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SEPTEMBER, 1889.] A DATED GRÆCO-BUDDHIST SCULPTURE.
A DATED GRECO-BUDDHIST SCULPTURE.
257
BY V. A. SMITH, B.C.S.
HE date of the interesting School of Greco-Buddhist Sculpture in the Kabul THE Valley has formed the subject of discussion, and is still unsettled. The paucity of inscriptions has rendered the solution of the problem especially difficult. The few which have been found are all in the Arian character.
The only published inscriptions which are directly associated with Greco-Buddhist Soulptures have been found at Jamalgarhi and Kharkai. Those at the former place consist of some masons' marks, the Hindu names of a weekday and a month on a pilaster, and seven characters, read as Saphae danamukha, on the back of the nimbus of one of the statues supposed to be those of kings. The record from Kharkai consists merely of the three characters a, ra, and dé, on the sides of a relic-chamber. Sir A. Cunningham wishes to read these as equivalent to the name of Arya-Deva, a Buddhist leader at the beginning of the Christian era; but this interpretation is too conjectural to command confidence. Masons' marks in Arian characters were also noticed at Kharkai.l
I reserve for another occasion a full discussion of the chronology of Græco-Buddhist art. My present purpose is confined to the publication of the only dated inscription which has yet been discovered, associated with an Indo-Hellenic work of art. I am indebted to the liberality of the discoverer, Mr. L. White King, B.C.S., for permission to publish this unique record.
In or about the year 1883, at Hashtnagar, the site of the capital of Peukeloaitis, in the modern district of Peshawar, Mr. King came across a statue of the standing Buddha, which was ignorantly worshipped by the Hindus as an orthodox deity. He could not carry away the statue, but was allowed to remove its inscribed pedestal. This pedestal, like most of the Gandhara sculptures, is composed of blue slate, and is 14" long by 8" high. Its front is adorned by an alto-relievo, enclosed between two Indo-Corinthian pilasters, representing Buddha, seated, and attended by disciples, who seem to be presenting offerings to him. An Arian inscription, consisting of a single line of characters, deeply and cleanly cut, and in greater part excellently preserved, occupies a smooth band below the relief. This band was evidently prepared for the inscription, which must have been executed at the same time as the sculpture. The accompanying facsimile is from a rubbing taken by Sir A. Cunningham. The record is incomplete at the end, and it is probable that the lost portion contained the name of the person who dedicated the image. The extant portion was read, for Mr. King, by Sir A. Cunningham, as follows:
Sam 274 emborasmasa masasa mi pañchami 5.
PEPPER RA
Scale ⚫50
where
The record, as it stands, consists of a date, and nothing more. The month is stated to be intercalary, but is not further named. The numerals are distinct, and their interpretation appears to be certain; the 274 is expressed by two units, a symbol for 100, three symbols, each value 20, one symbol for 10, and one for 4; and the 5 is expressed by 1 and 4.
The main question suggested by the inscription is the identity of the era referred to. It may be the Saka era of A.D. 78, which was probably used by Kanishka; if so, the date of the record is A.D. 351 or 352. Or the era may be that used by Gondophares in his Takht-iBahi inscription from the same region where this pedestal was found. The Takht-i-Bahi inscription is dated in the year 103, and numismatic evidence shows that Gondophares ruled in
1 Archaol. Surv. Ind., Vol. V. pp. 54, 63, Pl. xii. xvi.
