a rare sculpture from the andhradeśa

A Rare Sculpture from the AndhradeśaAuthor(s): Douglas BarrettSource: The British Museum Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Oct., 1959), pp. 102-104Published by: British MuseumStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4422598 .

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berries of the laurel, the rays above the forehead, and the earrings, which have the form of a fat T with three pendants. The glaze varies in colour from dark brown to grey; it does not cover very well, so that streaks of clay show through.

2 ylasi dipinti del Yaticano i, pl. 6. 3 Cf. A. D. Trendall, Studies Presented to D. M.

Robinson, 2, 114 f. 4 See my Greek Theatre Production, Io4;

Pickard-Cambridge, Theatre of Dionysos, fig. 20. Cf. also the Campanian Iphigenia in Tauris, ibid., fig. 58; Greek Theatre Production, I104 f.

s References are given in Greek Theatre Pro- duction, I74 f., A 6, 9, 18. Add for the maenad, J. D. Beazley, Hesperia, xxiv (1955), P. 31 2.

6 British Museum 2191. The dating I owe to Mr. R. Higgins.

7 Cf. above, note 3.

A RARE SCULPTURE FROM THE ANDHRADESA

THE Museum's collection of Indian sculpture from the Andhradeba is the most important outside India. It includes a fair proportion of the sculptured slabs from the Great Stiipa at Amarivati, constructed during the

second and first half of the third century A.D. under the Sdtavahana dynasty, and an important but much later group of reliefs,' again from Amarivati, of the

period of the Eastern Calukya dynasty (seventh to tenth centuries A.D.). Though major work on the Great Stfipa seems to have come to an end about A.D. 250, the Amar-vati style continued to develop in to the fourth century A.D. at Ndgdr- junikonda and Goli-to name the two sites best known and most extensively excavated. The Museum has hitherto possessed no example of this last phase of creative activity in the early Andhradeia. This deficiency is made good by a

piece recently acquired. It is, moreover, of a unique type and of superb quality. This notable acquisition is carved from the lovely green-toned limestone of

the Andhradeaz2 (P1. xxxvi). In the thickness of the slab, on the right proper side, are the remains of two lenticular mortises. The slab has split vertically, probably by accident, thus cutting the mortises roughly in two. The left proper side has broken away, and taken with it the left arm of the figure. At the top of the slab, on the flat surface, may still be seen faint vestiges of an inscription of two lines. The aksharas ta and possibly cha, in early Brahmi, may still be made out. The

figure appears to be standing under a fruiting tree, and holds a bunch of lotuses and lotus-pods in her right hand. The slab is cut in a shallow curve to enclose the head of the figure-an unusual feature in early Andhradega sculpture. The head- dress is again unusually elaborate. Above the line of the hair may be seen a

wimple with raised folds. Across the head and worn in the fashion of an 'Alice band' is a crescent ornament with four projecting 'pins' on each side. The high centre piece seems to consist of addorsed makara-heads supporting a circular ornament. The two arms of the crescent itself seem also to be drawn from the mouths of makaras. The woman wears heavy earrings, two necklaces, double

102



wristbands, and armbands embellished with a cobra's raised hood. Remains of a

girdle and the fold of a dhoti may be seen at the hip on the right proper side. The two lenticular mortises on our slab show that it was originally intended

for use as a pillar in a railing which surrounded a stoipa. Rail pillars carved with

large scale male and female figures are common enough in north India, at

Bh.rhut and

Mathur. for example. No examples have, however, been found in the

Andhradega, where the rail pillar is always decorated with a full and two half lotuses. Several examples of this type of rail pillar, from Amaravati, may be seen in the Front Hall of the Museum. If our piece as it now stands, was a rail pillar, it must be accepted as unique. There are indications, however, that though first intended as a pillar and perhaps used as such, its original decoration was cleaned off, and the piece was then cut down, recarved and used for a different purpose. Mackenzie, in his well-known volume of drawings of the Amaravati Stfipa, shows two slabs from what he called the 'inner enclosure', which was in fact the drum of the Stipa.3 The slabs which cased the drum were about 5 ft. high. The Mackenzie pieces each show a large scale female figure standing under a torana. Though this type of slab has not survived at Amaravati, a drum slab carved with a male figure, left hand on hip and right holding an offering of flowers, has been discovered at Goli.4 Both the Goli slab and ours represent a

type of so-called 'donor' figure, as found in the north-west Deccan on the screens of the great Caitya caves at Karla (about A.D. oo) and Kanheri (last quarter of second century A.D.). There the male figure has a female companion, the group being called in the Karla inscriptions 'mithuna'. The Goli slab is

5 ft. 3 in. high, its sculptured surface measuring 4 ft. 3 in. The sculptured surface of our piece was probably 5 ft. when complete. It is possible that the two slabs belong together and were placed on either side of the usual form of drum slab decorated with a sttipa, or at the returns of an -yaka-platform. If the facial types seem markedly dissimilar, it must be remembered that the surface of the Goli piece is still sound and sharp, while burial has blurred the modelling of ours. If the provenance of our piece is not Goli, it is at least contemporary with the Goli stipa, which is generally accepted as lying at the very end of the early period in the Andhradeia, about A.D. 300 to 350. The projecting 'pins' in the head-dress may be compared with those worn by a female musician at Goli.s The heavy earrings, the necklace and the studded wristbands are also those of Goli. The armbands with the cobra projections are also a unique and late feature. Finally, the form of the akshara ta in the fragmentary inscription may be compared with that on a Goli drum slab.6 DOUGLAS BARRETT

Douglas Barrett, 'The Later School of Amar- avati and its Influences', Art and Letters (Royal India and Pakistan Society), vol. xxviii, no. 2, 1954.

2 Registration no. 1955, 1o-I7, 1. Height (of sculptured surface): 3 ft. oj in. Breadth: 2 ft. Width: 6 in.

3 Illustrated by James Fergusson, Tree and

B 8203 103 O



Serpent Worship, London, 1873, pl. lxxxv. The figure on the right wears a head-dress with addorsed makara heads.

4T. N. Ramachandran, BuddAist Sculptures from a 8tupa near Goli Pillage, Guntur District,

Madras, I929, pl. ix, no. 6. s T. N. Ramachandran, op. cit., pl. vi. Frieze

no. 2. 6 T.N. Ramachandran, op. cit., pl. x.

A SETO VASE OF THE KAMAKURA PERIOD

( 185-1333)

T H E history of the Seto Kilns [a pottery centre so famous in Japan that it has given the name Seto-mono ('things of Seto') to all subsequent Japanese ceramic products] has not yet been unravelled, and will remain imperfect

until their kiln sites have been scientifically excavated. The Museum has up to date possessed no example of the rare Seto stoneware vases of the thirteenth

century, and the recent acquisition of such a piece fills an important gap in the collections (P1. xxxvii).

This vase is decorated with incised tomoe designs (three commas grouped together to form a circle) under a streaky olive green glaze; one hesitates to describe these whorls as 'stamped', as they appear to vary slightly in size and

composition. Owing to its decoration this vase belongs to a small group, of which only some ten pieces are known to exist in Japan and of these no other is known to have left that country. A very similar vase, of slightly stouter build is

reproduced in The Catalogue of Japanese Ceramic Masterpieces.' The Japanese text does not give the owner or whereabouts of this specimen but states that it is Seto ware and of the late thirteenth century, and that the design of tomoe is

stamped and not engraved. Among other examples attributed to this kiln in the same volume is a vase of slightly different shape belonging to Mr. Takakichi Aso, with an inscription 'the 2nd year of Einin ( 2 94)'.2 Mr. Mayuyama informs me that three other dated examples of Seto ware of this period are known to

exist; a pair of vases dated to the first year of Showa (1312) in the Hakusan Shrine in Gifu Prefecture,3 and a vase with a wide mouth, which has been excavated from a tomb which has been dated to the Kareki era (132 6-8) of the Kamakura period, which is in the National Museum, Tokyo. Apart from our vase, and two vases in America (one in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the other in Seattle Art Museum), and an incomplete vase in Paris, it is doubtful whether any examples of these Seto vases of the thirteenth century have ever left Japan.

According to Japanese records kilns established in the Owari province, were in receipt of an imperial subsidy as early as the Konin period (810-23), and in the Saiko period (854-6) it has been suggested that a kiln was established in the

10o4



XXXVI. FEMALE DONOR. Probbly from Goli, Andhrade'a. About A.D. 300.



a rare sculpture from the andhradeśa

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