Northern India, Mathura, Kushan period / c. 125–50 CE
Railing Pillar with a Yakshi (Female Nature Divinity)
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Railing Pillar with a Yakshi (Female Nature Divinity) as sculpture (Northern India, Mathura, Kushan period · c. 125–50 CE).
Flowers of the ashoka tree ( saraca asoca ) are bright red.
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this sculpture as red sandstone.
The museum's collection notes: This pillar would have been an upright of a stair banister, probably leading to an upper circumambulatory path of a Buddhist or Jain sacred monument known as a stupa. It has the image of a nature divinity grasping the branch of an ashoka tree with one hand and touching her breast full of nourishing milk with the other. The reverse side of the pillar is decorated with a stupa at the top and a partially damaged scene set in the architectural framework below.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The Cleveland Museum of ArtRailing Pillar with a Yakshi (Female Nature Divinity)Original explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.