Gateway Architrave with Makara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2023

Title: Gateway architrave with makara

Period: Shunga

Date: ca. 150–100 BCE

Culture: India, Bharhut Great Stupa, Satna district, Madhya Pradesh

Medium: Sandstone

Dimensions: H. 16 1/8 in. (41 cm); W. 25 3/16 in. (64 cm); D. 11 in. (28 cm)

Classification: Sculpture

Credit Line: Lent by Indian Museum, Kolkata

Object Number: TS.101

Spectacularly large gateways (toranas) marking the entrance to a fortified city or a monastery were a regular feature of early Indian architecture. The oldest to be preserved, in stone, is from the Great Stupa at Bharhut. While Buddhist lay devotees donated the bulk of the funding for the enclosure railing encircling the stupa, an inscription on the monumental eastern gateway names it as the gift of Raja Dhanabhuti, likely a member of the Shunga ruling family.

This section of the eastern gate projected from the end of one of the structure’s three massive crossbars, the architraves. Depicted on both faces is a makara, a legendary aquatic creature composed of hybrid elements: crocodile jaws, an elephant’s trunk, finlike ears, and a scaled fish body terminating in a spiral.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/761707