A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c16.s2: Section II. Gems, Seals, and Jade
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c16.s2
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Section II. Gems, Seals, and Jade
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The allied art of engraving gems and seals with artistic designs equally failed to attract Indian taste, although the lapidaries of India were unsurpassed in manual skill and had models of the highest class before their eyes in the numerous Greek gems imported.² Gems and seals of Hindu origin are sufficiently common, but very few can claim any considerable degree of artistic excellence. From the British Museum collection I was able to select only three trifling examples, of slight merit, as reproduced in Plate LXXIII. Fig. 10 represents in chalcedony a lion, with the symbols of Taxila, as seen on the coins of that city. Fig. 11 exhibits on a seal of green schist the device of a king on an elephant receiving a wreath from a Victory; and Fig. 12, with a conventional lion, is photographed from an ancient clay impression of a seal presumably bronze, like two closely related seals also in the British Museum. The legend is *Śrī Sūrya-mitrasya*, '[the seal] of Śrī Sūrya-mitra.'³
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² For the Sanskrit treatises on gems, see Finot, L., *Les Lapidaires indiens*, Paris, 1896.
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³ Published by Mr. Rapson in *J. R. A. S.*, 1901, p. 104, Fig. 7.
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A few other more or less artistic Indian seals are recorded, some of which were excavated from *stūpas* in Afghanistan. One of the most remarkable specimens of such seals is that figured in *Ariana Antiqua*, Pl. I, 7, an oval sard engraved with two figures squatted in the Indian manner, and interpreted as Krishna and Rādhā, but more likely to be Buddhist. Several Indian gems, including three with representations of the Indian humped bull or cow, have been described and engraved by Raspe.⁴
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⁴ *A Descriptive Catalogue of Engraved Gems*, London, 2 vols., 4to, 1791, Pl. XIII.
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I cannot trace a wonderful object briefly described by Mr. King—a sardonyx of great intrinsic value, six inches in height and width, and nearly the same in thickness, engraved with a representation of Buddha seated in a cave, surrounded by numerous attributes, and all cut with marvellous skill.⁵ The subject evidently was the visit of Indra, as treated in the Gandhāra and Mathurā sculpture (*ante*, Figs. 51, 60). The late General Pearse's rich collection of gems and seals, recently bought by the Government [Figure: 1
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⁵ *Antique Gems and Rings*, London, 1872, p. 87. The object is said to have come from a *stūpa*. Mr. King did not name the owner.
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2 6 8 7 3 9 10 4 11 13 12 PLATE LXXIII. Hindu Coins and Seals in British Museum, and jewellery.]
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of India, is not yet available for study, and I am unable to offer any other instances of truly Indian gems or seals deserving of notice for their artistic qualities. Mr. Parker has published a remarkable large intaglio seal obtained from the very early Yaṭṭhāla *dāgaba* in Ceylon, which he believes to have been made in India in the third century B. C. The subject is a king seated on a peculiar basket-work chair, with a 'rustic' back of curved rods. The gem (0·8″ × 0·64″) evidently was a royal signet put into the relic chamber in honour of the relics.¹
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¹ *Ancient Ceylon*, p. 494, Fig. 156.
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The unsurpassed skill of the Hindu lapidaries in working the most refractory stones is best exemplified by the great jade (or ? jadeite) tortoise, found many years ago in the bank of the Jumna near Allahabad, and now exhibited in the British Museum, Room IV. It is 17½ inches long, and must be one of the largest known works of art in jade (Plate LXXIV, Fig. A). Mr. King observes that 'for fidelity to nature and exquisite finish' it is 'worthy of the ancient Greeks'. The tortoise plays a prominent part in Hindu mythology, and we shall presently notice an exquisite example of the treatment of the subject in ivory.