CONTENTS.

Monasteries at Jamalgiri, Takht-i-Bahi, and Shah Dehri.

Few of the recent discoveries in India promise to be more fruitful of important results for the elucidation of the archÆology of India than those obtained from the recent excavations of ruined monasteries in the neighbourhood of Peshawur. A great deal still remains to be done before we can speak with certainty with regard either to their age or origin, but enough is known of them to make it certain that the materials there exist for settling not only the question of the amount of influence classical art exercised on that of India, but also for solving many problems of Buddhist archÆology and art.

As mentioned above, it is from their coins, and from them only, that the names of most of the kings of Bactria and their successors have been recovered; but we have not yet found a vestige of a building that can be said to have been erected by them or in their age, nor one piece of sculpture that, so far as we now know, could have been executed before their downfall, about B.C. 130. This, however, may be owing to the fact that Bactria proper has long been inhabited by fanatic Moslems, who destroy any representations of the human form they meet with, and no excavations for hidden examples have yet been undertaken in their country; while it is still uncertain how far the influence of the true Bactrians extended eastward, and whether, in fact, they ever really possessed the valley of Peshawur, where all the sculptures yet discovered have been found. No one, in fact, suspected their existence in our own territory till Lieutenants Lumsden and Stokes, in 1852, partially explored the half-buried monastery at Jamalgiri, which had been discovered by General Cunningham in 1848. It is situated about thirty-six miles north-east from Peshawur, and from it these officers excavated a considerable number of sculptures, which afterwards came into the possession of the Hon. E. Clive Bayley. He published an account of them in the ‘Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society,’ in 1853, and brought the collection itself over to this country. Unfortunately, they were utterly destroyed in the disastrous fire that occurred at the Crystal Palace, where they were being exhibited in 1860, and this before they had been photographed, or any serious attempt made to compare them with other sculptures.

Since that time other collections have been dug out of another monastery eight miles further westward, at a place called Takht-i-Bahi, and by Dr. Bellew at a third locality, ten miles southward, called Sahri Bhalol, some of which have found their way to this country; and two years ago Dr. Leitner brought home an extensive collection, principally from Takht-i-Bahi. The bulk of the sculptures found in these places have been deposited in the Lahore Museum, where upwards of 800 specimens of this class of art now exist, and many are being added every season. Some of these have been photographed,[203] and these representations, together with the specimens brought home, are sufficient to enable a student to obtain a fair general idea of the art they represent. The worst thing is, that the excavations have been so unsystematically carried on that it is impossible to ascertain in most instances where the sculptures came from,[204] and in almost no instance can the position of any one piece of sculpture be fixed with anything like certainty.[205]

The following plans (Woodcuts Nos. 92, 93), of the two principal monasteries which have been excavated in the vicinity of Peshawur, will explain their arrangements in so far as they have yet been made out. As will be seen at a glance, they are very similar to each other,

or at least consist of the same parts. First a circular or square court, AA, surrounded by cells, too small for residence, and evidently intended to contain images, though none were found in situ. In the centre of each stands a circular or square platform or altar, approached by steps. The circular one at Jamalgiri is adorned with cross-legged, conventional, seated figures of Buddha, the square one at Takht-i-Bahi by two rows of pilasters one over the other.[206] Beyond this is an oblong court, BB, called the pantheon, from the number of images, small models of topes, and votive offerings of all sorts, that are found in it. It, like the last court, is surrounded by niches for images. Beyond this again the vihara or residence, CC, with the usual residential cells. At Takht-i-Bahi there is a square court, D, surrounded by a high wall with only one door leading into it. A corresponding court exists at Jamalgiri; but so far detached that it could not be included in the woodcut. It is called the cemetery, and probably not without reason, as Turner in his ‘Embassy to Thibet’[207] describes a similar enclosure at Teshoo Loomboo in which the bodies of the deceased monks were exposed to be devoured by the birds, and what happened there in 1800 may very well have been practised at Peshawur at a much earlier age.

When we attempt to compare these plans with those of our rock-cut examples in India, we at once perceive the difficulty of comparing structural with rock-cut examples. The monastery or residential parts are the only ones readily recognised. The pantheon does not apparently exist at Ajunta, nor is anything analogous to it attached to other series of caves, but a group of small rock-cut dagobas exists just outside the cave at Bhaja, and a much more extensive one at Kenheri,[208] and similar groups may have existed elsewhere. Numbers of small models of topes and votive offerings are found in the neighbourhood of all Buddhist establishments, and were originally no doubt deposited in some such place as this. The circular or square altar is, however, a feature quite new to us, and takes the place of the dagoba in all the rock-cut chaitya halls. From its having steps to ascend to it, it seems as if it was intended either for a platform from which either a congregation could be addressed, or a prayer offered up to a deity. If, however, it was really a dagoba, as General Cunningham supposes, that difficulty disappears, and on the whole I am inclined to believe he may be right in this decision.

One of the most remarkable ornamental features that adorn this monastery is a series of bas-reliefs that adorn the front of the steps of the stairs leading from the so-called Pantheon to the circular court at Jamalgiri. They are sixteen in number, and each is adorned with a bas-relief containing twenty, thirty, or forty figures according to the subject.[209] Among these the Wessantara and Sama jatakas can easily be recognised,[210] and so may others when carefully examined. Besides these there are representations of the chase, processions, dancing, and domestic scenes of various kinds.

In fact such a series of sixteen bas-reliefs, one over another, is hardly known to exist anywhere else, but is here only an appropriate part of an exuberance of sculptural ornamentation hardly to be matched, as existing in so small a space, in any other building of its class.

The architecture of this monastery seems to have been of singular richness. General Cunningham brought away a dozen of capitals of the Corinthian order, and others exist in the Lahore Museum. As will be seen from the last two illustrations (Nos. 94, 95), they are unmistakably classical, but of a form to which it is not at first sight easy to assign a date. They are more Greek than Roman in the character of their foliage, but more Roman than Greek in the form of their volutes and general design. Perhaps it would be correct to say they are more Byzantine than either, but, till we have detailed drawings and know more of their surroundings, it is difficult to give a positive opinion as to their age.

Not one of these was found in situ, nor, apparently, one quite entire, so that their use or position is not at first sight apparent. Some of them were square, and it is consequently not difficult to see they may have formed the caps of the antÆ on each side of the cells, and are so represented in General Cunningham’s plate (15). If this is so, the circular ones must have been placed on short circular pillars, one on each side, forming a porch to the cells. One at least seems to have stood free—like a stambha—and, as the General represents it on plate 48, may have carried a group of elephants on its head.

All these capitals were apparently originally richly gilt, and most of them, as well as some of the best of the sculptures, show traces of gilding at the present day,[212] and, as others show traces of colour, the effect of the whole must have been gorgeous in the extreme. From the analogy of what we find in the contemporary caves at Ajunta and Bagh, as well as elsewhere, there can be little doubt that fresco-painting was also employed: but no gilding, as far as I know, has been found in India, nor indeed any analogue to the Corinthian capital. All the capitals found in India are either such as grew out of the necessities of their own wooden construction, or were copied from bell-shaped forms we are familiar with at Persepolis, where alone in Central Asia they seem to have been carried out in stone. There is little doubt, however, that before the time of the AchÆmenians the same forms were used in wood by the Assyrians;[213] and they may have been so employed down to the time of Alexander, if not later. Certain it is, at all events, that this was the earliest form we know of employed in lithic architecture in India, and the one that retained its footing there certainly till long after the Christian Era, and also among the Gandhara sculptures probably to a very late date.

It is not difficult to restore, approximately, the front of the cells in these monasteries, from the numerous representations of them found among the ruins, where they are used as conventional frames for sculptures. It probably was owing to the fact that their fronts may have been adorned with paintings representing scenes from the life of Buddha, or emblems of various sorts, that these miniature representations of them were used to convey the same design in sculpture. The form of the wooden framework which filled the upper part of all the great windows of the chaitya halls, from the earliest known examples, is also used for the same purpose in these Gandhara monasteries. Few things among these sculptures are more common than these semicircular frames, filled with sculpture of the most varied design. They are in fact the counterparts of what would have been carried out in painted glass had they possessed such a material.

It is to be feared that it is hardly likely we shall now recover one of these cells or chapels in so perfect a state as to feel sure of its form and ornamentation. It would, however, be an immense gain to our knowledge of the subject if one were found, for it is hardly safe to depend on restorations made from conventional representations.

Meanwhile there is one monument in India which—mutatis mutandis—reproduces them with considerable exactness. The small detached rath at Mahavellipore is both in plan and dimensions, as well as in design, an almost exact reproduction of these Jamalgiri cells. Its lower front is entirely open, flanked by two detached pillars. Above this are two roofs, with a narrow waist between them—somewhat differently arranged it must be confessed, but still extremely similar. In the Jamalgiri representations of these cells everything is simplified to admit of the display of sculpture. At Mahavellipore all the architectural features are retained, but they are still marvellously alike, so much so, that there seems no doubt this little rath (Woodcut No. 181, p. 328), with its circular termination, is as exact a copy of what a Buddhist chaitya hall was at the time it was carved, as that the great rath (Woodcut No. 66) is a correct reproduction of a Buddhist vihara at the same period.

If this is so, these Gandhara sculptures and these raths represent the chaitya hall of the Buddhists in a much more complicated and elaborate form than we find it in the simple but majestic examples at Karli, Nassick, or Ajunta. The Jamalgiri cells need not be so modern as the rath at Mahavellipore, but they are certainly approaching to it[214] as nearly in date as they are in form.

Quite recently, General Cunningham has dug out a small vihara at Shah Dehri, the ancient Taxila, which seems more ancient than these Peshawur monasteries. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 96), it is not only small in dimensions, but simple in its arrangements—as simple, indeed, as any of those at Cuttack or in the western GhÂts. Like them it has a raised bench, not however divided into beds as there, but more like a continuous seat. It no doubt, however, was used for both purposes. Its most remarkable peculiarity, however, is its Ionic order. As will be seen, the bases of the pillars are of the usual form, and as correct as any that could be found in Greece or Rome, from before the Christian Era to the age of Constantine, and, though the capital is not fully made out, there can be little doubt what was intended (Woodcut No. 97); twelve coins of Azes were found close by, from which it may be inferred the building was of his age, or belonging to the first century B.C.,[215] and there is nothing in the architecture to militate against this idea. It seems the oldest thing yet found in this province.

The extraordinary classical character and the beauty of the sculptures found in these Gandhara monasteries is of such surpassing interest for the history of Indian art, that it is of the utmost importance their age should be determined, if it is possible to do so. At present, sufficient materials do not exist in this country to enable the general public to form even an opinion on any argument that may be brought forward on the subject; nor will they be in a position to do so till the Government can be induced to spend the trifling sum required to bring some of them home. They are quite thrown away where they now are; here, they would hardly be surpassed in interest by any recent discoveries of the same class. Pending this, the reader must be content with such a statement of the argument as may be put forward by those who have access to photographs and such materials as are not available to the general public.[216] It it is understood that General Cunningham intends to publish photographs of the 165 objects in his collection. When this is done, it will supply the want to a certain extent, but a really correct judgment can only be formed on an actual inspection of the objects themselves.

Among Indian antiquaries there are two different views as to the age of these sculptures, regarding either of which a great deal may be urged with a considerable degree of plausibility. The first is, that the Bactrian Greeks carried with them into Asia the principles of Grecian sculpture and the forms of Grecian architecture, and either during their supremacy or after their expulsion from Bactria established a school of classical art in the Peshawur valley. It further assumes that, when Buddhism was established there under Kanishka and his successors, it bloomed into that rich and varied development we find exhibited in these Gandhara monasteries. This is the view adopted by General Cunningham, who, however, admits that, as all the sculptures are Buddhist, the earliest must be limited to the age of Kanishka, which he assumes to be about B.C. 40,[217] and that they extend to A.D. 100, or thereabouts.

The other theory equally admits the presence of the classical element, derived from the previous existence of the Bactrian Greeks, but spreads the development of the classical feeling through Buddhist art over the whole period during which it existed in the valley, or from the 1st to the 7th or 8th century of our era, and ascribes its peculiar forms as much, if not more, to constant communication with the West, from the age of Augustus to that of Justinian, rather than to the original seed planted there by the Bactrians.

Confining the argument as much as possible to the instances above quoted, either it is that these Corinthian capitals are a local development of forms the Greeks took with them to Bactria, or they were executed under Western influence when the classical orders had lost their original form, after the age of Constantine. We know perfectly the history of the Corinthian capitals in Italy, in Greece, and in Syria, between the ages of Augustus and Aurelian at all events (A.D. 270); and we know that it requires a practised and well-educated eye to distinguish between the capitals of the Pantheon of Agrippa and those last executed at Baalbec or Palmyra. The entablatures show considerable progress, but the capitals were so stereotyped that it is evident, if any Greek or Roman artists had designed capitals in Gandhara during the period just alluded to, we could predicate exactly what they would have been. After Constantine, however, the design of the capitals went wild, if the expression may be used. The practice of springing arches from them, instead of their supporting horizontal architraves, required a total change, and in the West it produced exactly the same effects that we find in Gandhara. The capitals, for instance, in the churches of St. Demetrius and that now known as the Eski Jouma at Salonica, both built in the early part of the 5th century, are almost identical in design with these;[218] and many in the churches in Syria and Asia Minor[219] show the same “abandon” of design, though frequently in another direction.

The presence of little cross-legged figures of Buddha among the foliage of the capitals is another sign of a comparatively modern age. The first prominent example of the practice, I believe, in classical art, seems to be found in the Baths of Caracalla, at Rome (A.D. 312-330);[220] but it certainly did not become common till long afterwards, and only general in what may be called mediÆval art.[221] It is not, however, so much in the presence of figures of Buddha on these capitals that I would insist on as an indication of age, as on their presence in the monastery at all.

In the first place, I believe it is correct to state that no statue of Buddha, in any of his conventional attitudes, has been found in India executed as early as the Christian Era. Those on the faÇade at Karli and in the western caves are avowedly insertions of the 4th or 5th centuries or later. There are none belonging to the eastern caves; nor any found at Buddh Gaya, Bharhut, or Sanchi; nor do I know of any one in India that can be dated before A.D. 100. In these Gandhara monasteries they are very frequent, and of a type which in India would be assumed to be certainly as late as the 4th or 5th century; some of them very much later.

It is true Buddhist books tell us frequently of statues of Buddha having been made at much earlier dates.[222] But Indian books have this fatal defect, that they represent facts and beliefs at the time they were written, or acquired the forms in which we now find them, without much reference to contemporary authorities or facts at the time at which they are supposed to have happened. Consequently, till we get some book that assumed its present shape before A.D. 400,[223] their testimony is of very little avail in the controversy.

Besides these figures of Buddha, there are a great number of figures which General Cunningham supposes represent kings. This can hardly be the case, as they have all got nimbuses or glories at the back of their heads. All have the tika on their foreheads, as Buddha has, and none have any kingly attributes, but all wear the same ornaments and amulets. The first impression was, they may represent Bodhisatwas, or Buddhist saints; but, as no similar figures occur anywhere in India, it is not easy to feel certain on this point. If I may be allowed to hazard a guess, I would suggest that they may represent the patriarchs who presided over the Church from the time of Amanda till it ceased to be a living institution in India. NagÁrjuna was one of the most important of these, and, if this theory is correct, his statue will certainly be found among the series; but this is, I fear, a point that must be left for future investigation.[224] The misfortune is, that no inscribed statue has yet been found in Gandhara, and, till it is, all identification must be more or less guess-work or conjecture.

A more important point than the mere presence of these conventional figures of Buddha or of saints in these monasteries, is their excessive reduplication, which renders it probable that they are very much more modern than is generally assumed.

In India, no building or cave is known with a date anterior to, say, A.D. 300 or 400, in which more than one such figure is represented. Even at Amravati they do not occur on the great rail which was erected in the beginning of the 4th century (ante, p. 100), but appear first on the inner rail which was added a century afterwards: and they first occur in such caves as No. 19 and No. 26 at Ajunta, and in the later caves in the island of Salsette, none of which seem to be earlier than A.D. 500, if so early.

In the Gandhara monasteries they exist literally in hundreds—on the base of the altars or stupas, on the walls, and in the cells. The latter is, indeed, the most remarkable peculiarity of any. In no Buddhist monument in India, so far as is known, have the monks been thrust out of their cells to make way for images. The practice is universal with the Jains, and in the latest Buddhist monuments the cells are ignored; but here we have what in all earlier Buddhist monuments would be cells surrounding courts or halls, but all filled with images of Buddha or saints. To such an extent is this carried, that if the plans of these monasteries had been submitted to me, with merely a verbal or written description of their sculptures, I would unhesitatingly have pronounced them to be Jaina temples of the 9th or 10th century. The sculptures, of course, negative any such adscription, but the similarity of their plans is most striking.

Considerable allowance must also be made for the fact that the Mahayana, or Greater Translation, introduced in the north of India by NagÁrjuna, was considerably in advance of the Hinayana school of Central India in all complications of ritual observances. Making, however, an allowance of one or even two centuries for this, it is difficult to believe that any of these monasteries yet brought to light are earlier than the 4th or 5th century.

If I am correct in assigning the outer casing of the Manikyala tope to the beginning of the 8th century (ante, p. 83), there is certainly no À priori improbability in this view. The pilasters that surround its base are so similar to those represented in the bas-reliefs of the monasteries[225] that they must belong nearly to the same age. Those of the tope are less classical, it is true, than those of the bas-reliefs, and may, therefore, be more modern; but they cannot be very far apart.

All these statues of Buddha, or of Buddhist saints, in the Gandhara monasteries, have a peculiarity which will interest the Christian archÆologist. Without exception, they have a nimbus or circular disc behind their heads. This does not occur at Sanchi in the 1st century of our era, nor, so far as is known, in any sculpture, on any rail, or in any cave, before it appears at Amravati on the great rail, in the 4th century of our era. Earlier examples may be found, but till they are, its presence militates against the idea that these sculptures can be so early as the 1st century after Christ, and, with the other evidence, would seem to indicate a much more modern date.

One other argument seems to bear directly on this point. From what has been said above (ante, p. 76), it appears that the erection of the topes in Gandhara was spread pretty evenly over the whole time that elapsed from the Christian Era till Buddhism ceased to be the religion of the country, in the 7th or 8th century; and that the most flourishing period was about the year A.D. 400, when Fa Hian visited the country. It seems reasonable to suppose that the erection of the monasteries would follow the same course, and that we might expect their greatest development to be simultaneous. To compress the monasteries and their sculptures within the limits of the first century after Christ would seem to violate all the probabilities of the case.

In addition to all this local evidence, when we come to compare these sculptures with those of the western world, especially with those of sarcophagi or the ivories of the lower empire, it seems impossible not to be struck with the many points of resemblance they present. There are many of the Gandhara bas-reliefs which, if transferred to the Lateran Museum, and labelled as “Early Christian,” would pass muster with ninety-nine people out of one hundred who visit that collection. There may be one or two that might be described as belonging to as early an age as that of Hadrian, but generally they would seem of later date.

Among the ivories, those about the time of Constantine present about the same jumble of the classical orders, the same reminiscence of classical art in the figure-sculpture, mixed up with the incongruities borrowed from extraneous sources which it is difficult to account for; but both in their perfections and their faults they seem so distinctly to belong to the same class of art that it is difficult to believe they do not belong to the same age. The great difficulty here is to know what equation we ought to allow for distance in space which may have the same effect as time in producing apparent differences; but this hardly seems to have been of much importance here.

Against all this may be urged the difficulty of understanding how such direct and important influence could have been exercised by the Byzantines in this remote province without its leaving any trace of its existence on the arts of the Parthians or Sassanians, whose kingdom lay between, and without our having any written record of such intimate relations. It is difficult, of course, but, if the facts are as stated above, such negative inferences must make way before the positive testimony of the sculptures themselves. Till within the last very few years no one dreamt of classical art having any such influence at any age on the arts of Gandhara. That being established in contradiction of all previously conceived ideas, the time at which it took place ought to be ascertainable with comparative facility; and, in so far as any written evidence is concerned, may have been as probably at or after the time of Constantine, as at or after that of Augustus.

It would be easy to extend this argument to any length; but without producing the data on which it is based, or giving references to drawings and photographs which have not been published, it would hardly carry conviction to the minds of those who have not access to means of information not yet made public.[226] To avoid, therefore, being tedious, perhaps I may be allowed to state that, having given the best attention to the materials at my command, the conclusion I have arrived at is, that though some of these Gandhara sculptures probably are as early as the 1st century of the Christian Era, the bulk of those at Jamalgiri and more especially those at Takht-i-Bahi, are subsequent to the 3rd and 4th, and that the series extends down to the 8th—till, in fact, the time when Buddhism was obliterated in these countries.

The discovery of some new fact, or of an inscription on a piece of sculpture either with a date or a king’s name that can be recognised, may any day settle beyond dispute which of these views is the correct one. Meanwhile, however, as the evidence at present stands, it seems hardly doubtful that the theory which assigns the more modern date to these sculptures, is that which accords best with all that has hitherto been brought to light, or with the history of the Buddhist religion as at present known.

If this is so, it is evident that the term GrÆco-Bactrian, or GrÆco-Buddhist, which has been applied to these sculptures, is a misnomer. The Bactrians may have sown the seeds of a classical style in these parts, but the art we now find there would be more properly called Indo-Roman or Indo-Byzantine, and must have been nourished and kept up by constant communication between the East and the West during the period at which it was most flourishing, which may be described as that intervening between the age of Constantine and that of Justinian.

From what has been said above regarding the sculptures of Bharhut and Sanchi, it appears evident that the Indians had a school of art of their own before they knew anything of the arts of the western world; but that native art seems to have had very little influence on the arts of Gandhara. The western arts, on the contrary, acting through that country, seem to have had considerable influence on those of India at periods subsequent to the Christian Era. It seems at least almost impossible to escape the conviction that the arts of Amravati and the later caves, say of the Gupta period, betray most marked evidence of Western influence, and it seems that it is only through Gandhara that it can have reached them.

So strongly marked is all this that it may become a subject of an interesting investigation to inquire whether the Greeks were not the first who taught the Indians idolatry. There is no trace of images in the Vedas or in the laws of Manu, or any of the older books or traditions of the Hindus. As repeatedly mentioned, there is as little trace of any image of Buddha or Buddhist figures being set up for worship before the Christian Era, or for a century after it. But the earliest, the finest, and the most essentially classical figures of Buddha are to be found in Gandhara, and, so far as we at present know, of an earlier date there than any found in India Proper.

If General Cunningham’s sculptures or the contents of the Lahore Museum could only be made available to the learned in Europe, with the requisite local information, they would, I fancy, at once supersede the meagre and most unsatisfactory written details which have alone come down to us, and would throw a flood of light on one of the most interesting but most obscure chapters of the history of the commerce and of the early intercourse between the western and the eastern world.

Pending this being done, we already know enough to open our eyes to many things that promise to result in the most interesting discoveries, and to teach us to cease to wonder at many things which hitherto appeared inexplicable. If, for instance, it is not true that the King of Taxila, in the first century, spoke good Greek, as Apollonius of Tyana would persuade us he did, we know at least that he practised Greek architecture. If St. Thomas did not visit Gondophares, king of Gandhara, in the same century, many, at least, of his countrymen did, and there is no À priori reason why he should not have done so also. If there are traces of Christian doctrine in the ‘Bhagavat Gita,’ and of classical learning in other poetic works of the Hindus, we now know at least where they may have come from. In short, when we realise how strongly European influence prevailed in Gandhara in the first five or six centuries after Christ, and think how many thousands, it may be millions, crossed the Indus, going eastward during that period, and through that country, we ought not to be surprised at any amount of Western thought or art we may find in India. These, however, are problems that are only just dawning upon us, and which are certainly not yet ripe for solution, though it may be most important they should be stated as early as possible, as it seems evident that the materials certainly exist from which an early answer may be obtained.

In the meanwhile the question that bears most directly on the subject now in hand is the inquiry, how far the undoubted classical influence shown in these Gandhara sculptures is due to the seed sown by the Bactrian Greeks during the existence of their kingdom there, and how much to the direct influence of Rome and Byzantium between the times of Augustus and Justinian? Both, most probably, had a part in producing this remarkable result; but, so far as we at present know, it seems that the latter was very much more important than the former cause, and that in the first centuries of the Christian Era the civilisation of the West exercised an influence on the arts and religion of the inhabitants of this part of India far greater than has hitherto been suspected.

Feet of Buddha. (From a bas-relief at Amravati.)