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

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208 THE GOLDEN AGE AND END OF BUDDHIST ART
chaityas gleaming white in the sun. The ruins of
great stupas with surrounding monasteries have
been found at Ghantasala, at Nagarjunakonda,
at Goli Village, and Gummadidirru, to mention
only the more important sites. The most
famous of all the Later Andhra shrines was the
Great Stupa at Amaravati. Begun as early as
200 B.C. the original structure was enlarged and
embellished with great richness in the second
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century a.d. As proved by inscriptions at
Amaravati, the railing and casing slabs of the
Great Stupa were added during the time of
the Buddhist sage Nagarjuna's residence in the
Andhra region. 2 Prior to this it was, like Asoka's
stupa at Sanchi, presumably a simple mound of
bricks and earth, although already a venerable
site. When first investigated by European
archaeologists in the nineteenth century, the
stupa was so largely demolished that only a
conjectural idea of its original size could be
arrived at. The diameter of the dome of the
stupa at ground level was approximately one
hundred and sixty feet and its over-all height
about ninety to one hundred feet; it was
surrounded by a railing thirteen feet high consisting
of three rails and a heavy coping. Freestanding
columns surmounted by lions replaced
the toranas of earlier structures at the four
entrances to the pradaksind enclosure. Like
Sanchi, the Amaravati stupa had an upper
processional path on the drum of the structure
this path also had an enclosing railing consisting
of uprights joined by solid rectangular panels.
Originally, not only the parts of the two railings,
but also the drum, were covered with elaborate
carvings in the greenish-white limestone of the
region. Because of the difficulty in fitting a stone
revetment to a curved surface, plaster reliefs
supplemented the stone casing for the decoration
of the cupola. 3 It will be noted in the slab
illustrated [144] that another unusual feature of
this stupa consisted of offsets or platforms
located at the four points of the compass and
surmounted by five pillars carved with repre-
144. View of the Great Stupa on casing slab from
the Amaravati stupa. Madras, Government Museum
sentations of Buddhist symbols such as the
Wheel and Stupa. 4 In the decoration of the base
a number of images of the Buddha can be seen,
a clear indication that, although probably
originally dedicated to Hinayana Buddhism, the
shrine was, under the influence of Nagarjuna,
transformed into a Mahayana sanctuary.
In the centre of the frieze at the top is a seated
Buddha which is clearly related to the type of
Sakyamuni in yoga pose already developed at
Mathura. On either side of this representation
of the Temptation of Mara with the Buddha in
anthropomorphic form are symbolical portrayals
of the empty throne beneath the bodhi
tree. It is as though the Later Andhra Buddhists,
even though followers of the Great Vehicle,
were loath to give up the old Hinayana emblems,
or perhaps attached a certain authority
and appropriate sanctity to the early forms of
the art of their religion. To right and left of the
main section of the relief are vertical framing
panels with representations of stambhas with
lion capitals upholding the Wheel of the Law. 5 ,
At the foot of each pillar there again appears the
empty chair signifying the presence of the