The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c10.6

c10.6

The three samples given above may well have been, like many other small *objets d'art*, imports from the Near East. But that Taxila could boast of competent artists capable of executing equally good work is proved by a number of stucco sculptures found in the great Buddhist Apsidal Temple in Sirkap. This temple was erected on the remains of buildings overthrown by the earthquake of *circa* A.D. 30, and was destroyed some thirty years later by the invading Kushāns. It was built on an imposing scale in the new kind of diaper masonry which was introduced from Gandhāra for the first time after the earthquake as being more stable than the traditional rubble. That the main building would take several years to complete, and that the two stūpas in its courtyard would not be added until after its completion, may be taken for granted. The date of the main building must be about A.D. 40 and the stūpas a few years later.