Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c10.7

c10.7

Finding expression from wood in another and more lasting material such as dressed-stone is a decisive step in the cultural evolution of a people. But the manner in which this step was taken under Asoka's direction, and the results it produced are both of more than ordinary significance. Appearing as these sculptured forms do, fully matured, at a time when Indian art was still in its infancy, and without any previous preparation, is a phenomenon which needs some explanation. The stones themselves provide the answer. The unerring precision with which they were worked and chiselled show that those who quarried and carved them were no novices at their craft, as would have been Indian artificers, but had generations of experience behind them. The shapes and decorative forms employed are few of them indigenous, but on the other hand are obviously derived from the art repertory of another and more advanced people. Such exotic forms are not difficult to identify as some of them are clearly of Greek, others of Persian and a few perhaps of Egyptian extraction. This development of the art of working in stone, therefore, which Asoka introduced into the country represents an Indian offshoot of that forceful Graeco-Persian culture which flourished with such vigour in Western Asia some centuries before the Christian era.