Kushan art. Khushana Dynasty 2022-11-10
Kushan art
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The Kushan Empire, which ruled parts of Central Asia and northern India from the 1st to the 3rd centuries AD, was a melting pot of various cultures and traditions, and this is reflected in the art of the period. Kushan art is known for its synthesis of Greek, Roman, and indigenous Indian styles, and it represents a major turning point in the development of Buddhist art.
One of the most famous examples of Kushan art is the sculpture of the Buddha found at the ancient site of Mathura. This statue, which dates to the 2nd century AD, is made of red sandstone and depicts the Buddha seated in the lotus position, a common pose in Buddhist art. What makes this sculpture unique is its Greek influence, as the Buddha is depicted with a curly beard and a draping robe similar to those worn by Greek philosophers. This blending of styles reflects the cultural exchange that took place between the Kushan Empire and the Hellenistic world.
Another important aspect of Kushan art is the depiction of the Buddha in human form, rather than as a symbol or an abstract concept. This marks a significant shift in the way that Buddhism was represented in art, and it reflects the influence of the Mahayana school of Buddhism, which emphasized the role of the Buddha as a teacher and a guide. The humanized Buddha also reflects the belief that enlightenment is attainable by all beings, not just by the gods or by an elite few.
Kushan art also includes a wide variety of other subjects, such as animals, mythological creatures, and everyday life. One particularly interesting example is the "Kushan eagle," a motif that appears on many coins and other objects from the period. This eagle, which is depicted with a hooked beak and outspread wings, is thought to represent the Kushan Empire itself, symbolizing its power and its reach.
In conclusion, Kushan art is a fascinating blend of various cultural influences, and it represents a major turning point in the development of Buddhist art. Its synthesis of Greek, Roman, and Indian styles, as well as its depiction of the Buddha in human form, reflects the cultural exchange and religious developments of the period.
Sculpture: Kushana
Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient. Idem, Butkara I Swāt, Paksitan 1956-1962: Part 4 Text , Part 5. The region around Mathura was also sacred to devotees of Shiva; antiquities of Shaivism and yakshas, nagas and other folk deities, are found there. Early Nepalese art was considered largely in the context of the art of the Guptas, and rightly so, for the majority of the early sculpture which has come down to us clearly shows a relationship to the Gupta style. Problems of Chronology in Gandhāran Art: Proceedings of the First International Workshop of the Gandhāra Connections Project, University of Oxford, 23rd-24th March, 2017. Broadly, while iconographic and formal features elaborated around Mathura have provided the essential source for images produced under the rule of the Guptas ca. Furthermore, the present sculpture shows none of the royal accoutrements found in other known Kushan portrait figures fig 10.
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Kushan art
Estimates of the beginning of that era range from the A. Capitals in turn reflect the Western Mediterranean, Iranian, and Indian traditions altogether. Concerning images with an inscribed date, the statue set up in Sarnath by the monk Bala in the third year of Kanishka I provides a terminus ante quem for the production of Buddhist icons in the round in Mathura Schopen. The depictions of these divinities, Zoroastrian and Brahmanic ones especially, are in turn based on various iconographic traditions. Indian Sculpture: Circa 500 B. Art History 5th Edition Chapter 10: Art Of South And Southeast Asia Before 1200. The discovery of the Jaya Varman sculpture introduces the possibility that the torso is also a royal portrait.
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Kashinath Tamot and Ian Alsop: A Kushan
Inscription It is quite natural that the appearance of an inscription of such unprecedented age would cause some controversy among scholars: the sculpture and its inscription have attracted considerable notice among the scholarly community in Nepal, and several articles in Nepali and English have been published. The body of the king is depicted in a front view, his head is seen in profile, and his feet are spread apart. His brother Ganesha appears as a nude elephant-headed dwarf in the late or post-Kushana period Mathura Museum, 15. Identifying Several Visual Types of Gandharan Buddha Images. Kalādarśana: American Studies in the Art of India.
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Kushan Art : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Kadphises I, the chief of the Kushan branch of the horde established himself as the undisputed monarch of the Yuch-Chination. It follows the development of Indo-Greek art in northwestern India. Mathura became a great center of arts and Kanishka beautified it with a large number of fine buildings. Early Buddhist texts, Nidanakatha and Majjhimanikaya, note a close resemblance between the yaksha and images of later bodhisattvas. Previously, the various clearly pre-Gupta sculptures that have been found in the valley were considered as puzzling precursors to the voluminous sculptural remains from the fifth century onwards. Traces of Regardless of Manichaean influence, Sasanian elements prevailed at Bamiyan between the 4th and 6th centuries.
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Central Asian arts
There is not enough room here to embark on a comparison of this sculpture with the other early sculptures from the Kathmandu Valley which appear to be datable to the first two or three centuries of the first millenium. The Allahabad Museum figure is dated in the second Kushana era a. Khanal explains the pancadeva and maharaja of his reading of the inscription as references to Kubera, Lord of the Yakshas, with pancadeva interpreted as a variant of pacika pancika. A magnificent, almost life-size, now headless sculpture of Kanishka shows him wearing an elegant version of the nomadic dress. For the development of Indian sculptural art, the Kushana period may rightly be called the golden age of Mathura. Almost all scholars except Regmi 1992 agree with that the date is meant to be in the Saka samvat, which would place the inscription in A.
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Kushan Art
The precise location where the statue was discovered is unknown, but it was acquired in Peshawar, and it is thought to have been excavated in Sahri Bahlol due to its similarity with a statue from the same location, now in the Peshawar Museum. Most scholars have accepted this date 107 to be in the same era as other later inscriptions of the early Licchavi period, that is the Saka samvat which began in A. This overview of Buddhist art of the Kushan period would not be complete without mentioning the production of Bactria. In December 1936, Andrew W. Art of the Kushans The term Kushan art refers to a variety of artistic expressions that developed under the rule of the Kushan dynasty during the first three centuries of the Common Era on a territory spreading broadly between north of the Oxus River and the Gangetic plain in North India. Attendant or Bodhisattva This disposition of the two arms is typical of Kushan sculpture of various subjects fig. The Kushan royal clan is shown in a portrait group, where female and male members are represented seated or standing.
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Khushana Dynasty
One branch of this group migrated to the bce the first caravan to carry silk from China direct to Persia passed through territory that had belonged to the Seleucids but was now divided between the Kushāns and Parthians. Mathura School Situated on the right bank of the Yamuna River, southwest of Delhi and northwest of Agra, Mathura has long been a sacred place of pilgrimage in the cultural history of India. Sasanian Stemming from Gupta art is the practice adopted at Bamiyan between the 5th and 6th centuries of painting in the dome of a sanctuary a Buddha within a circle or hexagon. The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Several Licchavi inscriptions have been found there. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Tapa Shotor, also Tape Shotor or Tapa-e-shotor, was a large Sarvastivadin monastery near Hadda, Afghanistan, and is now an archaeological site.
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KUSHAN DYNASTY ix. Art of the Kushans
There is no inscriptional evidence in Nepal between this second century inscription and the fifth century inscription of Pashupati, a span of some 274 years. Many Gandharan works of art cannot be dated exactly, leaving the exact chronology open to interpretation. Stylistically, these belong to the Kanishka phase, that is, the last quarter of the first century a. The non-codified character of the iconography makes the god difficult to identify with certainty and indicates that, during the Kushan period, iconography of Brahmanic gods was emerging and being formulated. Political History of Ancient India. Problems of Chronology in Gandharan.
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The first one is illustrated by the cycle of clay reliefs uncovered at Khalchayan This monument was alternatively identified as a temple or a ceremonial pavilion, and it belongs to a stage preceding the reign of Kanishka I r. Coins of Kanishka were found in Tripuri. Litvinsky, Kangyuĭsko-sarmatsk i ĭ farn, Dushanbe, 1968. These tablets in stone are engraved with auspicious symbols or images of Tīrthankaras. The Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. But his stylistic arguments for identifying the figure as a yaksha are reasoned and not to be dismissed out of hand.
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Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Stavisky subsequently outlined two stylistic phases Stavisky, 1986, pp. Among these eight images is the one which most closely resembles the Jaya Varman sculpture, and which most clearly shows the Kushan antecedents of the early Nepalese material. Some of the stone masons of the Kushana period have been identified by name, including Rama, Sanghadeva, Jotisa, Dasa, Shivarakshita, Singha, Nayasa, Dehayu, Vishnu, and Jayakula. He was a great conqueror and his military success made him master of a vast empire. These religious narratives often include furniture and details drawn from contemporary life. Pratapaditya, 1974, The Arts of Nepal, Part I, Sculpture, Leiden, E.
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