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 railing. A key to the chronology of the site is provided by the Ashoka column which stands to the right of the South gateway. The Mauryan level is marked by a floor of pounded earth and clay. Three other levels or floors appear over it, the top-most being lime-plastered. Above all is the pavement of large slabs contemporary with the stupa railing. This is a perfectly plain copy of a wooden post and rail fence and may be dated in the latter half of the second century B. C. E., since there is 122 centimetres between the upper pavement and the Mauryan level, which could hardly have accumulated in less than a century.
Railing pillar from the original shrine enclosure at Bodhgaya, Bihar. The upper roundels depict stories from the previous lives of the Buddha (Hamsa Jataka), early 1st century C. E., Kushan period, Bodhgaya, Bihar. Sandstone, 116 × 37 cm. Given by Surgeon-Maj. F. A. Turton, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
The four gateways, which are additions to the original railing, fall artistically in to pairs, the East and West gates, showing a slight development in modelling and the use of light and shade. A little more than fifty years may have elapsed between their execution, the end of the first century B. C. E. being accepted as a general date for all four. The Southern gateway was prostrate when visited by Captain Fell in 1819. The Western gate collapsed between 1860 and 1880, but the Northern and Eastern gates have never fallen. All have undergone thorough repairs during recent years under the able direction of Sir John Marshall, the former Director-General of Archaeology in India. Sanchi has taken on a new lease of life and beauty in his hands, the more important remains of this huge site being carefully and exactly restored and preserved. The Sanchi gateways, or toranas, stand 10.36 metres high, and are all substantially alike, while differing much in detail:
Two massive square pillars, one on either side, 14 feet (4.3 metres) high, forming as it were the gate-posts, support an ornamental superstructure of three slightly arched stone beams or architraves placed horizontally, one above the other, with spaces between them. The topmost beam of each gate was surmounted by the sacred wheel flanked by attendants and the trisula emblem.
The faces, back and front, of the beams and pillars are crowded with panels of sculpture in bas-relief representing scenes in the life of Buddha, domestic and silvan scenes, processions, sieges, adoration of trees and topes, and groups of ordinary and extraordinary animals, among which are winged bulls and lions of a Persepolitan type and horned animals with human faces.
Dancing Peacock with full plumage. Two peahens gently approach from either side licking the claws of their dancing companion in appreciation, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Carved medallion of a cross bar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
Humorous scene: Monkeys playing with an elephant who has been tied with a rope. It is quite likely that the elephant is a bodhisattva who begrudgingly bears the torture caused by the monkeys who are known for mischief, early 2nd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty, Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. Carved medallion of a cross bar, red sandstone. Indian Museum, Calcutta, West Bengal.
All critics are agreed that the gateways were built in pairs and that the southern gateway is one of the earliest of the four. The capitals of its gateposts are formed by four lions seated back to back, ‘indifferently carved’, and of the same type as those on Ashoka’s inscribed pillar already noticed. The marked decline in skill demonstrated by the contrast between the lions on the gate-post and those on the inscribed pillar is surprising considering the shortness of the interval of time, about a century, between the two compositions, or rather the essential difference between the Mauryan and the ancient Indian school. The difference is most easily verified by comparing the treatment of the lions’ paws on the gatepost capital and of the same members on the capital of the inscribed pillar, or the similar Sarnath pillar. The paws of the early Ashokan sculptures are correctly modelled with four large front claws and one small hind claw, the muscles also being realistically reproduced. In the later work five large claws, all in front, are given to the paws, and the muscles are indicated by some straight channels running up and down in a purely abstract manner.
The capitals of the gateposts of the northern gateway exhibit four elephants standing back to back, and carrying riders. Those of the eastern gateway are similar. On the capitals of the latest gateway, the western, four hideous dwarfs, clumsily sculptured, take the place of the elephants or lions.
All the Sanchi sculptures, like the Ajanta paintings, deal with Buddhist subjects if a composition seems in our eyes to be purely secular, that is only because we do not understand
