A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c16.s5.12

c16.s5.12

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