A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c11.s3.4

c11.s3.4

The *stūpa* in its earliest form was of high antiquity, dating, as inscriptions prove, from about 200 b.c., and some fragments of sculpture perhaps as old still survive. But the great mass of the sculpture is much later, and belongs to the Kushān period. The authority of the Kushān kings, however, did not extend as far south as Amarāvatī, which was then within the dominions of the powerful Āndhra dynasty of the Deccan. By the help of two inscriptions mentioning Āndhra kings, the testimony of Tāranāth the historian of Buddhism, and other evidence of various kinds, the construction of the great railing may be assigned to the half-century between 150 and 200 after Christ. The highly ornate slabs which cased the *stūpa* itself may be a little later. We are almost certainly safe in saying that all the sculptures of the railing and casing fall within the hundred years between a.d. 150 and 250. Until quite recently everybody believed that there used to be two railings, and all the printed descriptions give details of an 'outer' and an 'inner' railing. But Dr. Burgess now states that he and everybody else were mistaken, the fact being that no more than one railing, the so-called 'outer' one, ever existed. The slabs supposed to have belonged to an 'inner' railing really formed a casing applied to the body of the *stūpa*.¹