A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c8.5

c8.5

After the death of Asoka the empire broke to pieces, but his Maurya descendants continued to rule the home provinces for about half a century, at the end of which (*circa* 184 B.C.) they were superseded by the Sunga kings who governed parts of Northern India for seventy-two years, until about 112 B.C. But the style of architecture, decoration, and sculpture which first assumed a permanent form under the patronage of Asoka continued in use up to about the close of the first century of the Christian era. Although Buddhism during that period, approximately extending from 273 B.C. to A.D. 100, was by no means the only religion in India, it enjoyed a dominant position as the result of the great Buddhist emperor's propaganda, and the extant remains of early monuments are almost all Buddhist. Very few buildings now identifiable can be ascribed to the reign of Asoka. The huge mass of solid brick masonry known as the great *stūpa* of Sānchī, with its plain stone railing, may be his work, and possibly some other similar structures may be as early, but everything else deserving the name of architecture as yet discovered seems to be later.