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nature are found in Near Eastern sites (Western Asia), particularly at Susa, where under the Elamite name of Kiririsha this fertility goddess was worshipped through the centuries. Under the Nanaia her cult continued down to the Parthian period and many terracotta figurines are found in the Parthian cemetery at this important site.
It is in this way that we are able to get a link between Egypt and India in about the 7th-8th century B.C. As mentioned in the article, the goddess was taken to India under the Roman impact.
ince29may not be ruled out. However, allowance must le made for other sources of such influences. This night be directly Roman or early European in the 5th-16th century.
within India, two other sources are likely, though it possible that both are quite independent of each othr, and also of the Baubo type figure under discussion. The earlier chronologically 30ţ suggesting the human sex ct is a drawing on a pot found the Chalcolithic site f Daimabad on the Pravara river, District Ahmadnaar, in 1959. Almost identical male and female symbo3 are carved on a pillar of a dormitory at Raisu by he Bhuiya ard Muria Gonds311 So it may be argued ither that the Murias carry on the prehistoric tradition, ir that they have borrowed the symbolism from the igurines of the Early Historical period;32or that the igurines themselves are based on this old tradition and lave nothing to do with the Egyptian, Roman and the Vestern Asiatic influences.
Perhaps the earliest representation of this goddess in ran is to be found on a votive bronze "pin" from Luritan. On one piece illustrated by Ghirshman, Iran, page 02, Pl. 8a, this goddess is shown squatting in childbirth. She holds her breasts--a gesture which is shown on other bjects. It is said that thousands of figurines of similar
291 One of the ways to ascertain this is to study minutely the Angkor Vat and other monuments from Java, Sumatra and Cambodia. If they depict any such figures, than presumably the source will be Indian.
306 Seen at the exhibition in Bhuvaneshwrr in October 1959 and reproduced here with the courtesy of the Director General of Archaeology and Shri M. N. Deshpande. See also Indian Archacology - A Review, 1958--59 p. 16.
314 Elwin Verrier, The Muria and their Ghotul (1947), brought to my notice by Dr. Schuster.
321 A terracotta, probably Early Gupta, now in the Bikaner Museum, seems to depict the yoni over an ekamukha linga, thus giving the symbolism a definitely religious turn. Cf. Agrawala, "Two Interesting Saiva Terracottas in the Bikaner Museum." Artibus Asiae. Vol XIX.
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