Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s14: I. Introduction
Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s14
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I. Introduction
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It is indeed curious that the first organised art activity in India in large scale and durable material of which datable examples have come down to us in any recognisable number belongs to the period of the Mauryas. The Chalcolithic civilisation of the Indus valley has left behind relics, few in number but varied in subject and treatment, that may safely be said to belong to the domain of high art with a long artistic tradition and experience behind it. Indeed, the art represented by the reliefs on the seals and figure sculptures in the round found at Harappa, Mohen-jo-Daro and other sites in the Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, and further north and east, is already highly developed, sophisticated and conscious, and expresses most fully and significantly the culture-ideology of a people urban in upbringing, highly sophisticated in the luxury of living, and probably industrial and feudal in socio-economic organisation. Like the civilisation itself its art also had already reached the creative climax of a tradition. Into the relation of this art with the art of the contemporary civilised world it is not the place to enter; but it must needs be told that this art in spite of its affinities with contemporary Mediterranean art has its own essential qualities and its own character cf form that link it with the art of India of the historical period¹. Yet the fact remains that the art of the Indus valley is still largely an unknown factor in so far as it remains chronologically unexplained, and we hardly know anything definite of what happened along the arrow of time between the final phase of the Indus valley civilisation and the civilisation that flourished in the Ganges valley more than two thousand years later.
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¹ St. Kramrisch, *Indian Sculpture*, pp. 3-7.
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The earliest that the Ganges valley is alleged to have offered to us in the shape and form of what may be called an art object is a small gold tablet representing a naked woman standing on her legs in symmetrical rigidity, with exaggerated hips and sexual organs, heavy and clumsy ornaments and rigidly angular composition. It was dug out of a tomb near Lauriya, was identified by Bloch, the explorer, as the iconic representation of the Earth goddess, and was ascribed by him to about the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. There can hardly be any doubt that such images in metal as well as in clay served as fetish symbols ; there are passages in the *Rig Veda* and later also in the *Grihya sūtras* which can be interpreted to suggest that figures of gods and animals were fashioned in metal and clay for such purposes¹. A small gold tablet similar to that found at Lauriya and a small gold figure, forming part of the relics from the ruins of the Piprahva stūpa, evidently Buddhistic, and belonging to a period not earlier than that of the Mauryas², reveals the same motive and treatment as those of the Lauriya tablet, so that the latter can hardly be ascribed to so early a period as Bloch does. Some of the oldest terracotta pieces recovered by Marshall from the ruins of Bhita seem also to belong more or less to this category³; their motive, if not their treatment, is the same, so that all these objects may be taken to be typical representations of a primitive phase of imagination centering round fetishistic beliefs. They are not definitely the products of any organised and conscious art movement in any considerable scale, though primitive faiths and beliefs may have helped and favoured the development of sculptural and architectural art in India at a later stage of history.
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¹ Th. Bloch, *'Excavations at Lauriya'*, A. S. R., 1906–7, pp. 122 ff; A. B. Keith, *C. H. I.*, I, p. 97; E. W. Hopkins, *C. H. I.*, I, p. 232; *Sānkhyāyana Grihya Sūtra*, IV. 19; L. Bachhofer, *Early Indian Sculpture*, pp. 2–3, 14–15.
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² W. C. Peppé, The Piprahva Stūpa........ *J. R. A. S.*, 1898, pp. 573 ff. V. A. Smith, note, pp. 579 ff., figs. 11 and 15; J. Marshall, *C. H. I.*, I, p. 623.
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³ J. Marshall, *'Excavations at Bhitā'*, A. S. R., 1911–12, p. 4, pl. 23.
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That this was indeed the case is fully borne out by early Buddhist and Jaina texts and supported by early Buddhist reliefs that reveal the flourishing existence, particularly in eastern India, of a primitive religion that indulged in the worship of such symbols as the Chaitya which was either a holy tree or groves of trees (*rukkhacetiya*, *vanacetiya*, *ārāmacetiya* etc.), and not infrequently these trees were the abodes of gods or spirits known as *Vṛkṣadevatās*, *Yakṣas* etc. Another important symbol that received worship was the stūpa, a hemispherical tumulus, either votive or dedicatory or commemorative. All such objects and places of primitive worship were enclosed for protection with railings which must have given the people some scope for the play of their artistic and decorative instincts.¹ A third object that also seems to have been an important element in the primitive religion of middle and eastern India was the animal standard—the *dhvajastambha* of later Indian literature,—i.e. posts or pillars crowned by animals considered sacred and worshipped by primitive peoples. This trait of primitive religion was not particularly characteristic of India, but was equally potent in Babylonia and Assyria as well as in ancient Greece. Later Brahmanical mythology knows of such standards or *stambhas* of at least three different animal gods, namely the Garuḍa, the Vṛisha and the Makara, the *vāhanas* of Vishnu, Śiva and Gaṅgā (also Kandarpa) respectively. Sometimes the animal was replaced by certain trees considered sacred, the *Kalpadruma* or the wishing tree and the palm-tree represented by its crowning cluster of leaves. It was evidently from such early specimens of primitive animal standards made of impermanent materials like wood and bamboo that Aśoka derived the inspiration of erecting monumental pillars crowned by sacred animals².
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¹ R. P. Chanda, *The beginnings of art in Eastern India*, M. A. S. I., 30, pp. 3-8, 31-33.
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² Ibid; Mitra, A. K. 'Origin of the bell-capital,' *I. H. Q.* VII, pp. 224-25, 238-44.
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But of such objects of worship before the days of Aśoka-Maurya we have no remains extant, nor of the *Yakṣa-devatās* or spirits referred to in a general way or specifically by name in early Buddhist and Jaina texts. Attempts have been made on epigraphic reasons to identify the two round standing male figures from Patna in reddish-grey sandstone of the Chunar region and bearing *chaurīs* as those of *Yakṣas*; indeed behind the shoulder of one of these statues, on the scarf, is a short inscription paleographically assignable to about the first century A.D.—that may be read as : *Yakh(o) sa* (?) *Vatanandi*. That they are monumental sculptural representations of Yakshas there can hardly be any doubt, though persistent attempts were once made to identify them as statues of two kings of the Śaiśunāga dynasty of Magadha¹. This latter theory is no longer seriously pressed; but it is still generally held that they belong stylistically to the later phase of Mauryan art. I shall try to show later on that the so-called Mauryan polish which is the rock-argument on which the assumption is based can hardly be considered sufficient for their being labelled as Mauryan, and that not only paleographically but stylistically as well, they cannot belong to a period of art earlier than that represented at Sāñchī and in the early primitives of Mathurā.
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¹ K. P. Jayaswal, ‘Statues of two Saisunāka Emperors’, J. B. O. R. S., V. pp. 88–106. The discussion continued through vols. V and VI of the same journal and a number of scholars including R. D. Banerji, V. A. Smith, L. D. Barnett and H. P. Sastri joined. It was further taken up by R. P. Chānda, ‘Four ancient Yaksha statues’, J. D. L., Cal. Univ., IV, pp. 47–84; ‘Inscriptions on two Patna Statues in the Indian Museum’, Ind. Ant, XLVIII, pp. 25–28; R. C. Majumdar, ‘Alleged Śaiśunāga Statues’ Ibid., pp. 419–424; O. C. Gangoly, ‘A note on Mr. Jayaswal’s discovery of two Śaiśunāga statues’, Modern Review, 1919, October, pp. 419–24 and A. K. Coomaraswamy, Catalogue of the Indian Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1923, Pt. II, P. 4; History of Indian and Indones’an Art, pp. 16–17.
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The fact remains therefore that we have no examples extant of either sculpture or architecture that can definitely be labelled chronologically as pre-Mauryan or perhaps even as pre-Aśokan. Indeed, all evidences suggest that whatever specimens of these two branches of visual art we know of are directly the products of the Maurya court and the initiative came definitely from the all powerful King himself. Except one or two pillars that stylistically may be ascribed to a date anterior to that of Aśoka, all the rest belong definitely to the latter's reign along with the animal figures that crown them or exist independently. The description of the city of Pāṭaliputra and of the royal palace we read of in the accounts of classical writers like Megasthenes, Arrian, and Strabo, and the excavations at the site of the old city by Waddel and Spooner² to which we shall turn at a later stage, may be taken to suggest that Chandragupta, the first Maurya, may have been responsible for the original planning and execution of the building of the city as well as of the royal palace ; but there can be little doubt that Bindusāra and Aśoka, particularly the latter, added considerably to the original lay out and the buildings. The Maurya Pillared Hall and the stupendous buildings remains of which were laid bare by Spooner may have been built by Aśoka himself, since their essential ideology and conception agree so remarkably well with all that we already know of the aims, ideals, motives and general ideological mental design of that great benevolent autocrat. Such large designs executed with almost imperial thoroughness can for all that we know only be associated with his name. Of other architectural remains that can definitely be associated with the Maurya dynasty are a few cave-dwellings dedicated by Aśoka and his grandson Daśaratha for the use of the monks of the Ājīvika sect. The sum total of the Mauryan treasury of art may thus on proven grounds, be said to include (1) the remains of the royal palace and city of Pāṭaliputra; (2) a monolithic rail at Sārnāth; (3) the Bodhimaṇḍa or the altar resting on four pilasters at Bodhgayā; (4) the excavated chaitya-halls or cave dwellings in the Barābar and Nāgārjunī hills of Gayā including the Sudāmā cave dated in the twelfth year of Aśoka's reign; (5) the non-edict bearing and edict-bearing pillars; (6) the animal sculptures crowning the pillars with animal and vegetal reliefs decorating the abaci of the capitals; and (7) the front half of the representation of an elephant carved out in the round from a live rock at Dhauli in Orissa¹.
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² Waddell, Report on excavations at Pataliputra, Calcutta, 1903, pp. 22–26; Spooner, A. S. R., 1912–13, pp. 73 ff. A. S. R, E. C. 1915–16, pp. 27–28; McCrindle, Ancient India, 1901, P. 42.
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¹ Other architectural and sculptural remains that are generally ascribed to the Maurya period, on either stylistic or traditional grounds, include (1) A railing (?) pillar with inscription from the Arjunapura site, Mathurā, now lost ; (2) the oldest parts, subsequently enclosed by later additions, of stūpas ; (3) foundations of chaitya-halls at Sāñchī and Sonārī ; (4) two Patna Yaksha statues, now in the Indian museum ; (5) a few fragments of grey polished stone-sculptures from Sārnāth ; (6) a few fragments of sculptures in red spotted sand stone from Mathurā ; (7) a fragmentary relief from Bhitā ; (8) fragments of a ribbed polished stone umbrella from Sāñchī ; (9) two carved perforated circular stone plaques from the Bhir mound site, Taxila ; (10) a considerable number of terracottas from such widely separated sites as Sārnāth, Basarh, Bulandi-bagh, Kumrahar and other places round about the old site of Pāṭaliputra, Bhitā, Nagari, Mathurā, Kosam, Sankissa and Taxila ; (11) a chauri-bearing Yaksha statue from Didarganj ; (12) a more than life size Yaksha statue from Parkham ; (13) torso of a Yaksha or king from Baroda, Mathurā ; (14) a seated image now worshipped as Manasā from near Parkham ; (15) two polished stone images with legs and heads broken off of Jaina Tīrthaṅkaras from Lohānipur, near Patna, and now in the Patna Museum ; and (16) a hooded serpent canopy from Rajgir. About nos. 1, 2 and 3 we are not in a position to make any definite assertion ; the only argument that labels No. 8 as Mauryan is the glossy polish of the stone ; it is difficult to say anything about the date of No. 9 ;
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A few characteristics are common to all these sculptural and architectural remains. They are all monumental in conception and design, and inordinately fine, orderly, thorough and precise in execution. Moreover, with the exception of the remains of the royal palace and city-buildings of Pāṭaliputra, all of them were executed in hard grey sandstone of more or less big dimensions, always very finely chiselled and very highly polished to a glossiness that has hardly any parallel in India of later ages and in the world except in ancient Iran. And thirdly, all of them were reared up directly under the shadow of the royal throne of the Mauryas, Aśoka and his grandson fixing their stamp on the majority of them. We are thus confronted with an historical phenomenon that calls for an explanation. Here we are face to face with a period in ancient Indian history when a royal dynasty with imperial ambition and outlook suddenly discards wood and bamboo, perhaps also brick and clay, and takes to the employment of stone as the material *par excellence* for monumental sculpture and architecture, and this new material is handled with such perfect ease and mastery as to suggest that the art of hard and large size stone-cutting was as it were already long in practice. Except those carved out of live rock, all removable pieces were worked out of grey sandstone quarried at Chunar; the Mauryan columns are all carved out of this material, and it should be remembered that these huge columns are distributed over a very wide area, between Delhi in the west, Basarh in the east and Sāñchī in the south. Most certainly the huge resources of the state made available to the artists rendered possible the conception, planning and execution in such large and gigantic proportions. But royal will and state resources alone cannot explain the sudden transformation from wood, sun-dried brick, clay, ivory and metal to stone or from the fine workmanship and exquisite finish of ivory and metal work to bold and rounded work in stone of huge dimensions. It is possible to postulate that similar bold and large scale work was long in practice in wood in pre-Maurya days,
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here too the main argument rests on the glossy polish of the stone. To try to date terracottas on stylistic grounds alone is often dangerous as has so convincingly been shown by Kramrisch and Gordon; the items under No. 10 and Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, I shall have occasion to refer to and discuss at a later stage.
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and what the Maurya emperors did was only to initiate the artists and art-guilds into the use of stone and make them translate their traditional skill in terms of a new material. Such an explanation is certainly admissible; one has only to read through the description of the city and royal palace of Pāṭaliputra left by classical writers¹, and examine the design and execution of many an architectural element of the Maurya, Śuṅga and other early Indian monuments, e.g. the pillars, the railings, the gates, the Chaitya facades, etc. and be convinced of the force of the argument². But the very fact that stone henceforward became the material *par excellence* for Indian plastic art is by itself significant; equally significant is it that stone sculpture when it first comes to view in India during the Maurya period is already the expression of a civilised and sophisticated and fully developed art that had generations of artistic effort, experience and tradition behind it; that it is a work in the round, it exists by itself and is borne by its own volume and strength, and that it has an inherent technical and psychological character that the jeweller's or carpenter's art fails to explain and account for. Indeed, past artistic tradition and the art of the wood, clay, ivory, mineral, stone and metal worker in howsoever large a scale and with whatever technical skill and efficiency cannot fully explain the art tradition Mauryan sculptures represent, the technical skill and efficiency of the Mauryan sculptor who worked in stone of huge and heavy proportions, and the atmosphere the sculptures themselves breathe.
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¹ See McCrindle, cited above.
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² Smith, *A history of Fine Art in India & Ceylon*, Chap. III; Brown, *Indian Architecture : Buddhist & Hindu*, Chaps. II–VI.