INCREDIBLE INDIA: INDO-GREEK RELATION

POMPEII YAKSHI (LAKSHMI) 

The Pompeii Lakshmi is an ivory statuette that was discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, a Roman city destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 79 CE. It was found in 1938 by an Italian scholar Amedeo Maiuri. The statuette has been dated to the first-century CE.

Originally, it was thought that the statuette represented the goddess Lakshmi, a goddess of fertility, beauty and wealth, revered by early Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. However, the iconography, in particular the exposed genitals, reveals that the figure is more likely to depict a yakshi, a female tree spirit that represents fertility, or possibly a syncretic version of Venus-Sri-Lakshmi from an ancient exchange between Classical Greco-Roman and Indian cultures. The yakshi is evidence of commercial trade between India and Rome in the first century CE.

 Its: Height: 24.5 cm ,Material : Ivory, Discovered : 1930–1938. Based on archeological finds and historian work, Its origin is not entirely certain. It was initially assumed that this statuette had been produced at Mathura, but according to Dhavalikar, it is now thought that its place of production was Bhokardan ( Maharashtra ) since two similar figurines were discovered there.

Bhokardan was a part of the Satavahanas Empire and cultural sphere, although it might have been held for a few decades by the Western Satraps, who may have been the ones who provided an export route to the Roman world.

In India , Sanchi Stupa No.2 with a broadly similar scene of Lakshmi with two child attendants may have exemplified the initial inspiration for the Pompeii Lakshmi.

The Satavahanas were in control of Sanchi from 50 BCE onward. It is thought that these early reliefs at Sanchi Stupa No.2 were made by craftsmen from the northwest, specifically from the Indo-Greek region of Gandhara, as the reliefs bear mason's marks in Kharoshthi. 

The craftsmen were probably responsible for the foreign-looking motifs and figures that can be found on the railings of the stupa.

There is also an inscriptive mark in Kharosthi at the base of the Pompeii Lakshmi statuette (the letter śi, as the śi in Shiva). 

This suggests she might have originated from the north-western regions of India, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or at least passed through these areas. 

Since the Pompeii statuette was necessarily made sometime before 79 CE, if it was indeed manufactured in Gandhara, it would suggest that the Begram ivories are also of this early date, in the 1st century CE.

There is evidence of the then active trade routes between the Roman Empire under Emperor Nero and India during this time period.

According to Pollard, with the Roman long-distance trade, she is believed to have found herself in the city during the reign of Augustus.

The archaeological evidence suggests that the height of trade between Roman and India appears to have been the first and second centuries CE. This trade took place along several routes, both overland as documented by Isidore of Charax’s Parthian Stations, and by sea as the merchant guide known as the Periplus Maris Erythraei reveals.

There is a possibility that the statuette found its way to the west during the rule of Western Satrap Nahapana in the Bhokardan area, and was shipped from the port of Barigaza. 

Rome played an important part in the Eastern oriental trade of antiquity, they imported many goods from India and at the same time set up their own trading stations in the country.

According to Cobb, trading through land routes such as crossing the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia, and through seaborne trade from the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean were used by the Romans.

The wealth of the trade was significant enough for Pliny to claim that 100 million sesterces were being sent annually to India, China, and Arabia. With shipments of nard, ivory, and textiles it is clear from the archaeological evidence, that Roman trade with the East peaked in the first and second centuries CE.

This time period also witnessed a material shift among Roman craftsmanship, which rapidly began to favor imported ivory over traditional bone for use in furniture, musical instruments, accessories, and more. The insatiable desire for artisan ivory work even led to the creation of a politically powerful guild of Roman ivory workers: the Eborarii. This statuette is now in the Secret Museum in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.