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A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14: Chapter VIII. The Early Schools of Hindu Painting

A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14

Language
English

Contents

Chapter VIII. The Early Schools of Hindu Painting

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FEW, very few, people realize that the art of painting in India and Ceylon has a long history, illustrated by extant examples ranging over a period exceeding two thousand years, and that during the so-called Dark Ages the Indian and Ceylonese painters attained a degree of proficiency not matched in Europe before the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Nevertheless such are the facts. In this chapter and the next following the history of the art in India and Ceylon, so far as its practice was dominated by Hindu ideas, will be traced from the earliest times of which there is record until the present day; but, unfortunately, the incompleteness of the record compels the historian to leave many gaps in his narrative. The widest of those gaps lies between the close of the Ajaṇṭā series in the seventh and the introduction of the Indo-Persian style by Akbar in the sixteenth century. During that long period of more than nine hundred years hardly anything definite is known concerning the productions of Indian and Ceylonese painters. Abundant material exists for the history of the Indo-Persian school, which will be discussed in Chapter XIV. That school, although foreign in origin, bears ample indirect testimony to the continuity of the Hindu pictorial tradition. When the relations of Indian art generally to that of foreign countries come to be examined in Chapter XI, we shall find that Hindu painting, while related to the ancient schools of interior Asia, has merits peculiarly its own, and apparently deserves credit for substantial originality.

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The ancient literature of India and Ceylon contains many references to pictorial art, the earliest, perhaps, being those in books of the Pāli Buddhist canon dating from some three or four centuries before the Christian era. Several passages in those books tell of pleasure-houses belonging to the kings of Magadha and Kosala in Northern India as being adorned with painted figures and decorative patterns, presumably similar to the earliest known frescoes in Orissa and at Ajaṇṭā.¹ Painted halls are also mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa*, a Brahmanical epic of uncertain but early date; and allusions to portraits are frequent in the dramas of Kālidāsa and his successors from the fifth to the eighth century after Christ. The Ceylonese chronicle, the *Mahāvaṃsa*, composed probably in the fifth century, tells of the mural paintings decorating the relic-chamber of the Ruwanweli *dāgaba* constructed by King Duttha-gāmini about B.C. 150. The testimony of native writers is confirmed by that of the Chinese pilgrims in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, who notice several examples of celebrated Buddhist pictures; and by Tāranāth, the Tibetan historian of Buddhism, who, when writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century, ascribes the most ancient pictures to the gods, and declares that they were so marvellous as to bewilder beholders by their realism.¹

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¹ Rhys Davids, *Buddhist India*, p. 96; citing *Vin.*, ii. 151; iv. 47, 61, 298; *Sam.*, 42, 84.

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¹ *Geschichte des Buddhismus*, ch. xxiv, transl. Schiefner, p. 278. His testimony will be discussed in the next chapter.

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The literary evidence thus summarily indicated would alone amply prove the early and continuous practice of the painter's art in both India and Ceylon; but it is unnecessary to labour the proof from books, because evidence of a more satisfactory kind is furnished by the considerable surviving remains of ancient painting from the second century before Christ; which, even in their present fragmentary and mutilated state, enable the modern critic to appraise the style of the early Indian artists, and to recognize the just claim of the art of India and Ceylon to take high rank among the ancient schools of painting. We will now proceed to give in this chapter an account of the extant remains of Indian and Ceylonese painting from the second century before Christ to the middle of the seventh century of the Christian era.

Section II. Rāmgarh Hill, Orissa

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The oldest Indian pictures, and, excepting the Egyptian, probably the most ancient extant specimens of Oriental painting, are found in the Jogīmārā Cave of the Rāmgarh Hill in the Surgujā State, a wild region lying to the south of the Mirzāpur District and now attached to the Central Provinces.²

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² The spelling 'Surgujā', not 'Sirgujā', seems to be correct. The hill is situated in 22° 53′ N., 82° 55′ E., close to the small village of Udaypur in the Lakhanpurī Zamīndārī of the Surgujā State, transferred from the government of Bengal and Orissa to that of the Central Provinces.

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These pictures, apparently executed in the customary Indian method of fresco, which will be explained presently, are divided into concentric circles by bands of red and yellow, sometimes enriched with a geometrical design, these circles seemingly being again subdivided into panels. The general nature of the subjects of the four best preserved panels, copies of which are not available, can be understood from the following brief description:—

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A. In the centre a male figure is seated under a tree, with dancing girls and musicians to the left, and a procession, including an elephant, to the right.

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B. This panel exhibits several male figures, a wheel, and sundry geometrical ornaments.

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C. One half of this panel merely shows indistinct traces of flowers, horses, and clothed human figures.

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In the other half is seen a tree having a bird and apparently a nude child in its branches, while round the tree are grouped other nude human figures, wearing their hair tied in a knot on the left side of the head.

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D. The upper part of one half of this panel contains a nude male figure seated and attended by three clothed men standing, with two similar seated figures and three more attendants on one side. In the lower part are depicted a house with the horseshoe or so-called 'chaitya' window, an elephant, and three clothed men standing in front. Near this group are shown a chariot drawn by three horses and surmounted by an umbrella, and a second elephant with an attendant. In the second half of the panel the figures are generally similar in character.

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The early date of the paintings, which are fairly well preserved, is attested by inscriptions, evidently contemporary, and by the style, which recalls that of the sculptures at Sānchī and Bharhut (*ante*, pp. 74, 80). They probably date from the second century, and cannot well be later than the first century before Christ. The subjects cannot be interpreted at present, but the nudity of the principal figures suggests a connexion with the Jain rather than the Buddhist religion, if the cave and paintings had any religious significance, which is doubtful. As regards technique, the designs are painted usually in red, but occasionally in black, on a white ground. The outlines of the human and animal figures are drawn in black. Clothing is white with red outlines, hair is black, and eyes are white. Yellow appears in the dividing bands only, and blue does not seem to occur. These particulars indicate a very primitive style.¹

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¹ The only information on the subject is recorded by the late Dr. Bloch in *Ann. Rep. A. S., Bengal Circle*, 1903–4, pp. 12–14; and *Ann. Rep. A. S., India*, 1903–4, p. 130. No doubt the Director-General will seize the earliest opportunity to obtain copies of these interesting works. The premature death of Dr. Bloch is much to be deplored.

Section III. Ajanṭā

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The story of the art of painting in India is continued by the celebrated frescoes of the Ajaṇṭā caves in the west, ranging in date from about A.D. 50, or earlier, to 642, a period of some six or seven centuries, and constituting the most important mass of ancient painting extant in the world, Pompeii only excepted. The caves, twenty-nine in number, are 'excavated in the face of an almost perpendicular scarp of rock about 250 feet high, sweeping round in a curve of fully a semicircle, and forming the north or outer side of a wild and lonely glen, down which comes a small stream'. This glen or ravine, a scene of great natural beauty and perfect seclusion, admirably adapted for a monastic retreat, is situated about three and a half miles south-west from Fardāpur, a small town in the Nizam's Dominions, standing at the foot of a pass across the Indhyādri Hills, which divide the table-land of the Deccan from the Khāndesh District in the Tāpti valley, and four miles WNW. from the town of Ajaṇṭā (30° 32' N., 75° 46' E.), not far from the battle-field of Assaye.²

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² Ajaṇṭā, or more correctly Ajiṇṭhā (Fleet, *Ind. Ant.*, xxii. 114).

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'The caves extend for a distance of about 600 yards from east to west round the concave wall of amygdaloid trap which hems in the stream on its north or left side, and vary in elevation from about 35 to 100 feet above the level of the torrent.' The numbers by which authors have agreed to designate them begin at the east end. Four of the excavations, Nos. IX, X, XIX, and XXVI, are churches (the so-called 'chaityas'), the rest being monastic residences, the 'vihāras' of English writers. Some have never been completed. The principal works are elaborate architectural compositions, executed in the solid rock, the nature of which is very inadequately expressed by the term 'caves'.

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In 1879 paintings to a greater or lesser extent remained in sixteen caves, Nos. I, II, IV, VI, VII, IX, X, XI, XV, XVI, XVII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, and XXVI. The most important fragments were then to be seen in nine caves, Nos. I, II, IX, X, XI, XVI, XVII, XIX, and XXI, those in Cave XVII being the most extensive.¹ The most ancient excavations, Nos. VIII, XII, and XIII, have no paintings. No. XIII, perhaps the earliest of all, has polished walls, and may date from 200 b. c. Six of the caves, Nos. VIII, IX, X, XI (with some sculpture possibly later), XII, and XIII are concerned with the early Hīnayāna form of Buddhism, and may be considered to cover a period of about three and a half centuries from 200 b. c. to a. d. 150. All the others were dedicated to the Mahāyāna forms of worship. Nos. VI and VII may be assigned to the century between a. d. 450 and 550. The rest, namely Nos. XIV to XX, XXI–XXIX, and I–V seem to have been excavated between a. d. 500 and 642, several having been left incomplete. No. I was held by Fergusson to be the latest of the completed works.

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¹ The amount remaining is now much reduced. In 1909–10 Mrs. Herringham found considerable remains only in Caves I, II, IX, X, XVI, and XVII (*Burlington Magazine*, vol. xvii, June 1910, pp. 136–8, with two Plates). See also her remarks in *Catalogue and Guide to the Indian Court, Festival of Empire*, published in July, 1911.

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The paintings are not necessarily of exactly the same age as the caves which they adorn. The most ancient unquestionably are certain works in Caves IX and X, partially overlaid by later pictures. These earliest paintings are so closely related to the Sānchī sculptures that they may be referred to approximately the same age, about the beginning of the Christian era, or earlier. They may be credited to the patronage of the powerful Āndhra kings of the Deccan, who, even if not themselves Buddhists, certainly put no obstacle in the way of Buddhist worship. So far as appears, no paintings were executed for centuries afterwards. The next in date would seem to be the Buddhas on the pillars in Cave X, with various forms of the nimbus and a style of drapery which brings to mind the sculptures of Gandhāra and early Christian art (Griffiths, Pl. 42, 43). These might be as early as a. d. 350, but may be considerably later.²

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² According to Mrs. Herringham, these are the only paintings now left in Cave X. The wall-paintings described by Burgess in 1879 have disappeared.

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The bulk of the paintings unquestionably must be assigned to the time of the great Chalukya kings, a. d. 550–642; but some may have been executed under the patronage of the earlier Vākāṭaka kings of Berār. A Vākāṭaka inscription exists in Cave XVI. It is unlikely that any can have been executed later than the second date named, when Pulakesin II was dethroned and presumably killed by the Pallava king of the South. The resulting political conditions must have been unfavourable for the execution of costly works of art dedicated to the service of Buddhism, the Pallava kings having been, as a rule, ardent worshippers of Siva. The latest pictures, those in Cave I, may be attributed, for reasons to be explained presently, to the years between a. d. 626 and 642. The related paintings at Bāgh in Mālwa may be dated at some time in the sixth century, or the first half of the seventh.

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The Ajaṇṭā paintings first became known to Europeans in 1819, but failed to attract much attention until 1843, when Mr. James Fergusson, the historian of architecture, published a description of them and persuaded the Directors of the East India Company to sanction the preparation of copies at the public expense. In pursuance of the orders of the Court, Major Gill, a competent and conscientious artist, was deputed some years later, and continued at work until the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857.¹ The copies then executed, thirty or more in number, were sent home from time to time, and with the exception of five, the last executed, perished in 1866 in a fire at the Crystal Palace, where they were exhibited. Nothing remains of the lost copies except a few small-scale outline engravings in Mrs. Speir's *Ancient India* (1856), and reproductions of them in *Ancient and Mediaeval India* (1869) by the same lady under the name of Manning, and also in the *Notes on the Bauddha Rock-Temples of Ajanta* (1879) by Dr. Burgess.

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¹ His portrait appears in Plate 34 of Fergusson's scarce octavo work entitled *The Rock-cut Temples of India, illustrated by 74 photographs taken on the spot by Major Gill* (Murray, 1864); photo. No. 616 in *India Office List of Negatives*. Colonel Havelock of Cheltenham possesses another likeness of the artist.

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Since then fresh copies have been prepared between 1872 and 1885 by Mr. Griffiths of the Bombay School of Art, and his pupils, which have been partially published in two magnificent atlas folio volumes entitled *The Paintings of the Buddhist Cave Temples of Ajanta, Khandesh, India* (1896). The India Office also possesses a fine volume of photographs arranged by Dr. Burgess.²

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² Mrs. Herringham states that the varnish applied by either Gill or Griffiths 'is now dirty and yellow, and has seriously spoiled the pictures'.

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The Crystal Palace fire did not exhaust the ill-luck of these famous paintings. A subsequent fire at the South Kensington Museum destroyed or damaged many of Mr. Griffiths's copies, as shown in detail in the Appendix to volume ii of his work. The copies, more than a hundred in number, which escaped the fires are exhibited in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, but many of them have been damaged, and their colouring is by no means true to the originals.

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Publicity has been fatal to the originals, and the Government of H.H. the Nizam, in whose territories the caves are situated, has shown little concern for their preservation. Indeed, thirty years ago one of his subordinate officials wrought much damage by cutting out heads to present to visitors; and, shameful to say, Dr. Bird, a Bombay archaeologist, was guilty of the same crime with the intention of benefiting the Museum at Bombay. Of course, all the fragments of plaster thus abstracted crumbled to dust and were lost irretrievably. Much injury also has been done by smoke from the fires of Hindu ascetics camping in the caves, by the folly of irresponsible scribblers of various nationalities, and by the unchecked action of bats, birds, and nest-building insects.

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The Director-General of Archaeology in India informs me that in 1903–4 wire screens were fixed up in all the more important caves, and a good deal of cleaning was done. In 1908 the Department submitted a scheme for further conservation to the Government of the Nizam, and it is hoped that effective action may be taken. The Imperial Government cannot interfere directly in the internal administration of a protected State.

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The long-continued neglect of these precious remains by the Government of H.H. the Nizam offers a painful contrast to the vigorous and effective action taken by the Government of Ceylon to preserve the fifth-century paintings at Sīgiriya which will be described in due course. At Ajaṇṭā the result of neglect and wilful injury is that the existing paintings are only a small fraction of those visible in 1819, when the caves were first brought to notice. Nevertheless, in spite of all mischances, enough either remains or has been recorded to indicate the course of Indian pictorial art for some six centuries or more.

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Many of the paintings referred to in this chapter, which existed in 1879, when Dr. Burgess wrote, have since disappeared.

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The Ajaṇṭā pictures may be correctly termed frescoes, although the process used is not exactly the same as any practised in Europe.

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‘The Indian practice of wall-painting at Ajaṇṭā, as elsewhere,’ Mr. Griffiths observes, ‘is in fact a combination of tempera with fresco. The hydraulic nature of Indian lime, or *chunam*, makes it possible to keep a surface moist for a longer time than in Europe, and the Indian practice of trowelling the work—unknown in Europe—produced a closer and more intimate *liaison* between the colour and the lime, and a more durable and damp-resisting face than the open texture of European fresco. The art has been practised all over India since the time of the Ajaṇṭā frescoes, and to this day houses, mosques, and temples are thus decorated. The modern method is first to spread a ground of coarse mortar (*chunam*) of the thickness of from half to one inch on the wall. This is allowed to stand for a day. If on the next day the ground is too dry, it is moistened, and then tapped all over with the edge of a small piece of wood of triangular section, to roughen it and give it a tooth. Then, with a coarse brush a thin coating of fine white plaster (*chunam*) is applied, and the work is allowed to stand till the next day, being moistened all the time. If the painting is to be highly finished, the ground is carefully smoothed with a small flat iron trowel about the size of a dessert spoon, which produces a surface on which the design is first sketched, or transferred by pouncing from a perforated drawing on paper, and then painted.

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The outline is usually put in first in brown or black; local colour is filled in with flat washes, on which the details are painted.

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The colours are ground with rice or linseed-water with a little coarse molasses (*gur*), and water only is used in painting. Then, when the painting is completed, it is again rubbed over with the same small trowel. . . . It is considered absolutely necessary that the work should be kept damp from beginning to finish, so that the plaster is not allowed to set until the completion of the picture. When once the smoothly trowelled surface is dry, it bears a distinct sheen or gloss and the colours withstand washing.

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Between the methods of modern India and that employed at Ajaṇṭā, the only difference is that instead of a first coat of mortar, a mixture of clay, cow-dung, and pulverized trap rock was first applied to the walls and thoroughly pressed into its [*sic*] surface, when the small cavities and air-holes peculiar to volcanic rock and the rough chisel marks left by the excavators served as keys. In some instances, especially in the ceilings, rice husks were used.

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This first layer—which, according to our modern notions—promises no great permanence, was laid to a thickness varying from one-eighth to three-quarters of an inch, and on it an egg-shell coat of fine white plaster was spread. This skin of plaster, in fact, overlaid everything—mouldings, columns, carven ornaments, and figure sculptures—but, in the case of carved details, without the intervention of the coat of earthen rough-cast; and, from what remains, it is clear that the whole of each cave was thus plaster-coated and painted. The texture of the volcanic rock, which is at once hard, open, impervious to damp, and yet full of air-holes, is especially suitable for this treatment. Great pains were taken with the statues of Buddha; one in the small chamber to the right of the first floor of Cave VI is covered with a layer of the finest plaster one-eighth of an inch thick, so painted and polished that the face has the smoothness and sheen of porcelain.¹

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¹ In Cave IX the early picture H which Mr. Griffiths exposed and copied, after removing a later damaged painting, was executed on a coat of finest plaster, 1/32 inch thick, applied directly to the rock, and polished like porcelain.

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It will be seen that a parallel to the technique of the Ajaṇṭā paintings is scarcely to be found in the Italian frescoes. But it is evident from specimens of the Egyptian work in the British Museum that loam or clay mixed with chopped straw formed the substratum over which, as at Ajaṇṭā, a layer of fine plaster was laid to receive the final painting.

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It may not be impertinent again to point out the exceeding simplicity of the Indian and Egyptian methods, which have ensured a durability denied to more recent attempts executed with all the aids of modern chemical science.’ ²

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² Griffiths, *op. cit.*, p. 18.

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The foregoing description of the technique of the Ajaṇṭā paintings, based upon Mr. Griffiths's patient study for thirteen years on the spot, may be accepted with confidence as authoritative, although Mr. Havell may be right in adding that the pictures were sometimes touched up in tempera after the surface had dried. Italian workers in true fresco (*fresco buono*) often permit themselves the same liberty.

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But it will be well to supplement Mr. Griffiths's account by the recent observations of Mrs. Herringham, also an expert artist, who writes:—

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‘The technique adopted, with perhaps some few exceptions, is a bold red line-drawing on the white plaster. Sometimes nothing else is left. This drawing gives all the essentials with force or delicacy as may be required, and with knowledge and intention. Next comes a thinnish terra-verde monochrome showing some of the red through it; then the local colour; then a strengthening of the outlines with blacks and browns giving great decision, but also a certain flatness; last, a little shading if necessary. There is not much definite light and shade modelling, but there is great definition given by the use of contrasting local colour and of emphatic blacks and whites.’

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Mr. Griffiths, it will be observed, does not mention the first outline in red.

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³ For a good summary account of the European processes see the article ‘Fresco’ in Chambers's *Encyclopaedia* (1905). Mr. J. L. Kipling, a competent authority, states that the fresco-painting on the walls of the mosque of Wazir Khan at Lahore, ‘which is very freely painted and in good style, is true fresco-painting, the *buono fresco* of the Italians, and, like the inlaid ceramic work, is now no longer practised, modern native decoration being usually *fresco secco*, or mere distemper painting’ (*Lahore Guide*, 1876; quoted in Birdwood, *Industrial Arts of India* (1880), p. 228).

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The nature of fresco-painting in any of its forms implies the use of a limited range of pigments capable of resisting the decomposing action of lime, and consequently composed of natural earths. At Ajaṇṭā and Bāgh the colours most freely used are white, red, and brown in various shades, a dull green, and blue. The white is opaque, mainly composed of sulphate of lime; the reds and browns derive their tints solely from compounds of iron; the green is a silicate, similar to the mineral now known as *terre verte*; and the blue is ultramarine, which was obtained in ancient times by grinding calcined lapis-lazuli, a costly semi-precious mineral usually imported from either Persia or Badakshān. The long panels of the ceilings in Cave II, dating from about a. d. 600, offer well-preserved examples of charming floral decorations in blue (Griffiths, Pl. 123-5). In the early paintings of the Rāmgarh Hill, Orissa (*ante*, p. 273), and the fifth-century works at Sīgiriya in Ceylon (*post*, Sec. 5 of this chapter), blue never occurs. At Ajaṇṭā, yellow, so largely used at Anurādhapura in Ceylon, apparently is very rare. The yellow of ancient painters is believed to have been always orpiment, a natural arsenic sulphide.

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The subjects of the pictures, as distinguished from the purely decorative devices, are almost exclusively Buddhist. They include, of course, numerous figures of Buddha and representations of sacred objects and symbols. The more complex compositions for the most part deal with either the incidents of the life of Gautama Buddha or those related in the Jātaka stories, which narrates the events of his former births. In at least two cases the Jātaka story is indicated beyond dispute by a painted label, but the fragmentary condition of the pictures renders difficult the identification of most of the scenes. There is, however, no difficulty in recognizing in Cave X the tale of the six-tusked elephant, and a few other legends may be identified with more or less certainty.¹ Miscellaneous edifying Buddhist subjects, not taken from the Jātaka collection, include the Litany of Avalokitesvara; the Wheel of Life, formerly miscalled the Zodiac; and, supposing the identification to be correct, the Landing of Vijaya in Ceylon—all in Cave XVII. If, as seems to be highly probable, Fergusson was right in interpreting a famous scene in Cave I as the record of an embassy from Khusrū Parvīz, King of Persia to Pulakesin II, King of the Deccan, about a. d. 626, the subject of one large wall-picture is of a secular character. Certain smaller pictures on the ceiling of the same cave evidently must be connected with the embassy scene.

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¹ In Cave XVII the story of Śibi Rājā, who gave his eyes to the beggar (No. 499; Cowell & Rouse, *transl.*, vol. iv, p. 250) is labelled. In Cave II the Kshāntivādin and Maitrībata *jātaka* pictures are accompanied by quotations from the *Jātaka Mālā* of Ārya Śūra, inscribed in characters of about the sixth century, the former being also labelled by name (Heinrich Lüders, ‘Ārya Śūra's *Jātaka-mālā* und die Fresken von Ajaṇṭā’, *Nachr. d. königl. Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse*, 1902, p. 758). The story of the six-tusked elephant is No. 514 (Cowell and Francis, vol. v, p. 20).

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The high achievement of the Ajaṇṭā artists in decorative design executed with masterly skill is most freely exhibited in the ceiling panels of Cave I, painted in the first half of the seventh century (Fig. 202). Mr. Griffiths, who took so much pleasure in copying the designs, describes their variety as infinite, carried into the smallest details, so that repetition is very rare; fancy is given full play, and the simplest objects of nature, being pressed into the artist's service, are converted into pleasing and effective ornament.

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‘The smaller panels,’ he observes, ‘are ornamented with designs as varied and graceful as they are fanciful. Some with grotesque little figures, rich in humour and quaintly dressed in Persian turbans, coats, and striped stockings; gambolling amid fruits and flowers; dancing, drinking, or playing upon instruments; or chattering together; some with animals combined with the lotus, drawn with remarkable fidelity and action; as the elephant, humped bull, and the monkey; parrots, geese, and conventional birds singly and in pairs, with foliated crests, and tails convoluted like heraldic lambrequins, showing the upper and under surface of the ornament. Some contain the large pink lotus, full-bloom, half-bloom, and in bud, as well as the smaller red and white; some with the mango (*Mangifera indica*), custard apple (*Anona*

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FIG. 202. Figures in spandril of central ceiling panel, Cave I, Ajaṇṭā. Griffiths, *op. cit.*, Pl. 113 (102).

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*squamosa*); a round fruit which may be the *bêl* (*Aegle marmelos*) or the lime (*limbu*); another that looks like the brinjal or aubergine (*Solanum melongena*), and many others.

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The ornament in these panels is painted alternately on a black and red ground. The ground colour was first laid all over the panel, and then the ornament painted solidly upon this in white. It was further developed by thin transparent colours over the white.’¹

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¹ Griffiths, *op. cit.*, pp. 41, 42.

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The reader who desires to realize fully the justice of Mr. Griffiths’s panegyric must study his numerous plates, or the full-sized copies in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington; or, best of all, Mrs. Herringham’s recent copies. Here it is not possible to give more than a few specimens.

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Cave II presents some equally good work. The circular panels (Griffiths, PLATE LV. Small panels from ceiling of Cave I, Ajaṇṭā.

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A. Griffiths, Pl. 102, Fig. 1 *a*.

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B. Griffiths, Pl. 104, Fig. 8 *h*.

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C. Griffiths, Pl. 106, Fig. 15.

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D. Griffiths, Pl. 106, Fig. 17 *j*.

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E. Griffiths, Pl. 111, Fig. 49.

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F. Griffiths, Pl. 131, Fig. 14; snake design on brown ground.

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G. Griffiths, Pl. 132, Fig. 62; wreath design in blue and white on brown ground.

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Pl. 115, 117-19 coloured, and 120, 121 uncoloured) are very fine, the figures in the spandrils being particularly good and full of movement. These circular panels have a distant resemblance to the carved moonstones of Ceylon. The long ceiling panels (Griffiths, Pl. 122-31 coloured and 132 uncoloured) are admirable. Two small sections from Plate 131 with uncommon designs may be reproduced (Plate LV, F, G).

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The decorative designs in Cave I include a minor picture of considerable interest painted on a bracket capital, which may claim a full plate (Pl. LVI), as in Mr. Griffiths's work (Pl. 114). The subject is that of two bulls fighting, and its treatment proves the artist's knowledge of animal form and his power of expressing vigorous action. The same subject, with variations of detail, is treated in a sculpture at the ancient cave of Bhājā, dating from about the beginning of the Christian era or earlier, and again in a sixteenth-century painting at Akbar's capital, Fathpur Sīkrī. It occurs also in a well-known sculpture in the Louvre, brought from the Doric temple at Assos in the Troad, and dating from about 500 B.C.¹

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¹ For Bhājā see Fergusson and Burgess, *The Cave Temples of India* (1880), p. 536; for Assos, Texier and Pullan, *Principal Buildings in Asia Minor*, Pl. I; or Texier, *Asie Mineure*, vol. ii, pp. 112-14. The Fathpur Sīkrī frescoes are reproduced by E. W. Smith, *Fathpur-Sikri*, vol. i, Pl. XI-XIII, XV*a, b, c*; CIX-CXX, and also partly in the *J. I. A. I.* (July, 1894), and Griffiths, *op. cit.*

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FIG. 203. Figure from early painting H, Cave IX, Ajaṇṭā. (Griffiths, Fig. 50, p. 18.)

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In the sixth-century Cave XVII, the charming floral designs combined with human figures on the panels of the pillars (Griffiths, Pl. 144-9) are closely related to the slightly earlier sculptured work on the Garhwā pillars in Northern India (*ante*, p. 166). The *kīrtimukha* grinning faces in Plate 146 recall sculptural forms common in Ceylon. As chaste decoration it would be difficult to surpass the frets in Griffiths, Plates 143 and 149.

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The pair of lovers in a spandril of the central panel of the ceiling of Cave I is admirably drawn, and although forming only a subordinate member of a decorative design, is worthy of reproduction as a cabinet picture (Fig. 202).

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We now proceed to describe, so far as space permits, characteristic examples of the larger pictures on the walls of the caves in chronological order. But the pictures being too large to admit of intelligible reproduction as complete compositions, except on a scale far beyond the dimensions of this book, the illustrations will be confined to extracts from the paintings, which are generally overcrowded and lacking in the unity derived from skilled composition.

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PLATE LVI. Bulls fighting; from bracket capital; Cave I, Ajaṇṭā. (Griffiths, Pl. 114.)

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The earliest works, as already stated, are certain paintings in Caves IX and X, closely related to the Sānchī sculptures.

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The seated woman is a pleasing example from the painting H in Cave IX (Fig. 203), which Mr. Griffiths exposed by removing a later and damaged picture. The old composition was painted on a thin porcelain-like skin of fine plaster applied direct to the rock.

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In Cave X the remains of early paintings are, or were thirty years ago, more extensive. The fragments on the right-hand wall then consisted chiefly of elephants drawn in outline 'in a strikingly bold and true style' (Fig. 204).

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FIG. 204. Early sketch of elephant in Cave X, Ajaṇṭā. (Burgess, *Notes*, Pl. VII, Fig. 2.)

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On the left 'was a procession of men, some on foot, some on horseback, variously armed, some with halberts, and differently dressed; and behind were groups of women; but all have been defaced by native visitors within the last twenty years or less', that is to say, prior to 1879. Numerous heads and figures in these scenes, admirably drawn and full of spirit and character, are reproduced in Plates VIII–X of Dr. Burgess's *Notes*, from drawings preserved at the India Office, made by a Hindu student of the School of Art, Jayrao Raghoba. The group shown in his Plate X, a Rājā in the midst of eight female attendants, is unusually well composed. The perspective of the numerous figures is satisfactory, and the drawing of the hands and arms is particularly good (Plate LVII).

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I am disposed to think that the figures of Buddha painted on the pillars of Cave X (Griffiths, Pl. 42, 43, and cover) are the next in date, and should be assigned to the fifth century, but they might be either later or earlier. The nimbus and draperies recall early Christian art and the sculptures of Gandhāra. The best is shown in Fig. 205. These are now (1910) the only paintings left in Cave X.

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The whole interior of Cave XVI was once covered with paintings of high merit dating from about A. D. 500, but even thirty years ago many of them had been destroyed. The plates in Mr. Griffiths's work include little from this cave, although his copies, except three burnt, are preserved at South Kensington.

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The scene known as the 'Dying Princess', reproduced by Mr. Griffiths in 1874, was deservedly praised by him in glowing language, endorsed by Dr. Burgess and Mr. Fergusson, which merits quotation:—

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FIG. 205. A Buddha on pillar; Cave X, Ajaṇṭā. (Griffiths, Pl. 42 *a*, reduced.)

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'A lady of rank sits on a couch leaning her left arm on the pillow, and an attendant behind holds her up. A girl in the background places her hand on her breast and looks towards the lady. Another with a sash across her breast wields the *pankhā* [fan], and an old man in a white cap looks in at the door, while another sits beside a pillar. In the foreground sit two women. In another apartment are two figures; one with a Persian cap has a water-vessel (*kalaśa*) and a cup in the mouth of it; the other, with negro-like hair, wants something from him. To the right two *kanchukinīs* [female servants] sit in a separate compartment. . . . For pathos and sentiment and the unmistakable way of telling its story this picture, I consider, cannot be surpassed in the history of art. The Florentine could have put better drawing, and the Venetian better colour, but neither could have thrown greater expression into it. The dying woman, with drooping head, half-closed eyes, and languid limbs, reclines on a bed, the like of which may be found in any native house of the present day. She is tenderly supported by a female attendant; whilst another with eager gaze is looking into her face, and holding the sick woman's arm as if in the act of feeling her pulse. The expression on her face is one of deep anxiety as she seems to realize how soon life will be extinct in the one she loves. Another female behind is in attendance with a *pankhā*, whilst two men on the left are looking on with the expression of profound grief depicted in their faces. Below are seated on the floor other relations, who appear to have given up all hope and to have begun

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their days of mourning, for one woman has buried her face in her hand and apparently is weeping bitterly.’¹

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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, vol. iii, pp. 25 *seqq.*, with uncoloured plate. The text is quoted in Burgess, *Notes*, p. 58. He numbers the painting as 5. The picture is not included in Mr. Griffiths's special work.

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Other figures wearing the Persian cap appear in a second painting (No. 6 of Burgess) in the same cave, and may be compared with the representation of the Persian embassy and connected minor pictures in Cave I. The frequent introduction of Persians into the frescoes suggests a possible connexion of the pictorial art of India with that of Persia, which cannot be proved owing to the lack of Persian works of the same age or an earlier date.

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Cave XVII, which is little later in date than Cave XVI, and thirty years ago, whatever may be the case now, could show more painting than any of the others,

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FIG. 206. Long-tailed monkeys; Cave XVII, Ajanṭā. (Griffiths, Fig. 26.)

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may fairly be considered the most interesting of the series.² No less than sixty-one distinct scenes are described in Dr. Burgess's *Notes*. The two large pictures, reproduced in outline in his Plates XVIII and XIX, are so excessively crowded with figures and so deficient in unity of composition that they cannot be presented satisfactorily except on an enormous scale.

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² Mrs. Herringham notes that 'in Cave XVI, slightly the earlier, nearly everything is obscured, but in Cave XVII many interesting subjects still remain intelligible'.

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The representation in the left end of the verandah of the Buddhist Wheel of Life, commonly miscalled the Zodiac, is interesting rather as an illustration of popular Buddhist teaching in the sixth century than as a work of art. Similar pictures are still frequently exhibited in Tibetan monasteries and used by the Lamas for purposes of instruction. The dimensions of the Ajanṭā painting, now a mere fragment, are 8 feet 7 inches by 5 feet 1 inch.¹ The huge painting indicated in Burgess's Plate XIX is supposed to represent the legend of the landing of King Vijaya in Ceylon and his coronation as described in the Pāli chronicles. Painting No. LIV (Griffiths, Pl. 82) gives the story of Sibi Rājā, already mentioned (*ante*, p. 279).

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¹ The picture and its Tibetan counterparts are discussed fully by Col. Waddell in 'The Buddhist Pictorial Wheel of Life (Zodiac)' in *J. A. S. B.*, vol. lxi (1892), Part I, pp. 133-55, with plates. His Pl. VII corresponds with Griffiths, Pl. 56.

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The artistic merits of the work in Cave XVII are best exhibited by the selection of details (Figs. 206, 207). The artists, excellent in single figures and in the delineation of animals and plants, were less successful in composing large pictures.²

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² But see Mrs. Herringham's criticism at the end of this Section.

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[Figure: FIG. 207. Woman carrying child; Cave XVII, Ajaṇṭā. (Griffiths, Fig. 71.)]

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Among the later caves, the temple or church Cave XIX, which is elaborately carved throughout and has its porch and whole front covered with beautiful sculpture, was considered by Mr. Fergusson to be 'one of the most perfect specimens of Buddhist art in India'. The paintings include many effigies of Buddha (Griffiths, Pl. LXXXIX), and some exquisite panels on the roof of the front aisle, as well as rich floriated patterns on the roofs of the side aisles. An example of tender sentiment may be given (Fig. 208). The subject recurs in Cave XVII.

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We now pass to Caves I and II, No. I being probably the latest of the completed works.

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Mr. Griffiths has devoted a large number of plates (Nos. 20-35 and 115-32) to Cave II, besides nine text illustrations. The individual figures are remarkable for clever drawing, the artist having apparently gone out of his way to invent specially difficult poses. Mr. Griffiths's figure 8, a woman prostrating herself, and figure 16, snake-hooded Nāgas, or water-sprites, are good examples of such *tours de force*. The

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FIG. 208. Mother and child making an offering to Buddha; Cave XIX, Ajaṇṭā. (Griffiths, Pl. 89, Fig. 5.)

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FIG. 209. Woman standing; Cave II, Ajaṇṭā. (Griffiths, Fig. 5.)

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woman standing, with her left leg bent up (Fig. 5), is capital, the feet being as well drawn as the hands; and the woman in the swing (Fig. 66) is pleasing and life-like. Fig. 5 of Griffiths is reproduced (Fig. 209).

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The elegant decorative designs of Cave I have been described and illustrated (*ante*, Fig. 202, Plate LV). The numerous large wall-pictures include the Temptation of Buddha, a subject also effectively treated in sculpture in Cave XXVI, not far removed in date (*ante*, Plate XXXIX). Another large picture, showing the reception of a Persian embassy by an Indian king with full court ceremonial, is of special interest because its approximate date may be fixed with a high degree of probability between A. D. 626 and 628. If, as is almost certain, the Indian king represented is Pulakesin II, the sovereign of the Deccan, an embassy of Persians to him can have come only from Khusrū Parvīz, who was put to death in A. D. 628. An Arabic historian records the fact that in A. D. 626 Pulakesin sent presents to the Persian monarch, accompanied by letters to his sons, and such a mission must have been returned, although no literary record of the return embassy has survived. Pulakesin himself perished in 642.

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Four smaller pictures placed symmetrically at the corners of the central square of the principal design of the roof, and all replicas of one subject, with variations, evidently have some connexion with the great embassy picture, which measures 15 by 6½ feet. The best of these small compositions has been illustrated by Mr. Griffiths both from a photograph (Pl. XCV, Fig. 4) and from a water-colour drawing (Pl. XCIV, Fig. 4). The colours of the latter seem to be too brilliant, and a more faithful reproduction by Mr. Griggs was published by Fergusson, which is here reproduced uncoloured by permission of the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society (Fig. 210). Fergusson assumed that the principal personages depicted must be King Khusrū and his famous consort, Shīrīn but this attractive hypothesis cannot be said to be proved.¹

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¹ J. Fergusson, 'On the Identification of the portrait of Chosroes II among the Paintings in the Caves at Ajaṇṭā' (*J. R. A. S.*, April, 1879); Rājendralāla Mitra, 'On Representations of Foreigners in the Ajaṇṭā Frescos' (*J. A. S. B.*, vol. xlvii (1878), Part I, pp. 66–72, and four uncoloured plates). His Pl. IV corresponds with Fergusson's plate and the small outline copy in Burgess, *Notes*, Pl. IV, Fig. 2.

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The foregoing descriptions and illustrations will enable the reader to form a judgement concerning the aesthetic value of the Ajaṇṭā paintings, and I trust that nobody will be found to agree with the opinion expressed in Sir George Watt's book that they 'can hardly be classed among the fine arts'.² The pictures and decorative designs in the caves, when compared with Egyptian, Chinese, or other ancient paintings, which did not profess to show the relief effect of modern pictures, are fairly entitled to high rank as works of fine art. In judging them the critic should remember that the wall-paintings were executed on an enormous scale, some being more than 20 feet in diameter, and that they were intended to be looked at in the mass from a distance, and not in minute detail. Small reproductions on a page a few inches long cannot possibly give a just idea of the effects aimed at by the artists. Moreover, those artists were much concerned to tell sacred stories, and make their pictures serve for the edification of devout worshippers as instructive illustrations of the Buddhist Bible; whereas all the religious sentiment in the spectator on which they relied for sympathetic understanding is wanting in the modern European critic. Yet, in spite of the disadvantages inherent in small-scale reproductions and criticism by judges out of touch with the spirit of the artists, the paintings stand the unfair test wonderfully well, and excite respectful admiration as the production of painters capable of deep emotion, full of sympathy with the nature of men, women, children, animals, and plants, and endowed with masterly powers of execution.

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² It is only fair to quote this dictum in full:— '*Painting.*—This may be said to be divided into three distinct styles. The Buddhist, exemplified by the frescos on the walls of the caves of Ajaṇṭā ... The first mentioned is more decorative than pictorial, so that it can hardly be classed among the Fine Arts, and is therefore omitted from a description of what is intended to be an account of painting in the pictorial sense only. The earliest true pictures, therefore, of which we have any record are the productions of the old Moghul painters' (Sir George Watt, *Indian Art at Delhi* (1904), p. 454). The opinions recorded in the book are partly those of Mr. Percy Brown.

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[Figure: FIG. 210. Noble Persian (? Khusrū Parvīz) and Lady; from ceiling of Cave I, Ajaṇṭā. (*J. R. A. S.*, 1879.)]

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The considered verdict of Mr. Griffiths, the artist who spent thirteen years in the close, loving study of the paintings, may be accepted as a sound general criticism, not attempting to distinguish periods and styles:—

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‘In spite,’ he writes, ‘of its obvious limitations, I find the work so accomplished in execution, so consistent in convention, so vivacious and varied in design, and full of such evident delight in beautiful form and colour, that I cannot help ranking it with some of the early art which the world has agreed to praise in Italy.... The Ajaṇṭā workmanship is admirable; long subtle curves are drawn with great precision in a line of unvarying thickness with one sweep of the brush; the touch is often bold and vigorous, the handling broad, and in some cases the *impasto* is as solid as in the best Pompeian work.... The draperies, too, are thoroughly understood, and though the folds may be somewhat conventionally drawn, they express most thoroughly the peculiarities of the Oriental treatment of unsewn cloth.... For the purposes of arteducation no better examples could be placed before an Indian art-student than those to be found in the caves of Ajaṇṭā. Here we have art with life in it, human faces full of expression, limbs drawn with grace and action, flowers which bloom, birds which soar, and beasts that spring, or fight, or patiently carry burdens; all are taken from Nature's book—growing after her pattern, and in this respect differing entirely from Muhammadan art, which is unreal, unnatural, and therefore incapable of development.'¹

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¹ Griffiths, *The Paintings of the Buddhist Caves of Ajaṇṭā*, pp. 7, 9; *Ind. Ant.*, iii. 28. The work done by the Bombay students shows that they were capable of appreciating the ancient models set before them. Many of the designs have been used for the decoration of pottery made at the Bombay School of Art. Examples are shown in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Whatever be the value of the incidental criticism on Muhammadan art—a subject to be discussed in due course—Mr. Griffiths's hearty appreciation of the Ajaṇṭā frescoes is, in my judgement, just and well deserved.

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In support of his comparison with the performance of the early Italians, he aptly cites the fragment of a fresco with heads of nuns by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, executed in the fourteenth century, and now in the Sienese Room of the National Gallery, as being 'singularly like the Ajaṇṭā work in colour, execution, and treatment; the forms being drawn with a delicate brown outline, and the flesh-tints and drapery flatly put in with very little modelling'. The obvious comparison with ancient Italian art was also made by Mr. Fergusson, who considered the Ajaṇṭā paintings to be better than anything in Europe before the time of Orcagna in the fourteenth, or even Fiesole (Fra Angelico) in the fifteenth century. Similarly Mr. Havell, another trained artist, who selects the charming Mother and Child in Cave XVII (Griffiths, Fig. 76) as the most attractive specimen of Ajaṇṭā art, finds in the frescoes 'the same intense love of nature and spiritual devotion as are evident in the sculptures of Borobodūr', and compares the 'exquisite sentiment' of the picture selected with the wonderful Madonnas of Giovanni Bellini'.²

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² *Indian Sculpture and Painting* (1908), p. 164.

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Mr. Fergusson was of opinion that while the art of Ajaṇṭā resembled that of China in flatness and want of shadow, he had never seen 'anything in China approaching its perfection'. Forty years ago so little was known in England about Chinese art that this sentiment might pass muster, but Fergusson's dictum could not now be accepted in the light of fuller knowledge. It is interesting to set against it the deliberate judgement of Mr. Laurence Binyon, a learned connoisseur in the art of the Far East.

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'The art of Ajaṇṭā,' he observes, 'is characterized by the strong outline which marks the early Asiatic style; the colouring appears to have been heavy and hot; the figures and faces are animated—there is force and individuality in them, a strong sense of life. We feel that the painters were possessed by their subject; they worked with fervour and devotion. . . . This, and the scale of the frescoes, make a forcible and imposing impression. Yet the art of Ajaṇṭā has not passed the primitive stage. With all the feeling for life in individual figures that the painters show, they betray as yet little of that instinct by which an art develops—the instinct

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towards unity, towards the conception of a subject as a synthetic whole. Their compositions are crowded and incoherent. In details and in single groups and forms, on the other hand, there is grace, dignity and character. . . . What is lacking in the Ajanṭā paintings, what is so signally manifest in Chinese painting throughout its history, is that powerful creative instinct and aesthetic perception which make for synthetic unity in art, that sense of controlling rhythm and balance which inspires all fine design.’¹

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