Apracaraja Indravarman's Silver Reliquary - Form and Function of The Reliquary

Form and Function of The Reliquary

The lower part of the reliquary with fluted surface, carination and small stem and foot is extremely similar to the "drinking goblets" that have been found in good numbers mainly in Gandhara (Taxila) and Kapisa (Kapisi). The lower part of the reliquary resembles the ceremonial drinking cups depicted in ancient Gandharan art and culture relief. Gandharan art of Bacchanalian or Dionysiac drinking scenes are the motifs which represent assimilation of local folk traditions of remote river valleys of the Kafiristan where viticulture and wine festivals are known to have been widely practiced. Similar customs are also well documented in recent times in the region of Nuristan (pre-Islamic Kafiristan) which area had formed integral parts of ancient Kapisa. Bajaur, the presumed provenance of the silver reliquary, was part of the ancient Kapisa. In this very region of Kafiristan or ancient Kapisa, the heirloom silver wine cups with features very similar to those of old Gandhara and Kapisa goblets are still found and before the Islamization of Kafiristan, these silver wine cups were important ritual objects and symbols of social status. Martha Carter associates the well attested wine festival tradition of the valleys of Hindukush with Dionysiac scenes in Gandharan art in general and heirloom silver cups of the modern Nuristanis with Gandharan goblets in particular which is quite persuasive. According to Dr Richard Saloman, "if the association is even approximately correct, it may explain what the new silver reliquary originally may have been. It was undoubtedly a ceremonial silver drinking cup of Indo-Iranian king Kharaosta and later of his successor prince Indravarman who converted it into a sacred reliquary for the bones of Buddha". The Nuristani customs represents the survival in remote region of a local (Bajaur) tradition of ritual wine drinking which, in Buddhist world of Gandhara, may have been assimilated to and rationalized by the cosmological realm of the 'Sadamattas', who dwell on the slope of Mt Meru. The figure of Ibex topping the cover of the reliquary definitely implies Trans-Pamirian (Central Asian) influence and establishes a proof of early migration of people (Kambojas) from the Transoxian region (i.e. the Parama Kamboja of Central Asia or Scythian region) into the Kabul valley. The Ibex motif is quintessentially characteristic of Iranian and Central Asian (Scythian) art and culture. It reflects the arrival and assimilation, by whatever geographic route or routes, of this ancient Central Asian/Iranian motif into the Gandharan world in Pre-Christian times. And lastly, the fluting in the surfaces of the silver reliquary is also an Iranian motif. Thus the Ibex motif combined with wine drinking culture of the goblet itself amply illustrates the influx of regional and extra-regional cultural elements into the eclectic art and culture of Gandhara of the Indo-Iranian/Indo-Scythian period which is indeed reflected in the silver reliquary of prince Indravarman.