The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.183

Language: English

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There is one circumstance, however, which melts all these arguments into thin air: both the principal figures have traces on their chins of a curly beard, and no Hindu divinity, nor any Hindu householder or man of pleasure, has ever been represented, either in poetry or in plastic art, with such an appendage to his face. The Hindu Śāstras have invariably and uniformly assigned the beard to houseless hermits and sages who have renounced the pleasures of the world, and there is no reason whatever to suppose that there was any exception, or that the sculpture is intended as a satire on a hermit. It must follow, therefore, that the scenes delineated are foreign, and most probably those of some passages in the life of Silénos. The figures are decidedly Bacchic, and the beard, the *cantharus*, the vine crown, and the *tazza*, are very appropriate emblems and accessories to indicate their characters. To account for the Indian character of some of the details, I believe the sculpture to be the handiwork of an Indian artist working for a Bactrian or Greek employer, just in the same way in which Indian artists, working for General Claude Martin produced the “Constantia” house at Lucknow, bastardising a Muhammadan building with corrupt Renaissance ornaments and decorations. A drawing of the design was given by the employer, and the artist worked it out in the best way he could, with such additions and alterations as his Indian ideas of the requirements of art suggested to him.

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General Cunningham is of opinion that the sculpture was produced by a foreign artist—one “of a small body of Bactrian Greek sculptors who”, he conjectures, “found ready employment for their services amongst the wealthy Buddhists, just in the same way as goldsmiths and artillerymen afterwards found service with the Moghal Emperors;”⁷⁷ and it is undeniable that during the supremacy of the Graeco-Bactrians in North-Western India for about a century, Greek works of art were produced in a more or less debased state for Huviṣka and his successors. But neither the conjecture nor the probability suffices to account for the local character of so many of the accessories of the sculpture. A Greek or Bactrian artist, working for a Greek or, a Bactrian, employer would be the last person to design heavy earrings, thick anklets, five-rowed necklaces, Indian *dhuti*, Indian *pāyajāma*, Indian *cāpkāns* of flowered muslin, Indian *cādars*, and Indian shoes for a Grecian demi-god and his attendants. A local cause for them must be sought, and I believe the Indian nationality of the artist offers the most probable soultion of the difficulty, the Greek “feeling” of the work being accounted for by the design. But whatever the origin of this and the other works named above, there is nothing in them, nor a tittle of evidence of any kind to show that they gave rise to the plastic art in this country, or even appreciably influenced its character.

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Outlines of human forms must be, from their nature, similar wherever produced, but “even as in music the same tune assumes different styles under different treatment, and experts can easily make out, not only such styles, but their imitations”, [72] so in the plastic art there are styles and their imitations which are determinable; but as yet no one has noticed any unmistakable and certain trace of a Greek or Bactrian style or imitation of it in Indian sculptures. The little that has been noticed in the specimens above named are peculiar to them, and them only, and not to be found in the bulk of the sculptures of this country, which have their own special peculiarities,—which mark them as strictly indigenous, and perfectly independent of foreign art. Hence it is, I believe, that Mr.

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Westmacott came to the conclusion that, “the conquests of Alexander the Great do not appear to have exercised any important influence on the art of India, by introducing new forms or improved principles of beauty.” Professor Lübke, who is a strong advocate of the Alexandrine theory as regards Indian architecture, and supposes that “the Aśoka columns point most remarkably to the influence of Western Asia,—that is, the Babylonic Assyrian,—which might certainly have resulted from Alexander’s march of conquest”, admits “that if this be the case, still in the earlier Indian civilization of which we certainly have but few traces, distinct national forms of art must have been already developed and these Buddhism immediately transformed into monumental importance”⁷⁸ Mr. Auckland, in his *Manners and Customs of India* (p. 121), after adverting to the Greek character of the Hātigumphā inscription of Udayagiri, explains how the Greek record came to the country by asking himself, “whether it is possible, that when Alexander was stopped by the Afghans, any of his people ventured still further into the country, and after various wanderings, founded Cundaguree, as conquerors of the district”? He also states that he had seen some Roman emblems on the sculptures there.

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But as James Prinsep has already demonstrated the inscription to be Pāli, and the careless writer, who fancied that Alexander’s march “was stopped by the Afghans”, has not described the particular emblems which he took to be of Roman origin, it is not worth while to refute his statements in detail.