Sculpture

This seal is accompanied by an impression made from it in modern times to show what the positive image would look like. The female figure it depicts probably represents the Buddhist goddess Hariti wearing Indian dress and holding a cornucopia or horn of plenty. Hariti was a child-eating ogress but after her conversion to Buddhism she became a protector of children and was worshipped as a mother goddess. In the last centuries BC and early centuries AD the region of Gandhara in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan had close cultural, political and trade connections with the Greek and Roman worlds. The region became a Buddhist stronghold from around the late first or mid second century AD. This seal is probably an example of adaptation of Greek or Roman concepts to Indian iconography. It has been pointed out by the late J.C. Harle that the cornucopia shows differs from its Greek and Roman models, while the sword she holds is not an attribute of Hariti. It is thought to have been engraved by an artisan trained in the Indo-Iranian tradition.