PROBABLY SWAT VALLEY, 7TH-8TH CENTURY

The present work belongs to a small corpus of bronzes which are believed to have been cast in the Swat Valley or the surrounding areas of the Hindu Kush in the centuries after the desolation of the Buddhist institutions of Gandhara by the Hephthalites in the fifth and sixth centuries. Such bronzes are distinguished by the dark, almost blackish color of the bronze alloy, and by the languid and curvaceous proportions of the figures, a direct influence of the burgeoning Gupta style that originated in central India. Compare, for example, with a bronze figure of Padmapani originally in the collection of Richard Ravenal, illustrated by U. von Schroeder in Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 83, no. 5A. See, also, two additional bronze figures of Padmapani, one originally in the Pan Asian Collection, illustrated by U. von Schroeder in ibid., p. 83 and 91, nos. 5C and 9D. The presence of Buddhist bronzes alongside images of Hindu deities, such as the present bronze or the famous Vaikuntha Vishnu in the collection of the Museum für Indische Kunst illustrated by U. von Schroeder in ibid., p. 83, no. 5E, demonstrates that the practice of both religions was firmly established in the region despite the political and cultural strife of the Hunnic invasions.