Maurya and Shunga Art c4.6

c4.6

The fact remains therefore that we have no examples extant of either sculpture or architecture that can definitely be labelled chronologically as pre-Mauryan. Indeed, all evidences suggest that whatever specimens of these two branches of visual art we know are directly the products of the Mauryya court. Except two pillars that stylistically may be ascribed to a date anterior to that of Aśoka, all the rest belong definitely to the latter's reign along with the animal figures that crown them or exist independently. The description of the city of Pāṭaliputra and of the royal palace we read of in the accounts of classical writers like Megasthenes, Arrian and Strabo and the excavations at the site of the old city by Waddel and Spooner⁸ to which we shall turn at a later stage may be taken to suggest that Chandragupta, the first Maurya, may have been responsible for the original initiative in the general planning and execution of the building of the city as well as of the royal palace. But there can be little doubt that Bindusāra and Aśoka, particularly the latter, added considerably to the original lay out and the buildings. The Maurya Pillared Hall and the stupendous buildings remains of which were laid bare by Spooner may have presumably been built by Aśoka himself, since their essential ideology and conception agree so remarkably well with all that we already know of the aims, ideals, motives and general ideological design of that great benevolent autocrat. Such large designs executed with almost imperial thoroughness can for all that we know be associated with his name alone. Of other architectural remains that can definitely be associated with the Maurya dynasty are a few cave-dwellings dedicated by Aśoka and his grandson Daśaratha for the use of the monks of the Ājīvika sect. The more important remains of Mauryan art may on proven grounds be said to include the remains of the royal palace and city of Pāṭaliputra, a monolithic rail at Sarnath, the excavated chaitya-halls or cave-dwellings in the Barabar-Nagarjuni group of hills in Gaya, the non-edict-bearing and edict-bearing pillars with their capitals, and the front half of an elephant carved out in the round from a live rock at Dhauli in Orissa⁹.