and its folds are treated in fashion that is reminiscent of the Sanchi bracket-figures rather than the Bharhut devatas. The modelling is naturalistic, but the sculpture has suffered severely from violence and exposure.
There is a second colossal female at Besnagar, two metres high, locally known as the Telin or ‘oil woman’, which has been described by Cunningham. He also mentions the existence in his time of a polished sandstone elephant and rider.
In 1873, Cunningham discovered at Bharhut, about midway between Allahabad and Jabalpur, the remains of a Buddhist stupa, surrounded by a stone railing adorned with sculptures of surprising richness and interest. The stupa had then been almost wholly carried off by greedy villagers in search of bricks, who treated the sculptures with equal ruthlessness, and were prevented from destroying them only by the great weight of the stones. During the following three years, Cunningham and his assistant uncovered the ruins and saved a large number of the sculptured stones by sending them to Calcutta, where they now form one of the chief treasures of the Indian Museum. Everything left on the site was taken away by the country people and converted to base uses.
Ajanta caves, 5th-6th century C. E., late Gupta period. Rock-cut. Ajanta caves (Caves XXIII–XXVII), near Aurangabad, Maharashtra.
The railing, constructed after the usual pattern, in a highly developed form, was extremely massive, the pillars being 2.15 metres in height, and each of the coping stones about the same in length. The sculptures of the coping were devoted mainly to the representation of incidents in the Jatakas, or tales of the previous births of the Buddha. The carvings on the rails, pillars, and gateways were exceedingly varied in subject and treatment of Buddhist legends. The structure must have been very much like Sanchi. The composite pillar of the gateway, made up of four clustered columns crowned by a modified Persepolitan capital, is worthy of special notice. An inscription records that the Eastern gateway with the adjoining masonry was erected during the rule of the Sunga dynasty (c. 185–73 B. C. E.), but it is not possible to determine the date of the monument with greater precision. The execution of work so costly and elaborate must have extended over many years. Certain masons’ marks in the Kharoshthi character of the northwestern frontier suggest that perhaps foreign artists were called in to teach and assist local talent. The railing exhibits a great mass of sculptures of a high order of excellence. The subjects and style are described by Cunningham as follows:
The subjects represented in the Bharhut sculptures are both numerous and varied, and many of them are of the highest interest and importance for the study of Indian style. Thus we have more than a score of illustrations of the legendary Jatakas, some half-dozen illustrations of historical scenes connected with the life of Buddha, which are quite invaluable for the history of Buddhism. Their value is chiefly due to the inscribed labels that are attached to many of them, and which make their identification absolutely certain. Amongst the historical scenes the most interesting are the processions of the Rajas Ajatasatru 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
