One Mother, Many Mother Tongues
- Vol.70(4), June
- Mumbai Marg Publications 2019
- 28-46p.
Through a detailed study of a 2nd-3rd century AD Kushan-period Hariti and the children that surround her, this essay looks at the numerous religious ideas and cults that came to be consolidated in this significant sculpture from ancient Gandhara. It shows how a powerful ogress was transformed into a benevolent mother goddess, and made room for a variety of figures from Hindu, Buddhist, Hellenistic and Zoroastrian myths: Priyankara, Harpocrates, Karttikeya, the Dioscuri, the Wrestling Twins and the Phoenician Temple Boy. Hariti thus symbolizes an early form of cosmopolitanism that emerged in Gandhara through an intermingling of the different communities that migrated to this region. This confluence is also evident in other precious objects, found in a storeroom in Bagram, that are discussed here.