Note: This article discusses Asian art in the beginning but transitions to Greco-Buddhist and Greco-Roman art and myth.

I was “window shopping” on Facebook Marketplace, when I came across a listing (screenshot) for a lovely bronze of a muscular, squatting figure with a stern, mustachioed face (left and center). I recognized it as an example of strongman figures often seen supporting temple rooves across East and Southeast Asia. Compare it to this modern example from Taiwan (right) (thanks to this page).

This early-8th century CE Gana (dwarf) column support from Central Thailand (left) has a similar posture to the bronze (Guy, 2014, 49-50, cat. 17), as do figures on the base of the Western Pagoda (1237 CE) of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China (right) (Ecke and Demiéville, 1935, plate 12).

Chinese figures are sometimes shown standing, such as on the early-12th century CE Tianning Temple Pagoda in Beijing, China (Boerschmann, 1912, plate 323). Their hands are upraised to help support the burden on their shoulders.

Ecke (1930) refers to these figures as Lishi (力士), which he translates as “‘vigorous knight’ or ‘hero'” (5). A quick Google search pulls up numerous related terms.¹ I present them below in no particular order:

• Fanzi kang miaojiao (番仔扛廟角) – “The foreigner who carries temple corners on his shoulders.”
• Hanfan kang miaojiao (憨番扛廟角) – “The sturdy foreigner who carries temple corners on his shoulders.”
• Hanfan kang cuojiao (憨番扛厝角) – “The sturdy foreigner who carries building corners on his shoulders.”
• Dalishi kang wuji (大力士扛屋脊) – “The great strongman/Hercules who carries roof ridges on his shoulders.”
• Hanfan dan liang (憨番擔樑) – “The sturdy foreigner that shoulders the roof beam.”
• Lishi kang liang (力士扛樑) – “The hero/strongman who carries the roof beam on his shoulders.”
• Hanfan kang dashan (憨番扛大杉) – “The sturdy foreigner who carries the fir tree (roof beam?) on his shoulders.”
• Hanfan kang zhutou (憨番扛柱頭) – “The sturdy foreigner who carries the capital on his shoulders.”
• Lishi kang zhutou (力士扛柱頭) – “The hero/strongman who carries the capital on his shoulders.”

The reason for the constant references to foreigners becomes clearer when you look into the history of this motif.

The Gana/Lishi strongmen hail from India, where they can be seen uplifting ancient stupa domes or gates and rock-cut cave architecture.² As the Cleveland Museum of Art explains: “Repeated images of composite Atlas-like figures surrounded the base[s] of … stupas, which were solid domes, and can be understood as symbols for the sky, which would have appeared as though supported by rows of titanic figures.”

Multiple examples can be seen on the 1st century BCE/CE Western Gateway of the Great Stupa at Sanchi (left), as well as in the famous Ajanta Caves, like this sculpture (center) and this painting (right) from cave no. 17 (c. 500 CE).

The Gana/Lishi strongmen also appear in the 1st to 4th-century CE Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, in what is now modern day northwestern Pakistan to eastern and northeastern Afghanistan. But what’s interesting is that this type borrows imagery from the Greek titan Atlas, presenting the figure as a muscular, bearded, winged man³ sitting in a weight-bearing stance (this page has numerous samples). Here is a 3rd or 4th century CE example from Bonhams (left). Now compare it to the 2nd century CE Farnese Atlas (right). It’s easy to see similarities in their poses: one knee down, one knee up, and shoulders poised for bearing a heavy load.

This 2nd to 4th century CE Atlas figure sold by liveauctioneers (left) has a very similar posture to the aforementioned bronze (right).

It’s super fascinating to note that there are at least two Gandharan Atlas sculptures that conflate the titan with Heracles! One is from the Cleveland Museum of Art (left) and the other sold by Bonhams (center). The Nemean Lion hood, with paws tied at the chest, is a dead giveaway. Compare these to the 2nd-century CE Mathura Heracles (right), which depicts the hero paradoxically wearing the pelt and wrestling the lion at the same time (Cunningham, 1884, 109-110, plate 30).

Atlas and Heracles are likely conflated in Gandharan art because they are known for holding up the sky in Greek myth. The Bibliotheca (1st or 2nd century CE) of Pseudo-Apollodorus reads:

Now Prometheus had told Hercules not to go himself after the apples but to send Atlas, first relieving him of the burden of the sphere; so when he was come to Atlas in the land of the Hyperboreans, he took the advice and relieved Atlas. But when Atlas had received three apples from the Hesperides, he came to Hercules, and not wishing to support the sphere<he said that he would himself carry the apples to Eurystheus, and bade Hercules hold up the sky in his stead. Hercules promised to do so, but succeeded by craft in putting it on Atlas instead. For at the advice of Prometheus he begged Atlas to hold up the sky till he should> put a pad on his head. When Atlas heard that, he laid the apples down on the ground and took the sphere from Hercules (2.5.11).

The ancient Gandharan sculptors who created the Atlas-Heracles were surely aware of this myth and its similarities to the Gana/Lishi that bear the weight of the stupa’s sky dome (as noted above).

Those surprised by the appearance of Greek gods in Buddhist art would certainly enjoy reading about Heracles’ depiction as the Buddha’s loyal protector! See the papers archived on my primary blog.

Archive #50 – Heracles as Vajrapani

Notes

1. Many, if not all, of the Chinese names have concurrent Hokkien pronunciations and specific meanings, but I have only presented the pinyin as I’m not intimately familiar with the Southern Chinese language. ↩︎
2. Coomaraswamy (1927) states that the “gana capital bec[ame] almost universal in mediaeval architecture” (76). ↩︎
3. The wings of the Gandharan Atlas appear to be a characteristic unique to this school of religious art. According to the Cleveland Museum of Art, such figures were “given wings so as to appear superhuman.” ↩︎

Bibliography

Boerschmann, Ernst. Chinesische Architektur [Chinese Architecture]. 2 Vols. Otto v. Holten, 1912.

Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish. History of Indian and Indonesian Art. E. Weyhe, 1927.

Cunningham, Alexander. Report of a Tour in the Central Provinces and Lower Gangetic Doab in 1881-1882. Vol. 7. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1884.

Ecke, Gustav. Atlantes and Caryatides in Chinese Architecture. Catholic University of Peking, 1930.

Ecke, Gustav and Demiéville, Paul. The Twin Pagodas of Zayton: A Study of Later Buddhist Sculpture in China. Harvard University Press, 1935.

Guy, John. “Catalogue: Nature Cults.” In Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, edited by John Guy, 40-51. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014.