The Age of the Imperial Guptas c9.48

c9.48

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