A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c17.11

c17.11

Some years ago I felt convinced that the notion of producing long series of bas-relief pictures in stone had actually been suggested by Hellenistic example, and more particularly the example of Alexandria, a city where such reliefs were commonly executed, and which was in constant communication with India.¹ Although I do not now feel justified in expressing as confidently as I once did my theory of the Alexandrian origin of Indian bas-relief sculpture *in stone*, I am still disposed to believe that such reliefs would never have been executed if works essentially similar had not previously existed in the Hellenistic countries, and especially at Alexandria. The Indian reliefs certainly are not modelled on those of Persia, which are utterly distinct in character; and it seems unlikely that the Indians should have suddenly invented the full-blown art of stone bas-relief out of their own heads without any foreign suggestion. The Alexandrian reliefs were available as indications how stone reliefs should be executed, and the clever Indian artists and craftsmen, once they had seized on the main idea, would have had no difficulty in transmuting it into purely Indian forms, just as the Hindu play-writer, mentioned by Weber, transformed the *Midsummer Night's Dream* into a piece thoroughly Indian in character, showing no trace of its English source.² Complicated relief pictures, like those of Bharhut and Sānchī, placed in exposed positions, could not have been satisfactorily executed in wood or ivory; but trained wood and ivory carvers, who no doubt existed in India from time immemorial, could easily have applied their skill to making stone pictures as soon as the novel material had become the fashion. Carvers in wood and stone often are the same people and use tools substantially identical. The truth seems to be that the Indians illustrated the Jātakas with Indian scenes just as the Alexandrians illustrated pastoral poems with Greek scenes, and that the Indians got from abroad the idea of so doing. But the theory must be admitted to be incapable of decisive proof, although to my mind it appears to be highly probable. The subject-matter and treatment of the post-Asokan reliefs are certainly in the main Indian, and such obviously foreign details as they exhibit are accessory rather than integral.