The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.4

c8.4

¹ Grünwedel, *Buddhist Art in India*, p. 1. But he seems to have gone too far when he remarks in the same place that "the architecture as well as the sculpture (of India), which has always been intimately connected therewith, was never and nowhere employed for secular purposes." That there certainly flourished a well-developed secular art, which was mainly utilised in the building of royal palaces and in the construction of cities and forts, etc., is clearly vouchsafed not only by the indigenous literary texts, but also by the accounts left by foreign travellers in ancient and mediaeval India. Again, the art of sculpture was employed in the execution of royal statuaries which, though at times endowed with some sacred character, were mainly secular ones.