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

475
13. It has been suggested that the raising of the
Buddha to divine status in the Mahayana creed parallels
the Roman deification of the Emperor in the same
way that the aspiration to a creed promising salvation
may be discerned in later Buddhism, Roman literature
of the Imperial Period, and in Christianity.
127. 14. B. Rowland, 'Gandhara and Early-Christian
Art: Buddha Palliatus', American Journal ofArchaeology,
xlix (1945), No. 4, 445-8.
128. 15. Although Buddhism and its foundations in
Gandhara were not destroyed by the Sasanian conquest,
with the end of the Great Kushan dynasty, its
royal patronage was at an end. It is very doubtful if
any new artistic enterprises were feasible in the period
of confusion after the debacle of 241. Probably the
only work between this date and the invasion of the
White Huns in a.d. 450 was in the nature of repairs to
the earlier decorations in stone and stucco.
130. 16. The fact that a Chinese or Central Asian
imitation of this type of drapery is to be seen in some
of the figures in the Buddhist temples at Yiin Kang
(a.d. 460-94) should make it possible to date the
Begram prototype no later than a.d. 400.
17. It has been argued by some authorities that the
representations of seated figures on the Indo-Parthian
or Saka coins of the first century B.C. (illustration 65D)
are representations of the Buddha. However, these
are no more than portraits of the rulers themselves in
a seated position. Iconographically, of course, there is
a remote precedent for the seated Buddha type in the
representations of Siva in yoga pose on seals of the
Indus Valley Period.
133. 18. The closest Classical parallel to our relief is to
be found in the silver hoop of the Marengo Treasure in
Turin, but since this is a late second-century derivation
from Augustan sculpture, the comparison illustrates
a parallel, not a true influence.
19. The curious variety of goblets depicted in one of
the carvings in this style corresponds to actual silver
vessels excavated at Taxila under conditions suggesting
a date as early as the first century a.d. (For an
illustration of the relief, see B. Rowland, 'A Revised
Chronology of Gandhara Sculpture', The Art Bulletin,
win (1936), figure 12, and for the drinking vessels
A.S.I. A.R. (1926-7), plate xxxvii, 6.)
134. 20. It might be pointed out that the cornice of serpentine
dragons at the top of the panel is almost a
duplication of a band of decoration on the Roman
sarcophagus from Melfi, dated a.d. 170.
21. Cf. S. Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western
World, London, 1906.
135. 22. It may be, of course, as has already been
suggested above (p. 126) that the style is a mixture of
the archaic technique of the Early Indian Schools
combined with borrowings from Classical sources.
136. 23. H. H. Wilson, Ariana Antiqua (London,
1841), 71.
24. Sir John Marshall maintains that the early
school of Gandhara sculpture came to an end with the
Sasanian invasion of Shapur I, when 'Buddhism was
deprived of the influential support extended to it by
the early Kushan Emperors, and for the next 140
years . . . Buddhist art in this part of India ceased
virtually to exist.' He believes that only with the reestablishment
in Gandhara of the Kidara Kushans
from Bactria in the late fourth century did a new
period of artistic activity begin. This final florescence,
he tells us, was characterized entirely by work in
stucco. It seems difficult, however, to conceive of such
an artistic interregnum, not only because few of the
inscribed stone statues appear to be datable in the
period after the Sasanian conquest, but also because
the stucco sculpture appears as a contemporary manifestation
in a different medium of exactly the same
style as the carving in slate. Some examples of stucco
at Taxila may be dated to the first century a.d. (See
Sir John Marshall, 'Greeks and Sakas in India',
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1947), 16-17.)
138. 25. Apollonius of Tyana, who visited Taxila in
a.d. 44, describes a temple which may well have been
the edifice at Jandial. 'And they saw a temple, they
say, in front of the wall which was not far short of 100
feet in size, made of porphyry; and there was constructed
within it a shrine somewhat small as compared
with the great size of the temple which is also
surrounded with columns, but deserving of notice.'
Apollonius goes on to describe some bronze tablets
engraved with the exploits of Porus and Alexander,
adorning the walls of this chamber. Actually, no
figural sculpture of any kind was uncovered in the
ruins of the Jandial temple, a fact usually interpreted
as supporting the theory that it was a Zoroastrian
dedication. (See Philostratus, Vita Apollonu, II, 25.)
141. 26. Beal, civ.
142. 27. This famous building must have exercised a
powerful influence on the development of the Far
Eastern pagoda type; see, for example, such early
Chinese pagodas as the Pei t'a at Fang-shan hsien
(Chih li) and the Sung-yiieh-ssu on Sung-shan
(Honan) reproduced in O. Siren, History of Early
Chinese Art, iv, Architecture (London, 1930), plates
75 and 105.
144. 28. Daniel Schlumberger, 'Surkh Kotal, a Late
Hellenistic Temple in Bactria', Archaeology (Winter,
1953), 232 ff.
145. 29. K. V. Trever, Monuments ofGreco-Bactnan
Art (Academy of Science of U.S.S.R., Moscow-
Leningrad, 1949), plates i and ii. The elephant itself is
reminiscent of the representations of this beast on the