The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c13.s1.1

c13.s1.1

The sculptures of the Mardān group described in the preceding chapter represent the main stream of Gandhāra art during its adolescence. Besides these there are other contemporary groups which, though of a more provincial character, nevertheless contributed materially to the development of that art. One such group was centred in the hilly country around Sanghao, Nathu, and Miyān Khān on the north-west border of Buner. Another is known to us chiefly from the reliefs of the well-known stūpa at Sikri some ten miles north of Shāhbāz-Garhī; others from miscellaneous sculptures whose provenance is often uncertain. These various groups came into being in different places and at different times, and each had its own traditions, its own style, its own technique. We must be careful, therefore, how we make use of particular features, whether stylistic, technical or iconographic, as criteria of date, since it is manifest that such features could seldom have made their appearance simultaneously in different groups.