45.Fragment of a coping: a winged griffin and youthful combatant
- 2nd–1st century BCE
- Amaravati mahacaitya, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh
- Archaeological Museum ASI, Amaravati, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh
This fragment of a coping from the first limestone railing at Amaravati's Great Stūpa formed part of a frieze of grand beasts, both natural and mythological, alternating with athletic young men. The imagery likely reflects that pastoral people's wealth and power were defined by their taming of the animal world. Griffin imagery, introduced into Mauryan northern India from Achaemenid Iran, was sustained by ongoing cultural exchange with Hellenized West Asia. This tableau, once framed by aquatic lotus-vine creepers above and a Hellenistic bead-and-reel pattern below, points to the hybridity of the imagery circulating in early Buddhist India.
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