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Textile with deity
1st–3rd century
Wax-resist dyed cotton
18 7/8 x 35 in. (48 x 89 cm)
Excavated at Niya, Minfeng, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, 1959
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum
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This cotton textile is a small portion of what was once an enormous pictorial cloth. The best preserved section depicts a bejeweled goddess, most likely the Indian deity Hariti, holding a cornucopia. Although a terrifying figure in her early manifestations, Hariti was converted to a gentler way of life by the Buddha and became the guardian goddess of children. She was popular in Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan from the late second century B.C. to the early third century A.D. This fragment's combination of a blue background and white patterns is typical of wax-resist textiles in the late Eastern Han period in China.
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