The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c7.4

c7.4

The excavations recently undertaken, through Mr. Ratan Tata’s public-spirited liberality, on the site of Pâtaliputra will doubtless produce material of great archæological interest, but they will never establish any new theory or confirm any old one concerning the origins of Indian art. These are already so decisively indicated by the great mass of material accumulated in many other places in India that the question whether Asoka or Chandragupta Maurya planned their palaces on Persepolitan models, or built them with foreign craftsmen, becomes entirely a side-issue and a matter of local interest only. It will doubtless be used as an argument for British architects in India importing modern Western methods of building—though there is a difference between those which stimulate the craftsman’s ideas and those which sterilise them; but it is foolish to argue that Persepolitan fashions at Pâtaliputra prove that all the great art of India in early Buddhist times was inspired by foreigners—unless all Indians of Aryan race are to be classed as such.