The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c8: Chapter 2. The Early Indian School of Art

The Buddhist Art of Gandhāra: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c8

Language: English

Chapter 2. The Early Indian School of Art

We have seen that the earliest examples of Buddhist sculpture in stone date from the reign of the Maurya emperor Aśoka (274-232 B.C.), and that they were the handiwork of Greek or Perso-Greek sculptors assisted by local craftsmen. It should be emphasized, however, that it was not until a century later that stone came to be employed on at all a large scale in place of wood by the Buddhist sculptors of Central India and the Jumnā Valley; and it is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the idea of using the less perishable material was borrowed from the Bactrian Greeks who were then established in the neighbouring kingdom of the Eastern Panjāb. Most important of the Buddhist monuments adorned in the new way were the early groups at Bhārhut, Sāñchī and Bodh-Gayā. Oldest among these are the balustrade and gateway of the Bhārhut Stūpa, which are assignable to the middle of the second century B.C. Then follow, in chronological order, the original carvings on the Second Stūpa at Sāñchī (c. 125 B.C.) and on the balustrade at Bodh-Gayā (c. 75 B.C.), the carvings on the four gateways of the Great Stūpa at Sāñchī (c. 50 B.C.), and, lastly, those on the gateway of the Third Stūpa at the same site, together with the later additions on the balustrade of the Second Stūpa, both of which are referable to the opening years of the Christian era. Thus, the age of this Early Indian School was comprised within the two centuries between 150 B.C. and A.D. 50, and it is important to note that it preserved its essentially Indian character unimpaired until the end.

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The purpose of these sculptures was to glorify the Buddha. This they did by recounting episodes from the story of his life and of his previous births, or sometimes, but only rarely, from the subsequent history of the Buddhist Church. In the earliest monuments the stories of his previous births, or Jātakas, as they were called, greatly predominated. Later on, interest shifted to the events of his last earthly life, and still later to his image, which was destined to eclipse all else in Buddhist art. But that was not until the School of Gandhāra had initiated the idea and established the practice of portraying the Buddha in bodily form. In the Early Indian School there is no trace of the Buddha ever having been so portrayed. In that School it was an inflexible rule that his presence should be indicated by means only of a symbol: by his footprints, for example, or his throne, or the promenade (*caṅkrama*) on which he was wont to take his daily exercise, or by his special bodhi tree, or his funeral mound (stūpa). This rule, which extended also to the Previous Buddhas, was religiously observed until the last days of the Early Indian School and was one of the chief characteristics that distinguished it from the School of Gandhāra.

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At a very early stage in its history the Buddhist Church appropriated to itself many popular cults, folk stories and superstitions, as well as a variety of symbols of a quasi-religious order. Nor did it shrink from taking into its service and making free use of the popular, mundane, and often sensuous, art of the day. All this is clearly reflected in the sculptures of the Early School. Thus, the Jātaka stories, which play such an important role in the decorative scheme of the Bhārhut balustrade, were for the most part, as has long been recognized, nothing but old-time fables to which a new meaning had been given by the Buddhists. The large number of these stories at Bhārhut and the stereotype brevity with which they are recounted leave little room for doubt that they had long been a favourite theme among Buddhist sculptors before wood had been replaced by stone. Indeed, it is more than likely that they had been the common stock-in-trade of Indian sculptors before the days of the Buddha himself, which would account for the strangely anomalous rule of the Church which permitted the person of the Bodhisattva to be portrayed in the scenes of his former lives but not in those of his last one. We need not, however, delay longer over these or other early efforts of the Indian School, since for our present purpose they are less instructive than the later work of that School. Indeed, the only sculptures in this group which require our close attention here are those which were produced in the century between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50, and which were thus immediately antecedent to, or actually contemporary with, the beginnings of Buddhist art in Gandhāra. The finest of these sculptures are to be found on the four gateways of the Great Stūpa at Sāñchī and on the single gateway of the Third Stūpa (that of the Buddha's two chief disciples) at the same site. From them I have selected for illustration a dozen representative examples, which should suffice to give a fair idea of their style and workmanship and of the resemblances or contrasts which they offer with the sculptures of Gandhāra. And, first, let us look at a few examples of the symbolism which played such an important part in Buddhist iconography, and particularly so at this early period, when it was not yet permissible to depict the person of the Buddha.

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The group in fig. 1 forms part of the crowning ornaments on the summit of the North Gateway of the Great Stūpa, the centre-piece of which (not included in the photo) is a dharmacakra or ‘Wheel of the Law’, of which more will be said anon. On either side of this Wheel and directly above the gateway jambs, stands a symbol of the triratna or ‘Three Jewels’—the Trinity of Buddhism—and beside them an attendant yaksha holding a fly-whisk in their honour. The triratna or Three-Jewel symbol, derived from the older nandipada or ‘taurine’ symbol, was familiar at all ages on Buddhist monuments, but it was not always of the same form. Here, the wheel, centred with a lotus, must be taken to represent the dharma or Buddhist doctrine, the trident above it the Master, and the curious shield-like symbol in the centre (śrīvatsa) the Community (saṅgha). In some other examples of this symbol among the Sāñchī sculptures the ‘shield’ is omitted, and among the Gandhāra sculptures we shall find a wheel set on each of the Trident prongs (fig. 70), or the Trident replaced by three interlaced wheels (fig. 59). The figure of the attendant yaksha, it be remarked, has a somewhat stiff and wooden appearance, in marked contrast with the free and supple figures in some of the reliefs, such as those in the right half of fig. 7. A point has been made of showing the yaksha from the back rather than the front because free standing figures are very rare among these sculptures as they are also in Gandhāra art. For other details, cf. Marshall and Foucher, Monuments of Sāñchī, pls. XXII, XXIV, XXVIII.

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Another outstanding motif of Buddhist symbolism was the lotus, which is still the national flower of India. Thanks to the miracle of its own strange birth beneath the waters, it was pre-eminently the symbol of birth—particularly of divine birth. But it was more than that. It was also a ‘Tree of Life and Fortune’, and it is in this aspect of a ‘wishing-tree’ that it is so often depicted at Bhārhut and Sāñchī, laden with fruits and jewels and magic talismans—all symbolic of the countless blessings that Buddhism had to offer to mankind. A fine example of this lotus wishing-tree, carved on the lowest architrave of the Southern Gateway of the Great Stūpa, is reproduced in fig. 2. Here, the tree sprites, in the form of kumbhaṇḍas, are spouting out the lotus plants and their treasures as if spouting out summer itself, the plants and figures together making a pattern of singular richness and beauty, though one could wish perhaps that the snake-like convolutions of the lotus stems at the centre had been omitted. Parenthetically we should note that the horror vacui, the dislike of empty spaces, which distinguishes this design is characteristic of Indian decorative art throughout the ages, and is one of the chief features in which the sculpture of the Early Indian School contrasts with that of Gandhāra.

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Owing to the ban imposed by the Buddhist Church on the representation of the Buddha’s person, artists of the Early Indian School were hard put to it to illustrate the story of his last life. At first they confined themselves to portraying the four chief events in that life, namely, his Birth, his Illumination, his First Sermon, and his Death. Examples of these four events are reproduced in figs. 3, 4 and 5. The Birth they inevitably symbolized by a lotus plant, the traditional emblem, as already remarked, of miraculous birth; and to clarify the meaning, they sometimes added the figure of Māyā, the mother of the Buddha, either standing or seated on the lotus. In fig. 3 she is seated, a particularly comely figure, with two Nāga elephants pouring water over her from pitchers. The Illumination was represented by the pipal tree (aśvattha) in the shade of which it took place at Bodh-Gayā, sometimes with the seat of the Buddha at its foot (fig. 4a) sometimes enshrined in a temple with the armies of Māra on the one side and the heavenly hosts acclaiming the Buddha’s victory, on the other (fig. 7). Of the First Sermon the recognized symbol was the ‘Wheel of the Law’ (dharmacakra), which the Buddha was figuratively supposed to have then set in motion and which has gone on revolving ever since. Sometimes the wheel was set on a throne or on the top of a pillar (in imitation of the pillar of Aśoka, erected on the spot where the sermon was preached) and frequently two or more deer were added, in allusion to the deer-park where this event took place (fig. 4b). Of the Death of the Buddha (mahāparinirvāṇa) the symbol, very appropriately, was the mound or stūpa in which his relics were enshrined (fig. 5).

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These symbols of the four chief events in the Buddha’s life were not inventions of the Buddhists. They had been associated with popular Indian cults from time immemorial, and for that very reason had been annexed by the Buddhists and invested with a new significance. Thus the Sambodhi tree at Bodh-Gayā takes its place among the countless trees that from prehistoric days were objects of cult-worship in India, where every village had its sacred tree and every tree its living spirit. It was in the prehistoric age, also, that the wheel was invented, and we may well believe that it was not long before such a wonderful invention became an object of worship and was associated in men’s minds with the sun’s disk and the world-wide power which the sun typified. Even the two deer which the Buddhists used to symbolize the deer-park are figured on a prehistoric seal of the Chalcolithic Age. Lastly the funeral mound or stūpa had been the recipient of honours offered to the dead long before the death of the Buddha himself, though it was not until after Aśoka’s nation-wide distribution of the Buddha’s relics that the stūpa itself came to be universally adored in the Buddhist world.

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In the mature reliefs of the Sāñchī gateways the four great events described above, as well as other episodes connected with the Buddha’s last life or previous births, are sometimes depicted with a great wealth of imaginative and picturesque detail. A notable example is the Viśvantara Jātaka on the Northern Gateway, the second half of which is illustrated in fig. 6. In point of both style and technique it falls short of the best reliefs on these gateways, but it tells its story in simple, realistic language, like the language of some old tapestry, and succeeds in giving us a convincing glimpse of Indian jungle life. I have included it among my illustrations because it helps to demonstrate the width of the gulf which separates these sculptures of the Early Indian School from those of Gandhāra, and at the same time emphasizes the wholly different approach of the two Schools towards this kind of narrative relief-work. To appreciate my meaning, the reader has but to turn to fig. 130, to see how an artist of the Gandhāra School in its declining years set about illustrating this same Viśvantara Jātaka. Truly, it would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast!

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Another notable example of the more elaborate sort of design to be found among the Sāñchī sculptures is the relief illustrating the Illumination scene on the lowest architrave of the Western Gateway (fig. 7). In the centre, the Buddha is represented by his throne beneath the bodhi tree, which by a strange anachronism is here shown growing through the roof of the hypaethral temple built around it in a later age by the Emperor Aśoka. To the right, the armies of Māra are in headlong flight after their vain assault and defeat by the Buddha. The scene is full of vigour and movement. The hurrying figures of bowmen and horsemen, the great elephant overtaking and trampling down the chariot in front of it, the demon in the foreground running his trident, somewhat humorously, into the back of his fallen comrade—all combine to make up a picture of panic-stricken rout and confusion, but without any sacrifice of rhythm and balance in the decorative scheme. To the left of the Bodhi Temple and in marked contrast with the scene on the right is a solemn and sedate procession of the gods, who with drums and banners and flower-offerings come to do honour to the victorious Buddha. The gods make a dull group, but the sculptor had no option in the matter. Whatever the occasion, the gods had to be portrayed as grave and stately beings, with stolid, unemotional countenances. That was the traditional rendering, to which the strictest regard had to be paid, and that is why the groups of heavenly devas, like the groups of earthly princes, invariably appear formal and stilted.

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Yet another outstanding example of the mature Sāñchī style is reproduced in fig. 8. It depicts one of the lesser episodes in the Buddha’s life, namely his meeting with his father Śuddhodana on his return to Kapilavastu and the miracle he performed on that occasion by walking in the air, followed by the gift to him of a banyan grove by his father. At the top of the panel is the familiar Conception scene, which here serves merely as a label to denote that the town portrayed is Kapilavastu. In the middle is a royal procession threading its way through the narrow streets of the town and out of the gate. At the bottom, in the foreground, the Buddha, represented by his promenade (caṅkrama), is seen walking in mid-air, while the king and his courtiers look up at him in wonderment. By the side of the royal group, in the left-hand corner, is a single banyan tree enclosed in a railing, to signify the banyan grove which Śuddhodana presented to his son. What concerns us here is not the story of the meeting but the way of telling it, so completely different from the way a Gandhāran artist would have done it. In spite of the awkward shape of the tall, narrow panel, the picture is delightfully free and unconstrained. The winding street, the houses with their crowded balconies, the royal chariot, the musicians in front of it, and the grand elephants, horsemen and bowmen behind: altogether a scene of the liveliest action and gaiety, a scene in which instinctive, unaffected artistry more than makes up for lack of proportion and perspective. And observe, too, near the top of the panel the realistic touch of the horse nuzzling into the neck of his companion, and the people in the balcony immediately below, whispering to one another about the passing show!¹ The School of Gandhāra has nothing to show at all comparable to this sort of inborn, compelling artistry which seems to defy the limits of size and shape. The pity is that the sculptor felt bound to include the miracle at the base of the panel. He did all that could be done by placing the promenade among the tree tops and showing the upturned faces of the king and his retinue wondering at it: he can hardly be blamed if, artistically, the task proved an impossible one.

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¹ It is worth noting that one, if not two, of the figures in the lowest balcony on the right is wearing a wreath on his head. Evidently he is a foreigner from the North-West. Perhaps this was meant to be the Ambassadors' gallery!

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Besides the Jātaka fables and old world symbols described above there were many other religious elements handed down from earlier times which by a natural process of absorption became incorporated in the fabric of Buddhism. Thus, prominently featured among the early sculptures were the six Inferior or kāmāvacara heavens, with the gods who reside in them, including the Lokapālas, Yama, Śakra and Māra. Of the three heavens illustrated in fig. 9 the lowest is that of Yama, god of death; the next the Tushita heaven, where the Buddhas-to-be await the hour for their last coming to earth; and the uppermost the heaven of the Nirmāṇarati, who rejoice in their own creations. Each heaven is represented by the storey of a palace, in which sits a king with his viceroy on his right and the court musicians and dancers on his left, the same figures being repeated with slight variations in each of the heavens.

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Fig. 10. The two reliefs of fig. 10, with their crowded scenes and almost bewildering details, are also telling examples of the same methods of composition. The story in the top panel (fig. 10a) is the well-known Śyāma Jātaka—the story of the young anchorite Śyāma, only son of a blind hermit and his wife, who is accidentally shot by the king of Benares on a hunting expedition. Though the several episodes are grouped in a single frame, the meaning is clear enough. In the centre, the figures of the king and the boy, who carries a pitcher on his shoulder, are a sufficient label for identifying the Jātaka. Then, to the left, the figure of the king, now in hunting attire, twice repeated: first transfixing the boy with an arrow in the lotus pool, and then standing repentant with his bow by his side. On the banks of the pool, are cattle and deer and beyond them, to the right, the blind hermit and his wife seated in front of their huts. Finally, in the top left-hand corner, the father, mother and son (now restored to life through the intervention of the god Indra) are reunited in a happy group, together with the king and Indra himself. When we come to fig. 106, we shall have an opportunity of seeing how very differently the same Jātaka story was told by a sculptor of Gandhāra.

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The panel below (fig. 10b) depicts the visit of the Nāga king Mucilinda to the Buddha soon after his Illumination. The Nāga king is seated in the foreground, with two of his queens on his right and a ballet troupe of dancers and musicians making up the rest of the Nāga group. In the background, behind Mucilinda, is the throne of the Buddha in the shade of a *nyagrodha* tree, which is attended by two kinnaras and two female celestials riding, respectively, on a winged lion and a griffin. Legend tells us that it was in the shade of a *nyagrodha* (*ficus indica*) tree that the Buddha rested in the fourth or fifth week after his Illumination, and it is interesting to observe the meticulous care with which the artist has depicted that particular species of fig-tree, in contradistinction to the *aśvattha* or *ficus religiosa* ordinarily associated with the Illumination.

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Fig. 11 also gives us the same kind of crowded, animated scene—here a pleasure-retreat among rocks and waterfalls. In the foreground, ladies are bathing from the backs of elephants in a lotus-pool; to the left is a peacock; in the background, two amorous couples are seated in happy dalliance among the rocks, one of the males holding a drinking-cup, one of the females cooling her feet in the water. No doubt, this was one of the many genre scenes borrowed by the Buddhists from the mundane art of the day, and we can well believe that, like a well-known panel on the South Gateway, it was a work of ivory-carvers or inspired by an ivory prototype. But there is no reason to suppose that it served merely as a picturesque stopgap. That was not the way of the Buddhists. Admittedly, they were unashamed in appropriating popular mundane art (some of it of a flagrantly irreligious character) and flaunting it on their sacred monuments, but they never failed to invent new labels which would fit it into the Buddhist context. What new interpretation was put on this particular scene, we can only guess, but we may be sure that the setting for it was a celestial, not an earthly, paradise.

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Fig. 12, the last of my Early Indian illustrations, shows one of the dwarf capitals of the Western Gateway. I have included it here mainly for the sake of comparison with the kindred Atlants of the Gandhāra School (cf. figs. 52, 70, 108, 145, 146). The Indian figures belong to the race of pot-bellied *kumbhaṇḍas* so familiar in Early Indian Art. Rough and uncouth as they may seem, they are the embodiment of energy and massive strength, and perfectly fulfil their architectural function of supporting the heavy gateway superstructure. Whoever was the sculptor, he certainly had a rare feeling for rugged strength and a rare genius for translating it into stone.

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In concluding this all too brief sketch of the Early Indian School, there are three comments on its general character that deserve, I think, to be stressed. The first is that, notwithstanding the foreign elements that can be detected in it, it was essentially and indisputably Indian. Many of its motifs and ideas it borrowed from Western Asia, Assyria and Persia, still more of them from Greece; and to Greece also, or rather to the Hellenistic art of the North-West, it was indebted for valuable help in surmounting technical difficulties and thus smoothing the path of its development. But whatever these borrowings from outside sources, Indian art was able to assimilate them so thoroughly and organically that its own fundamental character remained unimpaired. As I see it, that character developed primarily from the deep, intuitive feeling of the Indian, especially the non-Aryan Indian, for rhythm and symmetry, coupled with his equally deep appreciation of plant and animal life and his unerring instinct for the stylization of form. These were factors that were common to every phase of ancient Indian art and which uniformly lay at the root of its beauty.

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My second comment is that, although the art of this Early School was a religious art, initiated and developed under the aegis of the Buddhist Church, it was in fact based to a very large extent on the familiar mundane art of the period, only with such changes and additions—sometimes very slight ones—as were needed to give it its Buddhist complexion. This explains the presence on a Buddhist monument of such flagrantly sensuous scenes as those illustrated in figs. 11 and 12, which patently conflicts with the first principles of the Buddha's teaching. In such matters it seems to have been the Church rather than the artist who made the compromise. We shall see later that precisely the same thing happened in the case of Gandhāra art.

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The final point I would stress concerns the startling disparity in the style and execution of many of these Early Indian sculptures. In some cases this disparity is of course due to the unequal ability of the sculptors responsible for the work, and nothing more need be said about it. But in other cases the disparity results from an over-conscientious regard for the traditional treatment of certain figures or groups of figures, particularly those of gods or earthly princes and their retinues. We have already seen a characteristic example of this in fig. 7, where the emotionless, puppet-like figures of the *devas* on the left, in violent contrast with the spirited scene on the right, are clearly due to established convention. The contrast is one that is constantly confronting us in these early sculptures.