The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c15.2

c15.2

Suddenly, about the beginning of the Christian era, the chaitya becomes something more than a nature-symbol and a reliquary: it is transformed into a shrine for the Buddha as the Deity, and everywhere images of the Blessed One as the Preacher, or as the Great Yogi, appear within the chaitya-houses and monasteries of the Sangha. Are we to suppose that during the five centuries which had elapsed since the first preaching of the Law, all the followers of the Buddha had kept strictly to the spirit of Aryan philosophy, as expounded in the Deer Park at Sarnath, and even refrained from making for themselves graven or painted icons to keep in memory the personality of their beloved Master? As human nature is, this would be altogether incredible. There must have been numbers of pious Buddhists, outside the strict rules of the Sangha, who kept among their household gods His pictured and graven image, before which they would sit in silent adoration as they meditated daily upon His inspired precepts. All that we really know is that from the chaitya-houses and monasteries of the orthodox Sangha, upon which the finest artistry of the Aryan genius was lavished, such pictures and images were excluded.