A First-Century Stele from Sriksetra
Pamela Gutman & Bob Hudson *
"Indian culture is complementary. It was not imposed. It was called for from within Sou¬ theast Asia. The people wanted something different on top. " Paul Mus, lecture at Yale, 8 November 1966
A sandstone stele (Fig. 1) discovered at Sriksetra (Sriksetra), Central Myanmar (Burma) (Fig. 2),1 in the 1 970s and currently on display in the National Museum, Yangon (Rangoon), can now be dated to around the beginning of the first millennium of the Common Era.2 It is possibly the earliest Indie sculpture in Southeast Asia. It will be posited that the stele illustrates an aspect of the adaptation of Indian ideas of power and with it the spread of Buddhism and Brahmanism in the early urban context. One side of the stele illustrates three men. The central figure, apparently a leader or a cult figure, holds a massive weapon and is flanked by smaller figures that also hold symbols of power. The other side shows a throne surmounted by a canopy with two women in attitudes of respect on either side.
The stele was published by John Guy, who identified it as a "warrior stele" with stylistic affinities to the early sculpture of Andhra Pradesh and dated it to circa 4th-5th century CE.3 He noted that the central figure resembled the club-bearing guardian figures from the Khin Ba hoard, which influenced his dating, and identified the objects held by the flanking figures as a garudadhvaja and a cakradhvaja suggesting a Vaisnavite allegiance among the ruling elite at Sriksetra.
Hero or warrior stones seem to have arrived in the art of Andhra and Tamil Nadu during the Tamil sangam period, around the 2nd to 3rd centuries CE,4 although they dif¬ fer from the Sriksetra stele in nature, content and artistic expression. A further stylistic analysis and investigation of the provenance of the Sriksetra stone indicates an earlier date. While there are no obvious prototypes for such a stele in India, the massive size
* Pamela Gutman, Department of Art History and Film Studies ; Bob Hudson, Department of Archae¬ ology, University of Sydney, Australia.
1. The authors would like to thank Hiram Woodward, Robert Brown, Tilman Frasch, Ian Glover, K. P. Rao and Elizabeth Moore for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Radiocarbon dates in the OZ series were the result of a grant from the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering.
2. This composite image is based on Archaeology Department photos taken before the stele was instal¬ led in the National Museum. The stone is now supported by an iron frame which obscures some of the outer details. The more detailed photographs in this paper were taken in the Museum by Zaw Min Yu.
3. Guy 1997 : 85-94 ; 1999 : 17-18. In 2009 Guy considered that the stele might date as late as the 6th century. Stadtner 1 998 suggests that the stele might reflect an indigenous style, belonging to the earliest phase of Pyu art. Moore (2007 : 140) also mentions the stele.
4. Murthy 1982.
Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, 99 (2012-2013), p. 17-46