A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c11.s1: Section I. General Observations
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c11.s1
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Section I. General Observations
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In Chapter IV our attention was confined to the prolific Hellenistic school of sculpture which flourished during the first three centuries of the Christian era in the regions of the north-western frontier constituting the home provinces of the Kushān empire, and known by the name of Gandhāra.¹ In this chapter we propose to study certain schools of sculpture, partially contemporary with the Gandhāra school, and to some extent related to it, but distinct in style, and located in interior India.
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¹ The name is written *Kushana* in the Kharoshthī script, which ordinarily does not mark long vowels; but the long *ā* is justified by Chinese transcriptions and the legends of certain Sassanian coins.
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As I have occasion to observe more than once, the chronology of the Kushān dynasty is still unsettled, and decisive proof is lacking for any one of the many rival theories on the subject. Six sovereigns of the dynasty are of importance for the history of India and of Indian art. The first two are most conveniently cited as Kadphises I and II. The next four kings, Kanishka, Vāsishka, Huvishka, and Vāsudeva I, certainly reigned in that order for a century in round numbers.² As a working hypothesis I revert to Professor Oldenberg's old theory, and assume that Kanishka came to the throne in A. D. 78. Thus the first and second centuries after Christ are approximately filled by the rule of the leading kings of the dynasty, the name of which may be given to the period up to about A. D. 300, because the next principal dynasty, the Gupta, did not begin until A. D. 320. The sculpture at Amarāvatī, although in a southern locality, is closely related to that of the north, and may be conveniently treated under a classification based on the reigns of a northern dynasty. From the far south we have no certain sculpture of the period, and there is little, if any, in Ceylon which can be assigned to it. I have doubtfully inserted the Jain images from the Cuddapah District, Madras, in this chapter.
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² Inscribed pillar of Mahārāja Shāhi Vāsishka dated in 24th year (Mathurā Museum, Q 13, *Catal.*, p. 189). In India the reigns of Kanishka, Vāsishka, and Huvishka overlap. Probably Vāsishka reigned in India only, and Huvishka succeeded to the whole empire on Kanishka's death about A.D. 123.
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The art of the sculptors of the Kushān period, as thus defined, may be sufficiently illustrated by study of the remains in three notable localities, namely Mathurā (Muttra) on the Jumna, Sārnāth, near Benares, and Amarāvatī on the bank of the Krishna (Kistna) river, in the Guntūr District, Madras. Of course, contemporary sculptures occur elsewhere, but it is not necessary for the purposes of this history to consider the remains in minor localities.
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In the early centuries of the Christian era Mathurā on the Jumna (27° 30′ N., 77° 41′ E.), a city of immemorial antiquity, and prosperous to this day in spite of many disasters, was sacred in the eyes of the adherents of all the three indigenous Indian religions—Jainism, Buddhism, and Brahmanical Hinduism. The abundant supply of excellent red sandstone at Rūpbās and other quarries in the neighbourhood favoured the development of an active school of sculptors, whose workshops supplied all parts of Northern India with idols, much as Jaipur does now. The craftsmen, of course, were prepared to supply whatever was wanted by their patrons of any religion. The character of the local stone is so distinct that the products of the Mathurā studios are easily recognized wherever they may be found. Wealthy worshippers did not hesitate to undertake the cost of transporting heavy, even colossal, statues for hundreds of miles. For instance, unmistakable Mathurā images of large size occur at Sārnāth, some four hundred miles distant.
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Geographically Mathurā occupies a central position intermediate between Gandhāra to the north-west, Amarāvatī to the south-east, and Sārnāth to the east. It is therefore not surprising that the local school of art should display intermediate characters, linking it on the one hand with the Hellenistic art of Gandhāra, and on the other with the more purely Indian schools of the interior. At one time I believed the Hellenizing sculptures of Mathurā to be earlier than those of Gandhāra, but that view has been proved to be erroneous. The Mathurā sculptors continued to turn out creditable work during the Gupta period, as will appear in the next chapter.
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Sārnāth, like Mathurā, was holy ground to the Jains as well as the Buddhists. The richly adorned buildings of both religions, crowded with sculpture, were involved in common ruin by the violence of the fierce hosts of Islam at the close of the twelfth century. The Brahmanical Hindus lavished their devotion on the neighbouring city of Benares, and shared the misfortunes of their rivals. The sculptors of Sārnāth ordinarily used the excellent pale sandstone from the quarries of Chanār (Chunar) in the Mirzāpur District, which had supplied the blocks for Asoka's pillars. But, as already observed, wealthy donors sometimes preferred to import red sandstone images from Mathurā. During the last few years much progress has been made in unearthing the buried treasures of Sārnāth, but much more remains to be found.
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Far away to the east of south the ruins of a vanished Buddhist *stūpa* at Amarāvatī (16° 35′ N., 80° 24′ E.) have furnished a multitude of marble sculptures in relief, certainly assignable to the Kushān age, and of such excellence that competent critics have held them to mark the culminating point of Indian art. Their style connects them in certain respects with both Mathurā and Gandhāra. While Indian elements predominate, traces of Hellenistic or Western Asiatic influence may be recognized without difficulty.
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I now proceed to discuss characteristic examples of the three chief localities.