Art of India. Vincent Arthur Smith
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and Prasenajita on their visits to Buddha; the former on his elephant, the latter in his chariot, exactly as they are described in the Buddhist chronicles.
Another invaluable sculpture is the representation of the famous Jetavana monastery at Sravasti with its mango tree and temples, and the rich banker Anathapindika in the foreground emptying a cartful of gold pieces to pave the surface of the garden.
Of large figures there are upwards of thirty alto-rilievo statues of Yakshas and Yakshinis (Yakshis), Devatas, and Nagarajas, one half of which are inscribed with their names. We thus see that the guardianship of the north gate was entrusted to Kuvera, King of the Yakshas, agreeably to the teaching of the Buddhist and Brahmanical cosmogonies. And similarly we find that the other gates were confided to Devas and the Nagas.
The representations of animals and trees are also very numerous, and some of them are particularly spirited and characteristic. Of other objects there are boats, horse-chariots, and bullock-carts, besides several kinds of musical instruments, and a great variety of flags, standards, and other symbols of royalty.
About one half of the full medallions of the rail-bars and the whole of the half-medallions of the pillars are filled with flowered ornaments of singular beauty and delicacy of execution.
Great horseshoe window, 6th century C. E., late Gupta period. Rock-cut. Ajanta caves (Cave I), near Aurangabad, Maharashtra.
The medallions on the railbars and the half-medallions on the pillars are filled with a wonderful variety of bas-relief subjects. The comic monkey scenes display a lively sense of humour, freedom of fancy, and clever drawing. They must, of course, like all the early bas-reliefs, be judged as pictures drawn on stone, rather than as sculpture. The rollicking humour and liberty of fancy unchecked by rigid canons, while alien to the transcendental philosophy and ascetic ideals of the Brahmans, are thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of Buddhism, which, as a practical religion, does not stress the spiritual to the extinction of human and animal happiness. Everything seems to indicate that India was a much happier land in the days when Buddhism flourished than it has ever been since. The first medallion selected for illustration is a very funny picture of a tooth being extracted from a man’s jaw by an elephant pulling a gigantic forceps. The stories alluded to are presumably of the Jataka class. The spontaneity of the work vouches for the popularity of the tradition, stories that must have been on every child’s lips.
Sections of the enclosure railing (vedika) and a standard pillar (stambha) at the eastern gate of the great Bharhut stupa, 3rd-4th century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Red sandstone, railing height: 200 cm, pillar height: 216.41 cm. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Naga king Chakavaka, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Alto-rilievo statue of a railing pillar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Chakavaka Miga Jataka (previous birth of the Buddha): Once the Buddha was born as a Royal Deer. During the course of a big famine the people started killing deer. A large flock of one thousand deer was divided into two separate groups of which one was led by Lakshana and the other by Kala. Lakshana in the story is associated with Siddhartha and Kala with Devadatta, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Carved medallion of a railing pillar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Another medallion shows a characteristic and well-preserved specimen of the bas-reliefs on the coping. The artists who could design and execute such pictures in hard sandstone had no small skill. Havell observes that the technique is that of the wood-carver. The Chulakoka sculpture is especially interesting as the earliest extant example of the woman-and-tree motif. One of the best statues is that of the Yakshi Sudarsana which exhibits a good knowledge of the human form and marked skill in the modelling of the hips in a difficult position.
The large alto-relievo images of minor deities on the pillars vary much in execution.
The remaining relief details illustrate various fantastical hybrid creatures, winged lions and oxen, a centaur, a horse-headed female or kinnara, and a frieze of the fish-tailed monsters common at Mathura and in Gandhara. These are human-bodied and appear to be half-naga, half-makara. These strange beasts have a debatable origin. The Naga or snake godling is usually represented in India with his snake-hood, but in the Jatakas appears to be able to cast off this stigma and is then only to be known by his red eyes. These lesser divinities are by birth Indian and native in the earliest folklore and sculpture. The makara, too, whose scrolled tail is used so magnificently to form the volutes of the architraves of toranas at Bharhut, Sanchi, and Mathura, is also well founded traditionally. These with the kinnaris or half-bird musicians and the horse-headed kinnaras may be classed together as gandharvas, or lesser heavenly beings. They are as types paralleled with several other motives of early Indian art in the sculpture of West Asia, Assyria, and Persia. The bell and frieze design of the Bharhut copestone and its upper pyramid and lotus band are among these, and also, the bell capital surmounted by animal groups. Whatever the distant sources of these motives may be, their treatment at Bharhut, Bodh Gaya, and Sanchi, is wholly Indian. As has been said many of them spring directly from the soil.
Vase (Purnaghata or Mangalakalasa) with overflowing lilies, lotus buds and blooming lotuses. Four swans are perched on the pericarp of the overblown flowers, symbolising life and abundance, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Carved medallion of a cross bar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Procession of the Raja Prasenajita in his chariot on his visit to Buddha, late 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Relief of a railing pillar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Humorous scene: A giant yaksha, calm in the spirit of a Bodhisattva is being tortured by monkeys who are using a large clipper to remove the hair from the yaksha’s nostrils. The elephant is being driven by beating, piercing by a goad, and by making noise through trumpet and drum, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Carved medallion of a cross bar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Jetavana Monastery at Sravasti with its mango trees and temples, and the rich banker, Anathapindika emptying a cartful of gold pieces to pave the surface of the garden, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Carved medallion of a railing pillar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Jataka scenes with animal and fruit decoration, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Bas-relief of the coping, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
The Bharhut sculptures, having escaped the destructive zeal of Islamic iconoclasts by reason of their situation in an out-of-the-way region, lay safely hidden under a thick veil of jungle until, when the establishment of general peace and the spread of cultivation stimulated the local rustics to construct substantial houses from the spoils of the old monuments for which they cared nothing. The extensive group of early Buddhist buildings at and near Sanchi in the Bhopal State similarly evaded demolition because it lay out of the path of the armies of Islam. Although the monuments of Sanchi have not suffered as much as those of Bharhut from the ravages of the village builder, they have not wholly escaped injury. During the first half of the nineteenth century much damage was done by the ill-advised curiosity of amateur archaeologists. Now, however, the authorities concerned are fully alive to their responsibility, and everything possible is being done to conserve the local memorials of India’s ancient greatness. Sanchi today is a triumph of archaeological restoration.
The importance of Sanchi in the history of Indian art rests chiefly upon the four wonderful gateways forming the entrances to the procession path between the stupa and the surrounding