Dr. Priyatosh Banerjee (Indian and Central Asian Scholar)

Dr. Priyatosh Banerjee (An Exponent on Indian and Central Asian Art)

A Siva Icon from Piandjikent 

with a Foreword by Prof. Alexander Soper

Publication - Articles & Books

 

In issue no. 98 (1964) of the Russian archaeological publication Kratkie soobscheniia, the archaelogist A. M. Belenitsky (or Belenickij) published two finds recently made at the site of Piandjikent (or Pyandzhikent) that show a surprising similarity to Indian religious art1.

One is fragmentary wooden frieze discovered in 1960, with a design consisting f a three-bay, semi-circular arcade and a band of six walking lion-gryphons below (Pl.50). The piece is too damaged and the illustration too indistinct to permit fully satisfactory reproduction here, Professor Belentisky’s description runs as follows:

  1. Left: indecipherable. 

  2. Centre: a figure in a chariot drawn by two prancing horses with heads turned out. Presumably a personification of the Sun God, comparable to the representations at Bodh Gaya, Khair Khaneh, and Bamiyan. 

  3. Right: a female(?) seated on a throne made of two addorsed animals.


In a second article devoted to the various types of zoomorphic thrones found represented in Central Asian art, the author describes these last creatures as horned and lion-like2.

The second find, made in 1962, a fragmentary paining that centres on a large prancing figure (Pl.51), is the subject of the present article by Dr. P. Banerjee sees no reason to doubt that the subject is the god Siva, represented in a pose related to the familiar dancing figure. Professor Belenitsky's account records the more cautious opinion that the find should not be used to argue the existence of a Saivite cult at Piandjikent. For him the figure reveals a borrowed prototype, but one that has been thoroughly re-worked without reference to its original purpose. Its dark blue flesh colour and prancing pose recall a much more badly damaged figure painting discovered at Piandjikent in 1952, which was associated with Siva Nataraja by N.V.D.' yakonova in 19613. Belenitsky prefers to consider it as belonging to a "Dionysiac cult." In a more general sense.

It may be useful to add a few comparisons from the serindian region that show the spread of artistic and iconographical themes comparable to the second Piandjikent painting.

In the celebrated Wei dynasty Buddhist cave-shrine no.285 (Pelliot's 120/N) at Tun-huang, the rear wall shows an assemblage of deities painted in a notably non-chinese style4. These include, at the top outer corners, the Sun and Moon Gods shown frontally in their chariots. On the right side there is a pyramidally arranged group of seated divinites from the Hinduist pantheon: a certain, elephant headed Ganesa, a probable Kumara, and a probable Siva at the top. These are likely to have been done in the first phase of painting in cave, by a group of Westerners (perhaps because the disintegration of the Northern Wei regime after 520 made communications with central China hazardous). The strongly Chinese, Wei-style north wall, with its votive inscriptions dated 538 and 539, probably record the partial restoration of order under the Wester Wei regime,

At the imperial cave site of Yun-kang, caves no.7 and 8, which were probably executed soon after 465 for a recently deceased Northern Wei emperor and his consort, are closely interrelated in design, In each the doorway arch reveal on either side just above the springing, shows a multi-headed, poly-limbed deity seated on his "vehicle": Siva on his bull balancing a being on a large bird who has been identified either a as Vishnu on Garuda, or Kumara-karttikeya on his peacock5.

Though Siva's attitude, flesh color, and costume in the Piandjikent painting are sufficient to identify him, they are clearly not yet an indication of the Nataraja role alone. The stance, as Dr. Banerjee remarks, is that of an archer; and in the Gupta period had been most widely associated at a high level with the image of the lion-slaying hero king (pl. 52) standardized on the coins of Kumaragupta6. A more unexpected piece of evidence is furnished by a stone Buddhist "Sutra pillar" dated 429/429 found recently in a northwest Chinese cave site along the old high road to Tun-huang, on which six engraved figures of Indian type hold offerings in a kind of processions7. Four have bare torsoes; wear very short skirts that barely cover their thighs, like cloth substitutes for Siva's tiger-skin; and stand in a prancing or lunging pose. All but one seem to be anonymous worshipping deities with lotuses. The exception looks like a Brahman ascetic, since he wears his hair in a top-knot rather than under a turban-crown, and holds what looks to be globular water-flask. His other hand, like Siva's, is placed "akimbo" - to use Dr. Banerjee's vivid word above the extended leg.

Since the only available illustration of this remarkable dated serindian piece is very mediocre, I show instead a detail from a closely similar, better preserved pillar found at Turfan, which must have been done at the same period with rather less fidelity to the Indian prototype8. Even so the rather loose-jointed deity is an awkward first cousin to the energetic and tense Siva (Pl. 53).

Professor Belenitskiy has distinguished three types of zoomorphic thrones represented in Central Asian art:

  1. The animal shown as if alive, either standing or couchant; shown in profile while its rider is frontal.

  2. Animals or animal legs used as the supports of benches.

  3. A pair of addorsed, profile animals [whose junction is concealed by the frontal, throned figure].

 

In addition he cites the descriptions given in the history of the Chinese Northern dynasties, Pei sbib, of the golden thrones used by several kings in the area, which speak of lion, camel, ram and horse forms9.

This foreword is not the place for an extended presentation and discussion of his evidence, so I shall limit myself to the examples that are most closely related to the throne shown on the Piandjikent frieze.

These are:

Two metal "Sasanian" dishes: in ihe Bibliotheque nationale, Paris (of gold, showing winged horses), and in the British Museum (of silver, showing gryphons)10.

The painting on a cliff-side at Dokhtan-I-Noschirwan near Bamiyan11.

In these cases the throned personage is male and regal. Since the Piandjikent figure seems to be female and sits in a more relaxed pose, I suggest (with diffidence, since the illustration is indistinct) that she is a local version of the goddess of abundance, celebrated in late Kushan coinage as Arodoxsho or Nanaia, and on Guptan coins as Sri Laksmi or Ambika. Shee seems to be holding a cornucopia in her left hand, and to be sitting with the knees wide apart and the left slightly higher than the right. In these two respects she suggests a fusion of the poses of the two figures in a Pancika-Hariti stone pair in the British Museum. John Rosenfield has described and illustrated by a rough drawing a goddess shown seated frontally on a creature whose protome (to her right) looks like a lion, while the rear end has the massiveness of an elephant12. On that side there seems to be also an elephant head, whose relation to the rest is not clear (but which brings the image closer to the two-protome throne of the Piandjikent frieze). In the normal Kushan and Guptan coin types the goddess of plenty sits with her legs down, on a high-backed chair. Nanaia may also sit on a single crouching lion with its head on her right; this is paralleled in early Guptan use by a design used by Chandragupta I. 13

To the best of my knowledge this double-protome throne type is first found in Asia in Chinese representations of the goddess His Wang Mu, datable to the second or third centureis A.D.14 Whether this is anything more than a coincidence I cannot at p[resent say.

It may be worth noting that among the wooden membra disjecta collected by Sven Hedin at Lou-lan, the old Chinese desert outpost, in 1900-01 was a beam roughly similar to the Piandjikent frieze, also being carved in low relief with a squat arcade. There each of the five bays fully or partially preserved contained a Buddha seated in the dbyana mudra on a square throne.15

"F. Bergman, "Lou-lan Wood Carvings and Small finds Discovered by Sven Hydin," Bull of the Museum of Par Easstern Antquities, Stockholm, VII, 1935, p.90, pl.V.

The present discussion deals with the iconographic features of a wall painting representing the dancing Siva, which was discovered in 1962 in the course of excavations at Piandjikent on the River Zeravshan in Tadjikistan.16 On stylistic and other grounds the work may be ascribed to the seventh eighth century (Pl. 51). The dimensions of the figure are approximately 1.7 by 1.7 meters. Its body colour is blue (azurite), set against a red ochre background; the details being executed in white, black, and various hues of red.

The deity, provided with a circular halo and a decorated yajnopavita cord, stands in the vigorous alidha attitude of a bowman discharging his arrow, As is the case with many Indian and Central Asian examples,17 he is clad in a tiger's skin18, indicative of his asceticism19. The skin is fastened at the waist with a knot in front.

He has two eyes with a fiery look, characteristic of his gbora or terrific aspect (the third eye is lacking). Locks of hair hang loosely on his shoulders. He has two arms, shown akimbo. The attributes held, if any, are indecipherable; there may possibly a snake in the right hand. Behind the left arm and left leg a familiar weapon, the trident, is visible. He wears various ornaments: a necklace, claborate armlets, bracelets, and anklets. A scarf with fluttering ends is knotted to the forearms20. In the foreground of the picture there is a eluster of plants, recalling the acanthus leaves in the figural frieze found at Airtam21, on one of which is placed the left foot of the deity. The plants are separated by a band decorated with circular beads, and below there is a lotus scroll of a common Indian type. Above, near the deity's right arm a lotus symbol occurs.

These plants may possibly indicate the surface of the earth, and so make the whole composition a visual depiction of verse 16 of the Mahimnastava, in which it is said that as the god stamped his foot the earth was "imperilled"22. The lotus above may be no more than a decorative motif. If not, the plants and lotus may stand for earth and water respectively, two out of the five gross elements - earth, water, fire air and sky - which when completed by the sun, the moon, and the person of the sacrificer; constitute an equivalent to the Eight formed Siva.23

The deity is placed inside an ornamented arch, supported by two half-columns. He is attended on either side by a seated male figure. The one on the left seems to be a middle-aged man wearing a moustache, armed with a dagger in a scabbard hanging from the waist. He holds an incense-burner with both hands. The corresponding figure on the right, comparatively young holds a chauri (fly-whisk) in his left hand. Both are cald in Soghdian dress: ornamented long coats with open collars, showing the inner garments. A similar dress is worn by a painted figure at Bhamiyan.24

The mixture of manners in the painting, Indian for the Siva figure and Soghdian for the attendants, bespeaks an artist who was accomplished in both traditions. This suggests a lively intercourse between India and Soghdiana during this period: an assumption which is reinforced by the discovery at Piandjikent of wood carvings with figures in Indian style (Pl. 50), as well as by certain other painting srecalling Indian subject matter. Furthermore a pottery fragment unearthed at the site was found to have an inscription in North Indian script of about the seventh century.

It may be interesting to recall other evidence that testifies to the existence fo Saivism, side by side with other regions, in the neighbouring regions of Gandhara, Soghdiana, and Chinese Turkestan.

The overwhelming favour shown Siva with Nandi as a theme used for the reverse side of Kushan imperial coins is well known25. It has been pointed out that the rich archaeological site of Hadda, in southeastern Afghanistan, one of the principal Buddhist pilgrimage centers in the Indian world, bore the ancient name Nagarahara, Siva's city; and that an ancient marble lingam was unearthed in the vicinity, at Tagao 26.

Two interesting Saiva antiquities of the Gandhara area are now housed in the Kabul Museum: a head of about the fifth century from Kotal-I-Khair Khaneh, about 10 miles north of Kabul; and an inscribed Mahavinayaka or Ganesa image with urdha-medhra, erect phallus, clad in a tiger skin 27. On paleographic and other grounds the latter may be ascribed to the seventh century.

An early Saivic antiquity from the Gandahran area is the Trimurti image (c. 3rd century) from Akhun Dheri near Charsadda, now in the Peshawar Museum, which shows Siva as the Central figure 28. There is no need to extend the list of known examples here; however it should be remembered that the seventh century Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsuan-tsang mentions a celebrated shrine in Gandhara to Bhimadevi, the consort of Isvara (i.e. Siva). 29

Other finds demonstrate the extension of the Siva-Sakti cult during the seventh and eighth centuries into chinese Turkestan. Thus the painted wooden panel from Dandan-Uiluq near Khotan shows on its obverse a three-headed, four armed deity, clad in a tiger skin, who sits cross-legged on a cushion supported by two bulls. The discoverer has remaarked:

"The rich diadem of the main head with its side ornament resembling a half moon, the third eye on the forehead, the tiger-skin forming the dhoti or lion cloth, and finally the bulls shown as Vahanas are also many emblems recalling the Brahmanic Siva."30

It may be relevant to mention another painted, composite figure from Dandan-Uiluq, clad in a tiger skin, and accompanied by his Sakti. 31 Both these deities seem to be ithyphallic.32 From the site of Endere in the same vicinity came a painted panel showing a seated, crowned Ganesa wearing a tiger skin, with other common attributes.33

The above examples suffice to show the popularity of Saivism over a wide region north and northeast of Gandhara, connected with India by the ancient trade routes.34

 

NOTES AND REFERENCES

  1. Institute Istorii Material'noi Kul'tury, Akademia Nauk, Moscow: pp.33ff. The author's general purpose is to demonstrate through art the ties between Central Asia and India during the 6th to 8th centuries. He discusses briefly the evidence for the extension of Buddhism northward into Sogdiana, but gives greater emphasis to reflections of secular culture: pointing to similarities between some of the wall paintings found at Balayktepe, Piandjikent, and Varakhsha, and themes seen at Bhamiyan or among the Begram ivories. In sculpture he connects the plaster bird-womanfigures discovered at Varakhsha and Piandjikent with Indian hybrids of the same sort, ebginnign as early as the carvings on the Sanchi stupa gates.

  2. Isvestiya Otdeleniya Obshchestvenn'ikh Nauk A.N., Tadzikskoi S.S.R. (Bulletin of the Department of Social Sciences, Academy of Sciences, Tadjik SSR),. No.28, 1, 1962, pp. 14-26; esp.p.16 and fig.3.

  3. N.V.D'iakonova, "Materials Relating to the Cult Iconography of Central Asia in the pre-Islamic Period", (iin Russian), Trudy gos Ermitazha, V, 1961, volume on Culture and Art of the Peoples of the East, Belenitsky explains the blue flesh color of the two figures as a reference to the myth that Siva's throat turned blue when he drank the serpent poison that would otherwise have destroyed the entire world.

  4. P. Pelliot, Les grottes de Touen-houang, Paris, 1914-24, pls. CCLXIII-CCLXV Basil Gray, Buddhist Cave Paintings at Tun-Huang, London, 1959, 20 (in color) 22; Tun-huang pi hua (T Wall Paintings), Peking, 1959, pls 55, 59 (figure on opposite side of the nichc, called Vishnu).

  5. Mizuno, S. and Nagahiro T., Yun-kang, Kyoto, 1952, vol.IV, pls. 14-19 (cave 7) and vol.V, pls 8-19 (cave 8).

  6. A.S. Altekar, Catalogue of Gupta gold Coins in the Bayana Hoard, Bombay, 1954: see the tiger slayer type of the emperors Samudragupta (p.Ixx, pl.VI) and Kumaragupta (pp.cii-ciii, pl.XXVII); and the Irion-slayer type of Chandragupta II (pp.Ixxxv-Ixxxvi, pl.XVI)

  7. First Published in Wen-nuts' ank'aotz'u-liao,Peking, 1956, 7, pp.53-59. Discussed at length in Soper's "Northern Liang and Northern Wei in Kansu," Artibus Asiae, XXI, 2, 1958, pp.131ff.

  8. Ibid., pp.,132-33, 143-45. Discovered by A.von Lecoq and published in his Chotscho, Berlin, 1913, pl.60 and text opposite.

  9. Isvestiya, pp. 18ff. The chinese reference is to the history of the Northern dynasties, Pei Shih, xcvii, Similar references occur in Sui shu, Ixxxiii. Unfortunately the citations only give the material of the throne - gold and the type of animal form used. There is an interesting ambiguity in the case of the king of Persia, who in Sui Shu and in the first "old" Tang history, Chiu T'ang shu, cxcviii, is given a lion throne. In Pei shih and in the Northern Chou history, Chou shu, 1, he is said to sit on "a golden ram daies".

  10. A.U. Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, London and New York, 1938, pls.203,239A, 239B.

  11. A. and Y.Godard and J. Hackin, Antiquities bouddhiques de Bamiyan, Paris, 1928,p.67, fig.25.

  12. Rosenfield, The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967, fig.14, p.114.

  13. Altekar, pl.1 (Coin of chandragupta 1); Rosenfield, figs, pp.84, 90.

  14. E.G. Liu chih-yuan, Shu ch'uan Han tai t'u-hsiang chuan I-shu (Han Dynasty Figured Tiles in the Provincial Museum of Szechwan), Peking, 1958, figs. 67, 68. There the lwo protomes are identifiable as a dragon and a tiger, on the goddess' right and left respectively, standing as directional symbols for east and west. Since she sits crosslegged on a low dais, the proportions of the whole are necessarily different from the latter Central Asian throned versions. It is intriguing to remember that His Wang Mu was for the Han Chinese a goddess of the remote est.

  15. F. Bergman, 'Lou-lan Wood Carvings and Small Finds Discovered by Hedin," Bulletin of the Museum for Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, VII, 1935, p.90, pl.V.

  16. During my visit to Leningrad in April, 1965, Professor A.M. Belenickij, the leader of the present excavations in Piandjikent, very kindly supplied me with a photo of the drawing of this siva figure, and gave his kind permission for me to write on this subject. I am grateful for his courtesy in this regard.

  17. E.g. the images of the dancing siva in caves 14 and 21, Ellora (ca.7th century): from the durga Temple, Aihole (ca.6th-7th centuries): and the two Dandan-Uliq icons of a three headed deity, identified by some scholars as Siva (Sir M.A. Stein, Ancient Khotan, Oxford, 1907, pls.LX and LXII)

  18. Several religious texts of India refer to the tiger skin as Siva's garment, one of the earliest being verse 59, chapter 172, Dronaparva, of the Mahabharta (vol.IX in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute edition, Poona, 1959). The passage runs: "vyaghrajinam parigham dandapanim".

  19. In Kalidasa's Kumarasambhavam, verse 44 of canto iii, siva is said to have sat in meditation on tiger skin laid on a mound in the shade of a pine tree "sa devadarudrumavedi kayam sardula-charma-vyavadhanavatyam.

  20. In ibid., verse 46, it is said that siva's deerskin coat was knotted to his body: "Krsnatvacam granthimatim dadhanam."

  21. See Camilla Trever, Gran-Bactrian Art in the Hermitage, Moscow and Leningrad, 1940, pls 39-44.

  22. Cf. Professor Wm. Norman Brown's edition of the Mahimnastavam, American Institute of Indian Studies, Poona, Publication 1, 1965.

  23. It is in this form that siva is invoked in the opening verse of 1 Act of Kalidasa's abhijnanasakuntalam. Plants are shown beneath the feet of Siva in Nahimnastavam, figs. 17, 18, passim.

  24. J. Hackin and J. Carl. Nouvelles Recherches Archeologiques a Bamiyan, Paris, 1938, pl.XXVIII.

  25. See J., Rosenfield, the Dynasitc Arts of the Kushans, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967, Index under Siva. From the legend occuring on the coinsof Vima Kadphises, it appears that he adopted Saivism as his personal faith.

  26. A. Foucher, Lavicille route de l'Inde de Bactres a Texile, Paris, 1942, pp/ 149, 172, 260 365, pl.XXXI, b.

  27. T.N. Ramachandran and Y.D. Sharma, Archaeological reconnaissance in Afghanistan (Preliminary report, cyclostyled), New Delhi, 1956, chapter ii, pp.1-6, pl.11, A.B.

  28. Archaealoogical Survey of India. Ann. Report, 1913-14, pl.LXXII,a.

  29. S. Beal, translation, Si-yu-ki-buddhist Records of the Western World, London, 1906, 1, pp,113-14.

  30. Stein, op-cit., 1, pp.278-79. With this figure may be compared the head of Trimurti figure on a mural fragment from Kuduk-Lol: Stein, Innermost Asia, Oxford, 1928, 1, p. 129. The occurrence of figures of deities from the Hinduist pantheon, especially Brahma, Indra, and Siva (with Parvati and Nandi) among the very numerous Buddhist wall paintings in the caves of the Kucha area, has been cited by A,.K. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art, London, 1927, p.150, notes 1, 2.

  31. Stein Ancient Khotan, I, p.361 and pl.LXII.

  32. Of the ithyphallic siva (with Parvati ) in the panel from Kosam, in J.N. Banerjca, The Development of Hindu Iconography, Calcutta, 1956, pl.XXXVII, 2.

  33. Stein, Ancient khotan, I.p.431, and pl.LXXVIII.

  34. I am duply indebted to Professor Alexander C. Soper for his learned forward for my paper on the Paindjikent siva.

   

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