Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c10.s3: The Buddist Stūpa of Piparahwā and Its Relics
Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c10.s3
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The Buddist Stūpa of Piparahwā and Its Relics
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Amongst pre Mauryan relics those found inside the oldest known Stūpa at Piprahwā (Dist. Basti) on the Nepal border, 11 miles from Kapilvastu are most important. The Stūpa, 116 feet in diameter at the base and 21.5 feet in height at present, was built in brick (16"/11"/3") as a solid cupola, with excellent masonry, well and truly laid, containing inside it a great sandstone coffer, made out of a huge monolith with a lid fixed by clamps, having perfect edges, bespeaking the highest quality of craftsmanship. According to an inscription, the Stūpa was built by the Śākhyas, relatives of the Buddha, to enshrine a part of his original relics (*iyam salila nidhane Budhasa Bhagavate śakiyānam*). The stone box cointained in a casket not only some scraps of bone as relics but several hundreds of other articles of high artistic value, e.g. ornamental forms, flowers and leaves wrought in various semi-precious stones as carnellion, amythist, topaz, garnet, coral, crystal, shell and metal (*Ratna-pushpa*).
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6. ŚAIŚUNĀGA-NANDA PERIOD
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and gold (*Svarṇa-puṣpa*), all in exquisite designs. They included a squire gold leaf stamped with a lion, gold leaf stars, delicately carved miniature leaves of crystal and other substances, *Tri-ratna*, gold leaf cross, a coil of fine silver wire, *Svastika* stamped on gold leaf, taurine symbols stamped on gold leaf, small pearls, bead of beryl; topaz etc., a small bird in red-carnellion carved with great skill, an elephant in gold leaf, a figure of the Earth-Goddess stamped on gold foil closely resembling Earth-Goddess from Lauriā Nandangarh, another standing female figure heavily draped, having an elaborate fan-like coiffure, marked by some auspicious symbols fixed in the hair. A remarkable decorative design is found on a large disc of gold leaf, consisting of rows of whorls with six wavy arms going round a centre, an intricate form of *Āvarta*, covering the whole field in a symmetrical way forming an intricate *Vyūha*.
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Amongst other relics are pots, covered bowls, round relic-caskets, including one made of cut and polished crystal with a lid beautified on the top by a fish-design, most minutely worked and highly polished, which gives an indication of the extremely fine workmanship of the lapidarists, who lived and worked a couple of centuries before the execution of the Mauryan columns.¹ [Fig. 44]
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¹ See Sir Ashutosh Mookerjee Silver Jubilee Volume, Vol. III, pp. 425 to 428; JRAS, 1898, pp. 573-588.