The Age of the Imperial Guptas c9.4

c9.4

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.