Page 25 - Met Museum Ghandara Incense Burner

Figure 44. Maitreya altarpiece. China, Hebei Province, Northern Figure 45. Boshanlu (mountain censer). China, Eastern
Wei dynasty, dated a.d. 524. Bronze with gilding, H. 76. 9 cm. The Han dynasty, a.d. 25-220. Earthenware with relief decora-
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1938 (38.158.1a-n) tion, remains of pigments, H. 22.2 cm. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Gift of Florance Waterbury, 1965 (65.74.2)

the shrine is being worshipped. There, (the light) is to been previously frowned upon. For we know that on
be settled, when one has let it go out, so that no evil the point of their conversion to Buddhism the follow-
at Uruvilva threw their ritual
may turn up, when, at the time of mental concentra- ers of Kasyapa objects for
is
tion, (the light), fading away, destroyed."126 the agnihotra (fire ritual) into the river.129
Theravada Buddhism was a renunciant
Early religion. One of the most important lessons we have learned
Without financial support, largely from the mercantile in this study is how very accurate Gandharan reliefs
it would have died out. In order to
community, keep the are, for the open incense burner shown in Figure 41
community alive there gradually developed a series of certainly illustrates a burner very close to the Levy-
functions for the lay community, ultimately White bronze example. Such burners must have been
who were
to
supposed provide sustenance for the monks. As we extremely precious, as they were included in the
we
mean fire. Fire rituals reliefs
use the term "lamp," certainly despite the fact that they were made as incense
go back to ancient Indian times, and even today they are burners, not lamps. Their prototypes arrived via the
part of the marriage ceremony. That these burners are sea route through Egypt, and we are certainly not sur-
shown in Gandharan art being used in worship at the prised that Hellenistic prototypes were copied in the
base of Buddhist images often indicates that a lay prac- very cosmopolitan environment of Taxila. The form of
1 27 The first of these
tice was being performed. many rit- the burner became Indianized, and then died out.
uals was that of pilgrimage worship stupa, But in using the Hellenized burners in "their reliefs,
of the
and the
which was in fact sanctioned the Buddha before his the monastic community was demonstrating their
by
who
for the
death.128 As time passed many Hindu and popular rit- appreciation great mercantile community,
uals were included, even the use of fire, though it had imported incense burners and adapted them in a
93