Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c14.32

c14.32

Problems of chronology, iconography and æsthetic achivements of the Gandhāra School are naturally of very great significance in the history of Indian art. The dated images are only four, the era of which is very uncertain. But taking 129 B. C. as the first year of an older Śaka era as the basis of reckoning, the dates of 384 (statue of Hashtnagar), 318 (Buddha of Loiryan-Tangai), 399 (Hārītī from Skarah-dheri) and 89 in the new era (Buddha image from Mamani-dheri), all tend to show that the Gandhāra school flourished in the second cent. A. D. It were really the Kushāṇa emperors, Vema, Kanishka and others under whom the Gandhāra school reached its highest perfection like its contemporary school of Mathura. While the Mathura sculptors have given us several hundred inscriptions those working in Gandhara atliers did not realise there responsibility, although working under western influences they should have acquitted themselves in a better historical frame of mind. However, the general limits of chronology are firm, viz. 1st cent. A. D. to 3rd cent. A. D. for stone sculpture and the 4th and 5th cent. for work in stucco.