Carved stone slabs likely used as weights by wrestlers and athletes have been discovered from Gandhara (part of present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan) and Mathura in India — important cultural centres of the syncretic Kushan empire (c. 30–375 CE). Made of sandstone or schist and dated between the first and sixth centuries CE, they are identified by the handles or sockets carved into their edges that allow them to be gripped and lifted. The weights also feature figurative reliefs on both faces, including carvings of deities such as Hercules, Vajrapani and Krishna, which have led some scholars to believe that they may also have served as votive objects or as trophies in athletic competitions. While showing a strong Hellenistic influence, wrestlers’ weights found in South Asia are distinct from the smaller weight stones or halteres found in ancient Greece, which served to add momentum or distance to athletes’ movements.

In 330 BCE, Gandhara, in the north of the Indian subcontinent, was conquered by Alexander III of Macedon — commonly known as Alexander the Great — becoming an important transcontinental trade and cultural centre during the next millennium. All cities built in Asia under the rule of the Greco-Macedonians featured gymnasiums with wrestling halls attached to them, where athletic competitions would be regularly held — a culture that would be retained through the next several centuries. Gandhara soon came under the expansive Maurya empire that introduced Buddhism to the region, with the faith propagated further under subsequent empires. Under the Kushan empire, which encompassed the northern and northwestern parts of the subcontinent between the first and fourth centuries CE, two major schools of art flourished — the Gandhara school, and towards the east, the Mathura school, centred in present-day northern India. These distinct but connected schools reflected a confluence of Hellenistic and South, Central and West Asian culture, with a cross-fertilization of Greco-Roman, Indic and Buddhist iconography.

Similar wrestlers’ weights have been found from both these regions, showing some differences in material, size and iconography depending on their location of origin. The weights are typically cuboid — 20 to 40 centimetres long, 15 to 20 centimetres wide, and a few centimetres thick. They weigh roughly eight to ten kilograms. Gandharan weights are made of dark grey schist, whereas those from Mathura are made of red Sikri sandstone. Weights from Mathura have also been found in Gandhara as well as in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, while schist weights have been found only in Gandhara. This may imply that Gandharan athletes travelled to Mathura to compete and brought back sandstone weights as trophies or gifts, or that athletes from Mathura visited other regions, bringing the weights with them. In either case, it is speculated that the Mathura weights were considered especially novel or valuable, distinguished not only by material but also by their iconography.  

Most wrestlers’ weights feature iconic relief carvings on one or both sides of the slab. The muscular, heroic representation of deities was a crucial aspect of Hellenistic cults of worship that spread into Central and East Asia. The Gandharan weights reflect this influence, depicting the mythical Greek heroes Heracles (Hercules) and Hermes. In the Greco-Buddhist art of the region around the second century BCE, the image of Heracles on some wrestlers’ weights began to resemble Vajrapani, the guardian and protector of the Buddha. Given the religious importance of wrestling and combat sports for the Buddhist aristocracy of the Kushan empire, scholars suggest that such weights depicting Heracles-Vajrapani could have also been offered as votives in sacred Buddhist spaces. The image of Vajrapani as a wrestler would also go on to influence depictions of guardian deities in East Asian Buddhism.

A Gandharan schist weight from the first century CE in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, depicts Heracles with the skin of a lion draped over his arms, alongside a lion. The image references the Greek myth of Heracles defeating the Nemean lion by strangling it, before draping its impenetrable skin on himself as armour and a sign of victory. The other side of the weight with the indents presents a regular wrestling scene with the figures arranged and depicted in the naturalistic Greek classical style.

As in ancient Greece, local heroes had an important place in the mythology and culture of Mathura. Vaishnavism — the cult of Vishnu within Hinduism — developed from the fourth century BCE or earlier in Mathura, from the myths of the Vrishni heroes, a group of five warrior-kings that included the Puranic figure Krishna’s father Vasudeva. Krishna was also likely an early warrior or king in Mathura; over time, as Brahmanism assimilated local cults into its pantheon, Krishna became identified as a form of Vishnu and gained the status he has today in the Hindu pantheon. As early as the second century BCE, Vaishnava imagery appears on the coinage of Greco-Bactrian Gandhara, suggesting the spread of Vaishnavism and its resonance with Hellenistic hero myths. Malla-yuddha (wrestling) was an important display in ancient Mathura; the Bhagavata Purana mentions a mallakridamahotsava or wrestling festival held in a stadium built by the king Kamsa. The Bhagavad Gita tells the story of Krishna defeating his uncle Kamsa in a wrestling match and thereby assuming the throne. 

Weights made in Mathura often show Krishna as a warrior or wrestler — one Mathura weight from the third century CE shows Krishna slaying the horse-demon Keshi with his bare hands, a myth that may be related to the Greek myth of Hercules slaying the horses of Diomedes. Another fragment of a weight from Mathura in the collection of the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum, London, dated to the second or third century CE, displays a warrior in battle with an elephant lifting a monkey in its trunk; some scholars suggest this represents the Puranic myth of Krishna as a boy defeating an elephant-like figure with a large trunk, presumed to be Kuvalayapida from Puranic mythology who was ordered by Kamsa to kill Krishna. Another weight from Mathura shows the Vaishnava triad of Balarama, Vasudeva, and Ekanamsa — a goddess worshipped in Mathura who came to be variously associated with Vaishnava deities in Brahmanical mythology. Some scholarship suggests that martial arts may have been an important practice among the upper castes of ancient Nepal, who were likely connected with Vaishnava cults of worship. This has been suggested as an explanation for the Mathura weight fragment found in Kathmandu Valley.

Vaishnava imagery is also seen on some Gandharan weights: the collection of the National Museum of Oriental Art, Rome, contains a schist weight dated to the fifth or sixth century CE that depicts a club on one side and a fan palm or palmyra branch on the other — a motif that features prominently in Vaishnava art. The fan palm is closely associated with the cult of Balarama, an agricultural deity who came to be associated with Vishnu and appears in the Mahabharata as the club-bearing warrior Bhima’s martial arts teacher.    

Few such weights survive, and extant specimens and fragments are dispersed across museum collections around the world, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the V&A Museum, London; the National Museum of Oriental Art, Rome and the Peshawar Museum, Pakistan. The study of these weights offers insight into the confluence of varied artistic traditions in South and Southwest Asia and the significance of physical heroism in the political and religious ideologies of various empires in the region.