A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s3: Section IV. Bāgh
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s3
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Section IV. Bāgh
c14.s3.1
The vigorous school of art which produced the Ajaṇṭā frescoes did not confine its operations to the caves at that place. Several similar excavations near Bāgh, a village or decayed small town in the Gwālior State, situated on an ancient road connecting Gujarāt with Mālwa (22° 21′ N., 74° 48′ E.), exhibit traces of a set of works resembling in general style the Ajaṇṭā paintings, and at one time of almost equal importance. Unfortunately, the crumbling of the rock, and absolute neglect, combined with the effects of the smoke from vagrants’ fires, have left hardly anything of compositions which once covered thousands of square feet.
c14.s3.2
The principal group of caves contains eight excavations, the largest being 94 feet square. The whole of the roof, walls, and columns of this great chamber was coated with fine stucco and decorated with paintings of high merit and infinite variety. Smaller remnants of painting may be still discerned in two other caves, and there is reason to believe that the work is not all of one period. Major Luard, the latest authority on the subject, thinks it possible that ‘a specially deputed draughtsman might still, by constantly wetting the frescoes, copy some portion of the designs, which each rainy season is making more and more indistinct’.
c14.s3.3
But the paintings are so much decayed that the prospects of any considerable success in copying seem to be remote, and our knowledge of the work at Bāgh must depend mainly on the descriptions recorded by four writers. The caves were first visited in 1818 by Captain Dangerfield, whose account, published in 1820, was corrected and amplified in 1854 by Dr. Impey. His illustrations, which were used by Fergusson, and ought to be in the India Office Library, cannot now be found. In 1879 Dr. Burgess devoted two pages to a summary description of eleven sections of the paintings, and expressed the opinion that ‘it would be well worth while if Mr. Griffiths could be spared with a few students for some months to preserve a pictorial record of these remains, before they are for ever lost’. Nothing, however, was done, and the full account of the caves recently published by Major C. E. Luard shows that very little of the painting is now discernible.¹
c14.s3.4
¹ References are:—Dangerfield, Capt., ‘Some Account of the Caves near Baug, called the Panch Pandoo, with three drawings’ (*Trans. Lit. Soc., Bombay*, vol. ii (1820), pp. 194–204). Impey, Dr., ‘Description of the Caves of Bāgh, in Ràth’ (*J. Bo. Br. R. A. S.*, vol. v, pp. 543–73). Burgess, J., *Notes on the Bauddha Rock-Temples of Ajaṇṭā* (1879), pp. 94, 95. Luard, Major C. E., ‘The Buddhist Caves of Central India’ (*Ind. Ant.*, vol. xxxix, August, 1910, pp. 225–35, with plans and plates).
c14.s3.5
The paintings appear to have rivalled those of Ajaṇṭā in variety of design, vigorous execution, and decorative quality, life being treated in both places with equal gaiety and hardly a trace of asceticism. Two of the Bāgh groups illustrate the performance of the *hallīsaka*, a kind of operetta or musical play, acted by a troupe of women led by a man. According to the books the female performers should number seven, eight, or ten. At Bāgh they are six in one case and seven in the other. They are represented as elaborately dressed, singing, and performing with much enjoyment on drums, cymbals, and other instruments. Our surprise at finding such gay scenes depicted on the walls of a Buddhist monastery may be lessened when we consider the nature of many of the sculptures at Mathurā (*ante*, pp. 134–41) and in the Aurangābād caves (*ante*, p. 178); but we do not know quite enough about the real nature of the later popular Buddhism in India to understand fully the significance of such frivolous sculptures and paintings.²
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² For the definition of *hallīsaka* see Sylvain Lévi, *Théâtre Indien*, App. p. 30.
c14.s3.7
The Bāgh caves do not contain an inscription of any kind, and their date can be determined only by considerations of style. The judge’s wig worn by many of the male figures and the transparent close-fitting robes connect the sculptures with the later Gupta rather than with the mediaeval period. The general character of the paintings is sufficiently known to make it certain that they are not earlier than the late works at Ajaṇṭā. Probably the paintings may have been executed between the middle of the sixth and that of the seventh century. I do not know who was the ruling power at Bāgh at that time.
c14.s3.8
The paintings include patterns executed in black and white with touches of Indian red, as well as works executed in ‘excessively vivid’ colours, with ‘marked contrasts in blue, red, and yellow’. The two styles may belong to different ages. The small fragments which Captain Dangerfield and Major Luard succeeded in copying and publishing are not sufficiently characteristic to be worth reproduction.