Art of Mathura
Some very early depictions of deities seem to appear in the art of the Indus Valley civilisation, but the following millennium, coinciding with the Indo-Aryan migration during the Vedic period, is devoid of such remains.
[9] It has been suggested that the early Vedic religion focused exclusively on the worship of purely "elementary forces of nature by means of elaborate sacrifices", which did not lend themselves easily to anthropomorphological representations.
[12] Most of the early finds at Mathura correspond to what is called the "second period of urbanization" in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, after a gap of about a thousand years following the collapse of the Indus Valley civilisation.
[19] In Mathura, the first statuette were found in strata dating to the late 4th-2nd centuries BCE, and their production, together with associated terracotta miniatures of votive tanks and shrines, seems to have continued for close to a thousand years.
[61] The Yakshas are a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous or capricious, connected with water, fertility, trees, the forest, treasure and wilderness,[62][63] and were the object of popular worship.
[61] In the 2nd century BCE, Yakshas became the focus of the creation of colossal cultic images, typically around 2 meters or more in height, which are considered as probably the first Indian anthropomorphic productions in stone.
[50] Describing the drapery of one of these statues, John Boardman writes: "It has no local antecedents and looks most like a Greek Late Archaic mannerism", and suggests it is possibly derived from the Hellenistic art of nearby Bactria where this design is known.
[70] Since the time of Alexander the Great visiting a city called Nysa in northern India, the Greeks had identified local devotional practices as similar to their cult of Dionysos.
[72] In the production of colossal Yaksha statues carved in the round, which can be found in several locations in northern India, the art of Mathura is considered as the most advanced in quality and quantity during this period.
[73] In later periods, from the turn of the millennium, Yashkas and Nagas evolved from being benevolent, powerful deities at the center of worship, to becoming frightening demonic creatures acting as subsidiary attendants in the major religions of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism.
[60][79] Reliefs are usually rather simple and consist in medallions on railings or balusters, structural elements of stone barriers or "vedikas" probably established around large stupas which have not remained to this day.
[81] The high-relief and skillfully carved sculpture shows a female nature divinity, called a Yakshini, holding on the branches of a tree in the Salabhanjika pose, with a long double braid of hair descending down to the girdle.
[91][92] Another relief from the same period shows a Linga inside a railing on platform and under a pipal tree, being worshipped by Gandharvas, an early depiction of the phallic cult in Shivaism.
[101] Indo-Scythians are known to have sponsored Buddhism, but also other religions, as visible from their inscriptions and archaeological remains in northwestern and western India, as well as from their contributions to pre-Kushana sculpture in Mathura.
Notable among the design motifs in the ayagapatas are the pillar capitals displaying "Persian-Achaemenian" style, with side volutes, flame palmettes, and recumbent lions or winged sphinxes.
[143] In the 1st century BCE, the shape of Brahmi characters became more angular, and the vertical segments of letters were equalized, a phenomenon which is clearly visible in coin legends and made the script visually more similarly to Greek.
[149] The symbolism of this early statue is still tentative, drawing heavily on the earlier, especially Jain, pictural traditions of Mathura, still far from the exuberant standardized designs of the Kushan Empire.
[150] It has also been suggested that the cross-legged Buddhas may have derived from the depictions of seated Scythian kings from the northwest, as visible in the coinage of Maues (90-80 BCE) or Azes (57-10 BC).
[154] The Buddhist character of this architrave is clearly demonstrated by the depiction of the Bodhi Tree inside its specially built temple at Bodh Gaya, a regular scene of Buddhism since the reliefs of Bharhut and Sanchi.
Free-standing statues of the Buddha are mass-produced around this time, possibly encouraged by doctrinal changes in Buddhism allowing to depart from the aniconism that had prevailed in the Buddhist sculptures at Mathura, Bharhut or Sanchi from the end of the 2nd century BCE.
[169] The Buddha is shown with his appearance after Renunciation from princely life, after having abandoned his turban and his jewellery, but before enlightenment and Buddhahood, as he is only wearing a regular shawl and a dhoti, rather than the later "samghati" monastic dress.
[169] The earliest known inscription related to the Mahayana branch of Buddhism also appears around this time, with the inscribed pedestal of a standing Bodhisattva with the first known occurrence of the name of "Amitabha Buddha" in the "year 26 of Huvishka" (153 CE).
Along with almost all the major cult icons Visnu, Siva, Surya, Sakti and Ganapati, a number of subsidiary deities of the faith were given tangible form in Indian art here for the first time in an organized manner.
[210] Statues dating to the 2nd and 3rd century show a possibly four-armed Vāsudeva standing with his attributes: the wheel, the mace and the conch, his right hand saluting in Abhaya mudra.
[210][212] A few triads are known from Mathura, dated to the 1st-2nd century CE, showing Vāsudeva and Saṃkarṣaṇa with their attributes, together with a female standing in the middle, thought to be Ekanamsha.
[215] The famous "Caturvyūha" statue in Mathura Museum is an attempt to show in one composition Vāsudeva as the central deity together with the other members of the Vrishni clan of the Pancharatra system emanating from him: Samkarsana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha, with Samba missing.
[216] During this time, statues pertaining to Gopala-Krishna, the other main component of the amalgamated Krishna, are absent from Mathura, suggesting the near absence of this cult in northern India down to the end of the Gupta period (6th century CE).
The pink sandstone sculptures of Mathura evolved during the Gupta period (4th to 6th century CE) to reach a very high fineness of execution and delicacy in the modeling, displaying calm and serenity.
[207] The first known creation of the Guptas relating to Hindu art at Mathura is an inscribed pillar recording the installation of two Shiva Lingas in 380 CE under Chandragupta II, Samudragupta's successor.
[231] The decline of the Gupta Empire was accompanied by the invasions and the wide-scale destructions of the Hunas Alchon Huns circa 460-530 CE, and an ensuing disorganization of society.
