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Newly Discovered Inscribed Mathurā Sculptures of Probable Doorkeepers, Dating to theKṣatrapa Period
Author(s): Doris Meth Srinivasan and Lore SanderReviewed work(s):Source: Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 43 (1990), pp. 63-69Published by: University of Hawai'i Press for the Asia Society
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Newly Discovered InscribedMathur? Sculptures
of ProbableDoorkeepers, Dating to the
Ksatrapa Period
Doris Meth Srinivasan
George Washington University
Epigraphic Analysis by Lore Sander
Museumf?r Indische Kunst, Berlin
It is not every day that adiscovery
occurs which
challenges the art historian to think anew about the
methodology of the discipline. But thediscovery
in 1987of two sandstone statues inMathur? District has done
just that. The Mathur? School of art is of course one of
the best documented, and that documentation does not
betraythe same sort of uncertainties
regardingthe
chronology of stylistic developments,as does, for
example, scholarshipon Gandharan art.
Perhaps it is for
this reason that the statues described below are somewhat
unsettling. They make us realize the limits of our
knowledge. Were it not for the fortunate chance that
these statues are inscribed and thereforesusceptible
to
epigraphic analysis, their interpretation, based onstyle
andiconography,
would have oeen, I am afraid, quite
different.In
May 1987 two sandstone statues invery good
condition came out of theground
of Bharna Kalan, 32
kilometers northwest of Mathur? on the Govardhan
Chchata Road. Both statues are life-size and stand on
bases that are inscribed. Theywere soon
deposited in the
Mathur? Museum, where I saw them inJune 1987.1
Both figuresaremales. The one with the sword (Fig. 1)
is 6 feet 6 inches; that is, the figure is 5 feet 7 inches and
its base is 11 inches. The male faces frontally; he stands
with both feet planted firmlyon the
ground, althoughthere is a
slight shift of weight onto his right leg. His
oval face has sharply chiseled features: the eyes look
outward under heavy lids; the nose is straight and the
nostrils are defined; the lips relax into the faintest of
smiles and thejaw
is somewhat raised and resolute. Most
of his hair is gathered up and tied underneath the turban.
The turban's bulbous portion and large knot are on the
right side of the figuresforehead. Some of the hair which
escapes the turban falls in thick locks at the nape of the
neck(Fig. ib). The dhoti he wears is tied just below the
slightly rounded abdomen. It is secured bya
large girdle,
gathered into thin folds, and knotted in the center. The
ends of the girdleare decorated with large tassels that
fall between the legs. A section of the dhoti is also
gatheredinto narrow
pleats,seen
just below the tassels.
The end of the dhoti lies softly on the left thigh,in a
series of folds havinga
rippled edge. The figure wears
a scarf, best seen in the back (Fig. ib).It is pulled into
adiagonal strip of gathered cloth which drapes over both
arms before opening into a cascade of folds in both front
and back. Evidently the scarf, dhoti, and girdlearemade
of a cloth sufficiently thin to permit of such fine
gathering.2
The man's upper chest is decorated with two neck
laces. One is tied close to the neck and lies flat; it hasfloral designs. The other is longer and looped. It seems
to be composed of six strands held together byrec
tangular clasps.The
figure'stwo arms are ornamented
with armlets and bracelets. The right hand clenches the
handle of a sword resting against the right side of the
torso; the upper part of the sword is now broken. The
left arm is bent and the hand rests at thewaist; it seems
to hold the base ofsomething.
Whatever itwas, it should
have originally touched the left side of the figure because
abreakage point
remains there.Perhaps
theobject
was
the figure of a child or diminutive person. A second cen
tury b.c. relief from Hariparvat Til?, Mathur? (Fig. 2)shows a small figure
on a base held in the left hand ofa personage clad and ornamented quite like the Bharna
Kalan figure. The small figure touches the personage in
the relief precisely where the Bharna Kalan male snows
the breakage point.The second statue is 6 feet 5 inches tall (Fig. 3). The
base is 10 inches, that is 1 inch less than the base of the
first statue, leaving the figures themselves of identical
height. The dress and ornamentation of the second figurealso closely resembles the first, and the visual impressionis that they
are related. The second male is distinguishedfrom the first; he wears a decorated turban knotted in
the center. The turbaned head is surrounded byan ogee
shape having flame-like incisions all over the back and
along the outer edge of the front (Fig. 3b). The left arm
is broken; the breakageat the hip indicates that the left
hand rested on the hip and held awater bottle. The lower
part of the rightarm is also damaged; it probably
ex
tended into space since there are no contactpoints
on
either the right side of the torso or the right upper arm.
The strut supporting the elbow would also indicate that
the arm made some kind of open gesture. It is of course
nolonger possible
to determine whether the right hand
also held an attribute.
The two Bharna Kalan images appear to have been
carved byamaster
sculptor who delighted in depictingcloth as it draped around amodeled form, and who was
able toconvey the tactile
realityof the tautness of skin,
the gathers of folds, the
weight
of a stance, and the
raised tilt of a head. Since both images display verysimilar sculptural qualities
as well as similar dress,
stance, ornamentation, and size, it is to be inferred that
they were carved by the same hand probably in responseto one commission.
It is immediately apparent that the figurestrace their
ancestry back to the Parkham Yaksa (Fig. 4). The over
8 foot Yaksa, frontally conceived and standing with the
weighton the right leg, is dressed and ornamented in a
manner similar to the Bharna Kalanimages.
Even the
shallow zigzag incisions indicating creases in the back of
the Yaksa's dhoti are identical to those on the back of
the sword-holding male (compare Fig.ibwith Fig. 4B).
However, the block-like rigidity and archaic treatment
of the drapery and corporeal forms, and their in
terrelation, are not echoed in the Bharna Kalanimages.
The sculptural advances of the latter belong to a different
age. ...
It is therefore instructive to compare the images with
less archaic sculptures from Uttar Pradesh and sur
roundingareas. The Noh Yaksa (Fig. 5) does not show
stylistic developments much in advance of the Parkham
Yaksa. What remains of the Palwal Yaksa also shows a
63
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heavy-set bust decorated with necklaces that arerigid
and that fail to relate to the surface of the skin (Fig. 6).The now headless Pratapgarh Yaksa exhibits more
gradually rounded forms especially in the abdominal area
and in the torque and folds of the girdle (Fig. 7). But the
block-like shape of the body and its stiff outline recall
the Bharhut style. The Vidi's? Yaksa nolonger preserves
the stiff outline (Fig. 8). The image ismore relaxed and
conveysa
greatersense of
plasticity.Pramod Chandra
dates the image to the second half of the second century
b.c. because the modeling has a feeling for the soft andresilient surface of the flesh, and because the contours
of the ornamentation are in advance of those found either
in the Parkham or the Bharhut Yaksas. SusanHuntington
puts the Vidi's? Yaksa at 100 b.c.James
Harleassigns
the
piece to the first century b.c.3 Although there is not
complete agreement on the date of the Vidis? Yaksa, all
three scholars would agree that the image is bracketed
between the second centuryb.c.
sculpturessuch as the
Bharhut and Pratapgarh Yaksas and the carvings of Sanc?,
stupaI.
It should be possibleto determine whether these
brackets are also useful in setting the relative date of the
Bharna Kalanimages.
A usefulcomparison
to the Bharna
Kalan statues is the Yaksa or Guardian on the northpillar
of the eastern torana at Sanc? stupa I (Fig. 9A). Certain
details are similar, such as the turbantype?especially
the cone-shaped knot?and the rows of pleating between
thelegs. However, the Mathur? carver
surelytook
greater delight, and had greater proficiency, in renderingthe beauty of draped cloth. He did not, however, have
as deft anunderstanding of the
figurein space as did the
carver of the Guardian on thepillar
of the west torana
at Sanc? stupa I, and this despite the latter beinga relief
(Fig. 9b), and the former free-standing images. True, the
Mathur? artist may not have wished to give his figuresa
pliant contrapposto posture, but nevertheless hisfigures
assume amore cautious stance whencompared
to the easy
grace of the Guardian on the west torana, usuallydated
to the first half of the first century a.d. No linear stylistic
Erogression
is to be implied, however. Archaisms cannot
e discounted, forexample,
in Kus?na art. Kus?na di
vinities do not as a rule have bends in the body, causingKus?na deities, such as the so-called Bhiksu Bala's
"Bodhisattva" of the year 3 of Kaniska, to retain the
stocky, rigidlook reminiscent of the Sunga Yaksas.
On the basis of the brief stylistic survey it appears that
the Bharna Kalan images could date from the second partof the first century
b.c. onward. A fewiconographie
comparisonscould favor a b.c. date. The type of bulbous
turban is seen on other first centuryb.c.
figures,such as
the Sanc? I east toranafigure,
or the head on aBodh Gay?lotus medallion, where the distinctive
cone-shapedknot
is also present (Fig. 10). The necklaces have toolong
a
historyto be useful as
chronological indicators. The
triple-hooped earringsare also worn
by the Parkham
YaKsa (Fig. 4). A Mathur? male figure of the beginningof the Christian era wears a
two-hooped variety.4 Triple
hoops with striations decorate the ears of a N?ga on aterracotta
fragmentfrom the upper phase of the Kaniska
periodat Sonkh.5
If, based on the above, we were to consider the Bharna
Kalan images aspossibly Yaksa figures belonging
to the
latter partof the first century b.c., we would be
quite
wrong in light of the pal?ographie evidence. Just as the
64
Parkham Yaksa has an inscription incised around its feet
on thepedestal,
so do these twofigures
have Brahm?
characters incised in the sameplace:
Figure with the Sword (87.145)
Right side (Fig. ha)1.
amatyena prati [h?r] (e) [na]6. . . ?
2. . .(?) [jayagh] (o) [s] (ena)
. . ....[to] pra7
Onlyone Aksara, perhaps
no is preserved in the third line
underneath the scanty remains ofgho.
Left side (Fig. iib)Scratches in one line (see analysis below).
Figure with Flaming Aureole (87.146)
Right side (Fig. I2a)1.
(ao [m] (a)ty [e]na pratih?re2.
[na]. . . .
jayaghosena3. [bh] (aga) [v] (a) to8? [gn] isa9pra [t] i [m] (?)10
left side (Fig. 12b)i.
[ka] rit?11 p [r?] yamt?m [a] ga [ya]10Diacritical marks:
( )Aksara restored
[ ] uncertain reading. . traces of an
undecipheredAksara
Translation: Bythe minister, the Pratih?ra6 . . .
jayaghosa an
image
of the holy Agniwas caused to be
made. The fires (?)may be pleased
Analysis: The reading is based on seven black-and
white photos of the incised portions.12 The poor and faint
remains of the three-line inscription of the right side of
87.145 (the Figurewith the Sword) show that originally
the lines of this inscription werelonger and contained
more text than those on the parallel side of 87.146 (the
Figure with the Flaming Aureole), which is in amuch
better state of preservation.While it is not at all sure
if the left side or 87.145 was inscribed?only scratches of
uncertainmeaning
are to be seen?a one-lineinscription
can be decipheredon 87.146 which is the continuation
of the third and last line on the right side. The inscriptions
begin with the samewording. The first word amatyena
is clearly readable in 87.145, while in 87.146 only ?tyenais sure. From there on the
inscription 87.146 is better
preserved; pratih?re can be read without difficulty. It
appears very faintly also in 87.145, in the first line. After
pratih?r. (-e is not discernible) the reading of this in
scription is uncertain. The first Aksara of the second line
of 87.146 looks at first sight like capital A. But the stone
is eroded around theAksara, and the small vertical stroke
is not curved as in A. Therefore Iprefer
to read the
Aksara as na, which is alsoexpected.
Even in the washed
out inscription of 87.145 the horizontal stroke of na is
discernible. More puzzlingare the two
followingAksaras.
Theycannot form a
completeword in the in
strumental case. Do they belongto the name
jayaghosa?Could the name of the pratihar? have been Mah?
jayaghosa? Also the inscription in 87.145 does not help.In this inscription the name
Jayaghosenacan be detected
onlyat the beginning of line 2with the help of 87.146.
The three horizontal strokes of ja appear first, the secondand the third stroke of the tripartite ya are certain, and
of gh (no trace of a vowel sign) only the flat base is to
be seen; sa is washed out but sure.Merely
scratches
remain of the following Aksaras. At the end of the stone,a faint to is followed by
a clear pra, but both Aksaras are
placed onlya bit lower than the first line. On the basis
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of the better preserved inscription 87.146, they may be
restored tobhagavatopratim?, and therefore I tend to put
them into the second line. The third line of 87.145 should,
accordingly, begin with ?tim?, butnothing
is preserved.If the third line had the same
lengthas the other two,
itmay well be that the inscription ended here and that
the left side remained uninscribed. Because the two
inscriptions prove that the two male figuresare a
donation of one and the sameperson, the minister and
high official (perhaps the head of the guards of the city
gate6) named . . .jayaghosa, it ismost probable that the
figures formed apair of doorkeepers.
Accordingto the script the inscriptions should be dated
to the Ksatrapa or very early Kus?na period. Subscribed
-y-has still itsM?trk? shape and themiddle stroke of the
M?trk? is somewhat prolongated:ra is incised rather long
and slightly curved; the right part of ha is very short,therefore it looks similar to pa; ma has got a flat base.
All that speaks in favor of the Ksatrapaera. The char
acteristic da ismissing.13
The language is a sanskritized Prakrit, which pointstoward the Kus?na period. In Ksatrapa inscriptions
Prakrit formsprevail. Compare,
forexample,
the
Ksatrapa "inscriptionson
twenty-sixbricks and
brickbats from the second Ganeshr? mound, now in the
Mathur? Museum,"14 where the Prakrit word for
minister amaca isused and not the mixed Sanskrit/Prakritform amatya (with short ma\) as in our
inscription 87.145,on the right side. Another item for dating the inscriptioninto the Ksatrapa
era is the use of the past participlek?rita, which
accordingto G.
Bhattacharya11was re
placed by different forms of the verb pratistha in the
Kus?nainscriptions.
The inscriptional evidence, leading to the iden
tification of the imagesas
doorkeepers is corroborated
by sculpture in situ. On either side of vih?ra 4 at
Pitalkhora, Maharashtra, stand doorkeepers (Fig. 13).The
date of the vih?ra is set at the late second toearly first
century b.c.by J. Harle, a date which tallies with the
onegiven by Susan Huntington. Vidya Dehejia assigns
it to the mid-first century b.c.15 The Pitalkhora door
keepersare as tall as the entrance
they guard. Their largesize is just one feature they share with the pair from
Bharna Kalan, but there are others as well. The
Pitalkhora doorkeepers also wearlarge three-hooped
earrings,flat-collared necklaces, dhotis, and turbans; the
general shape and tilt of the turban of the right door
keeper echoes that of the sword-holding male from
Bharna Kalan. Instead ofcarrying
a sword asweapon,
the Pitalkhora doorkeepers carry javelins and shields.
Their fringed tunics over the dhotis are also distinctive
and are not seen elsewhere (are theycoats of mail?). The
main point to be gleaned from the Pitalkhora doorkeepers, for the present context, is that the two Bharna Kalan
images could well serve the same function as the
sculptures from Pitalkhora.
In conclusion, the most likely possibility is that the
Bharna Kalanimages
are apair
ofdoorkeepers.
One can
be identified asAgni: this is 87.146. It now becomes clear
why the head of thisfigure
is surrounded bya
flamingaureole. The water bottle is also a characteristic attribute
of Agni (cf. Mathur? Museum no. 2883). The second
figurecannot be precisely identified. Both date some
where between theKsatrapa
and very earlyKus?na ages,
with greater leanings toward theKsatrapa age. Probably
they stood on either side of the entrance of a shrine of
the same date. Since one of the guardians isAgni, the
shrine ismore likely to be Hindu than either Buddhistor
Jain.16
The fact that there are no extant Hindu shrines in
Mathur? from this period cannot be a serious deterrent.
In the first place there is theMor? Well inscription from
theKsatrapa period,
which refers to a stone shrine
housing images of the Pancav?ras of the Vrsni clan.17
There is also inscriptional evidence from the Kus?na
period mentioninga
temple complex to honor
Mahesvara, that is Siva.18 In the secondplace,
archi
tectural fragments from the Kus?na period exist. Some
of these fragments have been reconstructed by Ulrich
Wiesner to demonstrate the types of Mathur? portalframes associated with shrines of theKus?na period. The
earliest one Wiesner has reconstructed cannot be
assignedto any religion
on the basis of the decoration
on the fragment. It is a fragment of a lintel decoratedwith a row of worshippers carrying flowers; the project
ing part has aflying figure and an open flower (Fig. 14).19
A somewhat later lintelfragment,
on which Professorvan Lohuizen-de Leeuw had already found Gandharan
influences, shows "a row of Buddhas and a devotee on
theright.
"20These reconstructions can
helpus to
imagine
how the Bharna Kalan doorkeepers mighthave looked
at the sides of an entrance of a shrine, probablyto aHindu
god, and likely to date to the third quarter of the first
centurya.d.
Itmust be clear from the foregoing that without the
inscriptional evidence Iwould not have arrived at this
conclusion. Although Imight have hesitated to call the
figures yaksas,Iwould have been drawn in that direction.
Iwould, have assumed, on the basis of the second centuryb.c. Mathur? relief from Hariparvat T?la (Fig. 2) that the
sword-bearing male held a small figure in his right hand.
Accordingly Iwould have recalled that aSunga
relief
from Mathur? contains the upper portionof a male
having striking iconographie similarities with the BharnaKalan image (Fig. 15). Iwould have mentioned that V. S.
Agrawala identified that relief as a scene from the
SutasomaJ?taka.21
In thisJ?taka,
a Yaksa sacrifices aboy.
Probably Iwould have expressed the possibility that thesame Yaksa could be represented in one of the Bharna
Kalanfigures,
and that these date to the late first centuryb.c. If all thiswere then accepted by the scholarly
com
munity,a new bit of misinterpretation would have been
added to?one canonly hope?not
too much more.
65
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Fig.iA Fig.
iB Fig.2
Fig. 3A Fig. 3B Fig. 4A Fig. 4B
Fig.i. a, Figure
from Bharma Kalan, Ksatrapa period,
sandstone, h. 6 feet 6 inches with base. Mathur? Museum
no. 87.145; b, Reverse. Figs. 1, 3, 4A, 15, Photographs
Government Museum, Mathur?.
Fig.2. Relief from Hariparvat T?l?, Mathur?. Figs. 2, 4B, 6,
7, 10, PhotographsAmerican Institute of Indian Studies,
Varanasi.Figs. 2, 4B, 6-8, 15, second century b.c., sandstone.
66
Fig. 3. a, Figure from Bharna Kalan, Ksatrapa period,
sandstone, h. 6 feet 5 inches with base. Mathur? Museum
no. 87.146; B, Reverse.
Fig. 4. a, Parkham Yaksa.h.
2.62m.
Mathur?Museum no.
ci; B, Reverse.
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Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7
Fig. 8Fig. 9A Fig. 9B
Fig.io
Fig. 5. The Noh Yaksa.Photograph
Frederich M. Asher.
Fig.6. The Palwal Yaksa. h. 87.0, w. 79.0 cm. State Museum,
Lucknow no. 0.107.
Fig. 7. ThePratapgarh Yaksa. H. 1.150, w. 0.440 m.
Allahabad Museum no. 1.
Fig.8. Vidis? Yaksa.
PhotographFrederick M. Asher.
Fig. 9. Figureson Sane I: a, Eastern torana; b, Western
torana.Photographs, a, L. Buchhofer, Early Indian Sculpture,
pi. 58; B, R. N. Misra.
Fig.10. Bodh Gaya lotus medallion with turbaned head,
Bodh GayaMuseum no. 47.
67
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Fig.iiAFig.
iiBFig.
12AFig.
2B
Fig. 13
Fig.ii.
Inscriptionson 87.145 (Fig. 1): a, Right side; b, Left
side.Photographs Archaeological Survey of India.
Fig.12.
Inscriptionson 87.146 (Fig. 3): a, Right side; b, Left
side.Photographs Archaeological Survey of India.
Fig. 13. Pitalkhora, vihara 4: doorkeepers, late second-early
first century b.c., Deccan trap.h. 5.5 inches.
Photograph
Archaeological Survey of India. From J. C. Harle, The Art and
Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1986), pi. 33.
68
Fig. H
Fig. 15
Fig. 14. Mathur? lintelfragment,
second century a.D.,
sandstone, h. 63.0, w. 121.0, l. 22.0 cm.Photograph, Joanna
G. Williams.
Fig. 15. Mathur? relief: figure holdinga sword and a small
male, Sunga,h. i foot 3 inches. Mathur? Museum no. 1.18
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Notes
i. Iwish to thank the Director of the Mathur? Museum for
giving permissionto
publishthese statues. I also thank Shri M.
C.Joshi, Jt.
Director General of theArchaeological Survey of
India, for slides andphotographs.
The newphotographs
allowed
Lore Sander toimprove her first
reading,based on other
photo
graphs kindly supplied bythe Museum. The slides were most
useful in the oral presentation of this article at the fourth
symposium of The American Committee for South Asian Art,
Richmond, Virginia, April 29, 1988 byDoris M. Srinivasan.
We also thank Professor Dr. Herbert H?rtel, who reviewed
the inscriptions and madehelpful proposals.
2.Quite likely
the cloth is a fine cottonproduced
inMathur?
itself. The Artha's?stra(II.11.81)
refers to theproduction
of
cotton in Mathur?. The
Mah?bh?sya
also mentions a certain
cloth(pata)
called M?thura, that is, coming from Mathur?
(V.3.SS).3. Pramod Chandra, Yaksa and Yaks? Images from Vidis?,
Ars Orientalis 6(1966): 162; Susan
Huntington,Art
ofAncient India
(New York andTokyo, 1985), p. 59; James Harle, Art and
Architectureof
the Indian Subcontinent (Middlesex, 1986), p. 29.
4. See N. P.Joshi, Mathur? Sculptures (Mathur?, 1966),
pis. 18, 19.
5. Herbert H?rtel, Some Results of the Excavations at
Conkh: APreliminary Report, German Scholars on India II
(Bombay, 1976), fig. 41.
6.According
to D. C. Sircar, Epigraphical Glossary (Delhi,
Varanasi, and Patna, 1966), p. 259, pratih?rais "an officer in
chargeof the defence of the
royal palaceor bed-chamber or
the head of theguards
of the city gate."The title
pratih?ra
appears in the
inscription
no. 5 of the N?sik Caves
(EpigraphiaIndica VIII[reprint Calcutta, 1981], pp. 73-74),
which may be
dated onpalaeographical grounds
toapproximately
the same
periodas our
inscription, but itslanguage
ismoreprakritized.
In line 11, pratih?rakhiya Lot?ya is incised and translatedby
E. Senart as"by Lota, the
door-keeper."Krishna Deva, when
consulted byDoris Srinivasan on this inscription, also read
pratih?raon the right side of 87.146.
7. It is not clear how many Aksaras belongto line 1.Traces
of at least two Aksaras are detectable. Cf. also line 2 of 87.146;
seeAnalysis
in the text.
8.Only
the leftangle
of the Aksara bha is visible on the
eroded stone.
9. agnisais to be
expected, but the small stroke on the right
side of A makes thereading
?absolutely
sure.
10.Already
Krishna Deva read this line asagnisa (cf.
note
9) prati[ma]. He also deciphered the left-side inscription as
k?rit? priyat?m agi. Neither -?(k?)
nor -i(agi)
is to be seen. In
my reading priyamtam long-i is not
absolutely sure, but it is to
be expected. The Anusvara above ya isclearly
marked. My
reading agaya (=agnayah)is uncertain. It is based on the
observation that the stroke which is theonly
remains of the
originalAksara can
onlybe the middle part of the tripartite
ya. The gap between ga and the stroke is too broad to be read
as ra, which also would not make much sense. Krishna Deva
omitted these traces. Cf. the samepraise
in a much later
inscriptionof the year 24 of V?siska
(H. L?ders, Mathur?
Inscriptions. Abh. der Akademie der Wissenschaften in
G?ttingen, Philog.-Hist.Ki. 3. Folge,
Nr. 47, G?ttingen 1961,
? 94)after the announcement of the erection of a sacrificial
post (y?pa): priyant [a] m-agnaya(h).Cf. note 11.
11. k?rit? is to beexpected, but no trace of -? on k- is to be
seen. A similarwording
in an undated BuddhistKsatrapa
inscriptionon a
copingstone of a
railing announcing that a
railingwas caused to be made
bythe trooper (asvav?rika)
Bodhiya'sa. "May theholy
one bepleased" (vedik?
k?rit? pri
yat?[m] bhagav[?j);seeH. L?ders,Mathur? Inscriptions, 176.For
k?rit? cf. also G.
Bhattacharya, D?na-Deyadharma:
Donation
in Early Buddhist Records (inBr?hm?), Investigating ndianArt
(Berlin, 1987), Ver?ffentlichungendes Museums f?r Indische
Kunst, ed. byM. Yaldiz, W. Lobo, vol. 8, p. 49.
12. Please see note 1.
13. Verysimilar is the Kosam
inscription of Kaniska I, year2
(EpigraphiaIndica,vol. XXIX, pp.
210-212 =D. C. Sircar, Select
Inscriptions Bearingon Indian History and Civilization, vol. I 3rd ed.
[Delhi, 1986], pi.XXV. Sircar reads samvatsare 3 against
Goswami inEpigraphia Indica p.
211. Cf. also H. H?rtel, A
Remarkable InscribedSculpture,
D. Barrett Felicitation Volume,
note 10; inpress).
For furthercomparisons
see TheJal?mpur
Mound Inscription of Sod?sa(H. L?ders, Mathur? Inscriptions,
? 64); R. C. Sharma, BuddhistArt ofMathur? (Delhi, 1984),illustration no. 6, Sod?sa new
inscription;H. H?rtel, An
Early
Coping Stone Inscription from Mathur?, Deyadharma,Studies in
Memory of
D. C. Sircar, ed. G.
Bhattacharya (Delhi, 1987),
Sri
Garib Dass Oriental Series, no. 33, pp. 101-110, esp.note 21
about ma, which points i.a. to a somewhat earlier date of the
railingstone
inscriptionsof
S?ryamitra.Note that in the Kus?na
era da is curved the other way round.
14. L?ders, Mathur? Inscriptions, ?120.
15. Harle, Art andArchitecture, p. 51;Huntington,Art
ofAncient
India, p. 83; Vidya Dehejia, Early Buddhist Rock Temples (London,
1972), p. 157.
16. Here we have another indicator that Mathur? must be
recognizednot
onlyas a
prominent Jain and Buddhist center,
butprobably
as first and foremost a center of Brahmanic and
Hindureligious
activities. For other indicators seeMathur?: The
CulturalHeritage, gen. ed. Doris Meth Srinivasan
(New Delhi,
1989), Introduction, p. xiii.
17. Sircar, Select Inscriptions I, no. 26a; cf. also L?ders, Mathur?
Inscriptions, ? 115, from the time of Sod?sa.
18. R. C. Sharma, NewInscriptions
from Mathur?, Mathur?:
The CulturalHeritage, p. 312.
19. Ulrich Wiesner, Nepalese Temple Architecture(Leiden,
1978), pp. 56-57; fig. 17
20. Ibid., p. 57, fig.18.
21. V. S.Agrawala, Mathur? Museum
Catalogue,Part III
(Lucknow 1952), pp. 98-99.
69
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