Foreigners and Non-Buddhists Drink, Dance, and Play Music, from a Buddhist Stupa Site (c. 100 CE): Art, History and Details

Foreigners and Non-Buddhists Drink, Dance, and Play Music, from a Buddhist Stupa Site (c. 100 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

These three relief panels are from a group thought to have been used as ornamental stair risers at a Buddhist monument. They may have led up to a platform on which was established a stupa for veneration by followers of Buddhism. Phrygians with their trousers, tunics, and conical caps play music, dance, and clap, while Greek figures drink and carry wine. Naked figures and those wearing flowing robes and unusual hairstyles may be representatives of non-Buddhist sects, such as Jainism or the now defunct Ajivika religion. Bacchanalian scenes involving the ethnic and religious "other" were carved on the lower portions of public monuments in this multicultural region through which many international travelers passed during this time of heightened trade with the Mediterranean world.

Object facts

• Title: Foreigners and Non-Buddhists Drink, Dance, and Play Music, from a Buddhist Stupa Site
• Date: c. 100 CE
• Culture: Pakistan, Gandhara, Buner area, early Kushan period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: schist
• Dimensions: Overall: 49.6 x 150.5 cm (19 1/2 x 59 1/4 in.); First Section: 17.1 x 44.5 cm (6 3/4 x 17 1/2 in.); Second Section: 16.5 x 53 cm (6 1/2 x 20 7/8 in.); Third Section: 16 x 53 cm (6 5/16 x 20 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Kushan, Gandhara
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1930.328

A detail from the museum

Wine cups made of silver were also used as Buddhist reliquaries in this region.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard. C. “Indian Sculpture.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 17, no. 10, 1930, pp. 190–198.
• Stites, Raymond S. The Arts and Man. New York: Whittlesey House, 1940.
• Rowland, Benjamin. “Gandhara, Rome and Mathura: The Early Relief Style.” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, vol. 10, 1956, pp. 8–17.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.