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The Age of the Imperial Guptas c9: Chapter V. Plastic Art

The Age of the Imperial Guptas c9

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Chapter V. Plastic Art

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The general impression that the Gupta age is the Golden age of Indian culture is almost entirely dependent on the evidence of its plastic art. The plastic art of the Gupta period proper has been studied to some extent in one part and very much neglected in others. The prevalent idea of the denotation and connotation of the term is also vague and art-critics generally try to convey the idea of excellence by the use of the term "Gupta". Thus, the term "Gupta Art" has been applied to the early Cālukyan art of South-western India¹, though the Guptas had no connection either historically or culturally with the country over which the early Cālukyas ruled. The scanty resemblance in artistic ideals is solely due to the imitation of the North, which is noticeable in the 6th and the 7th centuries in all parts of the South, both in architecture and in art.

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¹ Coomaraswamy.—*A History of Indian and Indonesian Art* pp. 75-6.

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Gupta art is really a *renaissance* due to the transformation in the ideals of the people of Northern India in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. This transformation was based, on an assimilation of what was old, an elimination of what was exotic and foreign and finally a synthetic production of something entirely new, which was essentially Indian. In order to determine the exact nature of this transformation it will be necessary in the first place to consider the antecedents of Gupta art and in the second place to analyse it into its different constituent elements; *i.e.*, to consider what Gupta art actually produced within the limits of the realms of the early Gupta empire. In other words, for a synthetic study of this great renaissance, it will be necessary to divide it according to its centres of activity or production. The greatest centres of artistic activity in the Gupta empire were the ancient Scythian capital of Mathurā, the great Buddhist stronghold of Benares, and finally the ancient metropolis of India, the venerable city of Pāṭaliputra. There were minor centres of activity, such as Eran or Airakiṇa, Daśapura, or Mandasor, etc. While the development of plastic art in the Buddhist city of Benares has been closely watched by the excavators during the last quarter of this century, the interest evinced by scholars in the history of the development of the history of the Mathurā school of art of this period has been more or less of a dillettante nature. That a school of art existed during the period of rule of the early Guptas in Northern India is not yet fully believed either by the scholar or by the artist. The stray sculptures of Udaigiri or Bhilsa, or Mandasor may have excited passing interest but the entire production of different centres has never been analysed on the same basis and, so far as I am aware, no attempt has been made for a general synthesis. To trace the graphical outline of the artistic development of the provinces of Northern India, it will be necessary to fall back on dated sculptures. There are a few produced by the Mathurā school, while the dates of the majority produced by the Benares school can be accurately deduced from the characters of their votive inscriptions and it is only in the metropolitan school that we are, even now, at a loss both for an adequate number of specimens and some data for deducing their dates.

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In the Mathurā school, the traditions of the Kuṣāṇa school continued up to the middle of the 5th century A.D. Up to 448-9 the great quarries of mottled red sandstone at Karri produced material which was fashioned by artists of the Mathurā school and carried away to distant places. The image of Buddha, discovered at Mankuwar, in the Karchana Tahsil of the Allahabad district, dedicated in G.E. 129, during the reign of the emperor Kumāragupta I, is one of the latest examples of the migration of products of the Mathura school. Because the inscription states that the image is one of Buddha, therefore, it is possible for us to recognise it as a Buddhist image. The head is shaven and the posture is *abhaya*, very often adopted by Jinas also. The presence of the lions and the wheel on the pedestal do not help us. In its proportions, the treatment of the torso and the expression on the face of the main figure, this image, of 448-9

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A.D., does not differ in the least from early Kuṣāṇa Buddhist images of the 1st and the 2nd century A.D. The Mankuwar image, therefore, serves as a typical example of a great conservative force in the Mathurā School of sculpture even in the middle of the 5th century A.D. Codrington is distinctly wrong in stating that “this figure, the standing Buddha in the Mathurā Museum, and the Sarnath Buddha, are the most perfect examples of Gupta sculpture. This (the Mankuwar image) is probably the earliest of the three, the Sarnath Buddha being the latest¹”. Among dated specimens of the Mathurā school, belonging to the Gupta period, there is another which is sixteen years earlier in date than the Mankuwar image. This is the Mathurā Jaina image of G.E. 113 dedicated during the reign of Kumāragupta I.² The generic resemblance between these two specimens is so very striking that it is difficult to determine for what reasons Codrington classifies the Mankuwar image with regular Gupta figures from Mathurā and Sarnath. With the exception of a very slight Uṣṇīṣa there is no indication in the Mankuwar image about its late date. The existence of a Jaina image from Mathurā of A.D. 432 was perhaps unknown to Messrs. Rothenstein and Codrington. This Jaina image is headless. The modelling of the torso is typically early Kuṣāṇa in both images. The legs are shapeless and out of proportion in the Jaina image but the method in modelling is the same in this figure and the Mankuwar figure, which is absolutely different in the Sarnath seated Buddha (B (b) 181 of the Sarnath Museum.) The lions of the throne, the wheel, and its base and even the modelling of the Buddhas on the Mankuwar image and the kneeling worshippers on the Jaina specimen are typically Kuṣāṇa and do not show the regularity of proportion and equipoise of the regular Gupta type of images of the Benares school. These two images prove that there is marked differentia between the products of the Mathurā school and those of the Benares and Paṭaliputra School of the Gupta period; the marked features of the Kuṣāṇa School lingered on right up to the middle of the 5th century A.D., when they were modified by certain influences which were simultaneously at work all over the country.

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¹ Codrington and Rothenstein—Ancient India, p. 60.

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² Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II, p. 210, No. XXXIX.

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Codrington states “The Gupta century provides a definite series of motives, which increases in number and imaginative complexity as the period of the great cave-temples draws near. It was at Ajanta, Aurangabad, and Elura that the mediæval period began. It stands for a definite culture, but one differing considerably from the Gupta. The one is classical, the other, romantic. Sir John Marshall is rightly stirred by the simplicity of the Gupta shrines. The ‘refinement’ and ‘clear definition’, not only of these little buildings, but of the sculpture that adorns them, is striking and unique”¹. The time has now come for a broader and more definite delineation of the most marked features of Gupta art and it cannot be better illustrated than in the process of the metamorphosition of the Mathurā school of sculpture. The new ideal as expressed by the images of the beginning of the 5th century shows a close approximation to the style of Benares in its most noticeable features, viz :—

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¹ Ancient India, p. 62.

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(1) The marked Mongoloid features of the upper part of the face, especially the long tangential eye-brows,

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(2) The conventional arrangement of the draperies especially the disappearance of the lines indicating folds of garments and

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(3) The enlargement of the halo to form a miniature back-slab and the introduction of the Gupta style in arabesques along its margin.

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The introduction of this style in Benares itself is difficult to trace. Pandit (now Rai Bahadur) D. R. Sahni, the compiler of the catalogue of the Sarnath Museum of Archaeology, has not attempted it. A special study of the contents of the Sarnath Museum does not help in the least as all inscribed specimens show this particular feature, the first one mentioned above. In the Mathurā school the change is noticed in the first place by the final adoption of the curling hair and the uṣṇīṣa along with that of ornamental foliage and arabesques for the ornamentation of the halo. The most noticeable example is M.5 in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, in which the Mongoloid type of the eyes is to be noticed, perhaps, for the first time.¹ In the Mathurā school, the conventional lines indicating the folds of the drapery continued to be used for sometime and Buddha images of the Gupta period minus the lines of the drapery are rare. The best examples are A.5 in the Mathurā Museum. ² During the rule of the early Guptas over Northern India the output of the Mathurā school of sculpture diminished steadily. Very few Jaina images were dedicated and most of the products, especially images, are either Hindu or Buddhistic. It cannot be said that Buddhism was yet on the decline, we have the testimony of Fa-Hsien on that point. It was flourishing exceedingly at Benares, though languishing at the Buddhist Holy of Holies, Mahābodhi, as proved both by the statement of Fa-Hsien and the paucity of images at that place. The reason of the general decline of the Mathurā school of sculpture must be, therefore, a decline in the material prosperity of the people of that city. Jainism, too, must have declined, on the evidence of images, but it revived after Maḥmūd’s sack of that city in 1018 A.D. The extent of the influence exerted by the Benares school over the older school of Mathurā can be better gauged by a comparison of two Buddha images of these two schools now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, S.14 ¹ and M.5. In these two the Mongoloid appearance of the upper part of the face and the tangential eyebrows are almost identical, the robes differ in the conventional lines indicating the drapery and there is more ornament on the halo of M.5 than in the case of S.14. This comparison will be sufficient to prove that the Mathurā school, at a later date in the Gupta period succumbed to the influences of the Benares School.

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¹ Anderson--Catalogue and Handbook on the Archæological collection in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, part I, p. 181.

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² Vogel--Catalogue of the Mathurā Museum of Archæology, pp. 49-50, pl. IX.

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¹ Anderson—*Catalogue and Handbook, etc.*, part II, pp. 11-12.

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That there was a very ancient school of sculpture at Benares, at least, from the Post-Maurya period onwards, has been sufficiently demonstrated by the discoveries of Marshall and his assistants. In its heyday of glory the great Mathurā school of the Kuṣāṇa period succeeded in imposing its sway at Benares and images were brought from Mathurā for dedication at Benares and were also made locally in the Benares style. A certain number of images in the Sarnath Museum, in the Kuṣāṇa-Mathurā style show the use of red paint, which the sun-light and rain of eighteen centuries have partly effaced. Mr. Sahni has not expressed any definite opinion on the origin of these painted images, but while the technique is Kuṣāṇa-Mathurā, the material is distinctly Chunar instead of Karri sandstone. In the third and fourth centuries A.D., there is a decline in the output, however meagre, and images of the post-Kuṣāṇa period are surprisingly few. Suddenly in the 5th century there is a great increase in plastic activity at Benares and a total change in the ideals of the artists. The new type of images betray very little connection with the old Kuṣāṇa type, but fortunately the number of inscribed specimens is so very great that it is possible to work out the dates of the gradual evolution both of images as well as of bas-reliefs. The earliest images discovered at Sarnath, which belong definitely to the Gupta period, are those which show the use of that particular form of *Ma* in which the base line is quite separate, being in fact a horizontal projection from the lower end of the right vertical. The earliest examples of this type of inscriptions were discovered by the excavators of Sarnath in the earlier part of the 19th century, the best examples of which is stele S.3.¹ This type of *Ma* is used throughout in the Karamdanda inscription of G. E. 117 of the reign of Kumāragupta I, but is not to be found in the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta or the two Mathurā inscriptions of Chandragupta II. In certain cases only, there is a modification of the features but these are exceptions to the general rule. The best examples are S.34¹ of the Indian Museum, Calcutta and the great *Dharma-cakra-Buddha-bhaṭṭāraka* discovered by Mr. F. O. Oertel in 1904–5.²

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¹ *Ibid.*, p. 7.

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¹ *Ibid*, p. 19.

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² *Catalogue of the Sarnath Museum of Archæology*, pp. 70-71, No. B(b) 181.

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We have now to discuss the effects of the new Buddha-type in the eastern provinces of Northern India. The influence of the Benares school was more widely felt towards the east than to the west. The only reason for this appears to be the activity of the artists in the metropolitan district of the Gupta empire. Quarter of a century ago Gupta sculptures were exceedingly rare in Bihar and Bengal; but the recent excavations of Nālandā have thrown such a brilliant flood of light on the plastic art of the eastern countries of Northern India that it is no longer possible to deny the existence of such a school in and around Pāṭaliputra. The differentiative features of this eastern school we shall discuss later on. In connection with the Benares school we shall have to discuss its influence on that of Pāṭaliputra. Images discovered at Nālandā, both in stone and in metal, definitely prove that the first distinctive feature of the Benares school had permeated as far as Nālandā. This is noticeable both in early Gupta and later Gupta sculptures. The great metal image of Buddha discovered at Nālandā³ shows the tangential eyebrows, the schematic arrangement of the curls of hair and the typical uṣṇīṣa of the Benares school. It differs from the regular Benares type of Buddha in its stylistic arrangement of both the upper and the lower garments and in the presence of the conventional lines indicating the folds of the drapery. Exactly similar characteristics are to be observed in the large copper image of Buddha discovered at Sultanganj, in the Bhagalpur district, and now preserved in the Birmingham Museum.¹ In Buddha images these two characteristics differentiate the Pāṭaliputra school from that of Benares, which were handed down by post-Gupta artists to the great Eastern Indian School of mediæval sculpture (800-1200 A.D.). The curly fringe of the upper and lower garments along with the conventional lines indicating the folds of the drapery show the indebtedness of the Pāṭaliputra school to the Indo-Greek school of Gandhāra. For some time, the Mathurā school of the early Gupta period retained the lines of the drapery but the curly fringe disappeared early in the Kuṣāṇa period. The influence of the Benares school was exerted more strongly outside the metropolitan province of the Gupta empire. An image of Buddha discovered at Biharoil, in the Rajshahi district of Bengal, is distinctly of the Benares type, so much so that it deluded Rai Bahadur Pandit Dayaram Sahni, M.A., into believing that it was actually made at Benares and transported to Northern Bengal for dedication. The technique is distinctly that of the Benares school in its entirety, but the material is not Chunar sandstone, thereby proving that mere identity of features and technique do not indicate locality so far as the Benares school is concerned. The Biharoil image shows the curly fringe of the drapery gathered together in the proper left hand. Moreover, the tangential eye-brows are less pronounced. The eastward extension of the influence of the Benares school was further demonstrated by the discoveries at Dah Parbatiya, near Tezpur in Assam, of a stone door, frame of the Gupta period in which the moulding of the forms of the river goddesses, Ganges and Yamunā, at the bottom of the jambs is distinctly reminiscent of the Benares school¹ and at the same time different from the mouldings of similar forms on the jamb from Besnagar now in the Boston Museum of Fine Art.²

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³ *A History of Fine Art in India and Indonesia*, pl. XLII, *fig*. 161

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¹ Ibid., pl. XLI, fig. 160

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¹ Ibid., 1924-25, pp. 98-9. pl. XXXII a-c.

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² Coomaraswamy---A History of Fine Art in India and Indonesia, pl. XLVII, fig. 177.

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In figure-work the influence of the Benares school is less distinct in Central India. It is present to some extent only in the *Eka-mukha-liṅgas* discovered by the writer at Khoh and Bhumra, in the Nagod State of Central India. In the case of the face on the *liṅga* at Khoh, the eye-brows are only slightly elevated.¹ But in that at Bhumra the tangential stroke is more pronounced.² They are altogether wanting in the rather primitive figure of Viṣṇu in cave No. II at Udaygiri, near Bhilsa in the dominions of the Mahārājā Scindia.

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¹ *Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year ending 31st March 1920*, pl. XXIX.

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² *Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India* No. 16; *The temple of Siva at Bhumara*, pl. XV (c).

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Further on it is impossible to trace the influence of the new type of the human figure as evolved by the artists of the Benares school of sculpture of the early Gupta period. In one respect, the three great schools of Gupta sculpture agree, which is their method of treatment of bas-reliefs. Another important feature of all Gupta schools is the introduction of subjects from the orthodox Brahmanical or Hindu religion into bas-reliefs and on this subject all the three great northern schools as well as their offshoots agree. Bas-reliefs, primarily employed for the depiction of the *Buddha-Carita* or the *Jātakas* began to be employed for the depiction of scenes of Hindu mythology the best known examples of which are the great lintels from Gadhwa in the Allahabad district, now in the Lucknow museum, and the three great panels on the Daśāvatāra temple at Deogadh, in the Jhansi district. It is in the separate treatment of these bas-reliefs discovered at Rajaona, in the Munger³ district and those at Nālandā that the distinct features of the Pāṭaliputra school came to be recognised.

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³ These pillars with the bas-reliefs were wrongly described by me

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The Pāṭaliputra school of sculpture still remains to be studied as a distinct and separate movement in the plastic activity of the Gupta period. The remains, except at Nālandā, are few and yet inconsiderable so far as images are concerned. But we are more fortunate in the case of bas-reliefs. Certain images from Nālandā have been referred to the Gupta period by the successive excavators of that site but, it appears to me, without sufficient reason. In the Eastern provinces it is rather difficult to distinguish between early Gupta and Post-Gupta sculptures. Consequently unless we proceed on the basis of inscribed specimens it will be difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. Inscribed images of the Early Gupta period are still very few in North-eastern India and those that have been discovered at Nālandā or Mahābodhi show certain characteristics which are different from those of the Benares school. All such images are Buddhist and the difference lies in the modelling. The Benares school shows the return of the human figure to the normal in all images except those of the Buddha in which abnormalities remain in the shape of unna-

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as coming from Chandimau in the Patna District in *Ann. Rep. Arch. Survey of India*, 1911-12. They were originally discovered at Rajaona in the Munger District *Vide* Cunningham.-- *Arch Survey Reports*, Vol, III, pp. 154-5.

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turally long ears, the tangential eye-brows, etc., but we do not find any of these signs in Bodhisatva figures. The order of the Bodhisatvas, according to celestial adherence or Dhyānī Buddhas, is introduced for the first time with prominence in the Benares school. This is to be seen in images of Lokeśvara which bear a comparatively large figure of Amitābha on the head. It took sometime to reconcile the artist to the idea of celestial adherence in Benares and to make the Dhyānī Buddha a miniature figure, more decorative than expressive, on the crown or the head-dress of the Bodhisatva. In the Pāṭaliputra school we find that, even in the middle of the 5th century A.D., the idea of celestial adherence had been quietly assimilated by the artists of the metropolitan school and unnaturally large figures are altogether absent.

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In the treatment of the human figure, Gupta artists all over India, are characterised by their uncommon devotion to real naturalism and symmetry and total rejection of all mannerisms introduced into the Mathurā school of the Kuṣāṇa period. Such mannerisms are noticeable in very early and late Mathurā-Kuṣāṇa products and a certain class of them are totally devoid of all sorts of artistic convention. Such are the splendid torsos and heads recovered by Führer from different mounds of Mathurā towards the close of the last century.¹

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¹ Now in the Lucknow Museum.

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It is in this characteristic that the strongest appeal of Gupta art really lies. Codrington says, “Gupta art has been praised for its intellectuality. It would be better to treat it as the natural outcome of ancient Indian art, with its vivid appreciation of form and pattern, and its love of the quick beat and rhythm of living things and of their poise and balance in repose.”¹ The poise and balance or in other words, real naturalism, and symmetry were introduced into Gupta art after some effort. The sculptures in the Udaigiri caves, near Bhilsa in the Gwalior State, for example, do not all belong to one and the same date, and consequently, they betray different stages in the progress of local art. The images in the verandah of the Sanakānīka cave at Udaigiri all betray a certain amount of stilted and stiff expression which we do not find in the next reign, i.e., that of Kumāragupta I. The development of the door-frame is also incomplete and the carved door-frame in this cave² compares very unfavourably with those of the temples at Bhumra³ and Nachna Kuthara⁴, and Deogadh. The same characteristics are to be observed in the Śeṣa-śāyin in another cave as well as the smaller sculptures in Vīrasena’s Cave or Cave No. 6 at the same place. Even the elaborate door-frame or Candragupta’s cave at the same place is not of this type.¹ A change is to be noticed in the Varāha or the great Boar incarnation which is very close to Virasena’s cave, in which the elasticity of all the figures, including the quardruple frieze of gods on the adjoining wall shows that the new impulse was already working. Virasena’s cave and the Sanakānīka cave belong very definitely to the reign of Candragupta II and from these three specimens of plastic art it appears certain that the zenith of excellence was reached by Gupta artist during the reign of Kumāragupta I. The same conclusion is also apparent from the execution of dies. The finest coin issued by a Gupta mint-master is undoubtedly the Peacock type of Kumāragupta I. Another point noticeable in the Varāha cave is the grace and elasticity of the figure of Pṛthvī, a slight figure, poised lightly on the left shoulder of the Boar, and grasping the dreadful snout caressingly. The same amount of poise and elasticity is also to be observed in the figure of the Nāga and the headless figure behind it.²

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¹ Rothenstein--*Ancient India*, p. 62.

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² Ibid., pl. 29A.

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³ *Memoirs of the Archæological Survey of India*; the temple of Śiva at Bhumra, pl. III.

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⁴ *Progress Report of the Archæological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year ending 31st March 1919, pl. XVI.*

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¹ *Ancient India*, pl. 33 B. & C.

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² William Cohn--*Indische plastik*, Tafels 22-23.

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To another portion of Central India belongs the credit of possessing the best examples of facial expression in Gupta art. I do not think that the face on the *Eka-mukha-liṅga* at Khoh has been surpassed in this direction. That on the specimen found inside the temple at Bhumra also belongs to the foremost rank, but the figure of the kneeling dwarf discovered by the writer at Khoh certainly stands second only to the *liṅga* at Khoh¹. The face of the Gaṇeśa discovered inside one of the smaller temples in front of the bigger temple of Śiva at Bhumra is also natural but inexpressive.² Much more expressive is the bust of Śiva ³ on the boss of the lintel at Bhumra compared to which the face of Nārāyaṇa on the boss of the lintel of the Daśāvatara temple at Deodgadh is mute.

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¹ *Progress Report of the Archæological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year ending 31st March, 1920, pl. XXX.*

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² *Memoirs of the Archæological Survey, No. 16, pl. XV (a).*

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³ *Ibid., pl. III (b).*

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We must now pass on to the next great division of Gupta plastic art, bas-reliefs. Going back to the Benares school we find a new class of Buddhist stelae, in which the decorative influence of Gāndhāran art is clearly manifest. Such stelae are met with for the first time in India proper and are used solely to depict the principal scenes of Buddha’s life. They fall into two classes : (*a*) stelae with eight principal or more scenes from the Buddha’s life and (*b*) those portraying a single incident of the Buddha’s life, *e.g.*, the great miracle of Śrāvastī. In the first class, the arrangement of single or double superimposed panels clearly indicate that the scheme was borrowed from the style of side-decoration of niches in Gāndhāran Stūpas, in which there were single or double oblong superimposed panels on the sides and curved panels, enclosed within one or more arches, at the top. This scheme does not generally appear in the Mathurā school though superimposed panels containing bas-reliefs are to be found on the backs of pillars.¹ Scenes from Buddha’s life in the Mathurā school have been found for the greater part on architraves, either in single or double rows, separately. Such stelae of the Benares school are, therefore, an innovation peculiar to that locality, many examples of which were discovered in the previous century. Examples of such stelae are to be found in the museums at Calcutta and Sarnath only. Stelae with the principal incidents of Buddha’s life can, again, be divided into two classes:—(i) More elaborate and (ii) less elaborate. In the first class are to be placed such stelae which contain more than four scenes of the Master’s life and usually eight. Such are S.1 of the Indian Museum, Calcutta and C (a) 3 of the Sarnath Museum. These stelae are usually divided into several horizontal rows, each containing at least two panels with bas-reliefs. In the second class are to be placed such bas-reliefs in which there is only one series of four superimposed panels usually containing the four principal incidents of Buddha’s life; such as S.3 of the Calcutta Museum and C (a) 1 of the Sarnath Museum.²

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¹ Anderson—*Catalogue and Handbook, part I., pp. 186-90.*

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² Vogel and Sahni—*Catalogue of the Museum of Archæology at Sarnath, pl. XIX.*

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The Calcutta Museum possesses a peculiar stele which bears three superimposed bas-reliefs. This stele must have stood separate yet it does not begin with the birth or Māyā’s dream about her conception and does not end with the Mahāparinirvāṇa. This peculiar stelae contains the scene of Perfect Enlightenment at the bottom combined with the allurement of Māra’s daughters and the attack of Māra’s army, the first sermon in the centre, and the Devāvatāra near the top. It is difficult to judge whether there were bas-reliefs over the top (S. 4).¹ Stele bearing single incidents of Buddha’s life become more important in the Benares school and the most prominent incident chosen was the great miracle of Śrāvastī, S. 5 in the Indian Museum, Calcutta and C (a) 6 of the Sarnath Museum.² Other incidents are also, common but rarely represented; such as Buddha at the time of the Perfect Enlightenment dedicated by the Buddhist elder (Sthavira) Bandhugupta.³ These stelae were the peculiar creations of the artists of the Benares school and they do not seem to have found favour anywhere outside the limits of Buddhist Benares. Very few specimens of this particular type of stelae have been discovered elsewhere. Subsequent schools adopted and elaborated the ideas of the Benares school and some adopted the system of separate images, but none used the superimposed stele of the Benares type.

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¹ Anderson—Catalogue and Handbook, part II, p. 7.

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² Catalogue of the Museum of the Archæology at Sarnath, pl. XXI.

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³ Ibid., pl. IX.

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In other respects the Gupta school at Benares is rather poor in bas-reliefs. The only superior example is the great lintel with the Kshāntivādin Jātaka, in which there are altogether six panels.¹ Even in this specimen, the Benares school suffers in our estimation compared with the Pātaliputra school. There is a certain lack of dignity in the figures of this bas-relief which is divided into six parts by being enclosed by six conventional Caitya-windows. The first and the last panels contain figures of Jambhala, of which one is a very crude bit of carving.² The second panel from the proper left shows a better idea of proportion in the case of the Bodhisatva but a neglect of it in the case of the dancing girls.³ The third panel, that of the dance is on the whole better balanced and would compare favourable with other bas-reliefs.⁴ But the artist lost his head when he came to panel 5 and there is a total want of poise and balance in the figure of the king which is not the case anywhere else in the Gupta bas-reliefs. The figure of the king or the executioner appears to be toppling over the head of the ascetic Bodhisatva.⁵ If we compare this bas-relief with those on the pillars from Rajaona, we find that the Benares school is far behind the general standard of excellence than the Pāṭaliputra school of the same period. The penance of Arjuna surrounded by four pits of fire and the separation of this scene from his departure to Indra's heaven with Mātuli is far superior in vivacity, arrangement, and to some extent even in perspective to all bas-reliefs of the Benares school. In the second panel from Rajaona, which is better preserved, the different events narrated in proper sequence of the fight between Śiva and Arjuna and Śiva's blessing are not separated by any ornaments but show superior poise and virility. Even the giant horned-Kīrtti-mukhas are far superior to any discovered in Benares or anywhere else.

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¹ Ibid., pp. 233-4, pl. XXIII.

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² Ibid., pl. XXIV.

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³ Ibid., pl. XXV.

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⁴ Ibid., pls. XXVI-XXVII.

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⁵ Ibid., pl. XXVIII.

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It is in the treatment of the bas-reliefs that we notice for the first time another difference between the Gupta schools of the East and the Centre; the treatment of the female bust. Female figures of the Mathurā school, which can be definitely assigned to the Gupta period are very rare, but such figures are more abundant in Central India and in the Eastern countries. A comparison instituted between the busts of female figures discovered at Besnagar,¹ Pathari,² Benares,³ Rajgir,⁴ and Tezpur⁵ in Assam prove that the artists of Northwestern and West-central India depicted full over-developed busts of the aboriginal type, while those of the East followed the more slender development of the female torso in the North-eastern Provinces. The difference is perhaps much more accentuated in the bust of the *Apsarās*, an accessory figure in one of the images in the Gwalior museum.¹

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¹ Coomaraswamy—History of Fine Art in India and Indonesia, fig. 177.

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² Ibid., fig. 178.

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³ Catalogue of the Sarnath Museum of Archæology, pl. XXVI-XXVII.

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⁴ History of Fine Art in India and Indonesia, fig. 176.

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⁵ Annual Report of the Archæological Survey of India, 1924-25, pl. XXXII a-c.

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¹ *History of Fine Art in India and Indonesia*, fig. 173.

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A tendency is growing in recent years to call all contiguous phases of renaissance in art in distant provinces of India, “ Gupta.” Such mistaken terminology are being used by well-known art critics like Coomaraswamy. Coomaraswamy says “ There exists many ‘ caves ’ of the Gupta period. At Ajanta caves, XVI and XVII are *Vihāras* dating about 500 A.D., Cave XIX a *caitya*-hall datable about 550 ; all of these contain paintings, referred to below.² ” Similarly with regard to the *Viśvakarmā caitya*-hall the same author says “ the excavation is Gupta or early Cālukya dating about 600.³ ” There is no contiguity either in date or in locality between early Gupta art and those of Ajanta, Ellora, or Badami. It is extremely doubtful whether any paintings in any of the caves at Ajanta can be referred to the fifth century A.D., the earlier paintings belong to the pre-Christian centuries and those in the later caves bearing painted labels are certainly not earlier than 600 A.D. Neither Ajanta nor Ellora nor Badami were ever included within the dominions of the Gupta emperors and their artists did not begin work before the final destruction of the Gupta empire. Such authors often date specimens without stating any reasons, reliable or unreliable, and the absence of data never deters them from coining incongruous terms and nomenclature. The only authorities which Coomaraswamy can quote about the date of the Viśvakarama caitya-hall are Fergusson and Burgess, none of whom were ever competent to date an Indian monument from an inscription. It is *prima facie* wrong to give a proper name to a movement, when it takes place at a different locality, and at a much later date. Coomaraswamy and others want to express the idea that the symmetry and poise, introduced into northern art some time in the 5th century A.D., appears in the art of south-western India also a century and a half later. It was a *renaissance* in art, the impulse having been felt much earlier in the north than in the south-west; but for that reason it is not necessary to design it in a way which is distinctly misleading.

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² *Ibid.*, p 76

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³ *Ibid.*, p. 77.

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The time when the early Gupta empire was crumbling to pieces and when the Hūṇas had already advanced into the centre of India, saw the rise of a remarkable group of monuments in Central India, all of which denote a step in Gupta plastic art. Eran is already known to us as the findspot of a number of important inscriptions, the most important of which were inscribed towards the close of the 5th, and the beginning of the 6th century A.D. One of the latest of these records are incised on a pillar which is the *dhvaja-stambha* of Viṣṇu erected by the brothers, Mātṛ-viṣṇu and Dhanya-viṣṇu, when Suraśmicandra was the Viceroy of the country between the Yamunā and Narmadā. This pillar can be easily recognised by the presence of a figure of Garuḍa on its top bearing on it the wheel of Viṣṇu. It lies at a distance from the temple of the Boar and was erected in G.E., 165=484-5 A.D. Close to it is the second pillar which bears on it a record of Goparāja, the general of Bhānu-gupta who died here in a battle with the Hūṇas in 191=510-1 A.D. All over the highlands, on which these two pillars are situated, can be seen ruins and images. The most important of them is the colossal figure of the Boar incarnation of Viṣṇu which was dedicated by Dhanya-viṣṇu, after the death of his brother Mātṛ-viṣṇu, in the first year of the reign of Toramāṇa, the Hūṇa king. This Boar is slightly different in conception from that in the cave of Udaygiri near Bhilsa as it portrays a quadruped mammal and not a human figure with a Boar's head. As an object of art this colossal figure is an abject failure. It resembles an elephant more than a boar and anatomical details have been grossly neglected. So much so, that it cannot bear any comparison with the Udaygiri boar. By the side of this boar stands a beautiful porch of a temple on four-fluted columns, of the Bhumra type, bearing cruciform capitals with winged figures below them. This is only a part of the early Gupta temple enshrining a big image of Viṣṇu, still *in situ*. In style, this figure is far superior to that of the Earth goddess depicted on the breast of the boar and it seems that the temple of Viṣṇu and the image of the god are both earlier than the Boar. This image of Viṣṇu, the only specimen known to us belonging to the early Gupta period, shows a definite decline in the portrayal of the human figure, when compared to the little image of Gaṇeśa and the two attendant figures discovered at Bhumra in 1920.

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Only one class of images remains to be discussed, about which very little is known; metal-casting. The discovery of the metal image of Buddha at Nālandā was preceded by that of a colossal figure of Buddha at Sultanganj in the Bhagalpur district in the last century. With the exception of these two figures very few metal specimens of the early Gupta period are known to us. Stray images in metal have been discovered at different places and many writers commit the mistake of herding them together. Thus, Coomaraswamy says that among Gupta sculpture in metal should be included the Sultanganj image and "other important examples include the richly decorated, copper and silver inlaid, brass figure (fig. 163) from Fatehpur, Kangra; the Boston bronze Buddha, said to have been found in Burma (fig. 159); and the rather clumsy statuettes from the Banda district, Bengal; and the fragments from Bezwada; small gold Buddha in the British Museum”¹.

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¹ History of Fine Art in India and Indonesia p. 85.

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If anything produced in India which is graceful can be called Gupta then only all these specimens can be relegated to the Gupta period. The Banda statuettes belong more to Central India than to Bengal as the Banda district is in the southern part of the United Provinces and they belong to Chandella rather than Gupta art as they were produced in the 11th century A.D. The Buddha figure from Kangra may be Post-Gupta but the figure in the Boston Museum has no connection with the Early or Post-Gupta period. The fragments from Bezwada certainly belong to the 10th century A.D; while the figure in the British Museum is scarcely earlier. The Sultanganj image provides a second specimen of the Pataliputra school, in which, like the Gupta school at Mathurā, the lines of the drapery were not eradicated. The face is also of a different type and a comparison with that of the metal figure in the Boston Museum shows clearly that the latter is centuries late in date.

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The very high reputation which Gupta Schools of Art enjoy, at the present day, depends much more on architectural and artistic decorative motifs employed by them. One of the most important evolutions in decorative motifs is the stylization of the *caitya*-window, a subject which has not received the amount of attention which it deserves. The high pointed opening in the upper part of the facades of *caitya-gharas* or Buddhist cathedral-halls lost their grandeur early in the Gupta period. A comparison of the facade of the *caitya*-halls at Karla and Bhaja, in the Poona district with those at Nasik and Kanheri will prove that the great horse-shoe-shaped window was fast diminishing in size.¹ From the middle second century B.C., the shape of the *caitya*-window became a favourite design for the decoration of the solid walls of the *Caitya*-halls and door-lintels.² The increase in the side wings of the design is apparent in the Gupta period. In actual *Caitya*-halls we find it late in the 6th century in the facade of Cave No.19 at Ajanta.³ As an architectural motif the increase in the size of the side wings made it possible to use it in diverse ways. Another innovation was the conversion of the *Caitya*-window into a regular trefoil arch as in the facade of the later Viśvakarmā-at Ellora.⁴ But the evolution of the stylized *Caitya*-windows from the 6th to the 12th century A.D., is beyond the scope of this enquiry.

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¹ Codrington—*Ancient India*, pls. 4–5.

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² Ibid., pl. 6.

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³ Ibid., pl. 36 A ; 37 B.

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⁴ *History of Fine Art, in India and Indonesia* fig. 155.

c9.80.1

In the main shrine at Sarnath, numerous *caitya*-windows were used in the older structure of the Gupta period, when that monument was rebuilt with stone. Some of these stones, specially the carved ones, were again used in the construction of the plinth when that temple was rebuilt in brick in the 9th or 10th century A.D. At this time, certain *caitya*-windows were used for the construction of the lowest plinth line. The comparison of the *cai-tya*-windows in stone, both fragmentary and entire, in the plinth of the main shrine at Sarnath enables us to declare that that shrine, as it was discovered in 1904-05, cannot be a monument of the early Gupta Age. The Museum of Archæology at Sarnath now becomes very useful to the student of Gupta Art, as it contains the best collection of *caitya*-windows of the Gupta period. Unfortunately for us, the learned compiler of its Catalogue, Rai Bahadur Pandit Dayaram Sahni, M.A., now Deputy Director of Archæology in India for exploration, could not find suitable terminology for the expression of his ideas, and therefore, it is extremely difficult to find out which section of the catalogue contains his description of this famous collection of *caitya*-windows. All of them are described under the heading " D(i).-Pediments and face-stones."¹ Some of them are undoubtedly pediments as they are stones from plinth-mouldings and string-courses of early Gupta buildings; but it is very difficult to understand what is meant by face-stones.

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As has been demonstrated above the *caitya*-window was used at Bhumra and Deogadh as a free-standing decorative motif and was used later on in relief against members of architecture. The large and small *caitya*-windows discovered at Bhumra were, no doubt, used along the cornice of the temple, alternately according to size, and as the majority of the Sarnath specimens belong to this variety, they should not have been styled "face-stones". As at Bhumra, the *caitya*-window of the Gupta period is really a trefoil in which the central arc is larger than the side ones and in which the side arcs are still leaf-shaped rather than arcs proper. In the middle of the larger arc is to be found a circular sunken panel, usually called the medallion. The rim or circumference of this medallion is enclosed by a line of beads, the place of which is sometimes taken by rosettes as at Deogadh. The rest of the interspaces, specially the space in the side wings is occupied with small lotus rosettes or arabesque.¹ The Sarnath Museum can boast of a much greater variety in the contents of these *caitya*-windows than any other site of early Gupta date. The best specimens show a seated or standing figure of some deity as in the Bhumra medallions and in certain cases only a running cupid.² In many cases the medallion is filled up with a large lion's head.

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At this stage, we are introduced to a new style in *caitya-window*s, the best examples of which are to be found on the lintel bearing the representation of the Kṣāntivādin *Jataka*. In this case the *caitya-window* motifs are placed in relief in front of a miniature temple crowned by an *Āmalaka*. The *caitya-window* has changed its shape by the metaphorposition of the circular medallion into a trefoil medallion. The sides of the circle have separated and between these two semi-circles is introduced an ellipsoid curve at the top. The introduction of this new member causes the *caitya-window* itself to become divided into two unequal parts with two side-wings on each side instead of one. The Central arc of the *Caitya-window* contains the curved end of the ellipse and is supported at the end of the upper part on two square pilasters. Such trefoils contain standing figures of deities.¹ In the second class, we find that though the *caitya-window* proper has become divided into two parts, with two side-wings on each side, there is no connection between the upper half and the lower. In the upper half the medallion is almost a complete circle and contains, in the majority of cases, a horned lion with arabesque as its mane. Such *caitya-window*s are interposed along the beam of the lintel between the larger ones. The medallion, in the lower part, is shaped roughly like an ellipse and consists of two semi-circles joined together by parallel straight lines.

c9.80.4

They contain figures of dwarfs of the Bhumra and Deogadh types.¹ The contents of such medallions in the Sarnath collection of free-standing *Caitya*-windows is varied, the most important among which are the types which contain figures of animals, not to be found in other schools except that of Benares. In certain cases we find Buddha, in others, figures of minor deities as at Bhumra, but in the majority of cases we find Kirttimukhas or lion’s heads. In one particular case the *caitya*-window being placed in an angle of a plinth-moulding its medallion is obscured and can hardly be seen. Here, the ingenuity of the artist is displayed by the representation of a portion of the lion’s face instead of the entire front. (D. i. 21.) In certain cases the front paws of the lion are also shown in addition. Many of the Sarnath medallions contain Buddhas in the *Bhūmisparśa mudrā*. In one case there is a four armed male holding a rosary, wheel, and a vase.² In certain cases, the medallion is a trefoil and contains the figure of a Buddha in the *Abhaya mudrā*. Many similar medallions contain a pair of pilasters with cruciform bracket capitals.³ In other cases there is a row of dentils, just below the *Caitya*-windows, shaped as grotesque lion’s heads.¹

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¹ Catalogue of the Museum of Archæology at Sarnath, pp. 254-64.

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¹ *Memoirs of the Archæological Survey of India* No. 16, *the temple of Siva at Bhumara. pl. XIII a-c.*

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² *Ibid., pl. III (a).*

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¹ Catalogue of the Museum of Archæology at Sarnath, pl. XXIII, XXV.

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¹ *Ibid.*, pl. XXVIII.

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² *Catalogue of the Museum of Archæology at Sarnath*, pl. 255, No. D(i) 16.

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³ *Ibid.*, p. 257 No. D(i) 29.

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¹ Ibid., p. 258. No. D(i) 42.

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The peculiarly fashioned pillars or pilasters of the Gupta period are to be found in all three schools as well as in Central India. The earliest examples of such pillars or pilasters discovered during the Mathurā excavations of the previous century were brought to public notice by the late Dr. V.A. Smith.² The principal characteristic of such pillars and pilasters is that the lower half or third is generally square in section and quite plain. This plain portion ends in four single or double projections, one on each face, one set containing arabesques or some other ornaments, and the second half or three-quarters circular panels also containing ornaments. Above this portion the shaft is octagonal or hexagonal and round and bears on it one or more projections bearing either ornaments or arabesque. In the majority of cases such pillars or pilasters emerge from the wide mouth of a low vase with foliage at the corners. In many cases there is a round band ornamented with a twisted rope of pearls or other ornaments, which acts as a cushion for the abacus. In the case of the Mathurā pillars, the square projections, immediately above the plain portion, contains panels with grotesque animal figures emerging out of a mass of exquisite arabesque and the semicircular panels above contain lotus rosettes. Between these panels and the cushion ornamented with the twisting-rope pattern there are two heavy projections, one bearing gaṇas alternated with Kīrttimukhas and another with horned-lion Kīrttimukhas. Many Sarnath specimens show the vase with foliage at the corners at the bottom while many others show the foliage and the vase near the top.¹ The stilted style of expression of Rai Bahadur Dayaram Sahni, the compiler of the Sarnath catalogue, makes it extremely difficult to understand the details of the ornamentations on any of the sixty pillars which he has attempted to describe. A fine example, D(f)31 has been dismissed with a few words but a fuller description is certainly needed. One can feel the touch of the learned editor of this catalogue in footnotes where the affinities between the Mathurā and Sarnath style in Gupta pillars are discussed and pointed out.²

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² Oxford History of India, 2nd edition, p. 160.

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¹ Catalogue of the Museum of Archæology at Sarnath, pp. 239-45.

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² Ibid., p. 239, Note 1 and p. 240, Note 2, quoting Smith's Jain Stūpa, pl. XLVI, Fig. 3.

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The best examples of the Pāṭaliputra school are the fragmentary pillars from Rajaona, in which the lower parts are perfectly plain and square but the centre bears two projections on each face. Each of the faces of the lower projection bears a panel enclosed within raised rims. These panels have a small pilaster on each side and contain bas-reliefs; Bhagiratha praying before Śiva on Kailāsa, the Ganges coming to the earth on her Vāhana, a Makara, Arjuna receiving the boon from Śiva and then seeing Śiva and Pārvatī on Kailāsa, etc. Just above the projection there is a smaller projection, also oblong in shape, containing a regular semi-circular medallion and arabesque foliage in the triangular spaces left between the periphery of the circle and the sides of the pillar. The majority of the semi-circular medallions contain horned lions' heads or Kīrttimukhas but some bear winged figures or Suparṇas, whose lower parts end in magnificent spirals of arabesques.¹ The two or three pillars discovered during the recent excavations of the temple of Daśāvatāra at Deogadh perhaps score distinct merit as being larger than any others belonging to the Gupta period. In decoration they are exactly identical but much taller than the Rajaona, Bhumra or any of the Benares pillars. The style of art is perhaps slightly degenerate compared with that of Bhumra, but in point of execution of the bas-reliefs, those of the Pāṭaliputra school are undoubtedly the best.

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