Essay name: Scythian Elements in early Indian Art
Author:
Swati Ray
Affiliation: University of Calcutta / Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture
This essay studies Scythian Elements in early Indian Art鈥攁 topic that has not garnered extensive scholarly attention. Although much research has focused on various aspects of Saka/Scythian culture, such as politics and numismatics, their contribution to Indian art remains underexplored. This essay delves into archaeological evidence, historical texts, and art forms from Eurasian steppes to decipher the Scythian impact.
Chapter 6 - Scythian (Saka) elements in the Later Art of India
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object lesson for designers. Their technique was steeped in the nomadic
tradition, and at the same time it suited their practical functions. Animal
amulets with geometric and simple plant motifs, rosettes and stylized ram's
horns still continue. In other areas of the subcontinent the ram's heads
gradually disappears, as it loses its shamanistic symbolism and s茅ance.鹿 In
India, ram's horns or stags are less common in the later period. In the early
Scythian period, Siberian shamanism dominated. There the shamanistic
s茅ance was a symbolic journey in which the shaman becomes a horned
animal (a deer or a reindeer) in order to restrain his animal wife, the
daughter of the spirit of the forest.2 This deer motif therefore ceased to be
irrelevant in the Indian context.
Thus, we are seeing new phenomena or simply seeing the ancient
艢aka/Scythian repertoire with a
repertoire with a
new vision. The obvious courage of
treatment that so delights us and which only the large perception of the
nomadic world can inspire continues to be felt fairly strongly indeed in
Indian art.
1 Gilles Boileau, Wu and Shaman', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, Vol.65, part 2, London, 2002, p. 353.
2 Ibid., p. 353.
