Eternal India Encyclopedia

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Eternal India encyclopedia

Hellenized and Iranicized works were produced, while in northern India more works in Indian style were produced, due to Kushana patronage. An important aspect of Kushana art are inscribed royal portraits, especially those of Vima Kadphises, and Kanishka garbed in Scythian attire and boots, and enshrined in the shrine at Mat, near Mathura (UP). It provides important information regard- ing the Kushana cult and divine kingship and uses the term, dinapu- tra (son of god) giving a new meaning to Kushana kings. A very common subject depicted in Gandhara art of the Kushana period is the Buddha image. Many of the standing Buddha figures are barefoot, with a heavy robe covering both shoulders, well- defined features, wavy hair, with a realistic treatment of the face, which displays a debt to the classical tradition of Hellenistic and Roman art. However, iconographically, in the representation of usnisa, elongated ear lobes and in seated postures, the pose of the dharmachakra mudra (turning of wheel of law, a teaching gesture) and dhyana mudra (a meditative gesture) while such differences in style are easily observed, they are difficult to interpret in the light of present knowledge. Another important subject is the Bodhisattva, a concept which is inextricably tied to the Mahayana belief that every being can attain Buddhahood. This concept is said to be more popular in Mahayana than Hinayana thought. MATHURA Like Buddha images, Bodhisattvas are depicted which are re- cognisable by symbols, headdress and attributes held in their hands, features which became increasingly codified as the Buddhist religion developed. A few Gandhara images depict the jataka stories and narrative scenes from the life of Sakyamuni which may be based on. the Divyavardana or Lalitavisteva or other texts. Other noncanonical texts on his life, such as the Buddha Charita and the Saundara Nanda (composed by Asvaghosa) may have also served as a source of this art. The southern capital of the Kushanas was at Mathura, in N.India, which included a vast area and where a purely Indian stylistic heritage existed. Although none of the major architectural monuments have survived intact, loose Buddhist sculptures at Mathura show that the Mathura school shares iconographic features with the Gandhara school. Other subjects beside Buddhas and bodhisattvas, include yakshis and yakshas, as well as non-Buddhist sculptures such as the Hindu god Karthikeya and Surya (sun god). Strong evidence of Jain religion is found at Mathura, particularly at Kankali Tila. The artistic developments in Gandhara and Mathura were par- alleled by complex cave monuments in the western Deccan during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. In the Chaitya hall at Karle is seen the fruition of the forms at Bedsa, the former dated to 120 A.D. In the large chaitya hall at Karle is evidence of a wooden architecture completing the structure of the facade, while lifesize elephants support the superstructure, reminiscent of those in the caves at Pitalkhora. Another addition is the large mithuna (couples) flanking the doorway, which are symbols of union. They are voluptuous, with wide lips, full thighs and rounded breasts, spontaneous and life-like resembling Mathura sculpture. The interior space (which is the largest among the Indian caves) is more elaborate in regard to the pillar decoration consisting of purnaghata- type vase for its base, lotus-bell capitals and human riders on animals . Another im- portant cave is at Nasik dated to 124 A.D. especially Vihara III which shows greater regularisation of symmetry than in earlier

for trade and commerce between the Iranian plateau and the Indus valley region. Artistically the region was also diverse, reflecting the Greeks, Romans the newcomers, Sakas(who were a branch of the western Scythians from Transoxiana), Parthians who had moved from their Iranian homeland in the first century A.D. The important regions are Bactria (with its capital city of Bactria or Balkh in modern Afghanistan), Gandhara (capital at Sirkap or Taxila — Takshila in Pakistan), Swat valley of Pakistan. This entire region was known as Gandhara and the term is often used to broadly define the art styles that developed in the North-West, that is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, in the early centuries of the Christian era. Some of the early structures in this region include the apsidal temple at Sirkap, Taxila in Pakistan belonging to the first century A.D. and the so-called "shrine" of the double-headed Eagle. Sculptured heads and figures found here and at Bimaran in Afghanistan indicate that images of Buddha were made in both Indie and non-Indic styles and forms. Traditional art historical scholarship has viewed the popularity of depicting Buddha images in stone during the second and third century A.D. during the Mahay- ana period but artistic evidence shows that they were created even during the Hinayana period. The Kapisa region at the site of Begram (Afghanistan) has yielded important archaeological material which clearly show influ- ences from Hellenistic Graeco-Roman and Parthian art, while at Bimaran is the reliquary all of which displays an Indian Buddhist iconography with images of Buddha in abhaya mudra while the robe emphasises a classical style. The hand posture meant granting the absence of fear, it really implied a teaching gesture for it is the understanding of Buddha's teachings that one is granted in the absence of fear. In the Swat valley, the Buddha images are more closely tied stylistically to the Parthian idiom than to Hellenized works in the large wide-open, drilled eyes, the wrinkled forehead, rosette motif but iconographically they are Indian, especially in the seated posture of vajraparyankasana (legs crossed with feet up- ward and resting on the opposite thigh) and abhaya mudra. The northern region (the Mathura region) also yielded Buddhist figures but stylistically tied to the flattened style of the pre-Kushana period, displaying however similar vajraparyankasana, abhaya mudra, usnisa (cranial protuberance) and a halo as in the Gandhara region. Although there are some unusual features here the iconographic similarity of Buddha images all over signifies the wide dissemination of textual descriptions of the Buddha. It is likely that the use of images was more common among the laity than the clergy (as the Mahayana text claims). Thus what began in the Saka-Parthian period in the form of syntheses of a wide range of foreign motifs, styles and ideas with Indian religion, iconography and other elements was to continue in the Kushana period in the N.W and northern regions during the late first century A.D to third century A.D. The Kushanas (also known as the Yueh-chih) who were resi- dents of the Kansu Bactria region of N.Western China, arrived about 135 B.C. and its ruler Kadphises I founded the dynasty in lands from the Aral sea, much of Afghanistan, Pakistan and North- ern India. Vima Kadphises and Kaniskha I (who founded the Kanishka era -120 A.D.) patronised Buddhism and helped in the dissemination of Buddhist culture in India and China. The stupa built in his capital, Kaniskapura (near modern Peshawar), was one of the largest. The two main spheres of Kushan art that are gener- ally recognised are the Bactro-Gandharan region where strong