The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c7.19

c7.19

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.