In the context of Mathura school of Art, during which of the following periods were a number of sculptures of Brahmanical deities, such as Kartikeya, Vishnu and Kubera carved?

Correct — D. The Mathura school reached its height under the Kushanas, roughly the first to third centuries CE, and it is Kushana-period Mathura that carved Brahmanical figures such as Kartikeya, Vishnu and Kubera beside its Buddhist and Jain images.

Mathura worked in the local spotted red sandstone from Sikri, and it is the school credited with an indigenous, non-Hellenistic image of the Buddha.

Option (d) is the period the question is asking for.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Satavahana — The Satavahanas ruled the Deccan, and the sculpture associated with their patronage is the Amaravati school in the Krishna valley, not Mathura.
• (b)
  Shaka — The Shakas held parts of western and north-western India before and alongside the Kushanas, but the great phase of the Mathura workshops is dated to Kushana rule.
• (c)
  Parthian — The Indo-Parthians, or Pahlavas, were a short-lived north-western power. No sculptural school at Mathura is attributed to them.

Mathura is one of the three early Indian sculptural schools usually set side by side — Mathura, Gandhara and Amaravati. Mathura is the indigenous one: local red sandstone flecked with cream, robust modelling, no Greco-Roman drapery.

What makes it distinctive in a syllabus is its range. The same workshops produced Buddhist images, Jain tirthankaras and Brahmanical deities, so one site documents three traditions at one time.

The Kushanas patronised it. The headless royal statue of Kanishka from Mat, near Mathura, is the emblem of that patronage.

Key facts

• The Mathura school flourished under Kushana rule, in the first to third centuries CE.
• It worked in spotted red sandstone quarried near Mathura.
• Kushana-period Mathura produced Buddhist, Jain and Brahmanical images from the same workshops.
• The Gandhara school, of the same period, worked in grey schist and showed Hellenistic influence.

Common traps

• Pairing Mathura with the Satavahanas because both belong to the same broad era
• Assuming Brahmanical images at Mathura must be later than its Buddhist ones, when they are contemporaries

No directly related past PYQ was found.