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Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s3.t7: Stūpa III

Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s3.t7

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Stūpa III

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On the plateau itself about fifty yards north-east of the Stūpa I is another monument called Stūpa III, which enshrines the relics of Sāriputra and Mahā Moggalāyana, the two great disciples of the Buddha. It is smaller in size; its diameter including the raised terrace but not the ground baustrade being 49'6"; its height 27' or including the *harmikā* and umbrella 35'4". The core is homogeneous throughout and composed of heavy unwrought blocks of local stone mixed with spalls (splinters). Apart from its size the only essential points in which Stūpa III differed from the Great Stūpa were the possession of one instead of four gateways, the decoration of its ground railing and the more hemispherical contour of its dome which was of a slightly later and more developed type. The ground railing has almost entirely disappeared, the work of demolition being done in ancient times to provide material for other monuments. There was a stairway with balustrade similar to that of Stūpa I in style, decoration and structural forms. There is only one gateway on the south of this Stūpa which is the latest of all the five *Toraṇas* at Sanchi and was added probably in the early parts of the first century A. D. The gateway is 17' high and is enriched with reliefs in the same style as those on the four gateways of the Great Stūpa. No doubt, it was adorned with precisely the same class of figures in the round including Yakshas Yakshiṇīs and horsemen, and the same characteristic emblems of the faith, the *Triratna* and *Dharmachakra*.

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On palæographical grounds Mr. Majumdar concludes that the inscriptions on the relic boxes, stairway and berm balustrades of this Stūpa belong to the same period as those on the ground, berm and stairway balustrades of Stūpa I, viz. to about the middle of the 2nd century B. C.

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Some significant motifs on the railings and gateway of the Stūpa III are as follows: Garland-bearing Yakshas which appear for the first time in the decoration of the meanders which in later art are known as Garland-bearing Erotes, in Mathura, Gandhāra and Amaravati. In the Mahāvaṃsa and Divyāvadāna they are known as *Mālādhārī Devāḥ* and are given a religious significance as one of the *Pañcha-rakshā* figures round an ideal city.

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It is also indicated that a considerable give and take and mutual influencing was in progress amongst the manifold symbols and their twofold purpose, viz. decorative (*śobhārtha*) and apotropaic (*rakṣārtha*) had fully mingled with each other. Other scenes include those of Stūpa worship, Bodhi Tree worship, Lion Pillar, Chakra pillar, Chakra worship, fish-tailed Makara with lotus creepers issuing from their mouth, five-hooded Nāgarāja, kīchaka or atlante dwarfs holding lotus bunch, Gaja-Lakṣmī, addorsed lions, bulls, horses, elephants (saṅghāṭa), kalpalatā and several other scenes of Uttarakuru with couples enjoying water-sports and garden-sports. There is a definite development in the number of newly conceived motifs or in the form in which the old ones are depicted, e.g. Indra’s Vaijayanta palace together with the Nandana forests on the slopes of Mount Meru. On the two sides of the lower-most architrave elaborate scenes of Uttarakuru are depicted including Kalpalatā meanders producing ornaments and issuing from the mouths of Yakṣas which points to the association of the original motif with the region of Vaiśravaṇa, a conception which later on was perfected in that of the capital Alakā, the Happy Abode of the Yakṣas. All the above symbols severally and in combination were accepted as motifs of religion and decoration and this was the happy approach accorded to them both in life and art.

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Fig. 77

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Fig. 78

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Fig. 79

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Fig. 80

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Fig. 83

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Fig. 86

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Fig. 84

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Fig. 80 y

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Fig. 82

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Fig. 85

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Fig. 85 x

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Fig. 85 y

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Fig. 87 a

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Fig. 87 b

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Fig. 89

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Fig. 88

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Fig. 90

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Fig. 91

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Fig. 93

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Fig. 92

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AŚOKA PILLAR—There were many pillars on the Sanchi plateau, mostly of the Gupta age but the earliest and most remarkable is the Pillar of Aśoka near the South Gateway of the Stūpa distinguished by its perfect workmanship and bearing an inscription. It is now a broken stump but the lion capital bearing on the drum a row of Haṃsas (Haṃsamālā) is still preserved in the museum. The pillar, when in tact, was about 42' in height and consisted of a round and slightly tapering monolithic shaft, with a purāṇaghaṭa and foliage top as on the Sarnath pillar surmounted by an abacus and four lions back to back; the whole is finely finished and polished to a remarkable lustre from top to bottom. It must have been the outcome of the Emperor’s personal interest in the monuments. The abacus is adorned with four honeysuckle designs separated one from the other by pairs of geese. The lions afford a noble example of the sculptor’s art as seen in their spirited vitality although somewhat conventionalised, the tense development of the muscles, the swelling veins, the strong set of the claws and the treatment of the manes in short schematic curls. The sandstone out of which the pillar was carved come from the quarries of Chunar several hundred miles away and it speaks to the great skill of Aśoka’s engineers to have transported a block of stone over forty feet in length and weighing almost as many tons and hoisting it up the steep hillside at Sanchi. (See p. 101).

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TWO APSIDAL TEMPLES:—There are at Sanchi two apsidal temples numbered 18 and 40 which are of Śuṅga age and in architecture resembled the rock-cut Chaitya halls at Karle. The first is the apsidal shrine directly opposite to the south gateway of Stūpa I. Its apse is enclosed not by columns, as in the cave temples but by a solid wall. The inner and outer walls around the apse were constructed of dry stone masonry. The older pillars and pilasters of the nave are monoliths, square in section and 17' high, slightly tapering towards the top. Within the apse of the temple there once stood a Stūpa which contained a steatite vase. [Fig. 86]. The other apsidal temple numbered 40 stood in the southern area. Its plan consisted of an apse, nave, *pradakṣiṇāpatha* with an entrance in each of its two longar sides a feature which recalls to mind the Sudāmā and other Maurya cave-shrines in the Barābar hills but differing from the cave temples of Western India which have one or more entrances directly opposite the apse. There were several restorations but the two original walls were in the form of an apse at the southern end, i.e. having a *Vṛttāyata* or *Besara* form.

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Their masonry was rough and severed as foundation to a superstructure which was also apsidal in plan and mainly of wood, replaced subsequently by stone pillars set upon the same plinth and ranged in five rows of ten each. Similar apsidal temples were also found at Sarnath and Ahichchhatra, all of which go back probably to the Maurya-Śuṅga times.

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