Panchika and Hariti were a tutelary couple widely venerated and represented in ancient Gandhara, a region located in present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Panchika was a demigod (yaksha) and the chief general of Vaishravana (or Kubera), the god of wealth. Hariti was originally an ogress and queen of the female nature spirits (yakshis) who lived in Rajagriha (modern Rajgir), Bihar. After the Buddha converted her to Buddhism, she became a mother goddess and the protectress of children and women in childbirth (see M.78.105). The couple were believed to have had over 500 children.
Panchika and Hariti are each nimbate and supported by a footstool. They face each other as if engaged in conversation. The mustachioed Panchika wears a turban, scarf, and dhoti. In his right hand, he originally carried a now-damaged spear. His left hand rests on his knee or may have once held a now-missing drinking cup. Hariti wears her curled hair bound at the back of her head with a wreath and floral ornament. A child sits on her left knee and embraces her around the neck. Her right hand likely once held a now-lost pomegranate, symbolic of fertility and abundance.
Comparable representations are in the British Museum, London (1950,0726.2) and Museum of Asian Art, Berlin (I.1184).
