# A Handbook of Indian Art/Section 1/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III
stūpas at sānchī, bharhut, and amarāvati
Plate IIIa
SĀNCHĪ STŪPA, GENERAL VIEW
Plate IIIb
SĀNCHĪ STŪPA, NORTHERN GATEWAY
​and Babylonia, which was especially close in the six centuries from 1746 b.c.
The great stūpa at Sānchī is one of a group situated in the Bhopāl State a few miles from Bhilsā, near which stood the famous city of Vidisha, the capital of Eastern Mālwā. It is built upon a hill which in pre-Buddhist times may have been the site of Aryan Vedic rites, which gave to it the odour of sanctity, for it is not known to be in any way connected with the life of Buddha. Many stūpas of the Aryan princes of Mālwā may have preceded that which was dedicated to the memory of the royal Monk of Kapilavastu. A Buddhist monastery was built upon the hill in Asoka's time, and enjoyed a share of the lavish state patronage which the great emperor bestowed upon the Sangha. When the Mauryan dynasty came to an end, about 185 b.c., and for many centuries after that time, Sānchī continued to be the chief seat of Buddhist learning in Mālwā, a university for the royal city of Vidisha, so that the monuments which remain on the hill illustrate the development of Indian art from about the middle of the third century b.c. to the twelfth century a.d.
The brick stūpa which Asoka, or his viceroy, built for the monks is not now visible, for in the last half of the second century b.c. it was covered by a casing of rubble and fine masonry. The diameter of the stūpa was thus increased to about 120 feet, and the height to about 54 feet, the hill itself providing the excellent sandstone used by the royal craftsmen. Two procession paths for circumambulation were built round the base of the dome; one at a high level which was approached by a double staircase on the southern side, and another at the ground level. Both of them, as ​well as the staircase, were enclosed by the usual vedikā, or sacrificial railing. From the numerous names of donors inscribed upon the posts, cross-bars, and coping, it would seem likely that the whole of the original railing was of wood, the change to stone taking place gradually in the course of many years as pious laymen sought to win merit for themselves by rebuilding a section of it in the more costly and permanent material. This would account for the exact imitation of the wooden structure by the stone-masons. It was not because they were unpractised in the use of stone, but because they wished to avoid a break in the railing, and to maintain the sacred associations of the old wooden work.
The railing enclosing the principal or lower procession path stands open at the cardinal points—the four "doors" of the sky—and over each entrance is raised a lofty torana, or triumphal arch (Pl. III, b), reproducing in sculptured stone the massive timber structure which Indian sculptors represent as the gate of Prince Siddhartha's palace at Kapilavastu. The original torana was probably of plain timber-work like the railings, the present gates having been put up about the first century a.d., or about three centuries later than Asoka's original stūpa. Like the railings, different sections of them were votive offerings. Thus one part of the southern gateway was a gift of the son of the chief craftsman of Rāja Sīri-Sātakani, one of the kings of the Andhra dynasty, circ. 179 b.c. Another part was given by the ivory-carvers of Vidisha.
​In the present state of the stūpa these splendidly sculptured toranas contrast almost too strongly with the severe simplicity of the rest of the stūpa; but this was hardly the case when they were put up, for the whole of the dome of the stūpa was plastered, and no doubt finished with a fine surface to receive the fresco paintings by which the lay community were instructed in Buddhist doctrine and in sacred history as they processed round the dome which enshrined the holy relics. It is highly probable that the sculptures of the gateways were also finished with a fine coat of white stucco and painted. This was certainly the case with similar sculptures at Amarāvatī, and was the usual practice in India. These sculptures do not represent the beginnings of Indian art. There is a long history behind them, stretching back to the time when Aryan kings ruled in Babylon, and when the painter instead of the sculptor recorded the deeds of Aryan heroes. Buddhism did not originate the art of Sānchī and Bharhut any more than it created the wealth which Asoka and his successors lavished upon the Buddhist Order. The Buddha himself renounced the world and all its vanities, but the spiritual Sangha which he founded appropriated, for the purpose of its propaganda, the artistic heritage of the Aryan people in India.
Of the four gates of the stūpa, the southern one faced the steps ascending to the upper procession path, and thus was the exit for those who had finished the ritual of "turning the Wheel of the Law." When a stūpa had only one entrance, as is the case with the smaller stūpa No. 3, which adjoins the Great Stūpa, it was placed on the south. Probably this was invariably the case.
​The reason is to be found in the Vedic tradition which was followed by Buddhist builders. In Vedic ritual the solar year was said to have two courses (ayanas), the northern course comprising the spring and summer, when the sun passes from south to north of the Equator, and the southern course when the year begins to wane as the sun appears to move towards the south. The south, therefore, was the abode of the spirits of the dead, and the stūpa had its exit on the south, so that its ghostly inhabitant might pass through on its way to its final abode. For this reason we may conclude that the southern gateway of the Great Stūpa was the earliest one.
The northern one, however, is now the most complete, and on the whole the finest as a work of art, particularly with regard to the elephant capitals, which are much happier in composition and more structurally appropriate than the lions of the southern gateway, reproducing the capital of the imperial standard which Asoka placed at the entrance. It would seem as if the northern gateway was designed throughout and carefully supervised by one master-mason, while the others were, as the inscriptions testify, the joint gift of several donors, and evidently carried out in sections by different groups of craftsmen working independently. In these gateways, therefore, there is a tendency to
Plate IVa
sānchī stūpa, procession path
Plate IVb
māyā, the mother of the buddha
The sculptures of the gateways fall into two main categories—those which are structural or heraldic, and a series of pictures in stone illustrating the story of the Blessed One for the edification of pilgrims. The former are cut with the greatest freedom and sureness of touch, a proof that the sculptor's art had a long tradition behind it when the gateways were put up. The latter, especially the earlier ones, are influenced by the technique of the painter, and were probably finished in fresco colours laid upon a ground of fine chunam. Like the structural details, they evidence great skill in plastic technique; but the mannerisms of primitive art are not entirely shaken off.
Crowning the centre of the gateway on the middle of the curved transom, which is framed into the two principal uprights as in timber-work, stands the broken ​fragment of the Wheel of the Law supported by a group of admirably carved elephants. One of the two attendants standing by the side bearing the royal insignia, a yak-tail fly-flap, is intact.
Plate Va
Plate Vb
Plate Vc
Plate Vd
RELIEFS FROM THE SĀNCHĪ GATEWAYS
​Buddhism were not Buddhist inventions, but the common property of all Indo-Aryan religion.
This interchange of symbolism is also seen in the various panels representing Māyā, the mother of the Buddha, seated or standing upon a lotus flower springing from a vase, while on either side above her an elephant bathes her from a vase held in its trunk (Pl. IV, b). No doubt, as M. Foucher says, this was meant by the sculptor to symbolise the Nativity of the Blessed One. But to many generations of artists before the Buddha's time, it had meant the miraculous birth witnessed every morning when Ushas rose from the cosmic ocean, and the mystic Brahmā lotus, the Creator's throne, unfolded its rosy petals. Ushas was the celestial maiden who opened the doors of the sky and was bathed by Indra's elephants, the rain-clouds. In Buddhist times the meaning of the myth is changed. Brahmā is dethroned and Ushas becomes the mother of the Blessed One under the name of Mahā Māyā—the Great Illusion, the cause of pain and sorrow, from which the Buddha showed the way of escape. In later Indian art she is Lakshmi, the bright goddess of the day, greeting her consort Vishnu, the Preserver, as he rises victorious from his conflict with the spirits of darkness, and bringing with her the nectar of immortality churned from the cosmic ocean (Pl. LXIII, a).
The meaning of the hieroglyphic language in which Buddhist legends were told or doctrine expounded by the Sānchī sculptors has been made clear by M. Foucher's brilliant researches. The subjects of the long panels on the front and back of the three transoms of all the gateways are partly taken from the Indian story-teller's jungle book, the jātakas, partly from the events of the Buddha's last incarnation, and partly from the ​history of Asoka's reign. Except that the subject of the seven Buddhas—the six Buddhas of the past and Gautama himself—appears on the top transom in all four, the distribution of the narrative over the different gateways does not seem to follow a definite scheme, perhaps because in the original plan the stūpa had only one entrance. As the devout Buddhist at that time was not allowed to represent the Buddha himself—a rule quite in keeping with the spirit of the Upanishads—he was compelled to use certain ideographs by which the appearance of the Blessed One in the picture was to be understood. The Nativity in the Lumbīnī gardens was represented, as we have seen by the figure of Mahā Māyā and the lotus springing from the golden vase, or sometimes by the lotus and vase only (Pl. IV, b). A throne beneath an ashvattha, or pipal tree, or the tree alone, stood for the enlightenment at Bodh-Gāyā, or for the Buddha himself. The wheel was the symbol of the Buddha's first sermon at Benares; and the death, or Pari-Nirvāna, at Kusināgara was represented by the stūpa. The Buddhas of the past were also represented by stūpas or by their especial trees under which they attained to Nirvāna.
Plate VIa
the forest spirit, sānchī
Plate VIb
the lotus and lion pillar of the law, sānchī
​the Bodhīsattva with a poisoned arrow. Reflecting that by self-sacrifice he might gain a step towards the attainment of perfect knowledge, the wise beast assisted the hunter in sawing off the six tusks, and died before his companions came to the spot. The Queen, when she received the trophies, was struck by remorse, and likewise died. The elephant in another birth became the Buddha, and the jealous Queen attained peace of mind as one of the sisters of the Order.
In their illustrations of these jungle stories, dear to the Indian villager, the Buddhist sculptors testify to that intense love of the forest wild, and intimate knowledge of the life of its denizens, which are so conspicuous in Indian poetry and literature. Pl. V, a, gives the panel of the middle transom of the south gateway. On the left the King of the Elephants, the Bodhīsattva, is cooling himself in a lotus pool in the forest surrounded by the rest of the herd, two of whom hold the insignia of royalty over his head. On the right he is shown, together with his attendants, promenading in the jungle in royal state, knowing full well that the huntsman concealed behind a tree is preparing the deadly arrow. The subject is repeated on the northern and western gateways; in the latter case the smoother and less vigorous technique suggests that the ivory-carvers who executed some of the panels of the south gateway also had a hand in parts of the western torana.
The Sānchī sculptures also show the derivation of that great school of Buddhist sculpture which, after being transplanted to Amarāvatī at the mouth of the Krishna river and to Ceylon, finally took root in Java, and in the sixth century blossomed into the splendid reliefs of the great Borobūdūr stūpa. Besides similarities in the grouping of figures, there is, in the expressive ​movement and vivid style of narrative, intense religious feeling, joined with a wonderful instinct for decorative design, much affinity with Sānchī art and the art of Borobūdūr. Here also one can trace some of the roots of the school of Ajantā painting. The treatment of the lotus, the favourite flower of the Indian artist, is precisely similar to that found at Ajantā, making allowances for the different technique of the sculptor and painter (Pl. VII).
And since so much attention has been given by orientalists to the influence of the Hellenistic school of Gandhāra upon Indian figure sculpture, it is important to observe that in the Sānchī school, which certainly owed nothing to Gandhāra, there are a few figures in the round executed with as much understanding of the human form as the best of the Græco-Buddhist sculptures. The robust young damsel with arms and legs overweighted with ornaments who appears on the Sānchī gateways as a wood-nymph hanging on to the boughs of a mango-tree may seem less graceful and refined than the Dryad of pure Greek art, though the primeval forest might know this rustic beauty better than the elegant town-bred maid of Athens.
Plate VIIa
railing of stūpa no. ii, sānchī
Plate VIIb
railing of stūpa no. ii, sānchī
​quite possible that the occurrence of the motive at Sānchī and Mathurā may be partly the result of Aryan contact in ancient times with Egyptian and Babylonian civilisation. However, it would be difficult to find in early Western art any examples of the "woman-and-tree" motive which show as much freshness, plastic strength and decorative beauty as this sprightly Indian wood-nymph.
But though this contact with Mesopotamia and Egypt explains many of the foreign elements in early Indian art, the Sānchī sculptures are best understood as a vivid artistic commentary on the life and thought of Vedic India. This Indian Dryad, associated by Buddhist sculptors with Māyā, the mother of the Blessed One, is sung in the Rig-Veda as Araṇyānī, the elusive Spirit of the Forest, a goddess of plenty, who opened freely her bounteous store to the villager, always kindly and gracious to man, though her children, the wild beasts, were to be feared:
Araṇyānī! Araṇyānī! Ere you vanish from our sight, will you not to
the village? You are not afraid?
When the bull bellows the cicada replies, dancing to his cymbals.
Araṇyānī then rejoices.
In the fading twilight cattle grazing and cottages loom dimly : Araṇyānī
then sends home her creaking carts.
One man calls his cow. Another fells a tree: a loiterer in the forest
fancies he hears a scream.
Though the fierce beasts may kill us, Araṇyānī does no harm. Let us
feast on her sweet fruits and rest there at our will.
Praise be to Araṇyānī, Mother of forest beasts! Musk-scented, fragrant,
bountiful of food—though no peasants till her soil.
The Vedic Rishi dwelling in the forest aṣram could tame the fiercest of Araṇyānī's offspring. At Sānchī we see them flocking together to join in worship at ​the cenotaph and bodhi-tree of the great Rishi who taught the universal Law of Life (Pl. V).
It is impossible in this work to give an adequate impression of the richness, beauty, and variety of Sānchī sculpture: some of it is primitive and archaic, some—like the reliefs (Pl. VII) on the rail of the stūpa No. II, built on the western slope of the hill—are as cultured in design and accomplished in technique as Italian Cinquecento work. These reliefs resemble very closely the work of the Amarāvatī stūpa, the remains of which are now divided between the Madras Museum and the British Museum.
The bas-reliefs of Amarāvatī (Pl. VIII), forming the decoration of the railing and of the marble casing of the stūpa itself, should properly be studied in connection with the fresco paintings of Ajantā. They must have resembled the latter very closely when the colour and gilding with which they were finished were intact; the technical treatment also is usually much more pictorial than plastic. A good artistic monograph on these superb fragments would be of great value in filling up the hiatus in Indian art history which has been made by the almost complete ruin of the early pictorial record, but this goes beyond the scope of the present handbook.
Plate VIIIa
translation of the buddha's bowl
Plate VIIIb
coping stone, amarāvatī
​The Sānchī and Amarāvatī artists were no copyists or scholiasts; they drank at the same fountain as the great masters of Hellas, though, like the latter, they were heirs to a craft tradition of many centuries. It was the Indian environment which gave Indo-Aryan art its special character and differentiated it from the art of Greece.
* ↑ The modern Besnagar.
* ↑ The peculiar form of the horizontal bars of the railing, and the manner in which they are mortised into the uprights (see Pl. IV, a), suggest the craftsmanship of wheelwrights, who as makers of the Aryan war-chariots are often mentioned with honour in the Vedic hymns. Probably they were the craftsmen who made the vedikā and constructed the tabernacles for the Aryan tribal sacrifices.
* ↑ The question of orientation is a most important one for the understanding of the principles of Indian temple architecture and iconography. The first care of the Indian temple-builder is to determine the orientation of the shrine in relation to that aspect of the deity which is to be worshipped. By the careful collection of data on the spot, it would be possible to establish a scientific classification of Indian temple architecture based upon Indian principles, and to throw much light on the history of Indian religious ritual. But Fergusson hardly alludes to the subject. His History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, and the official archæological reports and plans, only occasionally indicate the orientation of a building, so that the material they provide for the study of the subject is most meagre.
* ↑ See Barnett's Antiquities of India, p. 203.
* ↑ It was the rule of the Buddhist bhikkus to meet on the nights of the new and full moon for a special service in which the rules of the Order and confessional forms were recited.
* ↑ See below, pp. 168-72.
* ↑ History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, Pl. LXXXVI.
* ↑ X, 146.