The Bacchants of Mathura: New Evidence of Dionysiac Yaksha Imagery from Kushan MathuraAuthor(s): Martha L. CarterSource: The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 69, No. 8 (Oct., 1982), pp. 247-257Published by: Cleveland Museum of ArtStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159785 .Accessed: 20/05/2011 09:07
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The Bacchants of Mathura: New Evidence of
Dionysiac Yaksha Imagery from Kushan Mathura
To the Greek historians who documented the campaigns of Alex ander the Great in Asia, the "India" of his conquests was a re
gion where the grapevine flourished, introduced, they explain ed, by the god Dionysos when he conquered India in earlier times. When the Macedonians reached a city called Nysa, Alex ander spared it in deference to its immortal founder and visited
nearby shrines on the god's sacred peak, Mt. Meros.2 Dionysos had named this mountain, so it was claimed, after the Greek word for thigh (meros) in honor of his second birth from the thigh of Zeus.3 This name is undoubtedly a Greek corruption of its true
name, Mt. Meru, well-known in Indian mythology as the fabu lous World Mountain, pillar between the earth and the heavens.
On its slopes grew the laurel, ivy, and grapevine so familiar to the homesick Greeks who were allowed to linger there and to at tend bacchanalian celebrations.4
According to his biographer Philostratus, the sage Apollonius of Tyana visited India in the mid-first century AD and left the fol
lowing description of the worship of Dionysos there:
On climbing [the mountain] they found an area conse crated to Bacchus, which the god himself had planted round with laurels, encircling ground enough for a small temple, and had married ivy and grapevines to the laurels and set up his own image in the center, knowing that in time the trees would meet to form a roof, which has now become so closely woven that it lets in neither wind nor rain upon the shrine. Inside it are sickles, and baskets, and wine vats, with all their belongings, made of gold and silver, and sacred to Bacchus as god of the
vintage. The statue of Bacchus shows him as an Indian
lad, carved in white stone, and when he begins his or
gies he shakes the mountain, and the towns set about its foot join in the revelry.5
So too, it would seem that members of the wine god's cortege have been transformed into voluptuous Indian bacchantes in this remarkable relief acquired some time ago by The Cleveland Mu seum of Art (Cover and Figure 1). This work takes the form of a carved railing pillar of mottled Sikri sandstone approximately 80 centimeters in height, in this case a corner post of a type known to
Cover and Figure 1. Railing Pillar.
Sikri sandstone, H. 31-1/2 inches (80 cm.). India,
Mathura, Kushan Period, late second century AD.
Purchase, John L. Severance Fund. CMA 77.34
Figure 2. Detail, right face central portion of Figure 1.
THE BULLETIN OF THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART (ISSN 0009-8841), Volume LXIX, Number 8, October 1982. Published monthly, ex
cept July and August, by The Cleveland Museum of Art. Subscriptions: $8.00
per year for Museum members; $10.00 per year for non-members. Single copies: $1.00. Copyright 1982 by The Cleveland Museum of Art. Postmaster send address changes to CMA Bulletin 11150 East Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44106. Second-class postage paid at Cleveland, Ohio. Museum photography by Nicholas Hlobeczy; design by Merald E. Wrolstad.
247
Figure 3. Detail,
right face upper portion
of Figure 1.
Figure 4.
Detail, right face, lower portion
of Figure 1.
248
Figure 5. Detail, left face central portion of Figure 1.
have belonged to stone railings surrounding early Buddhist stu-; -,< : Ri; pas. Although its exact provenance is unknown, its red speckled stone strongly suggests the region of ancient Mathura some fifty
miles south of Delhi.6 The character of the relief presents an unusual blend of stock _
Hellenistic elements combined with the ripe, rounded volumes of early Indian sculpture of the Mathuran School. The period to which it belongs can only be that of the Kushan Empire which flourished between the first and third centuries AD and, at its
height, stretched from the Oxus to the Ganges. This dynasty, of Central Asian origin, followed the Bactrian and Indo-Greek
kingdoms and those of earlier Central Asian Scythians and Par
thians in the northwest borderlands and Afghanistan, as well as native Indian states in the Punjab, to unite a diverse population in an era of increased trade and commercial prosperity.7 Under the alien but culturally eclectic Kushans, Buddhism was encouraged to thrive, gaining many new adherents from a non-Brahmanical, ethnically heterogeneous merchant class. At this time also, nu
merous developments took place which served to broaden the base of Buddhism to transform it into a truly popular internation al faith. So too, its visual imagery mirrored changes within. A Buddha image was created where only symbols of his presence had been allowed before.8 The concept of the Bodhisattva, the active Buddha deity offering salvation, was developed along with an ever widening pantheon of supporting lesser deities gar nered from rich sources in popular folk religon. It is to this latter class that our Mathuran bacchantes belong.
The right face of the pillar (Figure 2) shows a pair of half
draped female revelers. One in a typically Hellenistic three- : quarter back view holds her robe coquettishly in front of her; her
partner carries a festive palm branch while unsteadily balancing a cup on her head, as if giddy from the effects of its contents. Be tween them on the ground stands a large vessel resembling a
Greek kantharos, the vessel especially associated with
Dionysos. Above the ladies we see half-figures of musicians
(Figure 3), one with castanets similar to the modern manjira of northern India, while the other plays a triangular harp known as a
trigonus, an ancient Near Eastern instrument common in Hellen ized Asia.9 As if to underscore the bacchanalian implications of the scene, the background above them is filled with growing grapevines. The lower segment of the pillar's face (Figure 4) is framed by a rocky landscape and shows a nude horse-headed fe
male kneeling as if in supplication before a boy clad in a leaf loin cloth and clutching an axe.
On the adjoining side of the pillar (Figure 5) we find two more female revelers, one again seen from the back in three-quarter
Figure 6. Detail, left face upper portion of Figure 1.
Figure 7. Detail, left face lower portion of Figure 1.
250
Figure 8. Section of Monolithic Railing. Red mottled standstone, H. 21 inches (53.3 cm.).
Mathura, Kushan Period, second century AD.
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, CMA 43.71
view, but here playing pan pipes, another instrument recalling Greek prototypes but well documented in India from at least the first century BC.10 The second bacchante is unfortunately not
well preserved, but again is shown frontally with one arm raised
holding a clapper, perhaps similar to the kartal still used to ac
company dancing in Orissa."I Both figures are shown amid
growing vine stalks. A ewer, a large two-handled cup, and an animal-headed rhyton-all types common in Hellenistic Asia-are shown at their feet.12 Above them (Figure 6) two more female musicians play a typical Greek lyre and a form of Indian lute known as a kacchapi, which was probably a very early im
port from Iran or Central Asia.13 In the rocky landscape below
(Figure 7), a hunchbacked female ladles out a drink from a vat similar to a kantharos into a cup held by a corpulent, curly haired, large-headed being who holds an unidentifiable object in
his left hand. The total effect of this sculpture is that of a strongly Helleniz
ing treatment of style and form that is basically Mathuran. It is
very likely the creation of an Indian sculptor of the Mathuran School during the Kushan era, but one who, for specific reasons, had chosen non-Mathuran elements in terms of pose, costume,
drapery treatment, and proportion, while additionally emphasiz ing these exotic elements with foreign musical instruments, ves
sel forms, and above all the grapevine itself, which was never in
digenous to Greater India but which was found only on its north west frontiers in Gandhara, Swat, Kashmir, and the valleys of the Hindu Kush.14 Such Graeco-Roman features must certainly have been borrowed from Kushan Gandhara. It seems clear, however, that this is no Gandharan work. Not only do the type of stone and the pillar's shape reflect a Mathuran origin, but the sty listic essence is Mathuran with a consciously exotic veneer. The reason for this tour deforce is to be found in the nature of its sub
ject matter. The beings illustrated here derive from the dramatis personae
of ancient popular Indian folk religion, assimilated by Buddhism as it attracted a larger following among the laity. A number of identifiable types are often lumped together as minor deities of
the Yaksha class, including among others Nagas (serpent de
ities), Gandharvas (celestial musicians), Kinnaras (heavenly
singers), Guhyas (earth gnomes), and Raksasas (malevolent
spirits).15 The female Yakshis or Devatas were favorite subjects for Buddhist railing pillars of the Mathuran School, as seen in an
example of a small monolithic railing section from the Cleveland
Museum collection (Figure 8) and another of a salabhanjika ("female-and-tree") motif very common to early Indian sculp ture (Figure 9).16 Generally Yakshas were spirits of fecundity in
Andy
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Figure 9. Railing Pillar with a Salabhanjika. Red sandstone, H. 27-3/4 inches (70.5 cm.). Mathura, Kushan Period, second century AD. Purchase, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, CMA 65.250
nature, capable of both good and ill, who also functioned as pro tectors of the riches of the earth and as local guardian spirits.
Their ruler Kubera, also called Jambhala, was God of Wealth and one of the most significant popular deities to be recruited to the Buddhist cause in an era of growing prosperity. He is well
represented among Kushan works from Mathura as a portly, regal figure holding a drinking vessel and often a bag of gold, and
occasionally appearing inebriated enough to require the support of Yaksha attendants. Just such an image, found in 1836 by Col. L. R. Stacy and designated a "Grecian Silenus" by its discover er, was the first piece of ancient Mathuran sculpture brought to
light in modern times.17 This work, although in a poor state of
preservation, appears to have formed the pedestal of a large stone offering bowl placed in or near a Buddhist shrine.' Anoth er contemporary pedestal, the Palikhera Block (Figure 10), shows Kubera seated on an omphalos-like throne holding a tan kard, while attended by his Yaksha court, one of whom holds a bunch of grapes. Behind these figures a rich background of vege tation is indicated, probably meant to represent one of the gar dens of the Yaksha king in his mountain realm on the mythical
Mt. Kailasa, perhaps the famed Caitraratha where the trees were said to have jeweled leaves and beautiful girls as fruits. 19 The pe culiar throne of Kubera is symbolic of the mountain itself. In a similar vein, a Kushan Mathuran stone pedestal from Maholi
(Figure 11) portrays an inebriated Yakshi sinking helplessly to her knees as she is assisted by Yaksha revelers.
Although such bacchanalian activities on the part of Yakshas and related beings might seem frivolous or ill-suited to Buddhist
imagery, it is important to stress that, like Dionysos and his cor
tege, Kubera and the Yakshas were essentially primitive lords of all "wet and gleaming" nature in its very essence (rasa) as con tained in rain, dew, sap, blood, semen, and spiritous liquor (sura).20 Beings of the Yaksha class were regularly offered meat and strong drink, an important aspect of their cult immediately setting it apart from all forms of Brahmanical worship of the time.21 Not only were the Yakshas thought to be imbibers but al so guardians of the liquid essence of fecundity-the aqua vitae or amrita substance which they carried in cups and flasks, prefigur ing the vessel of the spiritual elixir of immortality (amrita kalasa) carried by the future Buddha Maitreya and later by other Bodhisattvas.22
Thus it becomes evident that the cult of the Yakshas was al most inevitably destined to take on a Dionysiac coloring in re
gions where the grapevine flourished and where strong Hellenis tic influences molded the art of the Kushan Period. Indeed, Alex ander's homesick Macedonians thought that they had seen evi
Figure 10. Palikhera Block. Red sandstone, H. 60-1/2 inches (153.7 cm.). Mathura, Kushan Period.
Mathura Museum, no. C 2.
WOW
ii~i~i
dence of the cult of their own Dionysos in rites of indigenous Yaksha worship there. The rustic mountain shrine of Dionysos, described by Apollonius as a vine-covered bower containing vin
taging implements and a stone image, coincides with what we
may reconstruct of a Yaksha shrine as it might have existed in a
vine-producing region of India in the mid-first century AD.23 The
image that the sage mistook for the Indian Dionysos might have been the Yaksha king himself.
Perhaps the Bactrian Greek invaders of northern India were the first actively to foster a syncretism involving Dionysos and his bacchants with Kubera and his Yakshas. In Kushan Gandhara this phenomenon gave a strongly Dionysiac cast to the multitude of accessory Yakshas, Nagas, and related minor deities who ap
Figure 11. Maholi Block. Red sandstone, H. 40 inches
(101.6 cm.). Mathura, Kushan Period, second century AD. Mathura Museum, no. 2800.
A .7-eXA N#.
pear in the carved decoration of Buddhist monuments. One such
relief shows an actual winemaking scene presided over by a
seated prince, very likely a Yaksha lord, perhaps Pancika, Kubera's alter ego in Gandhara (Figure 12). Another similar re
lief shows a Naga king and his queen toasting each other with
wine cups as female servants carry in wine vessels and a Naga
porter empties the contents of a huge wineskin into a large footed
krater (Figure 13). An interesting Gandharan statue base shows a
pair of amorous couples drinking together (Figure 14). The
poses of the women showing their bare backs are similar to those seen on the Cleveland pillar, and here too we very probably see
the amorous dalliance of Yaksha pairs (mithuna). Another sig nificant work, recently acquired by the Los Angeles County Mu
253
Figure 12. Winemaking Scene. From Jamal Garhi. Schist, H. 7-1/4 inches (18.1 cm.), W. 22 inches (55.8 cm.). Gandhara, Kushan Period, Peshawar Museum.
Figure 13. Relief of Bacchanalian Nagas. Schist. Gandhara, Kushan Period. British Museum.
Figure 14. Bacchanalian Scene on Statue Base. Schist, W. 30-1/4 inches (76.8 cm.). Gandhara, Kushan Period. Lahore Museum no. 1914.
254
seum of Art shows the Yaksha queen, Hariti, Pancika's spouse, holding a cluster of grapes (Figure 15). A characteristic repre sentation of the Gandharan Tutelary Couple, Pancika and Hariti,
depicts the Yaksha queen and mother of legions of baby Yakshas
holding the symbol for bounty in Greek art, the cornucopia, while her husband Pancika holds a wine cup (Figure 16).
Buddhist literary echoes of the connection of Yakshas with the
grape and its products may be found in the Sarvata Vinaya. It re counts an episode in the life of the Buddha when he was lodged and entertained by a pious Buddhist Yaksha, and allowed his dis
ciples to eat grapes "purified by fire" (raisins?) and drink non alcoholic grape juice brought to them in offering by worshipful Yakshas from Kashmir.24
To return to the Cleveland railing pillar, it appears most prob able that the Mathuran sculptor who executed this work allowed himself to be strongly influenced by Gandharan imagery in order to depict more authentically the exotic Yaksha paradise far away among the snowy peaks of the northwest where grapevines flour
Figure 15. Hariti. Gray schist, H. 43-1/2 inches
(110.5 cm.). Swat Valley, 2nd-4th century AD. Los Angeles
County Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Larry Lenart.
Figure 16. Tutelary Couple, Pancika and Hariti. Schist. From Takht-i-Bahi. British Museum.
?:_? ,
ished to provide their amrita substance, the wine of the grape. There in the fabled groves of the Yaksha king, beautiful Yakshis danced and cavorted to celestial music. Several centuries later the great Indian poet and dramatist Kalidasa described a similar scene in his lyric poem "The Cloud Messenger" (Meghaduta), as a sad Yaksha banished from Kubera's paradise recalls happy pastimes drinking wine from kalpa trees in the company of fair ladies.25 In the illustration from the Cleveland pillar the
Yakshas' refreshment is specifically grape wine, but otherwise the setting is similar. The rocky outcropping below the feet of the
Yakshis represents the lower slopes or caves of Kubera's moun tain. The horse-headed Yakshi kneeling before a Yaksha guard is
perhaps pleading for a drink of their favorite vintage or entry into the marvelous vineyard. She belongs to a special class of being called valava-rupa (mare-shaped), or more accurately valava
makha (mare-faced), mentioned in the early Buddhist Mahavam sa and in the Padakusalamanava Jataka, which tells of a horse headed demoness who abducted a Brahmin boy and held him
255
Figure 17. Yakushi. Bronze. Japan, Nara, Yakushi-ji, late seventh century.
prisoner in a cave.26 Although the scene on the pillar may suggest this tale, it is more likely a simple rendering of two of the lesser denizens of Kubera's kingdom. The other rock-enframed scene
containing a hunchbacked female and a large-headed dwarf is
probably non-narrative as well. Here again are two characters from popular folklore, one a witch-like crone, and the other a
portly Guhya (earth gnome) who resembles Kubera himself as
Guhyapati (Lord of Gnomes).27 With the decline of Buddhism in the northwestern borderlands
following the fall of the Kushan dynasty, it would seem that the
imagery of Kubera's vine-covered mountain paradise might dis
appear totally. Yet the grape cluster remained in Buddhism as an attribute of the Central Asian Avalokitesvara.28 Although the
grape was not native to China, viticulture and decorative grape vine motives became popular during the seventh and eighth cen turies of the T'ang dynasty. Both were imports across the trade routes of Central Asia, the same path that Buddhism itself had 256
taken in earlier times.29 It was during the T'ang era that the cul tural expansion of China molded the art of nascent Buddhism in
Japan. In the late seventh century a monumental bronze image of the Buddha of Healing, Yakushi (Skt. Bhaisajyaguru) was cre ated for Yakushi-ji, a temple at Nara.30 The deity is shown seated in repose on the World Mountain (Mt. Meru or Sumeru) which is
shaped vaguely like a stepped altar, wider at the top and base and
tapering to a narrower shaft (Figure 17). Although the form has lost all of its naturalistic elements, becoming essentially an elab orate pedestal for the seated image, the top band of decoration is an elegant vine scroll. On its central shaft, potbellied curly haired beings with fangs are seen peering from openings. In this work we see again the vineclad World Mountain of northwest In dia transformed into the seat of the Healing Buddha. It is also sig nificant that the deity represented is the Lord of Healing, recall
ing the similar if grosser character of the Yaksha king and his
subjects as Lords of Life, both guardians and bestowers of their immortal essence, wine of the grape.
MARTHA L. CARTER
Madison, Wisconsin
1. Arrian, Indica, i. 1-8; Arrian, Anabasis, v. 1; Diodorus Siculus,
Bibliothekis, ii. 38.4; Q. Curtius Rufus, De rebus gestis Alexandri Mag ni, viii. 10. 2. Anabasis, v. 1.6, v.2.5-7; Indica, i.6. 3. Pliny, Historia, vi.22.23. According to Julius Solinus, there was a
cave on Mt. Meros where Dionysos was nourished (Collectanea,
52.17). Polyaenos tells us that the mountain has three peaks, one called
Meros, the other two Kondraske and Korasibie (Strategica, i.I.2). The
actual mountain has been identified with the triple-peaked Mt. Koh-i
Mor in Swat (Cambridge History of India, I, 353-354). 4. Stabo, Geography, xv. 1.8. The earliest references to grape wine in
India come from Panini (Ashtadhyayi, iv.2.99), who noted that a wine was imported from the Kapisa region called kapisayani. He mentioned two other varieties, kalika and avadatika, from the Kabul valley (v.
4.3). The use of wine in Maurya times is substantiated by Kautilya who
noted that the best vintages were harahuraka and kapisayani (Arth
asastra, ii.25.25). 5. Philostratus, TheLife and Times ofApollonius of Tyana, trans. C. P.
Eells, Stanford University Publications, II, no. 1 (Stanford, 1923), p. 40
(ii.8). 6. CMA 77.34 Railing Pillar, Sikri sandstone, H. 31-1/2 inches (80
cm.). India, Mathura, Kushan Period, late second century AD. Pur
chase, John L. Severance Fund. Publication: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XCI (March 1978), no. 178, repr. p. 38; Exhibition: The Cleveland Mu
seum of Art, 1978: Year in Review for 1977 (cat., CMA Bulletin, LXV
[January 1978]), no. 151, repr.
Photograph credits: Figure 10, courtesy of Susan and John Huntington; Figure 17, after Minoru Ooka,
Temples of Nara and Their Art (New York, 1973), courtesy of John Weatherhill, Inc., and Heibonsha, Tokyo.
See especially J. Ph. Vogel, La sculpture de Mathura (Paris, 1930); N. P. Joshi, Mathura Sculptures (Mathura, 1966); V. S. Agrawala,
Masterpieces of Mathura Sculpture (Varanasi, 1965); Stanislaw Czuma, "Mathura Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum Collection," CMA Bulletin, LXIV (March 1977), 83-114. 7. For the background on Kushan culture see J. Rosenfield, TheDynas tic Arts of the Kushans (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1967), pp. 7-121. 8. See A. K. Coomaraswamy, "The Origin of the Buddha Image,"' Art
Bulletin, IX, no. 4 (1926-1927), 287-328; B. Rowland, The Evolution of the Buddha Image (New York: Asia Society, 1968); "A Note on the In
vention of the Buddha Image," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, II
(1948), 181-186; The Image of the Buddha, ed. D. L. Snellgrove (Lon don, 1978), pp. 13-45. 9. See B. Chaitarya Deva, Musical Instruments of India (Calcutta,
1978), p. 55, fig. 5.11. For representations of the trigonus see W. van
Ingen, Figurines from Seleucia (Ann Arbor, 1939), pl. XXXVI; also R. Ghirshman, "Les mosaiques sassanides," in Bishapour, vol. VIII (Par
is, 1956), pl. V. For its use in Gandhara see the stair riser relief in The
Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA 30.328); Sir John Marshall, Taxila,
Hm (Cambridge, 1951), pl. 144, no. 65. 10. See Chaitarya Deva, Musical Instruments, pp. 106, 110, figs. 7.8, 7.15. 11. Ibid., pp. 55-59, fig. 5.19. 12. See especially I. Venedikov, The Panagyurishte Gold Treasure
(Sophia, 1961), nos. 1-3. The gold rhyta in the form of stag heads are
extremely close. Although this treasure dates from the third century BC, its Graeco-Iranian traditions carried on through Parthian and Sasanian
times in the Near East.
13. Chaitarya Deva, Musical Instruments, p. 161, fig. 3.1. This instru ment was known in Gandhara as well (see H. Ingholt, Gandharan Art in
Pakistan [Connecticut, 1971], figs. 3, 367). 14. See M. L. Carter, "Dionysiac Aspects of Kushan Art, " Ars Orien
talis, VII (1968), 136-138.
15. See Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas (Washington, D.C., 1928), I, 4 ff. 16. Czuma, "Mathura Sculptures," pp. 91-94.
CMA43.71 Section of a MonolithicRailing, red sandstone, H. 21 in ches (53.3 cm.). India, Mathura, Kushan Period, second century AD. Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund. Publications: Alice N. Heerama neck, Masterpieces of Indian Sculpture from the Former Collections of
Nasli M. Heeramaneck (Verona, Italy: Alice N. Heeramaneck, 1979), no. 20, repr.; Czuma, "Mathura Sculpture," p. 92, fig. 15; H. C. Hollis, "Three Indian Buddhist Sculptures," CMA Bulletin, XXXI (March 1944), repr. p. 35; Alvan Eastman, Catalogue ofthe Heerama neck Collection of Early Indian Sculptures, Paintings, Bronzes and Tex tiles (New York, 1934), no. 5. Exhibitions: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1942: Buddhist Art, no. 3, repr. p. 40; New York, 1936: College Art
Association, and six other locations, Loan Exhibition of Early Indian
Sculptures, Paintings and Bronzes, cat. by A. K. Coomaraswamy and N. Heeramaneck, 1935, no. 1.
CMA 65.250 Railing Pillar with a Salabhanjika, red sandstone, H.
27-3/4 inches (70.5 cm.). India, Mathura, Kushan Period, late second
century AD. Purchase, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund.
Publications: Czuma, "Mathura Sculpture," p. 93, figs. 16, 17; "Art
of Asia Recently Acquired by American Museum 1965," Archives of Asian Art, XX (1966-1967), 87, fig. 10; "La Chronique des Arts," Sup
plement a La "Gazette Des Beaux-Arts, " no. 1165 (February 1966), no. 154, repr. p. 38. Exhibition: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1965:
Year in Review for 1965 (cat., CMA Bulletin, LII [November 1965]), no. 87, repr. 17. L. R. Stacy, "A Note on the Discovery of a Relic of Grecian Sculp ture in Upper India," with additional note by James Princep, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, V (1836), 567-570, pl. XXXI; F. S.
Growse, "A Supposed Greek Sculpture from Mathura," Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal, XLIV (1875), pls. XII, XIII; J. Ph. Vogel, La sculpture de Mathura, p. 118, pl. LVII (Indian Museum, Calcutta, no. M
1, H. 44 inches).
18. See Carter, "Dionysiac Aspects," pp. 122 ff, n. 5 (Mathura Muse
um, no. C 2, H. 60-1/2 inches).
19. See Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, I, 6-7.
20. Ibid., II, 13-14; F. D. K. Bosch, The Golden Germ: An Introduc
tion to Indian Symbolism (S'Gravenhage: S. Mouton & Co., 1960; orig. publ. 1948 in Dutch), pp. 59-60. See also Plutarch's discussion of Bac
chus in Isis and Osiris (35.365a); also Carter, "Dionysiac Aspects," p. 141. 21. See Jataka, no. 113, describing a Yaksha festival with liquor offer
ings, and no. 146 in which liquor offerings are made to Nagas. See also
Kathasaritsagara (Chap. CV) where offerings of meat and wine are
made to Yakshas on the wedding day; Rosenfield, The Dynastic Art of the Kushans, p. 315, n. 160. According to the Laws ofManu (xi.96), a
Brahmin was forbidden to partake of offerings to Yakshas.
22. Carter, "Dionysiac Aspects," pp. 143-145. 23. See Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, I, 17-28. The shrine of the Yaksha was usually in a grove or on a mountain. The center generally included a
tree with an altar or stone dais beneath it and possibly a statue. See also
0. Viennot, Le culte de l'arbre dans I'Inde ancien (Paris, 1954), pp. 113-115; Carter, "Dionysiac Aspects," pp. 140-141. 24. Cited by T. Watters in On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629-645 AD (London, 1904), I, 237. 25. Meghaduta, ii.3. See Carter, "Dionysiac Aspects," p. 130. 26. Mahavamsa, ix. 10, cited in Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, I, 10, 16. For the Jataka see N. P. Joshi, Mathura Sculptures, p. 54.
27. See Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, I, 8.
28. See A. Waley, A Catalogue of Paintings Recovered from Tun
huang by Sir Aurel Stein (London, 1931), pp. 54-59, no. XXXV; A. Stein, Serindia, IV (Oxford, 1921), pl. LXIII; Old Chinese Art, ed. T.
Misugi (Osaka, 1961), no. 63. 29. See S. Cammann, "The Lion and Grape Pattern on Chinese Bronze
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