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

CHAPTER 7 & 6
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THE EARLY ANDHRA PERIOD (72-25
B.C.
The final and perfect balance of the tendencies
described in the preceding chapter is attained in
the great monument of the Early Andhra
Period: the sculptural decoration of the four
gateways of Stupa No. 1 at Sanchi [41]. The
mound of the great stupa at Sanchi was originally
an Asokan foundation which was enormously
enlarged by the patronage of the Andhra
Dynasty. It was probably in the early decades of
the first century a.d. that the monument received
its principal embellishment in the form
of the railing and the toranas at the four points
of the compass. Unlike the enclosure at Bharhut,
the Sanchi railing is completely devoid of ornament,
and the sculptural decoration is concentrated
upon the gateways. The southern portal
is usually regarded as the earliest of the four,
and is remarkable chefly for its lion capitals,
which were almost certainly copied from the
Asokan column that stood not far from the site.
This work was followed, in order, by the carving
of the north, east, and west portals.
The most notable of the four toranas from the
iconographic and artistic point of view is the
eastern gateway [42]. It should be pointed out
that, since there is no unified iconographic
scheme either for the sculptural decoration of
the monument as a whole or for the ornamentation
of the individual portals, it may be that
the disparate subjects haphazardly combined
may have been dedicated by individual donors
who specified what they wished the craftsmen to
41. Sanchi, Great Stupa, from the north-east
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