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

BUDDHIST ART IN TURKESTAN [87
of this motif are, of course, to be sought in the
carving of the sarcophagi of the Late-Roman
and Early-Christian worlds. As in the case of
Gandhara sculpture, so in the case of this cycle
of Gandhara painting, the stylistic origins may
be found in the painting of the Eastern Roman
Empire, where the Classical style underwent a
considerable conventionalization in the hands
of Oriental craftsmen. The heads of the angels
at Miran, with their enormous ghostly eyes and
a suggestion of plasticity through the thickening
of the contours, are immediately reminiscent of
the grave-portraits of Roman Egypt. There are
no comparable cycles of wall-paintings in India
proper or Afghanistan, but the third-century
Roman mosaics at Shapur in Iran may serve as
the nearest stylistic prototype from both the
geographical and chronological points of view.
Both may be dated in the late third century a.d.
The sculpture and paintings discovered by
Sir Aurel Stein in the ruins of the oases of
Khotan and at
Shorchuq (Kara-Shahr) near
Turfan, reveal the same mixture of Classical
and Indian styles as we have already encountered
at Bamiyan. The description of this
kingdom by the seventh-century pilgrim
Hsiian-tsang leaves us with the impression of a
very cosmopolitan culture dividing its religious
affiliations between Buddhism and Mazdaeism.
It was from this Indo-Iranian principality that
string-like folds, corresponds to the late
Gandhara sculpture of the third and fourth
centuries a.d. as we have seen it in stone
sculpture and in the colossi at Bamiyan. A
number of fragments showing a Buddha standing
in a halo filled with miniature Buddhas
reveal the beginnings of the Mahayana concept
of Vairocana and his countless emanations.
Also in the Khotan oasis are the ruins of
Dandan Uiliq,
where wall-paintings of quite
another character were discovered. The charming
detail of a water sprite or river goddess
reveals an eastward extension of the provincial
style of Indian painting observed in the niche
of the Great Buddha of Bamiyan [122 and 128].
Although perhaps originally reinforced with
shading, the drawing of the figure is so sure that
the linear outline alone suggests the form and
127. Kara-Shahr, stucco reliefs
the culture of silkworms was introduced to
Byzantium in a.d. 552. The principal sculptural
remains found at Khotan were the lime-plaster
reliefs decorating the Rawak vihara excavated by
Sir Aurel Stein in 1904. 3 This decoration, which
consisted in Buddha and Bodhisattva figures
applied in high relief to the base of the walls,
recalls the decoration of the monastic buildings
at Hadda and Taxila. The same style is shown
in our illustration from Kara-Shahr [127]. The
technique of figures moulded in mud and then
covered with a layer of lime plaster is essentially
identical. The style of the figures, with the
drapery represented either by incised lines or