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A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c16.s5: Section V. Silver Paterae and Bowls

A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c16.s5

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Section V. Silver Paterae and Bowls

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The Badakshān silver patera, representing the triumph of Dionysus or Bacchus, now in the British Museum, was acquired in 1838 by Dr. Perceval Lord from Ātmarām of Kunduz, by whom it had been bought from the Mīrs of Badakshān, who claim the honour of descent from Alexander the Great. The dimensions are—diameter 8⅞ in., depth 1⅝ in., and thickness from 1/20 to ⅛ inch. The weight is 29 oz. 5 dwt. Troy (Plate LXXVI). Sir George Birdwood's careful description of the design may be quoted:—

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‘It represents in high relief, with all the usual adjuncts of classical mythology, the procession of Dionysus. The god himself sits in a car drawn by two harnessed females, with a drinking-cup in his extended right hand, and his left arm resting on the carved elbow of the seat on which he reclines, or it may be on the shoulder of Ariadne. In front of the car stands a winged Eros holding a wine-jug in his left hand, and brandishing in his right a fillet, the other end of which is held by a flying Eros. A third Eros is pushing the wheel of the carriage, behind which follows the dancing Heracles, recognized by the club and panther's skin. Over all is a rude and highly conventionalized representation of a clustering vine; and in the lower exergue a panther is seen pressing its head into a wine-jar, placed between the representations of some tree; possibly the pomegranate, arranged symmetrically on either side of it. The figures, which show traces of gilding, are all encrusted on the surface of the patera, and the heads of the Dionysus and Heracles are both wanting.’

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The style of art is clearly an Asiatic degradation of a Greek motive, and it is possible that the work may have been executed in India. The authorities of the British Museum probably are not far wrong in suggesting that the date may be about A. D. 200.¹

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¹ Badakshān is a mountainous region lying to the north of the Hindū Kush range between 36° and 37° N. lat., and 70° and 71° E. long. The patera has been described and figured by Sir George Birdwood, *Industrial Arts of India*, p. 148, Pl. II; and *Trans. Roy. Soc. Liter.*, vol. xi, N. S.; by Prinsep, *Trans. A. S. B.*, vol. vii; by Burnes, *Cabool* (1843); and by Sir H. Yule, *Marco Polo*, 2nd ed.

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A somewhat similar Bacchic subject is represented in a mutilated relief from Gandhāra, now preserved in the Lahore Museum, concerning which M. Foucher writes:—

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‘Nous y reconnaissons au passage la plupart des figurants habituels du cortège de Bacchus, tout comme s'il les avait oubliés derrière lui, à son retour de l'Inde, dans la lointaine vallée où la tradition plaçait la fameuse Nysa et qui est encore célèbre aujourd'hui pour ses raisins magnifiques.’²

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² *L'Art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhāra*, p. 246, Fig. 129.

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Plate LXXVI. The Badakshān patera, ‘Triumph of Bacchus’. (British Museum; from a photo.)

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A second object of the same class, but probably slightly later in date, and thoroughly Indian in subject and style, may be designated the Tānk patera, having been found in August, 1892, near Buddhaghara, about four miles west of Tānk, the ancient capital of the Dera Ismail Khān District, N.W. Frontier Province. Mr. Longworth Dames, I.C.S., acquired it and presented it to the British Museum in 1897 (Pl. LXXVII, Fig. A). The material is silver, apparently alloyed with copper; the diameter is 9⅞ inches, and the device is *repoussé*. The wide margin is decorated with radiating wavy flutes, such as are often seen on modern English crockery.

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The central design represents a man drinking, waited on by a woman, who offers him a goblet with her left and a wreath with her right hand. The man wears no clothing except buskins with turned-up toes and a waistcloth, dropped so as to expose his person. He is squatted on the ground drinking from a horn (*rhyton*) held in his right hand, while his left hand grasps the neck of a full skin of wine resting against his left thigh. He has a moustache and bushy hair, and is crowned with vine-leaves and grapes. Even his ear-rings are grapes, while he and his attendant are encircled by a thick-stemmed vine loaded with fruit. His ornaments are armlets and a torque.¹

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¹ Described, with full-size plate, by Mr. C. H. Read in *Archaeologia*, vol. lv (1897), pp. 534–6.

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This carousing personage has been described as the ‘Indian Bacchus’. He seems to me to be intended for a Yaksha, one of the semi-human sprites who played so large a part in ancient popular Buddhism. His action in allowing his waistcloth to fall is exactly the same as that of the winged Yaksha in a Gandhāra relief, and many sculptures from both Gandhāra and Mathurā (*ante*, pp. 134-9) are concerned with the representation of hard drinking. Mr. Growse long ago pointed out that a debased, licentious form of Buddhism ‘would seem to have been very popular at Mathurā’. The textbook of this school is a Sanskrit composition entitled *Tathāgata Guhyaka*, or *Guhya samagha*, first brought to notice by Rājendralāla Mitra, which is described as having all the characteristics of the worst Hindu Tantras, and yet as being a work to which worship is still constantly offered by the Buddhists of Nepāl. The Tānk patera, I think, was used by votaries of some similar ancient form of villany, posing as Buddhist religion.²

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² Growse, *Mathurā, a District Memoir*, 3rd ed. (1883), p. 170. For the Yaksha, see Burgess, *Gandhāra Sculptures*, Pl. XXIV = Pl. XXVI of *J. I. A. I.*, July, 1898. Compare Foucher, *op. cit.*, p. 248.

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A third work of art in silver, obtained somewhere in Northern India, which may be called the Indo-Persian bowl (Pl. LXXVII, Fig. B), is of special interest because of its apparent connexion with the paintings of Persians in Cave I at Ajantā (*ante*, p. 291, Fig 210). It is a deep hemispherical bowl, 5·35 inches (13·5 cm.) in diameter, solidly wrought in silver, with the design chased in low relief on a gilt background. The exterior is ornamented with five medallions, each containing a male bust, the interspaces being filled by floral scrolls. The persons represented are all dressed alike in tunics and mantles fastened by the ends round the neck. They wear conical caps tied behind with ribbons and ear-rings with double pendants. The hair of the head is long, gathered up under the cap, and appearing outside it. Two of the men have pointed [Figure: FIG. A. The Tānk silver patera; ? a Yaksha. (British Museum, from a photo.)]

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[Figure: FIG. B. Indo-Persian bowl. (British Museum, from a photo.)]

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beards, the others, as in the medallion figured, are beardless. The bowl has not the conical form of the cups depicted at Ajaṇṭā, but the general resemblance of the figures to those of the Persians in Cave I at Ajaṇṭā is so strong that the work may be referred with some confidence to approximately the same period as the paintings, somewhere about a. d. 600. The bowl may have been made in either India or Persia.¹

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¹ Fully described and illustrated by Mr. O. Dalton in *The Treasure of the Oxus and other Objects from Persia and India* (B. M., 1905).

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