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The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c7: The Eastern Gate of the Sânchî Stûpa

The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c7

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The Eastern Gate of the Sânchî Stûpa

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¹ Lecture at the Musée Guimet, in *Bibliothèque de Vulgarisation du Musée Guimet*, vol. XXXIV, 1910.

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The visitor to the Indian Museum in London, the Musée Guimet in Paris, or the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, cannot fail to notice among the objects therein exhibited a monumental gate covered with bas-reliefs; but there is every chance in the world that he will confine himself to casting a quick, heedless glance towards it in passing. A reproduction of a remote Indian original, this moulding naturally cannot have any claim to speak to our European eyes or to awaken in our minds the remembrance of any traditional legend. But then let us bring before it any native of India; he will remain as puzzled and, if he is candid, as silent as we. Do not, however, hastily conclude from this that these sculptures have never had any meaning for anyone, because to-day their compatriots themselves no longer understand anything about them. Only imagine a similar experiment to be tried with us, and that we were set down, for example, before one of the porches of the cathedral of Chartres; how many would be able to read without preparation in the magnificent illustrated Bible so suddenly opened before them? You know that in the eighteenth century no one would have been found capable of this: and in the nineteenth it required a whole phalanx of patient investigators to rediscover the lost meaning of the scenes and figures painted on the windows, or carved under the vaults, by our image-makers of the Middle Ages. The conditions are exactly the same for this Ga e of Sânchî; with time the subject of its bas-reliefs has ended by becoming, even for the descendants of those who once built or carved it, a veritable enigma. I invite you to join me in investigating its meaning.

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I will add that, disagreeable or not, this research is a kind of obligation, which we may no longer with decency shirk. It was in fact the original building, and not the reproduction, that just missed coming to Paris. In 1867-8 the Begum of Bhopâl was instigated to offer to the Emperor of the French one of the four great gates of the *stûpa* of Sânchî, that is to say, a portion of the most beautiful, and even of the unique architectural whole that we have retained from Ancient India. The Begum, indifferent, desired nothing better; but the English resident intervened, and this act of vandalism — we are all the more ready after this lapse of time to designate it as such, since the project fell through — was fortunately not perpetrated(¹). However, the Anglo-Indian government understood that there were there archæological remains capable of arousing the interest of artists and scholars. From 1869 it caused to be executed at great cost several mouldings of the eastern gate, one of the only two which had remained standing; and with great liberality it divided them between London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, Paris, etc. The one which fell to our share had already known some vicissitudes, till at last it found an asylum — if not a shelter — in the courtyard of the Musée Guimet. On the other hand, this costly and somewhat embarrassing present

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(¹) See ROUSSELET, *L'Inde des Rajahs*, pp. 522-25 and cf. H. COLE, *Great Buddhist Tope at Sanchi*, introd. (*Tope* is the Anglo-Indian equivalent of the Sanskrit *stûpa*)

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has not yet been made in France the object of any special study. It is this too prolonged neglect that we are about to endeavour to repair.

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*The Great Sânchî Stûpa.* — The numerous ruins which are scattered over the environs of the village of Sânchî-Kânâ-keda (in Sanskrit Kâkanâda), near to Bhilsa, are situated right in the heart of Central India, on the ancient commercial highway between Pâtaliputra (Πατλίβοθρα, Patna), the capital of the Maurya emperors, and Bharukaccha (Βαρύγαζα, Bharotch or Broach) by way of Ujjayinî (Ὀζήνη, Ujjain). Sânchî has now become a station of the Indian Midland Railway, and the expresses stop there by request to set down a few tourists. But it is doubtless to the abandonment of the ancient route and to the subsequent thinning of the population that the ancient Buddhist sanctuaries with which the rocky hill is crowned have owed their exceptional escape from the fanaticism of the Musalman invaders as well as the cupidity of the modern Hindus. Whilst at 300 kilometres to the North-East the contemporary and quite analogous stûpa of Barhut, with which we shall so often have to compare it, had been three parts destroyed by the villagers of the neighbourhood, who made a business of exploiting it, the principal monument at Sânchî was still in an excellent state of preservation when it was visited for the first time, in 1818, by General Taylor and described in 1819 by Captain Fell. In compensation, it had much to suffer three years later from the brutal excavations inflicted upon it, without mercy for art and without profit to science, by some English amateurs (¹). From 1881 to 1883 the Archæological Department exerted itself to repair as well as possible this grievous devastation. They closed up the enormous, gaping breach, which had been made in one third of the central dome, under pretext of ascertaining whether it were solid or hollow; they reërected (placing, it is true, several of the lintels so as to face backwards and overlooking in the debris some fragments of the jambs) the southern and western gates, the second of which had fallen only under the weight of the rubbish thoughtlessly thrown upon it; finally, with a zeal almost excessive, they cleared the whole site, without sparing a single tree. Fig. 1 in pl. VII, a kind of horseback view taken from the east in the rising sun, will explain to you better than long descriptions the state and general aspect of the building (²).

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¹ On all these points, see the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*, III, 1834, p. 489, and IV, 1835, p. 71.

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² I owe the communication of this photograph and the following ones to the kindness of Mr. J. H. MARSHALL, the distinguished Director General of Archæology in India.

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Like every old *stûpa*, it is composed essentially of a massive hemispherical dome, raised upon a pediment likewise circular, which was reached by a flight of steps. The whole was made of bricks covered with a stone facing, which in its turn was overlaid with a thick layer of mortar, still existing in places. The terrace, in this case 4m,25 high and 1m,70 wide, served evidently as a promenade for the perambulations of the faithful. The dome — a kind of giant reliquary, though in the particular case the deposit of relics has never been discovered — measures 12m,80 in height, with a diameter of 32m,30. The only element to-day lacking to this developed tumulus is the architectural motif which served as a crown : but in thought it is easy to complete the whole by the aid of the bas-reliefs (see pl. VII, 2). They frequently reproduce the characteristic silhouette of this pinnacle, with the honorific parasol surmounting it, which must have raised the total height to about 25 metres.

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According to the invariable custom in India this sanctuary is surrounded by a stone railing, which protected it from profanation, and which, in spite of its massive weight, is evidently an imitation of a wooden fence. In form slightly oblong, it measures across from east to west 43m,60, and from north to south 1m,10 more, in order to leave room for the flight of steps. In the uprights, 3m,10 high, were fixed with mortises and tenons three cross-bars and one coping, the latter 0m,68 high. At the four cardinal points an opening was arranged in such a way that the breach was not apparent to the eye, masked as it was in each case by a double elbow in the enclosure. When it was thought to add fronting doors to these slanting entrances, it was necessary to attach the right jamb of each of these latter to the railing by a joint at right angles : in this way were formed four rectangular vestibules, shut in at the sides, and with the front and back faces corresponding alternately as regards rail and opening.

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These four gates, or toranas, of almost unvarying dimensions and arrangements, are likewise the work of carpenters rather than of masons; and it is even surprising that they should have had the boldness to execute them in stone. They rest on two square pillars, 0m,68 broad, 4 metres in height, with an interval of 2m,15. These two jambs are surmounted by two great capitals, 1m,25 in height and decorated in one case with dwarfs, in another with lions, and in two with elephants. These latter in their turn support no less than three lintels slightly curved, projecting on the two sides, these lateral projections becoming smaller and smaller, doubtless in order to accentuate the impression of height in the whole (cf. pl. VIII, 1). The entire construction attains a height of about 10 metres, without reckoning the mystic symbols at the summit. Caryatides of a fairly successful outline connect the outer side of the capitals with the first architrave; other figures of men, women, horses with their riders, elephants with their drivers formerly adorned the spaces of the blocks which separate the lintels. It should be remarked at once that these statues are almost the only pieces of sculpture finished in full relief that ancient India has bequeathed to us; most frequently the images even of divinities, such as those which here decorate the bases of the uprights, were not entirely detached from the stone whence the artists' chisel had elicited them. Then again, lintels, coins and jambs have all their visible faces covered with bas-reliefs. The question is to discover what these sculptures represent.

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*Means of Identification.* — At first sight the problem seems to be susceptible of the most simple solution. In fact one sees almost everywhere *graffiti*, deeply incised in the ancient Indian alphabet, which, like ours, reads from left to right; it seems then that we have only to come close and decipher them. But, in proportion as we advance in this task, our hope of finding the kind of information which we are seeking diminishes. All that we can learn from each of the *circa* 375 inscriptions cut in the railing and in the gates (¹) is that a certain individual or a certain guild made a gift of such and such an upright or cross-bar, in short, of the piece on which, precisely in order that no one might be ignorant of the fact, they have taken care to have their names inscribed. As a type we may take the one displayed right in the middle of the façade of the left jamb of the eastern gate; it tells us simply :

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¹ These inscriptions have last been studied by G. BÜHLER in *Epigraphia Indica*, vol. II, pp. 87 sqq. ; 366 sqq.

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Korarasa Nâgapiyasa Acchâvaḍe sethisa dânaṃ thabo : « (This) « pillar (is the) gift of the banker of Acchâvaḍa, Nâgapiya, « a native of Kurara ».

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Certainly these indications are far from being entirely devoid of interest. First of all, they tell us that, if not the monument itself, at least its enclosure was built by public subscription, with special appropriation of the contributions, as in certain modern religious foundations. Moreover these votive and somewhat ostentatious epigraphs enlighten us indirectly on many points — for example, as regards the social condition of the individual subscribers, who nearly all belong to the middle class, merchants and bankers, the class from which the Buddhist laity were most freely recruited; or again, concerning the details of the artistic execution, as when one of the jambs of the southern gate is given us as an offering in kind, the chef-d’œuvre, and at the same time the ex-voto, of the carvers in ivory of the neighbouring town of Vidiçâ; or lastly, concerning the date of the sculptures, which the incidental mention on this same gate of the reigning king Sâtakaṇi allows us to connect with the second, or first, century before the Christian era. But, as regards the subject of the scenes represented, the inscriptions and their engravers are aggravatingly silent. Evidently the sculptors of Sânchî, as a means of ensuring at all periods the comprehension of their work, counted on their artistic talent as illustrators: wherein they showed themselves much less far-seeing and less modest than their confreres who had just decorated the balustrade of Barhut, and who had not considered it futile to engrave on the stone the titles of their bas-reliefs.

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It is as well to state at once that an analogy with a later and well-known motif, a characteristic detail awakening the remembrance of a text, a determinate number of objects forming a traditional group, all these helps and others besides would, no doubt, in the end have opened a way to the interpretation of some of the Sânchî panels; but it is doubtful if these isolated discoveries would ever have gone beyond the stage of ingenious hypotheses, or have deserved to be looked upon as anything but *jeux d'esprit*. If in this matter we are able to arrive at certainties of a scientific character, we owe it to the worthy image-makers of Barhut. It is they who, thanks to the perfectly explicit indications which they themselves have transmitted to us on the subject of their compositions, have furnished us with a key to ancient Buddhist art (¹). In the case of Sânchî, where we have to explain a monument closely connected in spirit, as in space and time, with Barhut, it may easily be conceived that these precious and trustworthy data will necessarily be our first and constant resource. While forming a fund of interpretation acquired in advance, they will at the same time furnish a firm starting point for fresh research; for we may expect that one identification will lead to another, and that the panels will mutually explain each other, were it only by reason of their proximity. On the whole, we must not despair of seeing the majority of these pictures in stone come to life by degrees under an attentive gaze; and, thanks to their

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(¹) See above, Essay II, p. 29.

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expressive mimicry, they will end by making us understand the message which it was their mission to transmit to posterity.

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Decorations, images and symbols. — If we approach in a practical manner the task thus defined, it will immediately appear to us that we could not have entirely dispensed with the information, or the confirmations, furnished by the written evidence of Barhut, except so far as concerns the purely decorative bas-reliefs. It is a matter of course that the natural intelligence is always and everywhere sufficient to understand the sense and appreciate the æsthetic value of motifs designed solely for the pleasure of the eyes. Nothing is more simple than to classify these ornaments into different categories, according as they are borrowed from the fauna, flora, or the architecture, either local or foreign. Our archæological knowledge will not need to be very extensive in order to enable us to recognize the Iranian origin of a certain number of them, lions or winged griffins, bell-shaped capitals surmounted by two animals set back to back, honey-suckle palmettes, merlons, serrated ornamentation, etc. We shall find, on the contrary, a smack of the Indian soil in the balustrade ornaments, in the horse-shoe arches, in the garlands of lotuses, or even in the elephants so ingeniously sketched according to nature. But neither these identifications, which are within the reach of children, nor those more learned distinctions tell us anything whatever concerning the scenes any more than concerning the idols to which after all these decorations only serve as a framework.

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From the first moment that we find ourselves in the presence of our fellow-creatures the problem of identification becomes infinitely more complicated. Even as regards isolated persons we cannot content ourselves, as in the case of animals, with a simple designation of species. We must at least discern their real nature, whether human or divine; next, try to determine their social rank on earth or in heaven; then finally, if possible, assign a proper name to each. It is a great deal to ask. Certainly we have very little difficulty in recognizing in a frequent feminine figure, seated on a lotus and copiously doused by two elephants, the prototype of the modern representations of Çrî, the Hindu Goddess of Fortune (¹). On the other hand, we should scarcely have known what to say concerning the beautiful ladies who connect the jamb with the first lintel, if it were not that we find them again on the Barhut pillars. They have retained, here as there, in addition to their opulent charms and somewhat scanty costume, their eminently plastic pose, and they continue, as is written, « to bend their willow-forms like a bow » and « to lean, holding a mango-bough in full flower, displaying their bosoms like golden jars » (Buddhacarita, II, 52 and IV, 35, trans. COWELL). But there, in addition to what we have here, they bear also a little label which teaches us to see in them, instead of simple bayadères, divinities, of an inferior order, it is true, belonging to those whom we should call « fairies ». At the same time, in the lay persons who, upright at the foot of the jambs, reveal to us for their part the masculine fashions of Central India in the centuries immediately preceding our era (pl. VIII, 2), we learn to recognize demi-gods and genii, guardians of the four entrances to the sanctuary, as also of the four cardinal points (¹).

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¹ See below, Catalogue, § 4 a. This resemblance does not at all prove that we have already to do with the goddess Çrî. The frequency of this figure at Sânchî, where it recurs as many as 9 times (see above, p. 18, n. 1), the manner of its juxtaposition to the Bodhi-tree, the Wheel of the Law, and the Stûpa of the Parinirvâna suggest, on the contrary, that we are dealing with a symbolical representation of the Nativity, when the two Nâgas (here elephants; see below, p. 109), simultaneously bathed the mother and the unseen child. Accordingly, this scene should have been cited and discussed above, p. 20, had we not preferred to neglect for the moment a hypothesis still awaiting verification.

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¹ See below, *Catalogue*, § 1 b and 9 a, and cf. CUNNINGHAM, *Barhut*, pl. XXI-XXIII.

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Elsewhere, as we have said, numerical considerations may sometimes point out the way of interpretation. Let us take the right (or north) jamb of the eastern gate. Its façade is divided into panels, in each of which a god, if we may judge by his attributes, is seen seated, like an Indian king, in the midst of his court. Each of these compositions taken by itself tells us absolutely nothing : but, if we set aside for a while the last terrace, we ascertain that there are six of these compartments... This number alone is a flash of light; and Prof. A. Grünwedel needed nothing further to lead him to conjecture with infinite probability that here we see, arranged one above another on this pillar, the first six stories of the 27-storied paradise of Buddhism, — the only ones, moreover, which belong to the domain of sensual pleasures and consequently to that of our senses. It is with difficulty that we are able to discern also, on the balcony of the highest terrace, half-length figures of the Gods in the heaven of Brahmâ, who belong to already another sphere; one step higher, the superior divinities, like Dante’s souls in paradise who have become pure lights, escape by definition the scope of the plastic arts. The identification justifies itself, then, admirably, and it is confirmed even by the uniformity and banality of the scenes : for we know very well that, if the torments of hell are usually very varied, there is, according to the representations which have been attempted, nothing more monotonous than the happiness of the heavens. However, the hypothesis becomes quite convincing only after a comparison with inscribed pictures of the paradise of the Thirty-three Gods at Barhut (¹).

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¹ See below, *Catalogue*, § 6, and cf. CUNNINGHAM, *Barhut*, pl. XVI, 1, and XVII, 1, and FERGUSSON, *Tree and Serpent Worship*, pl. XXX, 1.

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One other example is from this point of view still more characteristic. On the posterior frontal of this same gate (pl. VII, 2) is figured a row of vacant thrones under trees, between human and divine worshippers. They were counted. There are seven of them : and thereupon an expert student of Buddhism, the Rev. S. Beal, had not been long in rediscovering in the legend of the Master seven miraculous trees : unfortunately it would be easy to enumerate still more of them. The analogy of certain series in Gandhâra or at Ajaṇṭâ would to-day furnish a much more satisfactory explanation by suggesting that it was a symbolical manner of representing the seven traditional Buddhas of our æon, the last being Çâkya-Muni. But you perceive that this conjecture would remain suspended literally in the air... Well, the inscribed bas-reliefs of Barhut have made it a certainty. In fact, they show us in succession all these same trees, of easily recognizable species, above these same seats of stone, between these same worshippers; but in this case each of them bears as on a label the name of the Buddha whose memory it evokes; and thus we can no longer doubt that the intention of the old image-makers was indeed to represent the seven Enlightened Ones of the past by the seven trees under which they sat in order to attain to enlightenment (²).

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² See below, *Catalogue*, § 10 b, and cf. CUNNINGHAM, *ibid.*, pl. XXIX-XXX and FERGUSSON, *ibid.*, pl. IX and Xa (medial lintel of the north gate).

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You perceive already, and we may resume in a single sentence, the immediate consequences of this important observation. Following always the same trail, we shall learn to recognize after the symbolism of the tree, which betokens Buddha's attainment of *Sambodhi*, that of the wheel, which signifies his preaching, and finally that of the *stûpa* or tumulus, which is the emblem of his *Parinirvâna*. A comparison with the stelæ on which the old school of Amarâvatî in Southern India was pleased to group the representations of the « four great miracles » will finally settle our ideas on all these points (¹). At the same time we shall not only have identified roughly a good half of the Sânchî bas-reliefs ; we shall moreover be sufficiently familiarized with the secrets of the studio to be able to approach with some chance of success the interpretation of the remainder of the works.

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*The Legendary Scenes.* — Kindly bethink yourselves that in fact the Acquisition of Omniscience, the First Sermon and the Final Decease are, with the Nativity or the Vocation, the four chief episodes of the Buddhist legend. Now it is scarcely necessary to say that all the scenes at Sânchî are dedicated solely to the illustration of this legend. In their chronological order they will be divided naturally into three categories, according as their subject is borrowed from the previous lives, from the last life, or from times subsequent to the definitive death of the Blessed One.

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(¹) See above, pl. II.

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To begin with the past rebirths, it is sufficiently well known that these *jâtakas*, as the Indians call them, are the favourite subjects of the ancient sculptors of Barhut (¹): and this time also we could not put ourselves to a better school to learn to read these riddles in stone. For we must constantly bear in mind that all these bas-reliefs are what our illustrators call « stories without words » : only, instead of depicting the successive episodes in a series of distinct pictures, the old Indian masters, like those of our Middle Ages, did not shrink from placing the incidents in juxtaposition or repeating the characters within one and the same panel. Once we are aware of this procedure, it is a mere pastime to explain their works and to follow the edifying thread of the story through the apparent disorder of the actors and under the accumulation of genre details wherewith they like to crowd the subject. Let us add that the pastime is all the more attractive as, in spite of certain failings in technical skill, we cannot but admire the natural gifts of our sculptors (²).

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¹ See above, Essay II.

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² We have not noticed on the eastern gate any specimen of *jâtaka*; but, in order that it may not be thought that they were excluded from the repertory of Sânchî, let us point out those of the elephant Ṣaḍdanta on the posterior face of the middle lintel of the southern gate (FERGUSSON, pl. VIII), of the rishi Ekaçṛiṅga, recognizable at once by his one frontal horn, and of prince Viçvantara on the lower lintel of the northern gate (FERGUSSON, pl. XI-Xa and XXIV, 3), of the Mahâkapi and Çyâma on the southern jamb of the western gate (FERGUSSON, pl. XVIII-XIX and XXXIV).

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In the scenes of the last life of the Master we shall, of course, find employed the same method of composition. But there will be added to it another convention, a most unexpected one, and one capable of completely baffling our researches, were it not that we have already been made aware of it; or rather, to employ a better expression, it is not that some element comes in to increase the pictorial complication of the scene; it is, on the contrary, something which is wanting in it, and that something is nothing less than the figure of the principal hero. In all these illustrations of the biography of Buddha we shall find everything that the author desires, except Buddha himself. It is already a good number of years since the inscribed bas-reliefs of Barhut, by informing us that a certain worshipper, on his knees before a vacant throne merely surmounted by a parasol or marked by a symbol, is in the act of « adoring the Blessed One », have placed beyond doubt this invariable and surprising abstinence. The Sânchî sculptures, which on the whole are better preserved, tell us more on this point than do the ruins of Barhut. From these latter we already knew that the ancient school of Central India had not at its disposal a type of the perfect Buddha : the façade of the middle lintel of our eastern gate, which represents the « Great Departure of the Bodhisattva » (pl. X, 1), proves to us, in its turn, that it refrained no less rigorously from figuring the Predestined even before the Sambodhi, when it would have been so simple and so easy to lend him the usual features of Viçvantara or some other « crown prince ». We have here a new fact and one of prime importance in the limited sphere of Buddhist archæology. To the list of conventional representations of the Buddha by a throne of stone, the imprint of two feet, a wheel or some other emblem, we must now add the no less strange representation of the Bodhisattva by a horse without a rider under an honorific parasol (¹).

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(¹) See below, *Catalogue*, § 11 *a*; cf. likewise, CUNNINGHAM, *Barhut*, pl. XX, 1, and FERGUSSON, *Tree and Serpent Worship*, Amarâvatî, pl. XCVI, 3, etc. These are precisely the facts of which we have sought in our first essay to explain the origin and significance.

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It is, however, episodes borrowed from the second part of the last existence of the Master that form the bulk of the legendary scenes of Sânchî. The native artists did not, in fact, resign themselves to reproducing solely and always the same great miracles, symbolized by the tree, the wheel or the stûpa : they have fulfilled their undertaking to illustrate in detail the career of Buddha without figuring him. As if this prime difficulty were not enough, they imposed upon themselves a further one, which has not up to now been sufficiently emphasized; we mean the law to which they submitted of not bringing on to the scene any among the disciples but laymen or any among the monks but heretics prior to their conversion. Thus they deliberately proposed to make us spectators of the Master's work, which consists essentially in the foundation of a monastic order, not only without our seeing the founder, but even without our catching a glimpse of a single Buddhist monk. When we observe the ingenuity which they have displayed in the accomplishment of this unpromising programme, we cannot too much regret the narrow limits within which they have restricted themselves. The eastern gate, to speak only of this one, does not limit itself to showing us typical specimens of this art, at once so natural and so distorted. The panels of the southern jamb supply us in addition with a characteristic example of the manner in which, as we have indicated, they explain by their propinquity each another. On the interior face (pl. IX, 1) Beal had already recognized, and verified more or less satisfactorily in detail, three distinct phases of the conversion of the thousand Brahmanic anchorites, disciples of the three brothers Kâçyapa. Prof. Grünwedel has included in the same series of wonders the picture of the inundation, which occupies the centre of the front face. Henceforth we believe it impossible not to conclude this series, in accordance with a fixed tradition, by recognizing in the king just below, who is leaving his capital to pay a visit to the Blessed One, Bimbisâra, the famous sovereign of the neighbouring town of Râjagriha (Rajgir) and the faithful friend of the Master. There remains now at the top of this same face a representation of the *Sambodhi* : if we reflect that the site of this miracle, namely Bodh-Gayâ, is likewise very near to Uruvilvâ (Urel), where all the episodes of the conversion of the Kâçyapas take place, we shall be at last successful in penetrating the really very simple plan of the artist : whether on his own initiative, or in consequence of the express command of the banker Nâgapiya, his intention was evidently to group on the same jamb legendary events localized in the same district of the country of Magadha (¹).

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¹ See below, *Catalogue*, § 8 et 9; also the interior face of the northern pillar of the same gate is consecrated to Kapilavastu (Cat. § 7), the front face of the eastern pillar of the northern gate to the Jetavana of Çrâvasti (FERGUSSON, pl. X and XI), etc.

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However well the Indian school proper may have been served in its ungrateful entreprise by the monotonous character of this perpetual course of visits and preaching, of conversions and offerings, which forms the career of Buddha, it is self-evident that its system of composition accommodated itself infinitely better to subjects subsequent to the *Parinirvâna*, the only ones in which the absence of the Master's figure became quite plausible. If its regular development had not been very soon interrupted by the adoption of the Indo-Greek type of Buddha, which came from the north-west of India, it would probably have been led by the natural course of things to assign a growing importance to this sort of historical pictures, side by side with the pictures of piety. Therefore, we do not hesitate to recognize at once a few attempts of this kind at Sânchî, notably among the bas-reliefs which are freely displayed over the whole width of the lintels. It is scarcely necessary to state that these scenes are not less legendary in fact, or less edifying in intention, than the others. We shall recall, first of all, on the southern gate that vivid representation of the famous war of the relics, which by an ironical return of the things of this world came near to being precipitated by the death of the Apostle of Benevolence. We know that fortunately it was averted (¹): the « Seven before Kuçinagara » at last obtained from the inhabitants of the town a portion of the ashes of the Blessed One; and each of these eight co-sharers, keeping his portion or carrying it in triumph to his native land, built a stûpa in its honour. It was these eight original deposits — or rather seven of them — that towards the middle of the third century B. C. the famous Açoka, piously sacrilegious, violated, with the sole aim of distributing their contents among the innumerable Buddhist sanctuaries which were then beginning to be scattered all over India. As to the eighth, that of Râmagrâma, it seems to have been already lost in the jungle; and a well-known tradition (although not known to be so ancient) will have it that in regard thereto the royal pilgrim was confronted by the courteous, but definite refusal of the Nâgas, who were its guardians. Now such, surely, is the spectacle offered to us, a century after the event, by the central lintel of this very southern gate (¹). A hundred years are amply sufficient, especially in India, to create a complete cycle of legends. Reflect, on the other hand, that at a few paces from the future site of the gate Açoka had already caused his famous « edicts » to be engraved upon a column. According to all probability the erection of this column was contemporary with the building of the *stûpa*, which may very well be one of the « 84.000 » religious foundations ascribed to the devout emperor. Finally, we have reasons for thinking that the latter had remained a kind of local hero in the district : at least it is in the immediate neighbourhood of Sânchî that the *Mahâvamsa* places the romance of his youth with the beautiful daughter of a rich citizen of Besnagar. All this may help us to understand that two other pseudo-historic scenes on our eastern gate may in the same way be borrowed from his cycle. The one on the reverse side of the lower lintel (pl. VII, 2) must have some connection with the Râmagrâma *stûpa*, if it is not simply another version of the legend which we have just cited. As for the other on the front of the same block, we cannot help believing that the solemn procession to the Bodhi tree (pl. X, 2) is the figured echo, if it is not the direct illustration, of a passage in the *Açokâvadâna* (²).

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¹ See FERGUSSON, pl. VII et XXXVIII (and comp. western gate, ibid., pl. XVIII et XXXVIII, 2) : this scene was originally carved on the face of the lower lintel, and such is indeed the position assigned to it by the drawing of COLE, reproduced by FERGUSSON; but in the restoration this lintel and the higher one were replaced back to front. — It was the same with the three lintels of the western gate : on the other hand COLE had in his drawing inverted the order of the first and the third.

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¹ FERGUSSON, pl. VII; for the tradition compare *Divyâvadâna*, p. 380; FA-HIAN, ch. XXIII, and HIUAN-TSANG, XI, 3ᵈ Kingdom.

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² See below, *Catalogue*, § 12 *a* and *b*, and cf. *Divyâvadâna*, p. 397 and sqq.

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If at the point at which we have now arrived we cast a general glance over the gate which is the particular object of our studies, we shall be as surprised as any one to observe that we are beginning to understand its mute language. There is now scarcely a part of it whose meaning or intention escapes us, from the genii which mount guard at the foot to the Buddhist symbols which decorate the summit. We may, therefore, consider that we have accomplished the bulk of our task, and I shall confine myself in conclusion to endeavouring to unite your impressions : this will be the best way of summing up the various kinds of interest which these sculptures may present.

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The keenest is to be found, perhaps — at least for those among us who have a taste for antiquity — in the very expressive and complete picture that they give us of the ancient civilization of India. Architecture both urban and rural, furniture, tools, weapons, instruments of music, standards, chariots, harness for horses and for elephants, costumes and ornaments for men and women etc., all these concrete and precise details merely await to be detached by a draughtsman, in order to serve as authentic illustrations to a future Dictionary of Indian antiquities. And side by side with this information, which is purely material, but in itself so precious, how much more may we gather concerning even the life of the courts, towns and hermitages, if we glance successively at these anchorites, so busy around their sacrificial fires (cf. further on, page 98); these women who attend to their domestic occupations (page 95); these kings seated in their palaces or proceeding with great pomp through the streets of their capitals, before the curious eyes of their subjects (pp. 91 and 93), etc. What is to be said then of the no less important information which these sculptures furnish concerning the external forms of worship and even of the beliefs, the features worn in popular imagination by genii and fairies, as also concerning the manner in which the religious conscience of the time conceived the written tradition of Buddhism!

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But these are questions reserved for specialists, and, doubtless, many of you are more concerned for the æsthetic value, than for the documentary interest, of these old monuments. From this point of view you cannot have failed to appreciate the perfect naturalness of the artists who worked at them, and I do not hesitate to praise above all the justness of their observation — so remarkable especially in their animals and trees — and the freedom of their execution, in spite of a certain clumsiness and a very pardonable ignorance of our perspective. You divine also what a delicate problem is raised as to the determination of the exact place of their works in the general history of art. I do not think that anyone can reasonably contest the statement that this school of Barhut and of Sânchî is a direct expression of Indian genius, with all the spontaneousness and conventionality to be found in either. And in making this statement I am not thinking only of fundamentals, of the thoroughly indigenous character of the subjects which the art proposed to treat : even as regards its specially technical proceedings, that extremely deeply incised relief, that constant search for swarming effects, that systematic overcrowding of the whole available space in the panel by accessory details, it is in the hereditary habits of the wood and ivory carvers of ancient India, not forgetting its goldsmiths, that I should seek their origin. But, if ancient Buddhist art is thus attached by all its roots to its native soil, we should have to be wilfully blind not to see the foreign shoots which have already ingrafted themselves on this wild stock. A quantity of decorative motives have appeared to us so directly borrowed from Persia that their importation can scarcely be explained otherwise than by an immigration of Iranian artisans. But this is not all : here and there, in bold foreshortenings, in the skilful placing of three-quarter length figures, in the harmonious balancing of groups — in a word, in the detail of the working process, as also in the general arrangement of the composition — we detect growing traces of an influence more subtle and more difficult to disentangle, but incomparably more artistic, which in fact had by the vicissitudes of political history been brought much nearer, the influence of Hellenistic models. Moreover, we now know from a reliable source that this influence had already penetrated as far as there; and the native artists of Vidiçâ could see quite close to their town the column which had been raised on behalf of a local râjah in the reign of the Indo-Greek king Antialkidas (about 175 B. C.) by the envoy Heliodoros, son of Dion, a native of Taxilâ (¹).

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But, if these bas-reliefs have deserved to hold your attention for an instant, it is not solely for what they teach us or inspire us with a desire to know of the civilization and art of India : it is also and especially for the curious comparisons with our own religious art to which they lend themselves. You have surely observed among them an employment of symbols, in every way analogous to that exhibited by the first Christian artists of the Catacombs at a time when they also had not at their disposal an universally accepted image of the Saviour. The parallelism of the two developments might be pursued still further : and later on, when in both cases the type of the Master had been definitely fixed, it would be no less easy to find in Buddhist tradition written evidence of the tendency, so well known to

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(¹) The quite recent discovery of this inscribed pillar is due to Mr. J. H. MARSHALL, J. R. A. S. 1909, p. 1053.

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us, to authenticate the resemblance, as if it were a question of a portrait made from a living model. Another feature which you must also have noticed in passing is the narrative character of the bas-reliefs, forthwith employed to relate edifying stories; and it will not have escaped you either that we find again on the altar screens of the Middle Ages, and even on certain panels of the first Renaissance — for example on those with which Ghiberti decorated the doors of the Baptistery at Florence — the same procedures of juxtaposition of episodes and repetition of persons which were already in use at Barhut and at Sânchî. Thus these old monuments, in exchange for the trouble which we have taken to become familiar with them, offer us ample material for comparisons of an interest more general and more closely connected with us than we could have expected. It is of this that I wished in conclusion to remind you as a compensation for the perhaps rather too technical subject which circumstances, as told in our preamble, have imposed upon us.

Second Part: Summary Catalogue of the Sculptures

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[We have not deemed it necessary to encumber this short notice with a detailed account of the more or less successful attempts which have already been made with a view to the interpretation of the sculptures of Sânchî. The principal publication treating of them, after the first essay of CUNNINGHAM, *The Bhilsa Topes* (London, 1854), is that of FERGUSSON, *Tree and Serpent-Worship* (2d ed., London, 1873, reproducing the identifications proposed by BEAL, *Journ. of the Roy. As. Soc.*, new series, V, 1871, pp. 164 and sqq.) :

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but the photographs, although annotated by numerous drawings, are almost unusable, because their scale has been too much reduced, and the text, ruined by strange theories, has lost nearly all value. The same remarks apply to the photographs of Sir Lepel GRIFFIN, *Famous Monuments of Central India*, and of H. COLE, *Preservation of National Monuments, India : Great Buddhist Tope at Sânchi* (1885), and to the text of F. C. MAISEY, *Sânchi and its remains* (London, 1892). Fortunately the moulding of the eastern gate, given to the « Museum für Völkerkunde » in Berlin, attracted in a very special manner the attention of Professor Grünwedel in Chapter V of his celebrated *Handbuch* (*Buddhistische Kunst in Indien*, 2d ed., Berlin, 1900; revised and enlarged by Dr. J. BURGESS, *Buddhist Art in India*, London, 1902, particularly pp. 72-74). We are in perfect agreement with the eminent archæologists of Edinburgh and Berlin as regards the method to be followed : at the same time, we must warn the reader once for all that on several points we have arrived at conclusions somewhat different from theirs. If this treatise marks any progress whatever in the interpretation of the Sânchî bas-reliefs, it is entirely due to the excellent direct photographs which Mr. J. H. MARSHALL has put at our disposal.]

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The sculptures which cover from top to bottom the eastern gate of the *stûpa* of Sânchî may be divided into two great categories, the decorative elements and the Buddhist scenes. In reality the line of demarcation between these two orders of subjects is at times very difficult to trace. Many of the so-called ornaments have a traditional symbolical value, and, on the other hand, a great number of the edifying representations tend to pure decoration. The distinction is justified, however, in practice. We shall avoid many useless repetitions, if we decide to classify in the first category all those motifs whose character, being before all ornamental, is sufficiently emphasized by the fact that they are symmetrically repeated on the beams or the uprights of the stone scaffolding which constitutes the torana (cf. above, pp. 65-6).

The Decorative Elements

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§ 1. Decoration of the jambs. — Thus it is that the two jambs of the gate, that of the north and that of the south, — or more simply, of the right and left as you enter, — bear on two of their faces motifs which are evidently complementary.

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a) Their outer face is simply decorated with those pink lotus flowers (*padma* or *nelumbum speciosum*), which, as we know, play a considerable part in Indian ornamentation and symbolism. To the right a series of full-blown roses is enclosed within two waved garlands of these same flowers, graced with buds and leaves. To the left the principal subject consists of a similar garland, whose decoration changes likewise between each undulation of the chief branch : in addition Indian swans (*hamsa*) and a tortoise are intermingled with the flowers.

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b) In the two male figures placed opposite each other at the foot of the inner face of the two jambs we must, from analogy with Barhut, recognize the protecting spirits of the eastern region, that is, the Gandharvas or celestial musicians, the chief of whom is Dhṛitarâṣṭra (cf. above, p. 71). Nevertheless, they are presented simply under the appearance of great Indian lords, wearing turbans and adorned with heavy jewels, earrings, necklaces and bracelets of precious stones. The ends of their long loin-cloths hang in close little pleats in front; as for the second part of their costume, the scarf, whose usual function is to drape the body, they wear it negligently tied round their loins. The one holds up the ends of it with his left hand, whilst the other has placed his awkwardly on his hip (see pl. VIII, 2). The latter holds in his right hand a *Bignonia* flower, while the former has a lotus. Both are looking in the direction of the sanctuary, and are leaning against a background formed of a *Bignonia* in blossom and a mango-tree bearing fruit.

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§ 2. *Capitals.* — The great capitals which surmount the two jambs of the eastern gate are decorated with tame elephants (pl. VIII, 1). Four of these animals are placed very ingeniously about each pillar in such a way that their heads form a round embossement to the four edges of the corners. Their harness consists of a rich head-stall (from which hang in front of the ears two pendants of pearls, and behind two bells) and a tasselled saddle-cloth, kept in its place by cords which pass under their bodies and form knots on their backs. The person of distinction was seated astride in the most comfortable place on their necks : holding in his hand the special crook (*aṅkuça*), he was his own driver : and, in fact, we know that in ancient India the art of driving elephants formed an integral part of a complete education. Right on the elephant's hind quarters crouches a standard-bearer, who doubtless, in the case of a rapid motion, held on to the knot of the belly-band. As for the elephants themselves with their trunks and one of their fore-feet slightly bent back, they are, as usual, admirably rendered. Formal leaves and flowers decorate the upper part of the capitals. An inscription on the inner face of that to the left invokes imprecations on whosoever shall remove a single stone of the gate or the railing. As regards the two caryatids, see below, § 5 *a*.

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§ 3. Decoration of the lintels. — The three lintels likewise repeat on both their faces several symmetrical forms of decoration.

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a) On the façade (pl. VIII, 1) we shall note first three kinds of false capitals, of a character quite Iranian, which, continuing the two uprights, break through each lintel. On the two lower ones the decorative designs consist of winged lions, two of which are seated back to back, while a third protrudes its head and two front-paws through the space between them. On the topmost one they consist of two great fully harnessed draught oxen, likewise seated back to back, but furthermore ridden by two men.

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a') On the reverse side (pl. VII, 2) the corresponding subjects are in the same order : two pairs of goats, with or without horns; two pairs of two-humped camels, likewise seated; two pairs of horned lions, standing and passant. All these animals serve as steeds for riders of both sexes and of different types, native and foreign. One of those at the summit has short hair, tied with a fillet, and carries in his left hand a piece of a vine-stock.

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b) The extremities of the lintels are uniformly decorated both on the observe and on the reverse by a kind of long tendril, rolled seven times round itself and attached to the whole by an ornament of honeysuckle : this makes a total of twelve snails, and produces a somewhat unfortunate effect. If it were claimed that this is an attempt to imitate the Ionic volute, it would have to be acknowledged that it is inverted and executed in a most rudimentary fashion.

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c) The whole surface of the lintels unoccupied by these decorations is, as a general rule, consecrated to legendary scenes. There is, it seems, no exception to be made, except upon the façade and only on the projecting portions of the lower and middle lintels. The former are garnished with two pairs of peacocks — a triumph of graceful design, which is to be found also on the northern gate — and the latter by wild elephants.

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§ 4. The supports. — We agree to designate by this term the four cubical blocks placed in the prolongations of the uprights and the six uprights set in between the three lintels to separate them from one another.

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a) On the *façade* (pl. VIII, 1) the lower support to the right and the upper one to the left both represent a feminine figure seated, with one leg hanging down, upon a lotus issuing from a lottery vase (*bhadra-ghaṭa*) : she holds in her hand this same flower, and on two other lotuses at either side of her two standing elephants douse her, or are in the attitude of dousing her, with two pitchers held at the ends of their trunks. We know that this motif is preserved even to our days in the representations of the Indian Fortune : but we have reasons for believing that this was not the original denotation (¹). The subjects of the two other corresponding panels belong, in any case, to the category of Buddhist miracles. The one on the left represents the « preaching of Buddha » by means of the Wheel of the Law placed on a throne under a parasol among the usual worshippers, human and divine. The one on the right shows us — as is proved by the characteristically twisted floweret of his tree, — the Messiah of Buddhism, Maitreya, symbolised by this *campaka* or *nâga-pushpa* (*Michelia champaka* or *Mesua Roxburghii*).

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