Tile with Impressed Figure of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples Behind Balconies

Tile with Impressed Figure of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples Behind Balconies

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This tile decorated the courtyard of an apsidal temple at Harwan, in Kashmir. As this site has a Buddhist affiliation, the presence of emaciated nude ascetics is not easy to explain; they are more readily understood within the Hindu Shaivite tradition. As this mixture of Buddhist and Hindu imagery is also found at other contemporary sites in Afghanistan and western India, the tile appears to be part of a larger exchange that perhaps occurred in relation to the emergence of Esoteric, or Vajrayana, Buddhism. Numerals in Kharoshthi script have been incised into the tile, presumably to aid its placement.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tile with Impressed Figure of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples Behind BalconiesTile with Impressed Figure of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples Behind BalconiesTile with Impressed Figure of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples Behind BalconiesTile with Impressed Figure of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples Behind BalconiesTile with Impressed Figure of Emaciated Ascetics and Couples Behind Balconies

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.