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

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172. 1 6. We have already seen how the dome, an
ancient Near Eastern symbol of the sky covering the
earth, was incorporated into the symbolism of the
stupa (see the definitive article on the dome by A. C.
Soper. ' "The Dome of Heaven" in Asia". The Art
Bulletin. Dec. 1947. 227 ff.).
174. 17. T. Wiegand. Baalbek, 11, plate 45, and Karl
Lehmann. "The Dome of Heaven', The Art Bulletin.
\x\ii. March [945, figure 9. Not far from Bamiyan is
the Valley of Kakrak, where a number of domed
rock-cut chapels were investigated by the French
Archaeological Mission. The cupolas contained paintings
of Buddhas in contiguous circles around a central
Buddha. These painted mandalas are presumably a
later development from the architectural schemes at
Bamiyan.
176. 18. Other paintings ofan entirely Sasanian character
are to be found in the vestibule of Group D, a
complex immediately adjoining the smaller colossus.
There the entire ceiling was painted with a decoration
of medallions, exactly imitating designs from Sasanian
textiles like boars' heads and birds holding necklaces
in their beaks. Illustrated in J. Hackin and J. Carl,
Xouielles Recherches a Bamiyan (Paris. 1953), plate x.
179. 19. The earliest sculpture and painting in the
Thousand Buddha Caves (Ch'ien Fo-tung) at Tunhuang
on the north-westem border of China is in
reality only an eastward extension of the styles of
Turkestan. No publication of this site exists, beyond a
collection of illustrations published by Paul Pelliot
[La Grants de Touen-Houang. Paris, 19 14 ff.). The
earliest caves were dedicated in a.d. 366. At least one
dated inscription of the year 538 in Cave 120N serves
to date the style of the wall-paintings closest to the
murals at Bamiyan and Kizil in Turkestan. Coloured
photographs of the sixth-century paintings at Tunhuang
reveal that the same colour scheme with a
predominance of lapis-lazuli blue and malachite green,
employed at Kizil, was followed by Central Asian
artists at Tun-huang.
180. 20. Most likely datable in this period is the enormous
ruined wall-painting of an enthroned king at
Dukhtar-i-Noshirwan that is in even way - the
pictorial equivalent of the rock-cut memorials of the
Sasanian kings in Iran proper. Illustrated in J. Hackin,
A. and Y. Godard, Les Antiquites Bouddhiques de
Bamiyan (Paris, 1928), figure 25. It seems inevitable
to conclude that the Sasanian paintings at Bamiyan
and Dukhtar-i-Noshirwan are the most positive
evidence we have for the extension of Sasanian power
to the East after the invasion of 241 a.d.
21. Wall-paintings, some Sasanian. others Indian
in style were also found at this site in the Ghorband
Valley. See J. Hackin and others. Diverse* Recherches
Archeologiques en Afghanistan (Paris, 1961).
CHAPTER 12
185. 1. McCrtndle's Ancient India as described by
Ptolemy, ed. S. M. Sastri (Calcutta, 1927), 12 ff.
186. 2. Fragments of painting in a Late Antique style
have been found in Gandhara, notably at Hadda and
at Bamiyan, but none of these cycles is as complete as
that of Miran (see J. Hackin, L'CEiare de la Delegation
archeologique francaise en Afghanistan, 1922-32
(Tokyo, 1933), figures 27 and 34).
187. 3. For illustrations of the sculpture at the Rawak
vihara, see M. A. Stein, Ancient Khotan, 1 (Oxford,
1907), figures 61-6.
188. 4. Many moulds for individual details of sculpture
were found by the German expeditions to Central
Asia. (See A. von Le Coq, Die Buddhistische Spatantike
in Mittelasien, v (Berlin, 1926), plate 6.)
189. 5. Some but not all of the hundreds of examples
of wall-paintings brought back by von Le Coq and
installed in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin were
destroyed during the Second World War. Some idea
of their brilliance can be gained from the colour plates
in his publications and the small fragments of actual
wall-paintings preserved in various American museums.
For coloured reproductions see the volumes
published by von Le Coq under the title Die Buddhistische
Spatanttke in Mittelasien.
194. 6. The wall-paintings in the Cave of the Red
Dome contain inscribed portraits of three kings of
Kucha who are known to have reigned in the late sixth
and early seventh centuries a.d. Actually, most of the
paintings must date from c. 500-50, since they are in
exactly the same style as the frescoes at Tun-huang,
dated in the middle of the sixth century.
7. Chinese art historians of the late T'ang Dynasty,
in describing the style of the seven th-centun painter,
Wei-ch'ih I-seng, who came from either Tokhara or
Khotan, speak of his line as like 'bent and coiled iron
wire', a definition that could be very well applied to
the KLzil wall-paintings analysed above. (See T.
Naito, The Wall-paintings of Horyuji. trans, and ed.
bv W. R. B. Acker and B. Rowland (Baltimore, 1943),
196 ff.)
196. 8. See F. H. Andrews, If all-paintings from
Ancient Shrines in Central Asia (London, 1948),
plates xii-xxx.
9. See A. von Le Coq, Die Mamchdischen Mmtaturen,
Buddhistische Spatanttke, 11 (Berlin, 1923).
197. 10. E. Herzfeld, Am Tor ion Asien (Berlin, 1920),
plate lxiv.
11. J. Hackin and J. Carl, Xouvelles recherches
archeologiques a Bamiyan. Memotres de la delegation
archeologique francaise en Afghanistan. IV, plates x
and Lxxxiv, figure 102.