The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

ART UNDER THE KUSHANS: GANDHARA 125
The patronage of foreign artists by the Kushans
is actually no more difficult to understand
than their espousal of Buddhism. Being foreigners
in India, they could not be accepted into the
Hindu faith, and presumably both their adoption
ofBuddhism and support ofa foreign culture
were parts of a policy designed to maintain their
autonomy in the conquered land. 6
The art of Gandhara is, properly speaking,
the official art of the Kushan Emperor Kanishka
and his successors. The term 'Gandhara art' is
applied to this school of architecture, sculpture,
and painting, which flourished in north-western
India from the first to the fifth centuries a.d.
This designation comes from the ancient name
of the region, and is to be preferred to 'Greco-
Buddhist', a term sometimes applied to the same
art, but distinctly misleading, since it implies a
derivation from Greek art. This is the carving
which Kipling, describing Kim's visit to the
Lahore Museum, wrote of as 'Greco-Buddhist
sculptures, done savants know how long since,
by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling,
and not unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted
Grecian touch'. Actually, the Gandhara
sculptures have little to do with Greek art either
in its Hellenic or Hellenistic phase, and are
much more closely related to Roman art. The
Gandhara school is, indeed, perhaps best described
as the easternmost appearance of the art
of the Roman Empire, especially in its late and
provincial manifestations. 7
The subject-matter
of the Gandhara carvings is almost entirely Buddhist.
Although Kanishka, through his patronage
of Buddhism, has rightly been regarded as
the great patron of the Gandhara school, there
is ample evidence that Hellenistic art in the
form of achitecture and sculpture was introduced
into north-western India during the reign
of the Saka-Parthian Dynasties, as may be
illustrated by a number of temples and sculptured
fragments from the city of Sirkap at
Taxila. 8 Gandhara sculpture also began in this
period.
This influence came in part from objects of
unquestioned foreign origin that have been
found at various points in the Gandhara region.
These would include Alexandrian metal statuettes
of Harpocrates and Dionysius, found at
Sirkap in Taxila, a bronze Herakles from Nigrai,
in the British Musuem, and numerous steatite
plaques or cosmetic dishes with erotic scenes.
These latter objects are also of Alexandrian
origin, and have been found in large numbers at
Taxila. An even more considerable treasure of
imported objects of art, including Syrian glass
and Roman metal and plaster sculpture, was
unearthed at Begram in Afghanistan. The importance
of all these finds was a confirmation of
the intimacy of the relations, commercial and
cultural, between Gandhara and the Roman
West.
Although the presence of this material in a
way provides a, properly speaking, Hellenistic
background for Gandhara art, it was unquestionably
the introduction of bands of foreign workmen
from the eastern centres of the Roman
Empire that led to the creation of the first Buddhist
sculptures in the Peshawar Valley. It is
not difficult to find in all collections of Gandhara
sculpture fragments resembling Roman
workmanship of all periods, from the time of
the Flavians, Kanishka's contemporaries, to
the very last style of Roman sculpture of the
fourth century, usually designated as Late Antique.
It may certainly be assumed from this
evidence that, from the days of Kanishka until
the end of Buddhism and its art in north-west
India and the Punjab, the practice of importing
foreign artisans continued. It must be necessarily
supposed, however, that the vast majority of
the sculptures are by native craftsmen following
these successive waves of foreign influence.
Although the subject-matter of Gandhara art
is predominantly Buddhist, many of the motifs
discernible in the sculptures are of either western
Asiatic or Hellenistic origin. Such Mesopotamian
motifs as the Persepolitan capital and