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The Mother-Goddess of Gandhara

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Extract

It is forty years since Alfred Foucher carried out his archaeological mission in Gandhara and, while it cannot with justice be said that the area has been archaeologically neglected ever since, there are points connected with material culture, art and religion that cry out for attention. When Foucher conducted his investigations he based these on the itinerary of Hiuan-tsang and he was searching for Buddhist relics. Unfortunately he saw stupas and monasteries in every mound, and in fact stated that ‘chaitya’ (sanctuary) and ‘dheri’ (mound) were synonymous, this largely because Hiuan-tsang had said that there were about a thousand monasteries between Peshawar and the Indus.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1937 

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References

* He published L’Art gréco–bouddhique du Gandhàra, 2 v: 1905–8.Google Scholar

1 Some Terra–cottas from Sari Dheri, North-West Frontier Province’. J.R.A.I., 62, 1932.Google Scholar Notes on Early Frontier Terra–cottas’. Man, 1934, no. 70.Google Scholar The problem of Early Indian Terra-cottas’. Man, 1935, no. 129.Google Scholar

2 A jewelled chain crossed diagonally across the front of the body from shoulder to opposite hip.

3 I have specimens from various sites in the Charsadda and Mardan sub-divisions, and also one reported to come from a mound about a mile from the Buddhist site at Hadda, Afghanistan.

4 The words Cabiri, Kabeiros, Kubera indicate most probably the origin of this god, and his link with the fertility mystery.

5 Archaic Indian Terra-cottas’. IPEK, 1928.Google Scholar

6 A male head with a large moustache of a very Scythian or Parthian style has been found, having also the characteristic applied incised eyes. It is a grotesque applied to the neck of a terra–cotta flask, and its dating, late ist century B.C.

7 A coin of Archebios of Drangiana has recently been found.

8 Plate xix, fig. 2, A.s.i.R., 1928–29, shows a figure from the same site and of the same dating with similar archaic features in only a slightly less degree.

9 These are almost certainly the same figures as are present in the coins of Azes and classed as ‘enthroned Demeter and Hermes’. . The coins also of Philoxenos showing Demeter and a bull, and a city goddess (Cybele-Hariti) and a bull may be instanced as showing a connexion with the bull cult.