The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c17.49

c17.49

The latter is the largest and finest in design, for the figuresculpture on the façade of XIX (Pl. XLVI), though fine as craftsmanship, is not happily conceived architecturally. It is very likely, as Sister Nivedita has suggested,¹ that these sculptures were the work of Gandharan craftsmen, driven to find a shelter in the cloisters of Ajantâ when the Buddhist monasteries of North-west India were ravaged and burnt by the tyrant Mihiragula in the middle of the sixth century. It is quite possible, indeed, that this front is a sculptured palimpsest, executed by two different generations of craftsmen; for it is unusual to find in this great epoch the clumsy spacing of decoration, contrasting so curiously with the fine design of the architectural detail. But it would be easily explained by assuming that some of the colossal figures were sculptured on the original façade long after the chaitya-house was finished.