First, it is not unlikely that the artistic traditions of the Indus valley continued down to the Maurya period. The absence of specimens has to be explained by the supposition that most of the monuments beingbrahmi script made of wood or other perishable materials have left no trace behind. Rare specimens in stone or other durable materials may yet be unearthed by future excavations. This solution is prompted by the analogous problem of Indian alphabets. The earliest Indian alphabets so far known, and from which all the current Indian alphabets have been derived, are those found in the inscriptions of Asoka. How they came to be evolved into that finished stage has been a mystery, and attempts have been made to derive them from various types of alphabets in Western Asia. But the numerous seals found at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa with pictorial writings (in which an alphabet or a syllable is represented by a pictorial illustration of a material object) have induced some scholars to regard these as the origin from which the Brahmi alphabet of Asoka has been ultimately derived. In a similar way, the artistic traditions of the Asokan period might be ultimately traced to those of the Indus valley. But in both cases, the intermediate stages of development or processes of evolution are hidden from us.
Secondly, it is permissible to hold that the art-traditions of the Indus valley were gradually lost and that Mauryan art has an independent history. What that history may be is involved in doubt, and it is possible to entertain two different views on the subject. We may either hold that, in addition to works in wood, the Indian artists of the pre-Maurya period also excelled in works in stone, though these have perished or not yet come to light. Or we may suppose that the Indians first began to work in stone during the Maurya period. The results of their endeavour to change from wood to stone are seen in the crude inferior pillars of Asoka while those which are excellent and highly finished were the work of foreign artists employed by that great emperor. According to this theory, Indian art continued more or less under this foreign tutelage long after Asoka, until a full-fledged Indian art was developed under the Imperial Guptas.
From the End of the Maurya Period to the Rise of the Guptas
The five hundred years that intervened between the fall of the Mauryas and the rise of the Gupta empire constitute a distinct period in the evolution of Indian art. So far as we can judge from extant remains, several important schools of sculpture flourished in different localities during this period–at Bharhut (Nagod and Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, Bodh-Gaya in Bihar, Mathura in U.P., Amaravati and Nagarjunikonda near the mouth of the Krishna river, and Gandhara in West Pakistan).
In the second century BC, during the reign of the Sungas, a big stupa was constructed at Bharhut. Nothing now remains of the stupa itself, but a portion of the railings that surrounded it, and one of the gateways, are now preserved in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. The railing is made of red sandstone and consists, as usual, of uprights, crossbars and coping-stone. All these have sculptures engraved on them representing incidents from Buddha’s life, Jataka stories and many humorous scenes. Short labels incised below the sculptures enable us to identify the episodes represented therein. Taken individually, the human figures do not appear to be well executed and there are obvious defects in the physiognomy and posture of the bodies. But taken as a mass, the sculptures represent the religious faiths and beliefs, the dress, costumes, and manners, and are executed with wonderful simplicity and vigour. We get an insight into the minds and habits of the common people of India, and a keynote of the joys and pleasures of life, seems to pervade them all. Ancient India, with its robust optimism and vigorous faith in life, speaks, as it were, through these stones, in a tone that offers a sharp but pleasing contrast to the dark pessimistic views of fife which some of the old religious texts are never tired of repeating. From this point of view, the art of Bharhut is a great corrective to the impressions which we are likely to form from literature.
At Bodh-Gaya there is a small railing round the great temple. The railing probably belongs to about the first century BC, but the temple is of a much later date. The sculptures on the railing belong to the same type as at Bharhut, though the individual figures are somewhat better.
Sanchi contains three big stupas and, happily, they are all in a good state of preservation. The big stupa, originally constructed by Asoka, was enlarged during this period, and four gateways of elaborate construction were added to the railing, one in each cardinal direction.
On the whole, the railings at Bharhut, Bodh-Gaya, and Sanchi may be regarded as three landmarks in the gradual evolution of art during the two centuries, 150 B.C.-A.D. 50. The Indian artists had now mastered the difficult technique and acquired a highly developed aesthetic sense. The stone sculptures proved in their hands to be a valuable medium for expressing faiths and beliefs, and ideas and feelings.
Mathura has proved a large treasure-house of ruins of this period. No big railing, like that of Bharhut or Sanchi, with a continuous series of relief sculptures, has yet come to light, but we have instead numerous fragments of smaller railings with sculptures and quite a large number of images, either detached or engraved in very high relief on some architectural fragments.
The Mathura sculptures are easily distinguished by the material used – a kind of spotted red stone. It is possible to classify the sculptures of Mathura into two chronological periods. The earlier ones are rude and rough works, somewhat resembling those of Bharhut, but of a different style, and do not call for any special remark. The sculptures of the later period possess one distinguishing characteristic, viz. the representation of Buddha as a human figure. This is entirely unknown at Bharhut, Bodh-Gaya and Sanchi where Buddha is always represented by a symbol such as a wheel, a throne, or a pair of footprints, and never by any human figure. With the evolution of a human type of Buddha at Mathura begins a new epoch in Indian art, and for centuries the best artistic efforts of India were directed towards giving a concrete expression of the spiritual ideals of India through the images of Buddha and other great beings.
