Wonderful lecture, Naman Ahuja brought to life these objects which were more fascinating, the humbler and more everyday they are. Marjorie and Randolph Boxall, who nurtured him and supported his research would be very proud.
To answer from the live chat: Why is the 'Oxford' 'goddess', a deity rather than a portrait of a wealthy and powerful woman? FIgures with a similar attire are sometimes found standing on a lotus, clearly indicating that she is associated with either transcendence or provider of fertilising water. One example has been found depicted on the railing of a Buddhist stupa, a location which is normally reserved for yakshis; and in at least one case, a little plaque made of gold that showed a woman with the same headdress was found inside a relic casket buried with sacred ashes in a stupa. All these insances indicate that this represents a cultic figure rather than a real person. - Prof Naman P Ahuja
Congratulations, Naman: fascinating material, beautifully presented -- instructive and amusing. Not sure that your cavalier approach to scratching and dowsing painted fragments would count as best practice now, but wonderfully engaging. Thank you!
Fascinating and enlightening! You have opened up windows to so many hitherto unknowns of our lineage. Never realized identifying and periodising the artefacts need so much detective work. Thanks a lot.
The Oxford Yakshi to my ordinary mind looks like a south indian sculpture even though she very much resembles a Kushana period item. The side hair style is very much like Andal's "Kondai" a Juda. The weapons look like the ones which Durga has at say the Gangaikonda Chozapuram temple. That she was found at Vietnam could be because the Chozha kings were going to Cambodia and all these eastern little kingdoms.
Yes, it is indeed posible that the weapon shaped hairpins are more likely to be talismans that adorn these figures. A productive door in scholarship/ interpretation can open for us once we accept this as a significant system of costuming-- one that is cultically charged but not necessarily iconographic. In that case, the same talismans can be possessed by a variety of figures who may display different iconographies. - Prof Naman P Ahuja
To answer from the live chat, by Coonoor Kripalani-Thadani : Who were the people who were buried rather than being cremated? Many Protohistoric burials have been found in South Asia, associated with what are commonly called the Iron and Bronze ages. Some even extend into the early historic period. Sometimes the burials contained entire skeletons, and other times, cremated remains are interred in pots.There is good reason to believe that the Buddhist custom of erecting stupas over cremated relics derived from such older practices. In Hinduism as well, siddhas (the most elevated of gurus or swamis) are sometimes buried rather than the common practice of cremation. - Prof Naman P Ahuja
A delight to hear him ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Nice
Wonderful lecture, Naman Ahuja brought to life these objects which were more fascinating, the humbler and more everyday they are. Marjorie and Randolph Boxall, who nurtured him and supported his research would be very proud.
To answer from the live chat: Why is the 'Oxford' 'goddess', a deity rather than a portrait of a wealthy and powerful woman?
FIgures with a similar attire are sometimes found standing on a lotus, clearly indicating that she is associated with either transcendence or provider of fertilising water. One example has been found depicted on the railing of a Buddhist stupa, a location which is normally reserved for yakshis; and in at least one case, a little plaque made of gold that showed a woman with the same headdress was found inside a relic casket buried with sacred ashes in a stupa. All these insances indicate that this represents a cultic figure rather than a real person. - Prof Naman P Ahuja
Congratulations, Naman: fascinating material, beautifully presented -- instructive and amusing. Not sure that your cavalier approach to scratching and dowsing painted fragments would count as best practice now, but wonderfully engaging. Thank you!
Fascinating and enlightening! You have opened up windows to so many hitherto unknowns of our lineage. Never realized identifying and periodising the artefacts need so much detective work. Thanks a lot.
The Oxford Yakshi to my ordinary mind looks like a south indian sculpture even though she very much resembles a Kushana period item. The side hair style is very much like Andal's "Kondai" a Juda. The weapons look like the ones which Durga has at say the Gangaikonda Chozapuram temple. That she was found at Vietnam could be because the Chozha kings were going to Cambodia and all these eastern little kingdoms.
Yes, it is indeed posible that the weapon shaped hairpins are more likely to be talismans that adorn these figures. A productive door in scholarship/ interpretation can open for us once we accept this as a significant system of costuming-- one that is cultically charged but not necessarily iconographic. In that case, the same talismans can be possessed by a variety of figures who may display different iconographies. - Prof Naman P Ahuja
To answer from the live chat, by Coonoor Kripalani-Thadani : Who were the people who were buried rather than being cremated?
Many Protohistoric burials have been found in South Asia, associated with what are commonly called the Iron and Bronze ages. Some even extend into the early historic period. Sometimes the burials contained entire skeletons, and other times, cremated remains are interred in pots.There is good reason to believe that the Buddhist custom of erecting stupas over cremated relics derived from such older practices. In Hinduism as well, siddhas (the most elevated of gurus or swamis) are sometimes buried rather than the common practice of cremation. - Prof Naman P Ahuja