Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c14.10

c14.10

The Great Stūpa was the first of the Buddhist structures to be erected on the plateau of Taxila. It was surrounded by a number of smaller Stūpas dating from the Śaka period (1st century B. C.) which were originally circular in plan and constructed of rough rubble cores. When these fell into ruins around the Great Stūpa were erected a number of small chapels for Buddhist images which were set up facing the Great Stūpa in a distinctive style of masonry known as diaper. Over these shrines were constructed others in later masonry in which ashlar and diaper patterns were combined, i. e. semi-ashlar in which a single course of ashlar was usually inserted between the larger boulders of the diaper, and which was in vogue in the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries A. D. ‘Thus, we have three clear and distict type of masonry around the main Stūpa : first, the rubble and kañjūr work of the Śaka period, secondly, the neat diaper which came into fashion with the Parthians during the first century A. D.; and thirdly the semi-ashlar, semi-diaper type of the late second and subsequent centuries. These three consecutive types are equally well illustrated in other buildings at the Dharmarājikā Stūpa as well as in Sircap and other places’. (Marshall). Minor antiquities from these chapels are in stucco and terracotta, all of later times.