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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
PART B Indian Museum, Calcutta (P 29). Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 115; StBh. (1879), p. 45; 115; 120; 127; 134, No. 28, and Pl. XIII, XXX and LIV; Hoernle, IA. Vol. X (1881), p. 255 f., No. 11, and Pl.; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 65, No. 46, and Pl.; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 231, No. 46; Cunningham, Mahābodhi (1892), Pl. III (Plate only); Bloch, ASIAR. 1908-9 (1912), p. 139, notes 1 and 2, and fig. 2 on p. 145; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 41, No. 141, and p. 56, No. 158; Barua, Barh. Vol. II (1934), p. 5 ff., and Vol. III (1937), p. 1 and Pl. XXXVII (32); Lüders, Bhārh. (1941), p. 29 ff. TEXT:
TRANSLATION: The sculpture represents a Pippala or Aśvattha tree (Ficus religiosa) bearing berries. Two small umbrellas are visible on the top of it and streamers hang down from its branches. In front of the trunk, which is decorated with an ornamental band and some foliage, the seat, or vajrāsana, stands, consisting of a slab and four supporting pilasters. It is strewn with flowers and surmounted by two triratnas. The tree is surrounded by a pillared hall, the sides of which are represented in the peculiar Indian perspective as slanting upwards. The hall has an upper storey with a balcony fenced in by a railing. Four arched doors, two on the front side and one on each wing, open on the balcony. An umbrella is raised before each door, and the two lateral doors are ornamented with a female statue on either side. The roof is crowned by three pinnacles on the front side. On the right of the building is a detached pillar with a bell-shaped capital bearing the figure of an elephant carrying a garland in its trunk. The shaft of the pillar is prolonged downwards into the middle panel, and at the foot of it there is a stout male figure holding some round object on his head. This person is quite different from the gods represented in the middle relief and certainly has no connection with them, but appears to be a deity of the nether world who acts as the tutelary deity and bearer[1] of the pillar.
On either side of the seat a worshipper is kneeling, a man to the left and a woman to
the right. Behind the woman a man stands with folded hands, and to the left of the kneeling
man there is a woman holding what seems to be a bunch of flowers in her upraised left hand
while with her right she is throwing flowers on the seat. In the upper portion of the relief
divine beings are represented worshipping the tree. On either side of it, in the air, is a winged
human figure with the hind limbs, the claws and the tail of a bird[2]. One is throwing flowers
from a bowl which he carries in his left hand, while the other is offering a garland. Below
[1]Lüders mentions that the figure is represented with a coiled pad of cloth intended as a support
(P. chumbaṭa) on the head. It seems however more probable that the object which the figure carries
on its head is a pot, used for offerings by the visitors to the temple, which is similar to the one borne
on the head by some of the Mathurā statues known as ‘porteurs de vase’, cf. J. Ph. Vogel, La Sculpture
de Mathurā, Paris 1930, Ars Asiatica, XV, Pl. XLIX and L. In this case the figure does not have anything to do with the pillar in front of which it stands. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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