Art and Landscape

The work presented here draws on the documentation collected over the years by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan of the IsIAO (formerly IsMEO). After the publication of partial results, the analytical study and topographic positioning of the sculptures is now presented in the form of a systematic and comprehensive work. The volume is divided in two parts. The first part is dedicated to the iconographic exegesis of the sculptures, their particular features, geographical context and cultural relevance. In particular, through a reassessment of the available archaeological evidence, new light is shed on their philosophical, historical, and social background. The second part is constituted by the analytical catalogue, which includes more than 150 specimens. The sculptures are grouped according to topographic criteria, which are illustrated by specific entries at the beginning of each grouping. The open-air exposure has heavily affected the state of preservation of most of the sculptures, to the extent that the identification of the subjects could often be retrieved only thanks to cross comparisons between specimens with different degrees of legibility, or between the rock sculptures and other, related classes of materials ? especially bronze and terracotta sculptures ? demonstrably belonging to the same cultural environment. Thanks to this analytical study, we can now date the full flowering of this artistic production to sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries CE, with possible extensions before or after. Moreover, we can no longer consider the rock sculptures of Swat an ingenuous expression of popular faith, as previously thought, but rather the offspring of high doctrinal speculations. The range of subjects (now all identified), the iconographic and stylistic details of the sculptures, the spatial and topographic distribution, and even some apparent incongruities show a strong internal consistency, which implies a strict conformity to prescriptive rules and the compliance with a sophisticated formal language. A related literature, if any ever existed, did not survive. Nevertheless, we can now recognise in this artistic experience the formative stage of new formal patterns of Buddhist art that would be amply developed in the Himalayan regions. The chronological concurrence of the appearance of these sculptures and the diffusion of Buddhism in the Himalayan countries (which, according to a firm tradition, was introduced there from Uddiyana in the 8th century CE) appears now more significant. Hence, the distance between the legendary Uddiyana of Tibetan sources and the historical Uddiyana is noticeably reduced.