Footnotes

A SANDSTONE STELE OF SURYA
UTTAR PRADESH, CIRCA 10TH CENTURY

北方邦 約十世紀 砂岩太陽神石碑

Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, New York, by 1967
Richard B. Gump, San Francisco
Sotheby's, New York, 6 October 1990, lot 290

Identified by his characteristic boots, breast plate, and tall cylindrical crown—as well as by the two fully-blown lotuses he wields—this stele is devoted to the ancient Vedic sun god Surya, whose cult at one time rivaled that of Shiva and Vishnu, and who became prominently incorporated into the Vaishnavite tradition in northern India. He is dressed according to traditional conventions that depict him as a king. His 'northern' garb is thought to resemble that of Central Asian Indo-Scythian tribesmen, such as the Kushans, who ruled northern India in the first centuries of the common era. It is also thought to reflect the influence of ancient Iranian religious ideas, where the worship of the sun in personified form is through to derive (Rosenfield, The Arts of India and Nepal, 1966, p. 43).

This near-complete composition includes Surya's wife, Ushas, the goddess of dawn, standing immediately before him as the herald of each new day. Either side of his feet are Surya's clerk and measurer, Pingala and Danda, carved in complementary tribhangha poses. Behind them are two further wives of Surya, possibly the shapelier Sarenu, daughter of Heaven, on the right, and her shadow, Chaya, on the left (although his wives Rajni and Nikshubha are also possible). Above them, by Surya's elbows, the two archers Usha and Pratyusha defend dawn and dusk from the darkness. At the very sides of the stele's lower half are yakshas squatting below celestial attendants carrying Brahmanic waterpots and offering gestures of reassurance, both pairs representing additional helpers in Surya's benign entourage.

As Dye once deftly noted, Surya's bold lotus blossoms and crisp lotus halo, "suggest both the sun itself and the boundless life it nurtures." (Dye III, The Arts of India, Richmond, 2001, p.136). Such vitality is further evoked by virile youths wrestling the oversized makaras either side, whose conjoined tails carved with foliate motifs frame the radiant halo. Surya's proliferous benevolence is praised by pairs of celestial adorants flanking the halo, offering him garlands.

The softly modeled fleshy cheeks and prominent lips that harken back to Gupta period point to the regional style of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. So too does the buff-to-reddish colored sandstone, the less extravagant array of regalia (in contrast to neighboring Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh), and the treatment of the lotus halo with broad, plain leaves arranged in a circle, bordered by a rim. Compare these various idioms with examples attributed to Uttar Pradesh in Desai & Mason (eds.), Gods, Guardians, and Lovers, 1993, pp. 187-8, 244-7 & 262-3, nos. 28, 62, & 70. Also see a Vamana in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (25.260).