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Stone capital India, Mathura, Kushan period 2nd to 3rd century Sandstone 9N × 18 × 19M in. (23.5 × 45.7 × 49.5 cm) Intended bequest of David T. Owsley PG.2007.49
This pillar capital follows an Ionic style, used occasionally during the Kushan period. Instead of volutes, however, a fullblown lotus appears above the heads of the leonine figures, probably intended as the mythical creatures known as shardulas, which are often depicted as winged. The undulating palm tree placed against a spray of palm fronds is an unusual motif. The leonine figures share features in common with a capital from Mathura featuring a pair of addorsed lions supporting an impost on their back. That lion capital, in the British Museum, was inscribed in the reign of the Satrap Sodasa, who ruled in the early first century. The DMA capital, however, reveals a crispness to the carving that dates it later. The capital’s vegetal forms are unusual. Landscape elements are rare in the early art of India, except when used as narrative details. The floral form behind the palm tree, almost serving as a background for it, recalls the lotus medallions on early
Buddhist stone railings such as the ones from Bharhut and Bodhgaya. Stone capitals from Mathura dating to the Kushan period (the second and third centuries) are quite remarkable since no architecture remains standing and other architectural elements are extraordinarily rare. The Sodasa lion capital to which it compares may actually date to an earlier period. Even though the lion capital quite clearly was intended to support the rafters of a structure, the inscription of Sodasa may have been added later and the capital mounted on a much earlier pillar depicting addorsed lions. Examples from Sarnath and Sanchi were used as capitals atop pillars carrying the third-century BCE edicts of the emperor Ashoka. This capital, however, appears to have been used exclusively for architectural purposes. The capital’s spotted sandstone is characteristic of that used at Mathura from the first century through the present day. F.A.
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