The valleys of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan were home to thriving Buddhist kingdoms, where ancient Indian, Western, and Central Asian civilizations met. Archaeologist Luca Maria Olivieri and art historian Anna Filigenzi discuss a bronze statue of the Healing King, which reflects the mixed iconography of Hindu and Buddhist Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. Adorned with plants and gems, the bodhisattva’s main attribute, a bowl with healing fruit, denotes his medicinal powers.
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a being who has made a vow to become a buddha or awakened. In the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, many bodhisattvas are understood as deities with enormous powers who delay their final enlightenment, remaining in the phenomenal world to help suffering beings. Among such great bodhisattvas are Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, Vajrapani, and Maitreya.
Buddhism is founded on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who lived sometime between the sixth and fourteenth century BCE in northern India. Buddhists believe that sentient life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, but that if one achieves a state of awakening or nirvana, it is possible to escape this cycle. Buddhists refer to the Buddha’s teachings as the Dharma. There are many different traditions or denominations of Buddhism, including Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Scholars also discuss regional traditions, such as Indian Buddhism, Newar Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and so on.
In Buddhist context, donor is a person who contributes to or commissions a religious work of art. This act is intended to increase merit on behalf of the benefactor and is dedicated to the benefit of all. It is also usually done for a specific purpose, such as longevity, prosperity, or well-being; to advance religious practice; or to ensure a good rebirth of a deceased relative, teacher, or friend. A similar practice is also known in Hinduism and Bon.
Hinduism is a collection of religious beliefs and practices comprising a major Asian religion, practiced principally on the Indian Subcontinent and parts of Southeast Asia. Although certain practices may have their roots in the ancient Indus Valley civilization (~3300–1300 BCE), the earliest decipherable texts of Hinduism are the Vedas, ritual-mythological hymns and instructions for fire-sacrifice from around 1500–900 BCE. From around 800 to 300 BCE, new thinkers emphasized philosophical ideas like ritual union with the deity Brahman, or meditation and asceticism in the forest. One of these thinkers was Siddhartha Gautama, the founding teacher of Buddhism. Hindu temples appeared from the medieval period onward, dedicated to gods like Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and Mahadevi. There are also tantric forms of Hinduism, which emphasize transgressive practices and yogic ritual.
In the Himalayan context, iconography refers to the forms found in religious images, especially the attributes of deities: body color, number of arms and legs, hand gestures, poses, implements, and retinue. Often these attributes are specified in ritual texts (sadhanas), which artists are expected to follow faithfully.
A practice of hiring and commissioning artists to create works of art. In religious context patrons were often rulers, religious leaders, as well as ordinary people. (see also donor)
Stupas are monuments that initially contained cremated remains of Buddha Shakyamuni or important monks, his disciples, and subsequently other material and symbolic relics associated with the Buddha’s body, teaching, and enlightened mind. As representations of the Buddha’s presence in the world, stupas with their contents—texts, relics, tsatsas—continue to be important objects of Buddhist worship in their diverse forms of domed structures, multistoried pagodas, and portable sculptures. The original form of stupas was an earthen dome-shaped mound containing the remains in reliquary vessels or urns deposited within the innermost core. The dome would often be successively enlarged and surrounded by a path for a walk around in a clockwise direction and veneration (circumambulation)
The Swat region, a valley at the foot of the in Pakistan, is known for its special place in the sacred geography of . Some episodes of the previous lives took place there, and Swat (ancient Uddiyana) is believed to be the birthplace of Padmasambhava, the revered teacher to whom the first diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet is attributed. In the first millennium CE, the landscape of Swat housed a tight network of Buddhist monasteries and monuments, which greatly contributed to the doctrinal and visual culture of Buddhism. Its strategic position between China, Central Asia, and India made Swat a prominent zone of transit and pilgrimage. Swat was visited by Chinese pilgrims such as Faxian, Song Yun, and Xuanzang in the fifth to seventh century, and even later, when Buddhism was no longer practiced there, by Tibetan pilgrims from the thirteenth to the early twentieth century. It is therefore not surprising that many portable objects, including small votive bronzes and manuscripts, have left Swat, brought home by pilgrims, and lately rediscovered in Tibet and China, as well as in Western collections.
Swat was an important artistic center of the Buddhist art of , which can be broadly dated between the first and the fourth century. At the end of the seventh century, when the region was disputed among the rulers of Kabul (Turki Shahi and then Hindu Shahi), the Tibetans, and the Chinese imperial forces,it began experiencing a new artistic phase. This is evidenced by sophisticated rock sculptures (fig. 2), mainly representing connected with the tradition, such as and new iconographies of , but also with the incipient Vajrayana, the esoteric form of Buddhism that seems to have had in Swat one of its major centers of elaboration.
Fig. 2.
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara/Padmapani; Arabkhanchina; Swat Kingdom (present-day Swat District, Pakistan); 7th–8th century; photograph courtesy ISMEO Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan
Moreover, these rock sculptures show interesting manifestations of intertwining between Buddhist and Hindu iconographies. A cognate production of this art, sharing the same visual forms, is represented by a class of portable bronze statues, among which this bronze is possibly one of the most magnificent examples.
This bronze sculpture (fig. 1), like all contemporary productions, is evidence of an artistically lively period during which strong ideological impulses started coalescing into new visual models. The bronze probably pictures Bhaishajyaraja, the Healing King or Healing Bodhisattva to whom several early Mahayana scriptures, including the Lotus Sutra, make allusion.
A Buddhist Triad
The bronze represents a haloed sitting bodhisattva flanked by auxiliary figures. It belongs to a class of hollow bronze sculptures made by the lost-wax method.It consists of two parts—made separately using different techniques—that can be disassembled for ease of transport. The main part is the hollow central statuette and its throne, in the round, with a low-relief halo frame fixed to the back by means of two removable pins.
The Central Bodhisattva
The bodhisattva, his feet resting on an open lotus with one leg pendent (ardhaparyankaasana), is seated on a throne in the form of a double lotus on a rock-shaped base. The right hand is in boon-granting pose (varada ), while the left hand holds a stem with three inflorescences; the most visible one, with reversed and upturned petals, bears a bowl.
The bodhisattva, adorned with bangles, necklace, armlets, and a tripartite jeweled tiara, tied with ribbons knotted at either side, wears a long skirt (paridhana) held by a girdle with a central clasp in the form of a rosette. A narrow scarf (uttariya) passes behind his waist and over the crooks of his elbows. His torso is nude, with a soft rendering of the anatomy.
The headdresses worn by bodhisattvas usually contain elements that are distinctive of specific personalities, such as the buddha effigy for Avalokiteshvara and the miniature stupa for Maitreya. Here, the tiara features a central spherical jewel clasped by two arched lobes, and pointed crests at the sides, with a central motif composed of a squared gem surmounted by two concentric disks, surrounded by a petaled pattern. It is perhaps worth recalling that Indian medicine assigns to gems a therapeutic role, for they are believed to be sources of radiations capable of adjusting the inner light of the subtle body.
The frame, which accommodates the ancillary figures, seen from the front features two open shrines at the sides (housing the two attendant bodhisattvas), composed of trilobed arches resting on pillars. On the top of each arch is a sun/moon symbol, with fluttering ribbons. The upper part of the halo frame constitutes the nimbus of the central bodhisattva. It is formed of three oval concentric sections. The central section presents an open vegetal scroll running clockwise with seven buddhas surrounded by body halos, in pose, with the monastic overrobe, or mantle, covering hands and feet. The outer part shows pointed flames converging upward. A miniature at top center has a finial’s tip in the shape of a sun/moon emblem, from which two ribbons flutter outward.
Attending Bodhisattvas
The two symmetrical standing bodhisattvas under arches at the sides are characterized by some divergent details. The figure on the right wears a short skirt and holds in his left hand the stem of what looks like a lotus flower. He also displays the usual bodhisattvas’ ornaments and a tripartite tiara decorated with solar symbols: the central jeweled crest features a vertically open lotus flower at the top, while the lateral crests are seemingly composed of disks within crescents. The figure on the left wears a long skirt (paridhana) and the typical ornaments, with the remarkable exception of the short necklace, made of cowrie shells (Cypraea moneta), an emblem of fertility also connected with water and the moon. His tripartite tiara also contains lunar allusions, evident in a half lotus open vertically in the central crest and half flowers within crescents at the sides.
Two small nearly frontal busts spring from the base of the bodhisattva’s nimbus. Slightly inclined, they look toward the central figure. The pair’s role as attendants is explicitly indicated by the fly whisk (chamara) they hold in their right hands. Surprisingly, though, the figure to the left has the appearance of a buddha, with right shoulder uncovered and (perhaps) an attribute in his left hand; the figure on the right holds an upright (thunderbolt) in his left palm.
The Figures on the Base
The rocky base of the throne shows a recess sheltering three animals: two small boars, at the sides, and a roaring lion with jaws opening upward, at the center.
On either side of the rock kneel two simplified figurines of worshippers, possibly the . They are probably a male-female couple. Their ornaments and headdresses, though of simplified form, are revelatory of their high rank.
The Interpretation
The bronze probably pictures Bhaishajyaraja, the Healing King or Healing Bodhisattva. The vegetal stem with three inflorescences (not be confused with the single-flower lotus) serves as the physical/mystical support of what we may consider to be the bodhisattva’s main attribute, that is, a bowl. The tripartite stem might well represent the flowering branch (often of a myrobalan, highly extolled by ancient Indian physicians for its medicinal virtues) carried by Bhaishajyaraja. It is worth noting, indeed, that the artist represents the plant while having in mind the model of the lotus, which he was evidently more familiar with.
The combination of the bowl, the healing plant, and the gem on the headdress strongly evokes the notion of medicine, with which Buddhism engaged from its earliest days, being involved with the alleviation, prevention, and eradication of all suffering. The idea of the healing is embedded in many Buddhist texts, which also exemplify the multilayered historical processes of absorbing and integrating medical knowledge, practices, orientations, and rituals into a “Buddhist path” to healing.
The emergence in the of well-defined Buddhist healing figures was partly due to competitive interaction with other religious systems. Similarities with have been noted by scholars. Vishnu’s connection with physical and spiritual health care, naturally embedded in his role as Preserver, is expressed by the miraculous gem (kaustubha) that Vishnu bears on his chest and is believed to emit healing light. Likewise, our bodhisattva is given a cosmic dimension, expressed both by the flaming halo with the Seven Buddhas and by the combined sun disk/crescent moon repeated on the top of the halo, on the top of the side arches, and in the crowns of the two side bodhisattvas. The presence of the boars and lion inside the rocky throne’s recess further stresses the analogy with Vishnu’s cosmic nature. The different crowns of the two ancillary bodhisattvas are suggestive of their respective identities, Suryaprabha (the sun, to the right side) and Chandraprabha (the moon, to the left side), two characters that often accompany Bhaishajyaraja.
If we consider Swat to be the area of provenance of this sculpture, its relation to Vishnu may be seen in a well-defined historical background, whose most spectacular feature is the Vishnuite temple at Barikot, dating to the seventh century. The presence of this and other pieces of archaeological and art historical evidence testify to the penetration of into a stronghold of Buddhism such as Swat (ancient Uddiyana), supported by the powerful Shahi . Rather than producing a clash between two opposing systems, this arrangement fostered a stimulating encounter in a period of great cultural and artistic innovations. Seen together, the rock and bronze sculptures represent the most direct and unquestionable affirmation of the incipient Vajrayana, with abundant implications for the rereading and understanding of the legendary accounts of Uddiyana and Padmasambhava from a historical perspective.
Brief mention should also be made of the overall appearance of this sculpture, which is transformed into a veritable portable shrine by its aureole. Whether such compositions were inspired by large-scale versions is difficult to say. Given their ready mobility, they must certainly have been inspirational models for architectural structures and decorations of the kind found in later Himalayan temples.
It seems reasonable to conclude that the piece almost certainly comes from Swat, and that its date, in view of the art of the , can be no later than the eighth century.
Footnotes
1
See Giuseppe Tucci, “On Swāt. The Dards and Connected Problems,” East and West 27, no. 1–4 (1977): 74–77; Luca Maria Olivieri, “Late Historic Cultural Landscape in Swat. New data for a tentative Historical Reassessment,” in Coins, Art and Chronology II: The First Millennium C.E. in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands, ed. M. Alram et al. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), 357–69.
2
See Anna Filigenzi, Art and Landscape: Buddhist Rock Sculptures of Late Antique Swat/Uḍḍiyāna (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015).
3
See David Barrett, “Bronzes from Northwest India and Western Pakistan,” Lalit Kala: A Journal of Oriental Art, Chiefly Indian, no. 11 (April) (1962): 35–44; Pratapaditya Pal, Bronzes of Kashmir (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1975); Chandra L. Reedy, Himalayan Bronzes: Technology, Style, and Choices (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997); Ulric von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes (Hong Kong: Visual Dharma Publications, 1981).
4
Cf. the Buddha of Samkarasena and Devashri, dated to 714/5 (Gerard Fussman, “Chilas, Hatun et les bronzes bouddhiques du Cachemire,” in Antiquities of Northern Pakistan. Reports and Studies, ed. K. Jettmar, vol. 2 (Mainz: Philip von Zabern, 1993), 43–47, pl. 31.
5
See Luca Maria Olivieri, “Late Historic Cultural Landscape in Swat. New data for a tentative Historical Reassessment,” in Coins, Art and Chronology II: The First Millennium C.E. in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands, ed. M. Alram et al. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), 357–69, with references. The excavation at the temple is still ongoing.
6
Anna Filigenzi, Art and Landscape: Buddhist Rock Sculptures of Late Antique Swat/Uḍḍiyāna (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015), esp. 134ff.
7
Cf. the smaller Avalokiteshvara bronze from the National Museum in Karachi (NM 1959.444); see Pratapaditya Pal, Nepal Where the Gods Are Young, Exhibition catalog (New York: Asia House Gallery, 1975), no. 75; Zhiguan Museum Fine Art, The Light of Buddha: Buddhist Sculptures of the Palace Museum and Zhiguan Museum of Fine Art, Exhibition catalog. [In Chinese and English] (Beijing: Wenwu chushuban, 2018), no. 3; as well as Anna Filigenzi, Art and Landscape: Buddhist Rock Sculptures of Late Antique Swat/Uḍḍiyāna (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015), figs. 25–27, 29–31.
8
Cf. the fragment of a halo frame, Udegram Castle, Swat, Shahi-Ghaznavid levels (Swat Museum, UD 250). Cf. also National Museum, Karachi, NM 1959.444 (Anna Filigenzi, Art and Landscape: Buddhist Rock Sculptures of Late Antique Swat/Uḍḍiyāna (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015), fig. 28; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983.507.1.
9
See Oskar von Hinüber, Die Palola Ṣāhis. Ihre Steininschriften, Inschriften auf Bronzen, Handschriftenkolophone und Schutzzauber. Materialien zur Geschichte von Gilgit und Chilas, Antiquities of Northern Pakistan. Reports and Studies 5 (Mainz: Philip von Zabern, 2005).
Further Reading
Pal, Pratapaditya. 1975a. Bronzes of Kashmir. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt.
Reedy, Chandra. 1997. Himalayan Bronzes: Technology, Style and Choices. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
von Schroeder, Ulrich. 1981. Indo-Tibetan Bronzes. Hong Kong: Visual Dharma Publications.
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a being who has made a vow to become a buddha or awakened. In the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, many bodhisattvas are understood as deities with enormous powers who delay their final enlightenment, remaining in the phenomenal world to help suffering beings. Among such great bodhisattvas are Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, Vajrapani, and Maitreya.
Buddhism is founded on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who lived sometime between the sixth and fourteenth century BCE in northern India. Buddhists believe that sentient life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, but that if one achieves a state of awakening or nirvana, it is possible to escape this cycle. Buddhists refer to the Buddha’s teachings as the Dharma. There are many different traditions or denominations of Buddhism, including Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Scholars also discuss regional traditions, such as Indian Buddhism, Newar Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and so on.
In Buddhist context, donor is a person who contributes to or commissions a religious work of art. This act is intended to increase merit on behalf of the benefactor and is dedicated to the benefit of all. It is also usually done for a specific purpose, such as longevity, prosperity, or well-being; to advance religious practice; or to ensure a good rebirth of a deceased relative, teacher, or friend. A similar practice is also known in Hinduism and Bon.
Hinduism is a collection of religious beliefs and practices comprising a major Asian religion, practiced principally on the Indian Subcontinent and parts of Southeast Asia. Although certain practices may have their roots in the ancient Indus Valley civilization (~3300–1300 BCE), the earliest decipherable texts of Hinduism are the Vedas, ritual-mythological hymns and instructions for fire-sacrifice from around 1500–900 BCE. From around 800 to 300 BCE, new thinkers emphasized philosophical ideas like ritual union with the deity Brahman, or meditation and asceticism in the forest. One of these thinkers was Siddhartha Gautama, the founding teacher of Buddhism. Hindu temples appeared from the medieval period onward, dedicated to gods like Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and Mahadevi. There are also tantric forms of Hinduism, which emphasize transgressive practices and yogic ritual.
In the Himalayan context, iconography refers to the forms found in religious images, especially the attributes of deities: body color, number of arms and legs, hand gestures, poses, implements, and retinue. Often these attributes are specified in ritual texts (sadhanas), which artists are expected to follow faithfully.
A practice of hiring and commissioning artists to create works of art. In religious context patrons were often rulers, religious leaders, as well as ordinary people. (see also donor)
Stupas are monuments that initially contained cremated remains of Buddha Shakyamuni or important monks, his disciples, and subsequently other material and symbolic relics associated with the Buddha’s body, teaching, and enlightened mind. As representations of the Buddha’s presence in the world, stupas with their contents—texts, relics, tsatsas—continue to be important objects of Buddhist worship in their diverse forms of domed structures, multistoried pagodas, and portable sculptures. The original form of stupas was an earthen dome-shaped mound containing the remains in reliquary vessels or urns deposited within the innermost core. The dome would often be successively enlarged and surrounded by a path for a walk around in a clockwise direction and veneration (circumambulation)
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