On the Cusp of an Era

On the Cusp of an Era BIAL-18-srinivasan_CS2.indd i 16-3-2007 14:55:12 Brill’s Inner Asian Library Editors Nicola di Cosmo Devin Deweese Caroline Humphrey VOLUME 18 BIAL-18-srinivasan_CS2.indd ii 16-3-2007 14:55:12 On the Cusp of an Era Art in the Pre-Kuß§Öa World Edited by Doris Meth Srinivasan LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007 BIAL-18-srinivasan_CS2.indd iii 16-3-2007 14:55:13 On the cover: Lavender Flowers near Maimana. © Luke Powell This book is printed on acid-free paper. ISSN 1566-7162 ISBN 978 90 04 15451 3 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands BIAL-18-srinivasan_CS2.indd iv 16-3-2007 14:55:13 CONTENTS Chapter One Pre-Kußà»a Art: A New Concept ................ 1 Doris Meth Srinivasan Chapter Two Pathways Between Gandhàra and North India during Second Century B.C.–Second Century A.D. ........................................................................ 29 Saifur Rahman Dar Chapter Three Passages to India: •aka and Kußà»a Migrations in Historical Contexts ........................................ 55 Jason Neelis Chapter Four Numismatic Evidence for a Chronological Framework for Pre-Kanißkan Art, from Kalchayan to Gandhàra ................................................................................ 95 David W. Mac Dowall Chapter Five Acroliths from Bactria and Gandhàra .......... 119 Osmund Bopearachchi Chapter Six Barikot, An Indo-Greek Urban Center in Gandhàra ............................................................................ 133 Pierfrancesco Callieri Chapter Seven The Artistic Center of Butkara I and Saidu Sharif I in the Pre-Kußà»a Period ............................ 165 Domenico Faccenna Chapter Eight Kañjùr Ashlar and Diaper Masonry. Two Building Phases in Taxila of the First Century A.D. ........................................................................ 201 Shoshin Kuwayama vi contents Chapter Nine Coinage from Iran to Gandhàra – with special reference to divinities as coin types ........................ 233 David W. Mac Dowall Chapter Ten Dynastic and Institutional Connections in the Pre-and Early Kußà»a Period: New Manuscript and Epigraphic Evidence .............................................................. 267 Richard Salomon Chapter Eleven Art, Beauty and the Business of Running a Buddhist Monastery in Early Northwest India .............. 287 Gregory Schopen Chapter Twelve The Pre-Kußà»a and Early Kußà»a Levels at Sonkh .................................................................... 319 Herbert Härtel Chapter Thirteen Monumental Nàginìs from Mathurà ...... 351 Doris Meth Srinivasan Chapter Fourteen Close Encounters: Multicultural Systems in Ancient India ...................................................... 385 Pia Brancaccio Index .......................................................................................... 399 CHAPTER ONE PRE-KUÍÀ¤A ART: A NEW CONCEPT Doris Meth Srinivasan A book devoted to an understanding of Pre-Kußà»a Art has not been previously attempted. The easiest explanation, which also reflects accurately one reason for this lacuna, is that ‘Pre-Kußà»a Art’ implies that it is an art understood in terms Kußà»a art, which itself has not been the subject of a comprehensive monograph. Given that Kußà»a art comprises the first schools of art on the Indian subcontinent, and that its precursor, Pre-Kußà»a art, could shed light on developments leading towards the flourishing of creativity during Kußà»a times, this unusual situation in the annals of South Asian scholarship needs comment. Scholarly studies about the Kußà»a Period and its art began in earnest in the early 20th century, making this period one of the few in South Asian art history that has an established investigational track, almost like specific art historical periods in Western art. But these studies are not about Kußà»a art. A distinction needs to be made between Kußà»a art and art made during the Kußà»a Period. Recog- nizing the distinction will, I think, clarify why no comprehensive study on Kußà»a art has yet appeared. Studies about art during the Kußà»a Period concentrate on the material remains from different sites within the Kußà»a Empire. Sculpture, architecture, painting, coins, glassware, terracottas, glyptics etc. are, on an individual basis, subjected to the entire panoply of tools the art historian—as well as the cultural historian, the historian of religions, the archaeologist, philologist, numismatist—can muster. The investigations have been building a corpus and are extremely important in their analyses of the dating, iconography, stylistic features, provenance and significance of specific segments of the Kußà»a output. But as yet no synthesis has been made of these individual studies. Such a synthesis would constitute a work that could be called ‘Kußà»a Art’. Clearly, Kußà»a art is more than representations pertaining to a dynasty called Kußà»as, who established themselves over a vast territory in South Asia during the early centuries of the Christian era. 2 doris meth srinivasan Kußà»a art is not a ‘shorthand’ for the art of the Kußà»a period focussing on the official art stemming from the dynasty. The latter view is held by G. Fussman because the dynastic output is coherent and interrelated whether coins, scuplture or dynastic architecture be considered.1 The consequences of this position are immense for the art historian—due to the implied omissions. Kußà»a art which does not portray dynastic rulers, devotees or motifs traceable to Kußà»a coinage would be omitted. Most folk art, vaiß»ava art,2 Jain art,3 reliefs of the Warrior Goddess (i.e. the later Mahißàsuramardinì), Lakßmì, Mother Goddesses,—and more—would not be included.4 Envisioning a single, unifying theme—the dynastic arts of the Kußà»as—at the expense of the enormous complexity of all the art made in this period within the Empire prevents a serious dialogue within the discipline of art history to discover and reevalute new connections, issues and interrelationships. Because of its complexity, we are not even now ready to write a history of ‘Kußà»a Art’. Perhaps no phase of South Asian art is as complex to synthesize as this one. The art comes predominantly from two regions which formed part of the Kußà»a Empire. The Gangetic region, especially the area of and around Mathurà, U.P. produced Kußà»a art that developed largely along indigenous stylistic, cultural and religious lines; this production constitutes one of the two early schools: the Mathurà School of art. The second school is in the northwest of the subcontinent in what was considered Gandhàra, plus the Greater Gandhàran region. Today the territory is in Pakistan 1 Gérard Fussman, “L’empire kouchan” in Osmund Bopearachchi et al., De l’Indus à l’Oxus. Archéologie de l’Asie Centrale [exh. cat. Musée de Lattes] (Lattes, 2003), 172. 2 The unique British Museum seal (#1892.11–3.98) of the fourth-fifth century A.D. showing an “Iranian Central Asian” devotee with Viß»u, is not a dynastic Kußà»a; see Pierfrancesco Callieri, Seals and Sealings from the North-West of the Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan (4th century B.C.–11th century A.D.), (Naples, 1997), 190. 3 I know of only one relief showing a figure (possibly donor/devotee) in Scythian dress. See P. Pal, Jain Art from India, [exh. cat. Los Angeles County Museum of Art] (Los Angeles, 1994) No. 53. 4 For examples of what is included, see the plates in the superb treatment of Kußà»a dynastic arts in John M. Rosenfield, The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967). An approach which continues to discuss the art according to the different schools while reserving the name of ‘Kußà»a Art’ for the official art of the dynasty is presented by Gérard Fussman in his entry “Kußà»a Arte,” Enciclopedia dell’arte antica, classica e orientale. Secondo Supplemento, 1971–1994/1994–97; 218. An early exemplary approach to Kußà»a art by J.E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, The “Scythian” Period (Leiden, 1949) includes Buddhist and Jain art of Mathurà and Gandhàra in order to outline the development of Buddha and Jina images. A preview of the diversity is seen in S.J. Czuma with assistance of R. Morris, Kushan pre-kußà»a art: a new concept 3 and northeastern Afghanistan. The art from this territory responded to a vast array of foreign and local influences. These two schools do not however limit the number of Kußà»a artistic styles. Whereas the Mathurà and Gandhàran styles dominate, there are provincial styles to be reckoned with. This accounts for the richness of the corpus and the occasional difficulty in assigning authenticity and/or provenance to individual pieces. Lack of a coherent number of styles is understandable when the enormous extent of the Empire is taken into account. At the beginning of an era inaugurated by the Kußà»a Emperor Kanißka, the Empire extended from Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, western Afghanistan to Pakistan, northern

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