A PANTHEON

REDISCOVERED?

The so-called ‘minor' antiquities from Afghanistan, Punjab, the north Indian plains in U.P., Bihar and all the way to Bangladesh, roughly in the period 200 BC - AD 200, (usually called the ‘Shunga', post-Mauryan or pre-Kushan periods) reveal a consistent and prolific language of imagery. These images are startlingly sophisticated: The plaques, free standing images, mould, pots and architectural elements discussed in this website allow us to make parallels with the surviving stone images from sites such as Mathura, Sanchi, Bharhut and Amaravati. Sites, about which much has been written.

The most dominant type of image of this pantheon is that of the goddess with weapons in her headdress. These come from different regions and were made in different media. In the Gallery section of this website, you will see that the piece from the Metropolitan Museum reveals the context of the type of shrine she would have been worshipped in and what sort of worship would have been accorded to her. The image from the Ashmolean is the most well known one in the world, and arguably, still the finest of its ilk. Apart from having over a century of academic discourse behind it, more recent investigation into this image has shown its importance in studying the special nature of the talismans she is covered with, revealing a dimension of early Indian religious practice about which we have known little so far. The tiny pieces in bronze and amber from Kaushambi and the Northwest Frontier, show how such private images may have been made in precious materials to suit a different class of patrons. Furthermore, the amber piece is of a pre-existing Mauryan style, the appearance of which in Afghanistan and the Northwest is an important marker for the westward spread of this Indic influence. Finally, the inclusion of fine moulds, the type from which the hundreds of terracotta plaques of the period would have been pressed, allows us to simultaneously be aware of "mass-production" for the urban middle classes in antiquity, as it informs us of the techniques involved in manufacturing these artworks.