This pillar once belonged to the Great Stupa (reliquary mound) at Bharhut. The prominent female in the upper register is a goddess associated with fertility and nature, emphasized by her grasp of the mango tree, which becomes laden with ripened fruit at her touch. With her left hand, she points to an amorous couple (mithuna) in the lower register. In Indian art, images of loving couples embracing are auspicious motifs that symbolize prosperity and fecundity.
Details
- Title: Railing Pillar: Female Deity (Yakshi) and an Amorous Couple (Mithuna)
- Date: c. 100 B.C.E.
- Medium: Sandstone
- Dimensions: 58 x 11 x 8-1/4 in. (147.3 x 27.9 x 21 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1972.11.1.S
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 B.C.-A.D. 400
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2023-07-17 to 2023-11-13
- Bharhut Inscriptions, p. 81
- Leoshko, Janice, Asian Art: Selections from the Norton Simon Museum, fig. 1 pp. 6-7
- Lerner, Martin, The Connoisseur, fig. 1 p. 196
- Knoke, Christine, Arts of Asia, p. 64
- Pal, Pratapaditya, Marg, fig. 6 pp. 59-61
- Cunningham, Alexander, The Stûpa of Bharhut: A Buddhist Monument Ornamented with Numerous Sculptures Illustrative of Buddhist Legends and History in the Third Century B. C., 1879, pp. 22, 139
- Grünwedel, Albert, and E. Waldschmidt, Buddhistische Kunst in Indien, 1932,
- Barua, Beni Madhab, Bharhut, 1934, p. 72
- Lüders, H., Bharhut und die buddhistische Literatur, 1941, p. 15ff
- Coomaraswamy, Amanda K., La sculpture de Bharhut, 1956,
- Bharhut Inscriptions, 1963, p. 73
- Newman, Richard, The Stone Sculpture of India: A Study of the Materials Used by Indian Sculptors from circa Second Century B. C. to the Sixteenth Century, 1984, p. 49
- Pal, Pratapaditya, American Collectors of Asian Art, 1986, fig. 6 pp.123-125
- Pal, Pratapaditya, Asian Art at the Norton Simon Museum, Volume 1: Art from the Indian Subcontinent, 2003, fig. 10, no. 12 pp. 19, 45
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 781 p. 338
- Melody Rod-ari, Journal of the History of Collections, 2015, Fig. 4 p. 485
- Guy, John, Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE-400CE, 2023, Cat. 24 pp. 55-56, p. 56 (ill.)
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