Harwan’s terracotta temple pavement

A pavement made from many images

Harwan’s terracotta tiles preserve a richly decorated architectural setting on the hillside near Srinagar. They belong to a complex usually described as Buddhist, but the identities of some figures and the dates assigned to individual tiles remain disputed. The pavement should be studied as an arrangement of objects within buildings, as well as a collection of striking images now dispersed among museums.

The official Silk Road Sites submission describes a monastery, a prayer hall and a stupa, with an apsidal building and a tiled passage for walking around it. Its description includes musicians, dancers, people conversing at balconies, birds, animals, flowers and geometric patterns. These subjects place religious architecture within a much wider visual world than an isolated image of a Buddha would suggest.

Buildings, sculpture and the protected site

The Archaeological Survey of India’s monument inventory records a three-tiered stupa base and rooms built in diaper-pebble masonry. Its list of finds includes terracotta figures, Buddha-image fragments and small clay tablets showing stupas. The inventory records a protection notification dated 16 February 1966 and administrative responsibility under the Srinagar Circle.

These records establish the range of remains recognized at the site. The inventory also repeats the traditional connection with Kanishka’s council, using qualified wording. That association does not date each surviving structure or demonstrate that an excavated room was the council hall. The literary tradition and the physical remains need to be assessed separately.

Three museum objects and different dates

The Metropolitan Museum’s tile 1998.122 is dated to the fifth or sixth century. It measures 39.5 by 29.2 by 4.4 centimetres and entered the collection through a purchase supported by the Kurt Berliner Gift in 1998. Its relief combines emaciated ascetics with figures behind balconies. Kharoshthi numerals are incised on it.

The Ashmolean’s EA1980.65 is larger, measuring 53.1 by 34.5 by 5.9 centimetres. Its catalogue gives a range from the second half of the fourth century to the first half of the fifth. Purchased in 1980, it is described as part of the upright face of a bench rather than simply a floor slab. The catalogue reads its Kharoshthi number as 32.

LACMA’s M.82.152 is catalogued around the fourth century. It measures 52.7 by 28.89 by 5.71 centimetres and is an impressed earthenware tile. These are different objects, not three accession numbers for the same piece. Their records show why the fifth–sixth-century date previously used for this topic was too narrow for the whole group.

The timeline now uses an approximate fourth–sixth-century span to reflect the museum datings discussed here. It does not establish continuous construction throughout that interval, or resolve the chronology of every terrace. No calendar month can be assigned.

Who are the emaciated ascetics?

The Metropolitan Museum regards the nude ascetics as more readily understandable within Shaivite tradition, despite the site’s Buddhist affiliation. It suggests that the combination might relate to wider religious exchanges associated with the development of esoteric Buddhism. This is a proposed interpretation, not an inscription naming the figures.

LACMA identifies its figures with Ajivaka ascetics. Its commentary describes long-haired, naked figures in a confined squatting posture, with paired busts above and geese carrying water lilies below. That reading differs from the Metropolitan Museum’s emphasis. The Ashmolean also considers a non-Buddhist ascetic group, possibly Ajivikas; its older published discussion raises other possibilities, including spirits of the dead.

The disagreement should remain visible. A museum title can sound definitive even when the accompanying scholarship is tentative. None of these readings alone establishes the religious identity of every person who used the complex. Shared motifs and unfamiliar bodily postures invite comparison, but do not automatically identify a sect.

Numbers and the work of arranging tiles

The numbers offer evidence about construction as well as writing. Museum catalogues interpret them as guides to placement. The Ashmolean’s published discussion proposes that impressed pieces were marked before separation and firing so that an intended arrangement could be reconstructed. This is an explanation of how the numbering may have worked, rather than a surviving workshop instruction.

Richard Salomon’s study of Kharoshthi beyond its usual settings examines unusual numeral orientations on Harwan tiles. One example has a sign for ten upside down; another rotates the sign for twenty. Such details complicate a quick reading of the marks. A rotated numeral should not be treated as a different calendar date simply because it looks unfamiliar.

A tile number is not a regnal year unless the inscription and its context support that reading. Nor does a number by itself identify the maker, donor or religious community. Its strongest immediate value is in reconstructing the relationship between individual pieces and the larger design.

Rediscovery, collections and missing context

LACMA’s account places the rediscovery of the hillside remains around 1895, during work on Srinagar’s water supply. It also lists related ascetic tiles in collections in Srinagar, London, Cleveland and New York. The existence of this dispersed group makes comparison possible, but it also makes original placement harder to recover.

An acquisition year describes entry into a museum collection, not an excavation date. The records examined here do not provide a complete excavation-to-collection history for every tile. A responsible reconstruction needs to match objects to early photographs, plans and find records before claiming that a particular piece occupied a particular position.

The variety of images also needs care. A hunting scene or a musician can reveal artistic choices and ways of representing bodies, clothing and activity. It is not a statistical portrait of everyday life or direct proof of the ethnicity of a depicted person.

Harwan and the memory of Buddhist learning

Stein’s commentary on Kalhana identifies Sadarhadvana, the place associated in the chronicle with Nagarjuna, tentatively with Harwan through a textual gloss. It mentions ornamented brick paving exposed during waterworks activity. This preserves an early link between the literary discussion and the archaeological discoveries.

The council tradition remains a related subject, not a settled explanation of the tiles. The museum dates discussed here are later than the approximate reign of Kanishka I. That does not decide every question about earlier occupation, but it prevents using these particular datings as proof that the pictured pavement was laid for his council.

Further work must compare the original excavation plans with surviving tiles, distinguish repairs and reuse, and examine the full arguments behind competing dates. Harwan already offers evidence of skilled manufacture and a complex religious visual culture. Its unresolved questions are part of that history, rather than reasons to reduce it to a single dynasty or label.