DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36942#0017
supposed to be somewhere in the Buner valley, between the Swat and
Indus rivers. Pilgrims used to flock to it and it is quite possible that the
.stupa and the adjacent were engraved by order of people who
had seen it. The nature of the building at the right is still unknown to
me. The engraver was a gifted and original artist, with a Gandharan
background. He probably knew well the Swat valley. He used a painter's
technique, 'drawing' most of the details (except for umbrellas and ban-
ners) in white on the black ground. The date relies on a set of Brahmi
and Kharosthi inscriptions, some of which were engraved before the
completion of the panel, and others later. They point to a date between
300 and 350 AD. which is corroborated by a detailed study of all the
components of the scene. No Chinese nor Central Asiatic influence can
be detected. So, the Shatial triptych may be considered as the only late
Gandharan artistic 'painting' we have.
In a second paper, which is more a provocative essay than a true de-
monstration, I suggest that the Chilas and Thalpan rocks have preserved
some peculiarities of Indian art which - due to destructions - are not
attested in India proper but are still alive in the indianized arts of Ne-
pal, Ladakh and Tibet. For instance, some drawings of ^tupus along the
Karakorum Highway show buildings crowned by a sun-and-crescent or-
nament, no more to be seen in India, but still in use in Ladakh and Ti-
bet. The same linkage could be evidenced in Thalpan, where a rock
drawing is identified as the First Sermon in the Varanasi so-called 'Deer
Park' by five monks, the wheel of the Law and two crouching animals
usually called in English indological literature 'deer', one of
them horned, the other hornless. In Gandhara, Kashmir and India prop-
er, both 'deer' are usually horned. Many centuries later, in Ladakh and
Nepal, they are represented as one horned and one hornless deer, exact-
ly as in Thalpan, or by a one-horned and a hornless deer. If these ani-
mals are not naturalistic depictions, but stereotyped /aLswms (see be-
low), Thalpan provides us with a missing link between Indian and Tibet-
an art.
The article by M. Maillard and R. Jera-Bezard, who spent a number of
days working in the archives, is devoted to the examina-
tion of three ^tnpas engraved in Chilas and Thalpan by one and the
same artist, and commissioned by somebody called Kuberavahana (if
this Kuberavahana is not himself the engraver). These .sfnpas show de-
XIII
Indus rivers. Pilgrims used to flock to it and it is quite possible that the
.stupa and the adjacent were engraved by order of people who
had seen it. The nature of the building at the right is still unknown to
me. The engraver was a gifted and original artist, with a Gandharan
background. He probably knew well the Swat valley. He used a painter's
technique, 'drawing' most of the details (except for umbrellas and ban-
ners) in white on the black ground. The date relies on a set of Brahmi
and Kharosthi inscriptions, some of which were engraved before the
completion of the panel, and others later. They point to a date between
300 and 350 AD. which is corroborated by a detailed study of all the
components of the scene. No Chinese nor Central Asiatic influence can
be detected. So, the Shatial triptych may be considered as the only late
Gandharan artistic 'painting' we have.
In a second paper, which is more a provocative essay than a true de-
monstration, I suggest that the Chilas and Thalpan rocks have preserved
some peculiarities of Indian art which - due to destructions - are not
attested in India proper but are still alive in the indianized arts of Ne-
pal, Ladakh and Tibet. For instance, some drawings of ^tupus along the
Karakorum Highway show buildings crowned by a sun-and-crescent or-
nament, no more to be seen in India, but still in use in Ladakh and Ti-
bet. The same linkage could be evidenced in Thalpan, where a rock
drawing is identified as the First Sermon in the Varanasi so-called 'Deer
Park' by five monks, the wheel of the Law and two crouching animals
usually called in English indological literature 'deer', one of
them horned, the other hornless. In Gandhara, Kashmir and India prop-
er, both 'deer' are usually horned. Many centuries later, in Ladakh and
Nepal, they are represented as one horned and one hornless deer, exact-
ly as in Thalpan, or by a one-horned and a hornless deer. If these ani-
mals are not naturalistic depictions, but stereotyped /aLswms (see be-
low), Thalpan provides us with a missing link between Indian and Tibet-
an art.
The article by M. Maillard and R. Jera-Bezard, who spent a number of
days working in the archives, is devoted to the examina-
tion of three ^tnpas engraved in Chilas and Thalpan by one and the
same artist, and commissioned by somebody called Kuberavahana (if
this Kuberavahana is not himself the engraver). These .sfnpas show de-
XIII