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The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33: Chapter XXVI. The Monuments of Ancient India

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33

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Chapter XXVI. The Monuments of Ancient India

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It is the misfortune of Indian History that its earliest and most obscure pages derive little light from contemporary antiquities. Before the rise of the Maurya Empire a well-developed and flourishing civilisation had existed in India for at least a thousand years; yet, of the structural monuments erected during those ages not one example has survived save the Cyclopean walls of Rājagṛiha; and of man's lesser handiwork, few objects except the primitive implements, pottery, and tombs of the stone and early metal ages. Moreover, such as they are, the value of these antiquities is still further diminished by the fact that there are none among them to which a precise date can be ascribed, while in the case of the majority, even apart from the remains of palaeolithic man, it is impossible to affirm within half a millennium when they were produced. This strange scarcity of materials in a country so vast and thickly populated as India is due in a great measure to the custom which then generally, though not universally, prevailed of building in wood, as well as to the destructive agency of the Indian climate which rapidly obliterates everything of a perishable nature; but it is due, also, to the neglect, until the last few years, of scientific exploration on the ancient town sites of India, which alone are likely to yield the stratigraphical evidence indispensable for determining the chronology of these early ages.

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With the palaeolithic peoples of India we are scarcely here concerned. Their rough-chipped implements (Pl. IX, 1–5) have been found in large numbers in the southern half of the Peninsula, and in deposits which indicate that countless centuries must have elapsed between their last appearance and the dawn of Vedic history, while the forms of the implements themselves, strikingly unlike those of the Neolithic Age, have suggested to some writers that their authors may not even have had an ethnical connexion with the later inhabitants of the land. The neolithic races, on the other hand, are invested with a more immediate interest for the historian, not only because there are good reasons for supposing that some of the existing peoples of India—notably the Dravidians—are directly descended from them, but because this phase of civilisation was preserved in some parts of the country until medieval and probably more recent times. The stone weapons and utensils which are specially characteristic of it are found scattered over a much wider area than the more rudimentary palaeoliths, though mainly in regions where the trap rock, used especially in their manufacture, abounds. They exhibit a remarkable variety, illustrated by at least a hundred distinct types, some of which belong to the polished, others to the unpolished class (Pl. IX, 6–10). With few exceptions, however, they are identical in form with similar objects from Western Asia and Europe, and this identity has led to the supposition that the Dravidian peoples, with whom the neolithic culture in India appears to have been peculiarly associated, once dwelt in the highlands of Western Asia and penetrated thence by way of Baluchistān into India; and, at first sight, the survival in Baluchistān of a Dravidian language, Brāhūī, would seem to support this view. Other linguistic considerations, on the other hand, have been thought to point to the conclusion that the Dravidians were indigenous in the Deccan and spread thence over a part of Northern India. Whatever the truth may be regarding these particular tribes and whether they played a part or not in the introduction of neolithic culture into India, there can be no doubt that this culture was closely related to and, it may well be believed, mainly derived from the culture of the later Stone Age in Western Asia. Among the implements of non-European types referred to, the most noteworthy is a class of curious chisel-shaped, high-shouldered celts which are found in Burma, Assam, and Chotā Nāgpur, and which appear to have been manufactured by the ancestors of the present Mon-Khmer stock. Similar instruments occur also in Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula, where they seem to have been produced, not by the aboriginal tribes of the interior, but by later invaders who were in a more advanced state of civilisation.

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It is to the later Stone Age, also, that are to be ascribed a class of chipped trap implements from Bundelkhand and the pygmy flints that occur in myriads among the off-shoots of the Vindhyas. Some of the caves in which the latter have been found are adorned with rude drawings in ruddle or haematite, and from the outlines of the primitive weapons depicted in them it has been thought that the drawings were executed during the neolithic period, but though the conjecture is plausible enough and is borne out, let it be said, by the discovery of rubbed specimens of red haematite and palettes for grinding down the material at various neolithic sites in the Deccan, it is by no means certain that these drawings go back to so remote an age. This observation applies still more forcibly to the megalithic tombs, which occur in vast numbers in the central and southern parts of the Peninsula, and to the accumulations of prehistoric scoria, often of considerable size, which are known to antiquarians as ‘cinder-mounds,’ as well as to the so-called ‘cup-marks’ or small hollowed depressions in the rocks, which have been interpreted by some investigators as a forgotten system of writing. In Europe, megalithic tombs analogous to the Indian examples are referred to the close of the neolithic period or to the succeeding age of bronze and copper; but in India there are few such tombs which there is reason for regarding as anterior to the iron age; and in their case, as well as in that of the cinder-mounds which have yielded smooth stone celts, it is a plausible theory that the people who erected them were still in the neolithic state, when iron had long been in vogue among other races of the Peninsula.

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As the stone age passed gradually away in Northern India, it appears to have given place, not to an age of bronze, as it did in most parts of Europe, but to one of copper. Finds of seven bronze implements, it is true, have been recorded from various parts of the Empire, but it has rightly been pointed out by Dr Vincent Smith that out of these seven one only can claim to be of real bronze, deliberately and knowingly manufactured as such, and the evidence of a single specimen, which may well have been imported from abroad, is wholly insufficient to justify the assumption of a bronze age. Copper implements, on the contrary, occur in relatively large quantities and over a wide range throughout Northern India, from Hooghly in the east to Baluchistān in the west. Among them are bare and shouldered celts, harpoons, spear-heads both plain and barbed, axe-heads, swords, and an object suggestive of the human shape (Pl. X, 11–20). The last mentioned, as well as some of the swords, which are remarkable for their excessive weight and the form of their handles (Pl. X, 18–20), may have been used for cult purposes. One hoard of these implements, which came from Gungeria in the Central Provinces—the most important, be it said, yet recorded in the Old World—contained as many as 424 specimens of almost pure metal, weighing in all 829 pounds, besides 102 ornamental laminae of silver. Such a collection, comprising as it did a variety of implements intended for manifold domestic and other purposes, affords evidence enough, as Dr Smith has remarked, that their manufacture was being conducted in India on an extensive scale; while the distinctive types that had been evolved and are represented both in this and in other finds, connote a development that must already have extended over a long period, though at the same time the barbed spear-heads and harpoons and flat celts, manifestly copied from neolithic prototypes, bespeak a relatively high antiquity. The presence of silver ornaments in the Gungeria hoard has suggested doubts as to its remote date, but there seems little reason for assuming that a race familiar with the difficult metallurgical processes by which copper is extracted from its ores, were incapable of smelting silver from the rich argentiferous galenas which occur in various localities.

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At what date iron came to supplant copper in the north of India is uncertain, but literary evidence from the Vedas seems to indicate that it was introduced into the north-west during the second millennium B.C.¹ It was about the same time, too, that it came into general use in Mesopotamia, and it is probable enough that the knowledge not only of this metal but of copper also in a previous age was acquired from that region. Between the Babylonian, or Assyrian, and Indian civilisations, indeed, many archaeological links are traceable, among which may be noticed, parenthetically, the remarkable resemblance presented by the oblong, short-legged terracotta sarcophagi from the neighbourhood of Baghdad to those of a prehistoric date found at Pallāvaram and other places in the Madras Presidency.

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¹ A date *c.* 1000 B.C. is suggested in Chapter II, p. 56; cf. Chapter IV, p. 112.

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In Southern India there was no copper age, and iron probably did not take the place of stone until about 500 B.C. Up to that time the Āryans of the north seem to have possessed no very distinct knowledge of the south of the Peninsula, which was at once isolated and protected against invasion by the natural defences of the Vindhya hills and the trackless jungles of Central India, and when at last they penetrated through these barriers they found the Dravidian and other races in the south still in the neolithic stage of culture. The supposition that iron was first conveyed into Southern India by sea from Egypt, has nothing to commend it.²

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² Besides the works detailed in the bibliography at the end of this volume, the author is much indebted to a very valuable note on the prehistoric antiquities of India by Mr J. Coggin-Brown, M.Sc., of the Geological Dept., whose knowledge of this subject is perhaps unrivalled.

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Notwithstanding the wide extent and long duration of Vedic civilisation in Northern India, there is but one group of monuments now existing to which there is any warrant for assigning a Vedic origin. These are the well-known mounds at Lauriyā Nandangaṛh in Bihār, which were opened a few years ago by the late Dr Bloch and identified by him with the burial mounds (*çmaçāna*) described in Vedic ritual. Two of these proved to be composed of horizontal layers of clay alternating with straw and leaves, with a post (*sthūṇā*) of sāl wood standing erect in the centre, above which was a deposit of human bones and charcoal accompanied by a small gold leaf. The latter (Plate XI, 21) bore impressed upon it in crude outline the figure of a female, which has been interpreted as the Earth Goddess referred to in the Vedic burial hymn, but both this interpretation and the date (seventh or eighth century B.C.) hazarded by the explorer for these mounds must be regarded as tentative only. Of actual structures anterior to the Maurya epoch the only examples, as already remarked, known to have survived until the present day, are the walls and remains of dwellings in the old city of Rājagṛiha, all built of rough cyclopean masonry. This city was reputed in antiquity to have been forsaken during the reign of king Bimbisāra, the contemporary of Buddha, who removed the capital to New Rājagṛiha, but as to how long the walls or houses had then been standing, tradition is silent. Such structures, built of durable materials, were certainly the rare exception rather than the rule in ancient India, and were probably essayed only in localities where stones suitable for such masonry were ready to hand. In primitive India, as among the poorer classes of to-day, the materials most commonly in use were mud or mud bricks, bamboo canes, and other kinds of wood. The simplest kinds of dwellings were constructed of screens of bamboo inwoven with palm branches or the like, the roofs being either flat or arched. In the latter case, the bamboos were lashed together at the apex and tied in near the lower end, thus forming a singularly strong framework of curvilinear form, while the walls were strengthened to resist the outward thrust. In other cases, the walls were constructed of unbaked brick or mud, and the latter material was also used as a covering for the flat roofs or for plastering the screens of the walls on the ‘wattle and daub’ principle. At a later date cut timbers came to be used in the more pretentious dwellings, and afforded opportunities for the development of that exuberant surface decoration in which the genius of India has always excelled.

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These materials left their character deeply and permanently impressed on Indian architecture. From the use of the bamboo came the curvilinear type of roof which was afterwards reproduced in cut timber and subsequently in stone, and from which were evolved the familiar *chaitya* arches used over doorways and windows. Log capitals were imitated in stone, and the more finished timbering of walls, roofs, and gateways in the same material, every detail down to the nail-heads being copied with sedulous care and accuracy by the masons of later days. As a protection against destructive insects, wooden posts were set in *ghaṛas* or jars of earthenware, and from these resulted the ‘pot and foliage’ base, so beautifully developed in the Gupta age. A striking illustration of the influence exerted by wood as contrasted with brick construction is to be found in the pillars of the cave temples. In the earliest examples the stone pillars are manifestly copied from wooden prototypes and are relatively slender, though amply thick enough for their purpose. In the later examples, on the other hand, the pillars are heavy and cumbersome, not because extra strength was required, nor yet in order to save labour, but because they were copied from the brick-in-mud pillars of famous *vihāras*, which necessarily required to be much thicker in proportion to their height than columns of stone. It is stated by Arrian that cities on the banks of rivers and in other low-lying spots were built of wood, those in more commanding situations, where they were less exposed to floods, of mud or brick. This statement refers to the time of Megasthenes, Ambassador to the Court of Chandragupta Maurya, on whose writings the *Indica* of Arrian is believed to have been based. It has been endorsed by the discovery of portions of the wooden palisades of Pāṭaliputra and of the mud or brick walls of Çrāvastī, Bhītā, and other towns. But no kiln-burnt bricks have been found in the Gangetic plains which can be referred to an earlier date than the fourth century B.C., and it is improbable that they came generally into vogue in this part of India until after the reign of Açoka; for the unwieldy size of the bricks used in the buildings of Açoka at Sārnāth and other places, coupled with their inferior quality, betoken but little experience of brick-making. The potter’s art, on the other hand, had been practised throughout India from time immemorial, and in the Punjab and North-West, which were in closer touch with Persia and Mesopotamia, it is likely enough that burnt bricks were used at a more remote age. In this connexion a special interest attaches to certain seals of unknown date and origin (Pl. XI, 22, 23), which are said to have been found from time to time among the remains of brick structures at Harappa in the Montgomery District of the Punjab. The majority of these seals are engraved with the device of a bull with head outstretched over some uncertain object, possibly in the act of being sacrificed, and all of them bear legends in a pictographic script, which remains still to be deciphered.

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With the advent of the Mauryas, the obscurity, in which the earlier monuments are wrapped, rapidly disperses, and from this time onwards we are able to trace step by step and with relative precision the evolution both of architecture and of the formative arts. Of Indian art, generally, it was said by Fergusson, and the statement has often been repeated, that its history is written in decay; that the noblest and most perfect examples of it are the works of the Emperor Açoka; and that each succeeding monument is but a landmark in the steady process of decline. In reality, as we shall presently see, its history is one of continuous forward progress, and, when the works of extraneous schools have been recognised and eliminated, it is found to follow a clear and logical sequence, in obedience to the fixed and immutable principles which govern the artistic efforts of all primitive peoples.

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As it happens, it is the earliest monuments that have proved the greatest stumbling-block. Yet the fallacies, which have grown up around them, are not difficult to correct. They arise, in a great measure, from the tendency, common in all ages, to magnify the exploits of great heroes, and to ascribe to them feats and achievements in which they bore no part. What happened in this respect to Alexander, to King Arthur, or to Charlemagne, happened also to the Emperor Açoka. In ancient days his name became the centre of a cycle of heroic legends, and the same process of glorification has continued in modern times by fathering on to him a multitude of works with which he had no connexion. The monuments that can with relative certainty be assigned to the Maurya age, or to the age immediately succeeding it, are few. Besides the brick buildings referred to above they comprise the following: a series of isolated columns erected by the Emperor Açoka at various spots in Northern India; the remains of a pillared hall at Patna, which probably formed part of a royal palace designed, perhaps, on the model of the Achaemenian palaces of Persia; a group of rock-cut shrines in the Barābar hills in Bihār; a small monolithic rail at Sārnāth; a throne in the interior of the temple at Buddh Gayā; some portions of *stūpa* umbrellas at Sāñchī and Sārnāth; and three statues in the round, two in the Indian Museum at Calcutta, the third at Mathurā. Of these monuments, twelve bear records of Açoka himself, and three of his successor, Daçaratha; the age of the others is determined by their style, by the inscriptions carved upon them, or by their peculiar technique, every member but one in the group being identical in two distinct features, namely, in the exceeding care with which they are chiselled and in the brilliant polish afterwards imparted to their surface. Moreover, with the exception of the caves cut out of the natural gneiss rock in the Barābar hills, they are one and all of sandstone from a quarry near Chunār.

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The pillars or *lāts*, as they are commonly called, are of singularly massive proportions, consisting of a round and slightly tapering monolithic shaft with bell-shaped capital surmounted by an abacus and crowning sculpture in the round, the whole rising to an average height, from base to summit, of between 40 and 50 feet. One of the best preserved, though not the best in style, is that at Lauriyā Nandangarh, illustrated in Pl. XI, 24. The crowning figure on this pillar is a lion, and the relief which adorns the abacus a row of geese, symbolical, perhaps, of the flock of the Buddha's disciples. In other cases, the single lion is replaced by a group of lions set back to back with or without some sacred symbol between them, or by an elephant or bull, while the abacus is adorned with a lotus and honeysuckle design or with wheels and animals alternating. Shafts of a precisely similar pattern, but smaller proportions, were employed in the great hall at Patna, but there the capitals and entablature appear to have been of wood. The dignified, massive simplicity of these pillars is common to all the other architectural remains of the Maurya epoch. The rail at Sārnāth and the throne at Buddh Gayā are devoid of ornament, but each is cut entire and with exquisite precision from a single block of stone, and the plainness of the umbrellas is only relieved by delicately defined ribs radiating on their under side. Equally chaste and severe are the dwellings and chapels excavated for the Ājīvika ascetics in the hills of Bihār. Like the *chaityas* or hermitages from which they were copied, these consist of a small oblong chamber (in one instance with rounded ends) with or without a circular apartment at one extremity, but in only one example is the timber work of their prototypes reproduced in the stone. The example referred to is the Lomas Rishi Cave, the ornamental façade of which (Pl. XI, 25) is an accurate replica of a wooden model. This particular cave, however, bears no inscriptions either of Açoka or of Daçaratha, and the fact that its interior was left in an unfinished state suggests that it was the latest of the whole group. Probably, it was not excavated until after the close of Daçaratha's reign.

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Hardly less striking than the skill with which these monuments were chiselled and the brilliancy to which they were polished, is the disparity evinced in the style of their sculptured ornamentation. This disparity is well exemplified by comparing the primitive treatment of the statue from Pārkham in the Mathurā Museum with the highly developed modelling of the Sārnāth capital (Pl. XII, 26–28). The former represents a stage of art not yet emancipated from the binding law of 'frontality' or from the trammels imposed by the mental prepossessions of the artist. The head and torso are so posed that, were they bisected vertically, the two halves would be found to be all but symmetrical; while the flattened sides and back of the figure, connected only by a slight chamfering of the edges, are conclusive proof that the sculptor failed to grasp more than one aspect of his subject at a time, or to co-ordinate its parts harmoniously together as an organic whole. These features are not mere superficial details of technique, due to the caprice of the artist. They are the fundamental characteristics of the nascent sculpture of all countries, and the primitiveness of the art which they signify is borne out in this particular statue by other traits, namely, by the subordination of the side and back to the front aspect, by the inorganic attachment of the ears, by the uncouth proportions of the neck, by the schematic rotundity of the abdomen, and the absence of modelling in the feet.

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The Sārnāth capital, on the other hand, though by no means a masterpiece, is the product of the most developed art of which the world was cognisant in the third century B.C.—the handiwork of one who had generations of artistic effort and experience behind him. In the masterful strength of the crowning lions, with their swelling veins and tense muscular development, and in the spirited realism of the reliefs below, there is no trace whatever of the limitations of primitive art. So far as naturalism was his aim, the sculptor has modelled his figures direct from nature, and has delineated their forms with bold, faithful touch; but he has done more than this: he has consciously and of set purpose infused a tectonic conventional spirit into the four lions, so as to bring them into harmony with the architectural character of the monument, and in the case of the horse on the abacus he has availed himself of a type well known and approved in western art. Equally mature is the technique of his relief work. In early Indian, as in early Greek sculpture, it was the practice, as we shall presently see, to compress the relief between two fixed planes, the original front plane of the slab and the plane of the background. In the reliefs of the Sārnāth capital there is no trace whatever of this process; each and every part of the animal is modelled according to its actual depth without reference to any ideal front plane, with the result that it presents the appearance almost of a figure in the round which has been cut in half and then applied to the background of the abacus.

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What, then, is the explanation of the gulf which separates these two sculptures—the primitive unifacial image of Pārkham and the richly modelled capital of Sārnāth? The answer to this question is not far to seek, and will readily occur to any one who is familiar with the art of Western Asia. Long ago M. Senart pointed out¹ that the decrees of the Achaemenian monarchs engraved on the rocks of Bahistān and elsewhere furnished the models on which the edicts of Açoka were based. It was in Persia, also, that the bell-shaped capital was evolved. It was from Persian originals, specimens of which are still extant in the plain of the Murghāb at Istakhr, Naksh-i-Rustam, and Persepolis, that the smooth unfluted shafts of the Maurya columns were copied. It was from Persia, again, that the craftsmen of Açoka learnt how to give so lustrous a polish to the stone—a technique of which abundant examples survive at Persepolis and elsewhere. Lastly, it is to Persia, or—to be more precise—to that part of it which was once the satrapy of Bactria and was at this time asserting its independence from the Empire of the Seleucids, that we must look for the Hellenistic influence which alone at that epoch of the world’s history could have been responsible for the modelling of the living forms on the Sārnāth capital. Little more than two generations had passed since Alexander the Great had planted in Bactria a powerful colony of Greeks, who occupying as they did a tract of country on the very threshold of the Maurya dominions, where the great trade routes from India, Irān, and Central Asia converged, and closely in touch as they were with the great centres of civilisation in Western Asia, must have played a dominant part in the transmission of Hellenistic art and culture into India. Every argument, indeed, whether based on geographical considerations or on the political and commercial relations which are known to have been maintained between India and Western Asia, or on the happy fusion of Hellenistic and Irānian art visible in this monument, indicates Bactria as the probable source from which the artist who created it drew his inspiration. At the time of which we speak the Hellenistic spirit then vigorous in Bactria was mastering and vitalising the dull expressionless forms of Irān. At a later date, as the strength of Hellenism weakened and declined, other elements from the neighbouring steppes of Central Asia asserted or re-asserted themselves in the cosmopolitan art of this region, and, in their turn, were borne to India on the stream of influence which, until the fall of the Kushāṇa Empire, flowed ceaselessly over the passes of the Hindu Kush.

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¹ *Journ. Asiat.* 8me sér., t. v (1885), pp. 269 ff. and *Inscriptions de Piyadasi*, t. ii, pp. 219 ff.

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While the Sārnāth capital is thus an exotic, alien to Indian ideas in expression and in execution, the statue of Pārkham falls naturally into line with other products of indigenous art and affords a valuable starting point for the study of its evolution. These two works represent the alpha and the omega of early Indian art, between which all the sculptures known to us take their place, approximating to the one or the other extreme according as the Indian or Perso-Hellenic spirit prevailed in them. Thus, the two statues from Patna in the Calcutta Museum (Pl. XIII, 29, 30) are akin in many respects to the Pārkham image, but exhibit a nearer approach to plurifaciality in the moulding of the torso. The lion capital at Sānchī, on the other hand, though not quite as successful as that of Sārnāth, shows so close an affinity to it, that there can be little doubt that it was the handiwork of one and the same artist; and the well-developed modelling of the figures on the other columns of Açoka shows that, in spite of their occasionally inferior execution, they belong to the same Perso-Hellenistic group. It is not, of course, to be presumed that a single sculptor was responsible for all these monuments, nor yet that all the sculptors employed were of equal ability. Probably, there were many Indians assisting the foreign artists in the mechanical part of their work, and these, we may believe, were responsible for some of the sculptures noticed above, but it is incredible that any Indian hand at this period should either have modelled in clay or chiselled from the stone such perfected forms as those of the Sārnāth capital.

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The contrast between Indian and foreign workmanship exhibited by these sculptures is equally apparent in the minor arts of the Maurya period. Thus, the indigenous coins (Pl. XIII, 31–33) known commonly as 'punch-marked,' which were current at this time, are singularly crude and ugly, neither their form, which is unsymmetrical, nor the symbols, which are stamped almost indiscriminately upon their surface, having any pretensions to artistic merit. On the other hand, the coins of Sophytes (Saubhūti), who was reigning in the Punjab at the close of the fourth century b.c., are purely Greek in style (Pl. XIII, 34), having seemingly been copied from an issue of Seleucus Nicator, with whom Sophytes probably came into contact when the former invaded the Punjab in 305 b.c. It is the same, also, with the contemporary terracottas. Side by side with products of Perso-Hellenic art, such as those illustrated in Pl. XIV, 35 and 36, the features of which are markedly classical in character, is found a class of coarse primitive reliefs, the execution of which betrays their Indian origin, though in a few cases, such as that illustrated in Pl. XIV, 37, the type of the winged figure depicted on them is derived from Persian or Mesopotamian prototypes. Indeed, so far as is known at present, it was only in the jewellers' and lapidaries' arts that the Maurya craftsman attained any real proficiency, and in this domain his aptitude lay, not in the plastic treatment of form, but in the high technical skill with which he cut and polished refractory stones or applied delicate filigree or granular designs to metal objects. The refined quality of his gold and silver work is well illustrated in two pieces reproduced in Pl. XIV, 38, 39, which were discovered on the site of Taxila in company with a gold coin of Diodotus, a large number of local punch-marked coins, and a quantity of other jewellery and precious stones. Of the stone-cutter's art, also, some beautiful examples are furnished by the relic caskets of beryl and rock crystal from the *stūpas* of Bhattiprolu¹ and Piprahwa², the latter of which is probably to be assigned to this epoch (Pl. XIV, 40).

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¹ Cf. Rea, *South Indian Buddhist Antiquities*, vol. xv, *A.S.R.* (New Imperial Series).

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² *J.R.A.S.*, 1898, p. 573 and Plate.

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The art of the jeweller has at all times appealed strongly to the Indian genius, and throughout Indian history has exercised a deep influence upon the national sculpture and painting, supplying them with a variety of rich and artistic motifs which were quickly and cleverly adapted for purposes of decorative design, but at the same time inclining the ideas of the artists towards meticulous detail and thus obstructing a free, bold, anatomical treatment of the human figure.

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With the rise of the Śuṅga power in Hindustān during the second century b.c. and the simultaneous extension of the Bactrian dominion to the Punjab, the national art of India underwent a rapid development. Foreign and especially Hellenistic ideas now flowed eastward in an ever-increasing volume, and from them the Indian artist drew new vitality and inspiration for his work. At the same time stone more and more usurped the place of wood for architectural purposes, and by reason of its greater durability tempted the artist to expend more pains upon its carving, while it naturally lent itself to more perfect technique. Of the monuments of this period, the most notable is the Buddhist *stūpa* at Bhārhut in Central India, erected about the middle of the second century B.C. Before its discovery by Sir A. Cunningham in 1873, the body of this *stūpa* had been almost destroyed by the neighbouring villagers, but portions of the eastern gateway (*toraṇa*) and of the railings which encircled the monument were found beneath its ruins and are now deposited in the Calcutta Museum. The *stūpa* itself was of brick, and apparently of much the same design as the Great *stūpa* at Sānchī, described below.

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Around the base was a massive stone railing of the usual type, divided into four quadrants by entrances at the cardinal points, while other railings of smaller dimensions, of which fragments have been found around the structure, once flanked the berm and ascending stairway, and no doubt enclosed the crowning *hti*. At the eastern entrance was a gateway about 22 feet 6 inches in height (Pl. XV, 41), and possibly similar gateways may once have adorned the other entrances also, though no remains of them have been found. Both gateway and railings are lavishly enriched with sculptured reliefs, many of which illustrate incidents in the *Jātakas* or scenes connected with the life of the Buddha, and these illustrations are made all the more valuable by the descriptive titles attached to them, which leave no doubt as to their identification. Thus, one relief depicts the Nāga Jātaka; another (Pl. XVI, 42), the dream of Māyā; a third, the Jetavana at Çrāvastī, with its trees and shrines and the ground half strewn with coins which Anāthapiṇḍa is taking from a bullock cart; others, again, represent the royal processions of Ajātaçatru or Prasenajit visiting the Buddha (Pl. XVI, 43); and in others is depicted the worship of Buddha's head-dress in the Devaloka (Pl. XVI, 44), or of the Bodhi-tree by the Nāga king Erāpata (Pl. XVI, 45).

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Besides these and many other miscellaneous scenes there are a multitude of single images carved in high relief upon the pillars of the rail—Yakshas and Yakshīs, Devatās or Nāgarājas (Pl. XVII, 46, 47). The style of the carvings on the ground rail is by no means uniform. Some show little advance on the indigenous work of the previous century, the defects of rudimentary technique being almost as striking in these reliefs as they were in indigenous sculpture in the round. In such cases the figures are portrayed as silhouettes sharply detached from their background, an effort towards modelling being made merely by grading the planes of the relief in severe and distinctive layers, and then rounding off the contours of the silhouette or interior details. At the same time the forms are splayed out to the verge of distortion, and the influence of mental abstraction on the part of the artist is still manifest in the treatment of the feet or of hands in the attitude of prayer, which, irrespective of anatomical accuracy, are turned sideways and presented in their broadest aspect. In other carvings, the treatment of the relief is more mature.

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In these, occasional traces of mental abstraction, due to force of habit, are still visible, and they all show the same aversion to depth, but the individual figures are conceived and modelled in general conformity with nature, not in a gradation of separate planes or as mere silhouettes, and are presented, moreover, at various angles and in a variety of natural poses. This superior execution is shared, also, by some of the sculptured balusters between the architraves of the eastern gateway, and it is significant that these balusters are further distinguished by the un-Indian countenances of the figures carved upon them and by the presence of Kharoshṭhī letters engraved as masons' marks in contradistinction to the Brāhmī characters which appear on the railing. The only rational explanation of these phenomena is that some of the sculptors engaged on this railing came from the north-west of India, where, thanks to western teaching, the formative arts were then in a more advanced state, and that these sculptors were responsible for the better class of reliefs, the inferior work being done by the local artists of Central India. In this connexion a special interest attaches to a *Garuḍa* pillar (Pl.

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XVIII, 48) set up about this time at Besnagar near Bhīlsa, the ancient Vidiçā, in Gwalior State, the inscription on which states that it was dedicated to Vāsudeva by a Greek named Heliodorus, an inhabitant of Taxila and an envoy of King Antialcidas, and thus furnishes incontrovertible evidence of the contact which was then taking place between this part of India and the Greek kingdoms of the Punjab.

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The next important landmark in the history of the early Indian school is supplied by the well-known railing round the great Temple at Buddh Gayā and the pillars of the *chaṅkrama* or promenade to the north of it. This railing (Pl. XIX, 49) was disposed in a quadrangle measuring 145 feet by 108 feet, but in other respects was designed and adorned in much the same way as the rail at Bhārhut. On the outside of the coping was a continuous band of flowers; on the inside, a frieze of animals or mythical monsters; on the cross-bars, lotus medallions centred with busts or other devices; and on the upright pillars, standing figures in high relief (Pl. XIX, 50) or medallions and panels containing a variety of miscellaneous scenes.

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As at Bhārhut, many of these sculptures are relatively crude and coarse—the handiwork, no doubt, of inferior local craftsmen; but it needs no very critical eye to perceive that, taken as a whole, their style is considerably more developed than that of the Bhārhut reliefs and, at the same time, more pronouncedly affected by the influence of western art. Witness, for instance, in the matter of technical treatment, the freer movement of planes leading to more convincing spatial effect, the more organic modelling of the figures, the relative freedom of their pose and composition, and the effort to bring them into closer relationship one with the other; and witness, again, in the matter of motifs, the centaurs, winged monsters, and tritons, the schematic treatment of the animal friezes, and the scene of Sūrya in his four-horse chariot copied directly from a Hellenistic prototype (Pl. XIX, 51). These and many other features of the Buddh Gayā railing prove incontestably that at the time of its erection Indian sculptors were borrowing freely from the hybrid cosmopolitan art of Western Asia, in which Greek and Scythic, Persian and Mesopotamian cultures were blended and fused together, and that, partly under this alien inspiration, partly through their own initiative, they had made important progress since the time when the Bhārhut reliefs were executed. On the other hand, in point of development the reliefs of Buddh Gayā fall short of those on the *toraṇas* at Sānchī, which, as we shall see below, are to be assigned to the latter half of the first century B.C., and accordingly we shall probably not be far wrong if we assign the Buddh Gayā monuments to the earlier years of the same century. This date, let it be added, is substantiated by inscriptions on two of the rail pillars recording that they were presented by the Queens of King Indramitra and King Brahmamitra, respectively. These two kings have been plausibly identified with the two rulers of the same names, whose coins have been found in considerable numbers in Northern India, and who, whether they were connected with the Çuṅga dynasty or not, appear from the script of their coin legends to have flourished not earlier than the first century B.C. (pp. 525–6; Pl. V, 4, 6).

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We come now to the famous gateways of Sānchī, the most perfect and most beautiful of all the monuments of the Early School. Four of these adorn the four entrances to the Great *stūpa* situated on the levelled summit of the hill; the fifth—a gateway of smaller proportions—is set in front of a subsidiary *stūpa* (No. III) close by, to the north-east. As it now stands, the Great *stūpa* (Pl. XX, 53) is about 54 feet high, excluding the rail and umbrella on its summit, and consists of an almost hemispherical dome set on a lofty plinth, the narrow berm between the two serving in old times as a processional path. This was not, however, its original form. The earliest structure, which was erected, apparently, by Açoka at the same time as the lion-crowned pillar near the South Gateway (p. 622 above), was of brick, crowned by a stone umbrella, and of not more than half the present dimensions. At that time, the floor laid around the *stūpa* and column by the workmen of Açoka was several feet below the present level. As years passed by, however, much *débris* collected above this floor, and over the *débris* another floor was laid, and then a third one, still higher up, and last of all—at least a century after the erection of the column—a stone pavement covering the whole hill-top. These facts have an intimate bearing on the history of this important monument; for, simultaneously with the laying of this final pavement, the *stūpa* itself was also enlarged to its existing size by the addition of a stone casing faced with concrete; on its summit was set a larger umbrella with a plain stone rail in a square around it, and encircling its base another rail equally plain but of more massive proportions. These works, and particularly the erection of the great ground rail, the pillars, bars, and copings of which were the gifts of many devotees, must have taken many decades to accomplish. Then came the construction of smaller decorated rails round the berm of the *stūpa* and flanking the steps by which it was ascended; and, finally and to crown all, the four gateways at the entrances between the quadrants of the ground rail, which can hardly be relegated to an earlier date than the last half century before the Christian era.

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These two *stūpas* with their richly carved *toraṇas* are not the only monuments of an early age on the hill-top of Sānchī. To the south-east of the Great *stūpa* is a lofty plinth of stone, approached by two broad stairways and surmounted by rows of heavy octagonal pillars, which once supported a superstructure of wood; the pillars bear inscriptions in early Brāhmī, probably of the first century B.C., but the plinth dates back to Çuṅga or Maurya times, and was originally rounded at its southern end, having served apparently as the base of an apsidal temple of wood, which perished by burning before the stone pillars were erected. Then, in the south-west part of the enclosure, there is another plinth of a similar type but square in plan; and on a lower spur of the same hill is another *stūpa* (Pl. XXI, 54), designed on the same lines as the Great *stūpa*, but without any *toraṇas* to adorn the entrances, and with this further difference, that its ground rail is lavishly decorated with sculptured panels and medallions. These reliefs present the same phenomenon, but in a more accentuated measure, that we observed in the railing of Buddh Gayā. A few, that is to say—and these are confined to the corner pillars of the entrance—are of a refined style and infused with a strongly classical feeling (Pl. XXI, 55, 56); but the majority, though remarkably decorative, and, indeed, better adapted to their purpose, are conspicuous for their crude, coarse workmanship (Pl. XXI, 57, 58). In this case, however, it is important to observe that the two classes of reliefs were not executed at one and the same time; for an examination of the rail shows that the whole of it was originally adorned with the more primitive kind of carvings, and that some of these were subsequently chiselled off in order to make way for the more finished reliefs.

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To revert, however, to the gateways of the Great *stūpa*, in which the interest of Sānchī mainly resides. The earliest of them to be erected was the one at the south entrance, opposite to the steps by which the berm was approached; then followed, in chronological order, the northern, the eastern, and the western, their succession in each case being demonstrated by the style of their carvings and by the tectonic character of the extensions to the rail, which were made at the time that each was set up. All four gateways are of similar design—the work of carpenters rather than of masons—and the marvel is that erections of this kind, constructed on principles wholly unsuited to work in stone, have survived in such remarkable preservation for nearly two thousand years. Each gateway was composed of two square pillars surmounted by capitals, which in their turn supported a superstructure of three architraves with volute ends, ranged one above the other at intervals slightly in excess of their own height. The capitals were adorned with standing dwarfs or with the forefronts of lions or elephants set back to back in the Persepolitan fashion; and, springing from the same abacus and acting as supports to the projecting ends of the lowest architrave, were Caryatid figures of graceful and pleasing outline. Other images of men and women, horsemen, elephants, and lions were disposed between and above the architraves, while crowning and dominating all was the sacred wheel, so inseparably connected with Buddhism, flanked on either side by attendants and *triçūla* emblems. For the rest, both pillars and superstructure were elaborately enriched with bas-reliefs illustrative of the *Jātaka* legends or scenes from the life of the Buddha or important events in the subsequent history of the Buddhist religion. Besides which, there were representations of the sacred trees and *stūpas* symbolical of Çākyamuni and the preceding Buddhas; of real or fabulous beasts and birds; and many heraldic and floral devices of rich and varied conception (Pl. XXI, 59).

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The inscriptions carved here and there on the gateways record the names of pious individuals or of gilds who contributed to their erection, but say not a word, unfortunately, of the scenes and figures delineated, the interpretation of which has been rendered all the more difficult by the practice, universal in the Early School, of never portraying the Buddha in bodily form, but of indicating his presence merely by some symbol, such as his footprints or the throne on which he sat or the sacred tree associated with his enlightenment. Thanks, however, to the light afforded by the sculptures of Bhārhut, with their clear, explicit titles, and thanks, also, to the brilliant labours of Mons. A. Foucher and Prof. Grünwedel, the interpretation of the majority of these reliefs has now been placed beyond dispute, and it will probably not be long before the meaning of the rest becomes equally clear. A good illustration of the methods of narration followed by the artists and of what has been achieved towards the interpretation of the sculptures, is afforded by the front façade of the East Gateway (Pl. XXII, 60). On the right pillar are represented, in six panels, the six *devalokas* or stages of the Buddhist Paradise, their respective deities seated like mortal kings in each. On the left, starting from the base, is Bimbisāra with his royal cortege issuing from the city of Rājagṛiha on a visit to the Buddha, here symbolised by his empty throne. This visit took place after the conversion of Kāçyapa, and in the panel above is depicted one of the miracles by which Buddha converted the Brāhman ascetic. The Nairañjanā river is shown in flood, with Kāçyapa and two of his disciples hastening in a boat to the rescue of Buddha. Then, in the lower part of the picture, Buddha, represented again by his throne, appears walking on the face of the waters, and in the fore-ground the figures of Kāçyapa and his disciples are repeated, now on dry ground and doing homage to the Master. The third panel portrays the temple at Buddh Gayā, built by Açoka, with the throne of Buddha within, and, spreading through its upper windows, the branches of the sacred tree. It is the illumination of Buddha; and to right and left of the temple are four figures in an attitude of prayer—perhaps the Guardian Kings of the four quarters; while ranged above in two tiers are groups of deities looking on in adoration from their celestial paradises. The scenes on the lintels are still more elaborate. On the lowest we see, in the centre, the temple and tree of Buddh Gayā; to the left, a crowd of musicians and devotees with water vessels; to the right, a royal retinue and a king and queen descending from an elephant, and afterwards doing worship at the tree. This is the ceremonial visit which Açoka and his queen, Tishyarakshitā, paid to the Bodhi-tree, for the purpose of watering it and restoring its pristine beauty after the evil spell which the queen had cast upon it. The middle lintel is occupied with the scene of Buddha's departure from Kapilavastu (*mahābhinishkramaṇa*). To the left is the city with wall and moat, and, issuing from its gate, the horse Kaṇṭhaka, his hoofs supported by Yakshas and accompanied by the divinities in attendance on the Buddha, and by Chhandaka, his groom, who holds the umbrella symbolical of his Master's presence. In order to indicate the progress of the Prince, this group is repeated four times in succession towards the right of the relief, and then, at the parting of the ways, we see Chhandaka and the horse sent back to Kapilavastu, and the further journey of Buddha indicated by his footprints surmounted by the umbrella. Lastly, in the topmost lintel, are representations of the seven last Buddhas, the first and last symbolised by thrones beneath their appropriate Bodhi-trees, the rest by the *stūpas* which enshrined their relics.

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On the execution of these sculptures, with their multitudinous figures and elaborate details, many years of labour must have been exhausted and many hands employed. It is not to be expected, therefore, that their style should be uniform; yet there is none of the clumsy, immature workmanship here which we noticed in the inferior carvings of the balustrade round the smaller *stūpa* and at Buddh Gayā. These reliefs are the work of trained and experienced sculptors, and though they exhibit considerable variety in their composition and technical treatment, their style throughout is maintained at a relatively high level. The finest are on the Southern Gateway, the poorest on the Northern; but in the matter of technique, the greatest contrast, perhaps, is afforded by the reliefs of the Southern and Western Gateways. Compare, for example, the scene on the inner face of the middle architrave of the South Gateway, depicting the Chhaddanta Jātaka, and the same scene on the front face of the lowest architrave of the Western Gateway (Pl. XXIII, 61, 62). In the former, the figures are kept strictly in one plane, in order that all may be equally distinct to the observer, and the relief low, that there may be no heavy shadows to obscure the design, with the result that the effect is that of a tapestry rather than of a carving in stone. The elephants, again, are treated in broad flat surfaces with a view to emphasising their contours; the trees sketched in rather than modelled;

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