (A. S. photo., No. 47, 1908–9.)
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panelled scenes, one above the other, or floral patterns on the back. The style of art is much the same, whether the work was intended for Jain or Buddhist use.
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The rather immodest females adorning many of the pillars were supposed by Cunningham to be dancing-girls, an opinion certainly erroneous. They appear rather, as argued by Dr. Vogel, to belong to the Yakshī class, like the somewhat similar figures of the Bharhut rail (*ante*, p. 74). Some of the figures are really meant to be naked, but in others the apparent nudity is merely an artistic convention. The female [Figure: FIG. 86. Two Yakshīs (?); Indian Museum.
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[Figure: FIG. 87. Female, half-back view; Mathurā Museum. (A. S. photo., No. 47; 1908–9.)]
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[Figure: FIG. 88. Female with right arm bent; Mathurā Museum. (Photo., No. 47, A. S.)]
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[Figure: FIG. 89. Female with right leg bent; Mathurā Museum. (Photo., No. 47, A. S.)]
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is frequently posed in what I call the Woman and Tree arrangement. A few examples may be given. Many more have been published by Cunningham and other authors.
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Fig. 85 represents a variant of the common Woman and Tree motive. The female stands on a prostrate dwarf, a male Yaksha. The pose, as in many other cases, is easy and graceful. Here the lady is draped.
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A sculpture in Calcutta shows two females together, unmistakably nude, but for the bead girdle (Fig. 86).
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A pillar in the Mathurā Museum (Fig. 87) presents a half-back view of a female with singular want of success. The difficulties of the pose seem to have been too much for the sculptor.
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FIG. 90. Female and child; Mathurā Museum. (Photo., No. 47, A. S.)
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FIG. 91. A soldier; Mathurā Museum. (Photo., No. 47, A. S.)
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FIG. 92. Lion and rider; Indian Museum. (Photo. 844, I. M. *List*)
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The unusual attitudes shown in Figs. 88 and 89 are treated much more skilfully. A child is introduced into Fig. 90.
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The male figure, seemingly of a soldier, in Fig. 91 is quite exceptional and effectively designed.
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A well-executed sculpture in the Indian Museum (Fig. 92) represents a youth riding a conventional lion, and may be of earlier date.
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Dr. Vogel describes a mutilated statue (height 3 feet 10 inches or 1 m. 17) of a male deity standing with his left hand resting on his hip (Mathurā Museum, E. 12, *Catal.*, p. 108), which evidently had three heads, of which that on the proper right has been lost. The style indicates that the image belongs to the Kushān period. ‘It is of interest as the only polycephalic image which can be attributed to that epoch.’ Another sculpture in the Mathurā Museum (J. 7, *Catal.*, p. 143, Pl. XXII), 2 feet 7½ inches high, described by the same author, seems to date from the time of Kanishka. The subject of the alto-rilievo, which is on the front of a railing pillar, is ‘a male figure of Faun-like appearance with elaborate turban, necklace of beads, and other ornaments. He is standing under a mango-tree in blossom, with his right hand raised to his lips, and with his left placed against his thigh.’ This is a very artistic and well-modelled composition.
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FIG. 93. A Bodhisattva, from the Katra; Mathurā Museum. (A. S. photo., No. 37 of 1908–9: Mathurā Museum, A. 1, *Catal.*, p. 47, Pl. VII.)
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FIG. 94. Bodhisattva from Mathurā. (Photo. 843, *I. M. List*.)
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A seated Bodhisattva (Fig. 93) in the Mathurā Museum, bearing a dedicatory inscription, ‘for the welfare and happiness of all beings,’ incised in script not later than the first or second century after Christ, is of special interest as exhibiting at that early date the saint seated in the traditional *yogī* attitude, which became general subsequently, and with his right shoulder bare. But for the inscription the principal figure might well be supposed to be of much later date. His drapery is excessively formal in its folds. The attendant figures are more ancient in appearance and well modelled. The simple foliage decoration is in good taste, and the flying spirits above are fairly successful. ‘Palaeographical evidence,’ Dr. Vogel observes, ‘points to the sculpture belonging to the early Kushāṇa period. It is, with the Buddha image of Anyor (No. A 2), the oldest image of Sākyamuni of which the date can approximately be fixed by an inscription, and must be one of the first Buddhist images made in Mathurā. On account of its artistic merit and excellent preservation also, this Bodhisattva is one of the most remarkable sculptures preserved in the Museum.' It is called a Bodhisattva in the inscription, and must represent Gautama Sākyamuni before he became a Buddha, because the tree shown over the image is the *pīpal* (*Ficus religiosa*), the tree of Gautama.
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A Bodhisattva in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (Fig. 94), is a good sample of the more usual Mathurā type of the Buddhist saint, akin to the ‘royal personages’ of Gandhāra art, and very different in spirit from the seated image. It is almost a duplicate of an image found at Sārnāth.¹ No attempt is made to idealize the human form, which is treated naturalistically and without exaggeration.
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¹ *Ann. Rep. A. S., India*, 1904–5, Pl. XXVI *c*.
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A ‘tablet of homage’ (Plate XXXII), with a relief sculpture of a Jain *stūpa* (2 feet 4 inches high, 1 foot 9¾ in. wide), now in the Mathurā Museum, was found embedded in a wall near the Holī gate, but is said to have come from a field near the village of Maholī. It was dedicated by a certain courtesan named Lonasobhikā to the Arahat Vardhamāna or Mahāvīra, and gives a good picture of an ancient Jain *stūpa*, which was constructed and decorated on exactly the same lines as the Buddhist edifices of a similar kind. In this case the building depicted stood on a high plinth, and was approached by nine steps, leading to a *toraṇa* gateway of the Sānchī type, with a garland hanging from it. The *stūpa* was surrounded by a plain railing, and two similar railings were carried round the drum. The posturing females are unmistakably nude. The side columns are modified Persepolitan of poor design. The script of the inscription is of about the first century B.C.²
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² Some of the details in *Jain Stūpa*, p. 61, based on Mr. Mukharji’s information, are erroneous.
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FIG. 95. Nude female on Jain railing pillar, Mathurā. (*Jain Stūpa*, Pl. LXII, front.)
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One example of the nude female, or Yakshī, on the pillar of an actual Jain railing, may be given (Fig. 95). She holds a weapon, which may be a broadsword of the old Indian kind.
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A draped bracket figure for the side of a *toraṇa* (Fig. 96) may be compared with the similar, but superior, figure at Sānchī (*ante*, Fig. 46).
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The cleverly drawn and executed bas-reliefs on the medallions of railing bars, probably Jain, representing animals, real or mythical, and other objects, may be com- Plate XXXII. Tablet with relief sculpture of a Jain *stūpa*. (Mathurā Museum, Q. 2, *Catal.*, p. 184, Pl. V. A. S. photo., No. 35 of 1908–9 = Pl. CIII of *Jain Stūpa*.)
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pared with the more or less similar designs at Bharhut, Sānchī, and Bodh-Gayā (*ante*, Chap. III). Four specimens will suffice (Figs. 97–100).
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Other decorative motives are illustrated and discussed in Chapter XI.
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More than forty years ago Cunningham formed the opinion that it would not be advisable to undertake any further excavations at Sārnāth.¹ But happily the opinion
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¹ *A. S. Rep.* i. 129.
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FIG. 96. Draped bracket figure. (*Jain Stūpa*, Pl. XXXV, front.)
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FIG. 97. Fish-tailed elephant. (*Jain Stūpa*, Pl. LXXIII, 1.)
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expressed by so high an authority has not deterred Mr. Oertel and Mr. Marshall from fruitful explorations, which have proved the superficial character of the earlier researches, and have revealed an astonishing wealth of sculptures extending from the age of Asoka to the twelfth century. During that long period of about fourteen centuries, Sārnāth, the scene of the first preaching of the Law, continued to be regarded by Buddhists as one of the four most sacred spots in the world, and to be visited by myriads of pilgrims. Pious kings and monks lavished their wealth and devotion on the adornment of the numerous buildings which sprang up on the holy
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[Figure: FIG. 98. Bull. (*Jain Stūpa*, Pl. LXXV, 3, front.)]
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[Figure: FIG. 99. Shell. (*Jain Stūpa*, Pl. LXXI, 7.)]
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[Figure: FIG. 100. Modified vine-leaf. (*Jain Stūpa*, Pl. LXXI, 3.)]
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ground, and from age to age renewed or replaced the monuments fallen to decay. When the armies of the idol-hating Muslims sacked Benares in the closing years of the twelfth century, the rich and splendid establishments at Sārnāth were ruthlessly burnt and reduced to irretrievable ruin. But in these latter days the pick of the patient excavator has brought to light the remains of the ancient monasteries, temples, and statuary in such abundance that the history of Indian sculpture from Asoka to the Muhammadan conquest might be illustrated with fair completeness from the finds at Sārnāth alone.
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The discoveries include many works of art dating from the Kushān period, all executed in sandstone, generally of the Chanār kind, but often of the red variety imported from Mathurā and wrought in the style favoured by the sculptors of that city. Several statues of Bodhisattvas, executed in the round on a large scale, are almost identical with the Mathurā specimen reproduced above (Fig. 94), and one of these is dated in the third year of the reign of Kanishka, which may be regarded provisionally as equivalent to A. D. 80. The Kushān age of such works is thus definitely determined. Halos, when present, are plain, not highly decorated as in the Gupta period.
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A finely executed bas-relief, which once decorated a doorway and exhibits artistic lotus and vine patterns, besides a picture of an elephant worshipping a *stūpa*, is quite in the Mathurā style, and may be assigned with some confidence to the first century of the Christian era.¹ The style of the Sārnāth works is so closely related to that of Mathurā that illustrations may be dispensed with.
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¹ For these sculptures see 'Excavations at Sārnāth,' *Ann. Rep. A. S., India*, pp. 59-104, with numerous illustrations, especially Pl. XXVI *a*, and XXVII, and text illustration, Fig. 12.