HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE PLATE X. OLD DRAVIDIAN TEMPLE AT MAM ALLAPUKAM (page 362). [Frontispiece to Volume I. HISTORY OF INDIAN AND EASTERN ARCHITECTURE BY THE LATE JAMES FERGUSSON C.I.E., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.I. B.A. Member of the Society of Dilettanti, etc., etc. REVISED AND EDITED, WITH ADDITIONS INDIAN ARCHITECTURE BY JAMES BURGESS, C.I.E., LL.D., F.R.? Hon. A.R.I. K. A.; Hon. Member of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society ^ponding Member Batavian Society ; Late Director of the Archaeological Survey of India, etc., etc. AND EASTERN ARCHITECTURE BY R. PHENE SPIERS, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects ; Correspondent of the Institute of France WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS VOL. I. Nfl \1to v-l 9«537l AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. DURING the nine years that have elapsed since I last wrote on this subject,1 very considerable progress has been made in the elucidation of many of the problems that still perplex the student of the History of Indian Architecture. The publication of the five volumes of General Cunningham's ' Archaeological Reports' has thrown new light on many obscure points, but generally from an archaeological rather than from an architectural point of view ; and Mr Burgess's researches among the western caves and the structural temples of the Bombay presidency have added greatly not only to our stores of information, but to the precision of our knowledge regarding them. For the purpose of such a work as this, however, photo- graphy has probably done more than anything that has been written. There are now very few buildings in India — of any importance at least — which have not been photographed with more or less completeness ; and for purposes of comparison such collections of photographs as are now available are simply invaluable. For detecting similarities, or distinguishing differ- ences between specimens situated at distances from one another, photographs are almost equal to actual personal inspection, and, when sufficiently numerous, afford a picture of Indian art of the utmost importance to any one attempting to describe it. 1 'History of Architecture in all Countries.' 2nd ed. Murray, 1867. [Now 'History of Ancient and Medieval Architecture.' 3rd ed. 2 vols. Murray, 1893.] viii PREFACE. These new aids, added to our previous stock of knowledge, are probably sufficient to justify us in treating the architecture of India Proper in the quasi-exhaustive manner in which it is attempted, in the first 600 pages of this work. Its description might, of course, be easily extended even beyond these limits, but without plans and more accurate architectural details than we at present possess, any such additions would practically contribute very little that was valuable to the information the work already contains. The case is different when we turn to Further India. Instead of only 100 pages and 50 illustrations, both these figures ought at least to be doubled to bring that branch of the subject up to the same stage of completeness as that describing the archi- tecture of India Proper. For this, however, the materials do not at present exist. Of Japan we know almost nothing except from photographs, without plans, dimensions, or dates ; and, except as regards Pekin and the Treaty Ports, we know almost as little of China. We know a great deal about one or two buildings in Cambodia and Java, but our information regarding all the rest is so fragmentary and incomplete, that it is hardly available for the purposes of a general history, and the same may be said of Burma and Sia'm. Ten years hence this deficiency may be supplied, and it may then be possible to bring the whole into harmony. At present a slight sketch indicating the relative position of each, and their relation to the styles of India Proper, is all that can be well accomplished. Although appearing as the third volume of the second edition of the ' General History of Architecture,' the present may be considered as an independent and original work. In the last edition the Indian chapters extended only to about 300 pages, with zoo illustrations,1 and though most of the woodcuts reappear in the present volume, more than half the original text has been cancelled, and consequently at least 600 pages of the present work are original matter, and 200 illustrations — ' History of Architecture ' (1867), vol. ii. pp. 445-756, Woodcuts 966-1163. PREFACE. ix and these by far the most important — have been added. These, with the new chronological and topographical details, present the subject to the English reader, in a more compact and complete form than has been attempted in any work on Indian architecture hitherto published. It does not, as I feel only too keenly, contain all the information that could be desired, but I am afraid it contains nearly all that the materials at present available will admit of being utilised, in a general history of the style. When I published my first work on Indian architecture thirty years ago, I was reproached for making dogmatic asser- tions, and propounding theories which I did not even attempt to sustain. The defect was, I am afraid, inevitable. My conclusions were based upon the examination of the actual buildings throughout the three Presidencies of India and in China during ten years' residence in the East, and to have placed before the world the multitudinous details which were the ground of my generalisations, would have required an additional amount of description and engravings which was not warranted by the interest felt in the subject at that time. The numerous engravings in the present volume, the extended letterpress, and the references to works of later labourers in the wide domain of Indian architecture, will greatly diminish, but cannot entirely remove, the old objection. No man can direct his mind for forty years to the earnest investigation of any department of knowledge, and not become acquainted with a host of particulars, and acquire a species of insight which neither time, nor space, nor perhaps the resources of language will permit him to reproduce in their fulness. I possess, to give a single instance, more than 3,000 photographs of Indian buildings, with which constant use has made me as familiar as with any other object that is perpetually before my eyes, and to recapitulate all the information they convey to long- continued scrutiny, would be an endless, if not indeed an impossible undertaking. The necessities of the case demand x PREFACE. that broad results should often be given when the evidence for the statements must be merely indicated or greatly abridged, and if the conclusions sometimes go beyond the appended proofs, I can only ask my readers to believe that the assertions are not speculative fancies, but deductions from facts. My endeavour from the first has been to present a distinct view of the general principles which have governed the historical development of Indian architecture, and my hope is that those who pursue the subject beyond the pages of the present work, will find that the principles I have enunciated will reduce to order the multifarious details, and that the details in turn will confirm the principles. Though the vast amount of fresh knowledge which has gone on accumulating since I commenced my investigations has enabled me to correct, modify, and enlarge my views, yet the classification I adopted, and the historical sequences I pointed out thirty years since, have in their essential outlines been confirmed, and will continue, I trust, to stand good. Many subsidiary questions remain unsettled, but my impression is, that not a few of the dis- cordant opinions that may be observed arise principally from the different courses which enquirers have pursued in their investigations. Some men of great eminence and learning, more conversant with books than buildings, have naturally drawn their knowledge and inferences from written authorities, none of which are contemporaneous with the events they relate, and all of which have been avowedly altered and falsified in later times. My authorities, on the contrary, have been mainly the imperishable records in the rocks, or on sculptures and carvings, which necessarily represented at the time the faith and feelings of those who executed them, and which retain their original impress to this day. In such a country as India, the chisels of her sculptors are, so far as I can judge, immeasurably more to be trusted than the pens of her authors. These secondary points, however, may well await the solution which time and further study will doubtless supply. In the meanwhile, I shall have realised a long-cherished dream if I PREFACE. XI have succeeded in popularising the subject by rendering its principles generally intelligible, and can thus give an impulse to its study, and assist in establishing Indian architecture on a stable basis, so that it may take its true position among the other great styles which have ennobled the arts of mankind. The publication of this volume completes the history of the 'Architecture in all countries, from the earliest times to the present day, in four volumes,' and there it must at present rest. As originally projected, it was intended to have added a fifth volume on ' Rude Stone Monuments/ which is still wanted to make the series quite complete ; but, as explained in the preface to my work bearing that title, the subject was not, when it was written, ripe for a historical treatment, and the materials collected were consequently used in an argumentative essay. Since that work was published, in 1872, no serious examination of its arguments has been undertaken by any competent authority, while every new fact that has come to light — especially in India — has served to confirm me more and more in the correctness of the principles I then tried to establish.1 Unless, however, the matter is taken up seriously, and re-examined by those who, from their position, have the ear of the public in these matters, no such progress will be made as would justify the publication of a second work on the same subject. I consequently see no chance of my ever having an opportunity of taking up the subject again, so as to be able to describe its objects in a more consecutive or more exhaustive manner than was done in the work just alluded to. 1 A distinguished German professor, Herr Kinkel of Zurich, in his ' Mosaik zur Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 1876,' has lately adopted my views with regard to the age of Stonehenge without any reservation, though arriving at that conclusion by a very different chain of reasoning from that I was led to adopt. PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION THE late Mr. Fergusson's ' History of Indian and Eastern Architecture' has now been before the public for more than thirty years, and was reprinted (without his consent) in America, before his death in 1886, and the publishers issued a reprint in 1891. His method of treating the subject he has thus described : — " What I have attempted to do during the last forty years has been to apply to Indian Architecture the same principles of archaeological science which are universally adopted not only in England, but in every country in Europe. Since the publication of Rickman's ' Attempt to discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England' in 1817, style has been allowed to supersede all other evidences for the age of any building, not only in Mediaeval, but in Byzantine, Classical, and, in fact, all other true styles. Any accomplished antiquary, looking at any archway or any moulding, can say at once, this is Norman, or Early English, or Decorated, or Tudor ; and if familiar with the style, tell the date within a few years, whether it belongs to a cathedral or a parish church, a dwelling house or a grange, ... is not of the smallest consequence, nor whether it belongs to the marvellously elaborate quasi- Byzantine style of the age of the Conqueror, or to the prosaic tameness of that of the age of Elizabeth. Owing to its perfect originality and freedom from all foreign admixture or influence, I believe these principles, so universally adopted in this country, are even more applicable to the Indian styles than to the European." The successful application of these principles to Indian architecture was entirely his own : no one had dreamed of it xii PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. xiii before. It was a stroke of genius to trace out logically the historical sequences of the Hindu monuments and make them tell their own story by means of those guiding principles which he was the first to apply to them, and to elucidate their applicability in a manner that has been borne out since with- out exception wherever they have been intelligently applied. Though descriptions of Indian monuments may be written in various ways, no one could pretend to take up the systematic study of Indian Architecture without the aid of this work, and no history of the architecture can be scientifically written without appropriating the principles Mr. Fergusson showed how to apply. My close intimacy with Mr. Fergusson for twenty years, and knowledge of his opinions, may have suggested that I might undertake the revisal of his work ; but, when it was first proposed, I was engaged on the preparation of certain volumes of the Archaeological Reports of the Indian Survey that had been entrusted to me and I could not then undertake it. On the appointment of a new director for the Surveys, at the close of 1901, the materials were taken out of my hands and my engagement terminated. I was then at liberty to undertake the revision of the work, and in doing so I naturally depended on the like help that had been afforded to Mr. Fergusson him- self in 1875, when the resources of the Surveys were at his disposal. But obstruction was raised where it ought hardly to have been expected, and it was due to the good offices of the Right Honourable Lord Morley, Secretary of State for India, that this was largely overcome. The materials in the India Office were at once liberally placed at my disposal, and the Government of India requested to favour the work. This, however, caused delay, and subsequent severe illness has pro- tracted the preparation of the work. It would have been easy to expand this history, but, if it was to answer its purpose as a handbook, it must obviously be restricted within moderate dimensions. My aim has been to condense where practicable and, whilst revising, to make xiv PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. only such additions from the accessible materials accumulated since 1876, as seemed requisite. The Archaeological Surveys have collected vast stores of drawings only a fraction of which has yet been published. Travellers too, influenced partly perhaps by the interest that Mr. Fergusson's volume had created, have published works that have added to our information. The great advances made in Indian Epigraphy and Palaeo- graphy during the same period have further enabled us to revise and fix more accurately the dates in the earlier chronology of India ; but this has not materially affected the author's chrono- metric scale of arrangement of the monuments, for where the dates have been somewhat altered, the relative places of the monuments have not required to be changed, — only they have been better adjusted ; and in many cases Mr. Fergusson, in his later years, had accepted these corrections. For much valued aid and information my thanks are due to Mr. Henry Cousens, Superintendent of the Western India Archaeological Circle ; and to Mr. Alexander Rea of the Madras Circle, from both of whom I have received ungrudging assist- ance, relative to the districts under their charge. For Ceylon I am greatly indebted to Lord Stanmore and the Colonial Office, whilst Mr. J. G. Smither, late Govern- ment architect, and Mr. H. C. P. Bell, C.C.S., Archaeological Commissioner, very kindly have read the proofs and supplied important advice and material for the chapter on the archi- tecture of the Island. I owe thanks also for valued help to Babu Monmohan Chakravarti, M.A., relative to Orissa ; and among others to Mr. R. F. Chisholm, F.R.I.B.A. ; Mr. H. C. Fanshawe, C.S.I,; Dr. J. F. Fleet, C.I.E.; Professor Dr. H. Kern, Utrecht; the Right Honble. Ameer 'AH ; Mr. G. F. Williams, State Engineer, Udaypur ; Lieut. Fred. M. Bailey, Indian Army ; Mr. F. H. Andrews ; Dr. L. D. Barnett, and the Rev. Dr. Wm. Millar, C.I.E. To Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co., I am indebted for the use of a number of woodcuts. The history of Indian Architecture has been extended from PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. xv 610 to 785 pages, and the illustrations in the text increased by 98, besides the addition of 34 plates from photographs. The chapters on Further India, Java and China have been edited and partly rewritten by Mr. R. Phene Spiers, the editor of Mr. Fergusson's larger work, the ' History of Ancient and Medieval Architecture,' published in 1893. Mr. Spiers has recast these chapters, adding much fresh and important in- formation to each, whilst he has also added a new chapter on the Architecture of Japan. For Burma, Mr. Spiers has had to depend largely upon the few works published during the last thirty years describing the buildings there found, on the photographs in the India Office and on the somewhat meagre notes contained in the ' Progress Reports ' of the Archaeological Survey. For Cambodia, Siam and Java, on the other hand, were available the excellent publications of the French Archaeological Surveys carried out at first under the supervision of the Ecole Fran9aise d'Extreme Orient, and now under the skilled direction of the Archaeological Commission of Indo - China, and of the Java Surveys under the direction of the Dutch Government Archaeological Commission. This section occupied 100 pages with 49 woodcuts in the former edition ; now, with the addition of Japan, it has been extended to 163 pages, with 67 woodcuts and 31 plates. J. BURGESS. EDINBURGH, February 1910. NOTE. ONE of the great difficulties that met every one attempting to write on Indian subjects forty years ago was to know how to spell Indian proper names. The Gilchristian mode of using double vowels, which was fashionable early last century, had then been done away with, as contrary to the spirit of Indian orthography, though it left a plentiful crop of discordant spellings. On the other hand, Sir William Jones and most scholars, by marking the long vowels and by dots to distinguish the palatal from the dental consonants, had formed from the Roman alphabet definite equivalents for each letter in the Indian alphabets — both Sanskritic and Persian. Lepsius, Lassen, and Max Muller in turn proposed various other systems, which ha^e not found much acceptance ; and of late continental scholars have put forward still another scheme, quite unsuited for English use. In this system such names as " Krishna," " Chach," " Rishi," are to be represented byKrsna, Cac, Rsi — so pedantic a system is, impossible both for cartographer and ordinary reader and, like others, it may well cease to be. Meanwhile a notable advance towards official uniformity has been made in the spelling of Indian place-names. When the 'Imperial Gazetteer of India" was projected, Government judiciously instructed the editor to adopt the Jonesian system of transliteration as slightly modified by Professor H. H. Wilson, but devoid of the diacritical dots attached to certain consonants. The authorisation of this system in the new maps and Gazetteer, and its use in published works since, has established its claim to acceptance in a work intended for the general reader. In the following pages, consequently, this system has been used, as nearly as may be, avoiding diacritical marks on consonants, but indicating the long vowel sounds ti, i, ft, as in Lzit, Halebid, Stupa, etc., whilst e and o, being almost always long, hardly require indication. Thus a l sounds as in " rural " ; a as in " tar " ; i ,, ,, "fill"; i ,, "police"; « ,, ,, "full"; ft ,, "rude"; e ,, ,, " there"; and o ,, "stone". Only the palatal 5, as in "sure," is distinguished from the dental, as in "hiss," by the italic form among Roman letters, as in "jikhara," "Aroka." A hundred years hence, when Sanskrit and Indian alphabets are taught in all schools in England, it may be otherwise, but in the present state of knowledge on the subject it seems expedient to use some such simple method of indicating, at least approximately, the Indian sounds. Strictly accurate transcription in all cases and of well-known names, however, has not been followed. In Burmese,— which lisps sounds like s and ch, — the spellings used in the Gazetteers of Burma have been generally adopted. 1 The shut vowel, inherent in all consonants of the proper Indian alphabets, was formerly transliterated by almost any English vowel : in " Benares" (for " Banaras"). t is used twice for it. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION • Page 3 BOOK I. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTION AND CLASSIFI- CATION . . . " . 51 II. STAMBHAS OR LATS . . 56 III. STUPAS — Relic Worship — Bhilsa Topes — Topes at Sar- nath and in Bihar — Amaravati Stupa — Gandhara Topes — Jalalabad Topes — Manikyala Stupa 62 IV. RAILS— Rails at Bharaut, Math- ura1, Sanchi, and Amaravati . 102 V. CHAITYA HALLS — Structural Chaityas — Bihar Caves — Western Chaitya Halls, etc. . 125 CHAI'. PAGE VI. VIHARAS, OR MONASTERIES — Structural Viharas — Bengal Caves — Western Vihara Caves — Nasik, Ajanta, Bagh, Dham- nar and Kholvi, Elvira, Aurang- abad and Kuda Viharas . 170 VII. GANDHARA MONASTERIES — Monasteries at Jamalgarhi — Takht-i-Bahaiand Shah-Dheri — Greek influence '. . 209 VIII. CEYLON — Introductory — Anuradhapura — Polonnaruwa 224 BOOK II. ARCHITECTURE IN THE HIMALAYAS. I. KASHMIR — Temples — M^rtand — Avantipur — Buniar — Pan- drethan — Malot 251 II. NEPAL AND TIBET — Stupas or Chaityas — Wooden Temples — Tibet — Temples in KangrS XVll 273 XV111 CONTENTS BOOK III. DRAVIDIAN STYLE. CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY . . .302 II. HINDI) CONSTRUCTION — Arches — Domes — Plans — .Sikharas .... 310 III. DRAVIDIAN ROCK-CUT TEMPLES — Mamallapuram — Kailas, Elura 327 IV. DRAVIDIAN TEMPLES — Patta- dakal and Dharwar Temples CHAP. PAGE — Conjivaram — Tanjor — Tiru- valiir — 5rirangam — Chidamba- ram— Ramervaram— Madurl — Tinnevelly — Kumbakonam — Vellor and Perur — Vijayanagar 350 V. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE — Palaces at Madura and Tanjor — Garden Pavilion at Vijaya- nagar— Palace at Chandragiri . 411 BOOK IV. CHALUKYAN STYLE. I. INTRODUCTORY — Chalukyan Architecture — Dharwar tem- ples — Ittagi — Gadag — Kur u - vatti — Dambal — Hanamkonda — Kirtti-StambhasatWorangal — Mysore — Temples at Som- nathpur and Beliir— Temples at Halebid .... 420 DIRECTIONS TO BINDER MAP OF INDIA, SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL BUDDHIST LOCALITIES To face page 51 MAP OF THE PRINCIPAL INDO- ARYAN, CHALUKYAN, AND DRAVIDIAN LOCALITIES ,, 251 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I. No. 1. Hindu Temple, at Bahulara, near Bankura .... 2. Naga people worshipping the Triratna emblem of Buddha, on a fiery pillar 3. Sri or Gaja Lakshmi seated on a Lotus, with two Elephants pouring water over her . 4. Lat at Allahabad 5. Assyrian honeysuckle ornament from capital of Lat, at Allaha- bad 6. Capital at Sankisa 7. Capital of Lat in Tirhut 8. Capital of the Lion-pillar at Karle 9. Minar Chakri, Kabul 10. Relic Casket of Moggalana 11. Relic Casket of .Sariputra . 12. View of the great Tope at Sanchi 13. Plan of great Tope at Sanchi 14. Section of great Tope at Sanchi 15. ' Tee ' (Hti) cut in the rock on a Dagaba at Ajanta . 1 6. Tope at Sarnath, near Benares . 17. Panel on the Tope at Sarnath 18. View and -Plan of Jarasandha-ka- baithak .... 19. Temple at Bodh-Gaya with Bo- tree ..... 20. Representation of a Stupa from the Rail at Amaravati . 21. Tope at Bimaran 22. Tope at Sultanpur 23. Stupa at Chakpat 24. Relic Casket from a Tope at Manikyala .... 25. View of Manikyala Tope . 26. Restored Elevation of the Tope at Manikyala PAGE , No. 27. I '5 28. I 49 29. I 50 30. 1 57 3I- Y: 32. t 57 33- 1 58 58 34- F 60 35- * 61 36. F 68 68 37- I 69 38. IS 69 69 39. E 70 40. C 72 74 41- E 76 42. A i 43. S 78 44- E 81 45- T 91 46. T 92 47- P 48. A 95 49- P 96 50. P 97 PAGE Elevation and Section of portion of Basement of Stupa at Mani- kyala 98 Relic Casket, Manikyala . . 99 Parinirvana of Buddha, from Cave No. 26 at Ajanta . . 101 Tree Worship : Bodh-Gaya Rail 105 Relic Casket : Bodh-Gaya Rail 105 Portion of Rail at Bharaut, as first uncovered . . .106 Tree and Serpent Worship at Bharaut .... 108 Rail at Sanchi . . .- . 1 1 1 Rail, of No. 2 Tope, Sanchi . 112 Representation of Rail, from Amaravati . . . .112 ail in Gautamiputra Cave, Nasik 113 Northern Gateway of Tope at Sanchi . . . . 115 Bas-relief on left-hand Pillar, Northern Gateway, Sanchi . 117 Ornament on right-hand Pillar, Northern Gateway, Sanchi . 117 External Elevation of Great Rail at Amaravati . . 1 20 Angle pillar at Amaravati . .121 Slab from Base of the Stupa, Amaravati . . . .121 Dagaba (from a Slab), Amaravati 122 Triratna Emblem. (From a sculpture at Amaravati) . .124 Triratna Symbol from Sanchi . 124 Plan of Chaitya Hall, Sanchi . 126 Ancient Buddhist Chaitya at Ter 126 Plan of Ancient Buddhist Chaitya at Ter . . . . .126 Plan of an Ancient Chaitya at Chezarla . . . .127 XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I. No. Si- 52. S3- 54- 55- 56. 57- 58. 59- 60. 61. 62. 63 64. 65- 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71- 72. 73- 74- 75- 76. 77- 78. 79- 80. 81. 82. PAGE Elevation of Chezarla Chaitya Temple .... 127 Section of Chezarla Chaitya Temple . . . .127 Sudama Cave, Plan and Section, Sat-Garbha group . . .130 Kondivte Cave, Salsette . . 131 Facade of Lomas Rishi Cave . 131 Lomas Rishi Cave, Plan . .132 Plan and Section of Sita-marhi Cave 133 Chaitya and Vihara Caves, at Bhaja 134 Front of a Chaitya Hall . .134 Fa9ade of the Chaitya Cave at Bhaja 135 Triratna. Shield. Chakra. Tri- ratna, etc 136 Capital of a rock-cut Dagaba at Bhaja 137 Plan of Caves at Bedsa . . 1 38 Capital of Pillar in front of Cave at Bedsa . . . 139 View in Verandah of Chaitya at Bedsa . 140 141 143 143 144 146 View of Chaitya Cave at Nasik . Section of Chaitya Cave at KSrle Plan of Chaitya Cave at Karle . View of Chaitya Cave at Karle . View of Interior of Cave at K^rle Interior of Chaitya Cave No. 10 at Ajanta . . . .149 Cross-section of Cave No. 10 at Ajanrl 149 Plan of Chaitya Cave No. 19 at Ajanta 151 View of Facade, Chaitya Cave No. 19 at Ajanta . . .152 Rock-cut Dagaba at Ajanta . 153 Small Model found in the Tope at Sultanpur . . . ' • 153 Pillars on the left sideof the Nave, in Cave No. 26 at Ajanta . 154 View of Manmoda Chaitya Cave at Junnar .... 157 Plan of Circular Cave, Junnar . 158 Section of Circular Cave, Junnar 158 Round Temple and part of Palace or Monastery. ( From a bas-relief at Bharaut) . 159 Interior of VLrwakarma Buddhist Cave at Elura . . 160 No. PAGE 83. Fa$ade of the Vi^wakarma Cave at EliirS .... 161 84. Rail in front of the Chaitya Cave at Kanheri . . .163 85. Capital of a Pillar from the Chaitya Cave at Kanheri . 164 86. Caves at Dhamnar . . .165 87. Fa9ade of Chaitya Cave at Guntupalle . . . .168 88. Sphinxes from Buddhist Vihara at Pitalkhora . . .169 89. Dharmaraja Rath at Mamalla- puram 172 90. Diagram explanatory of the arrangement of a Buddhist Vihara of Four Storeys in height 172 91. Square Cell from a bas-relief at Bharaut . . . -173 92. Oblong Cell from a bas-relief at Bharaut .... 173 93. Plan of Son-bhandar Caves . 176 94. Section of Son-bhandar Cave . 176 95. Front of Son-bhandar Cave . 176 96. Plan of small Vihara at Bhaja . 177 97. Capital of Pilaster at Bhaja . 178 98. Plan of Cave No. n at Ajanta. 181 99. Plan of Cave No. 2 at AjantS . 181 100. Plan of Cave No. 3 at Bagh . 182 101. Plan of Darbar Cave, Kanheri . 182 102. Plan of Nahapana Vihara, Nasik 184 103. Pillar in Nahapana Cave, Nasik 185 104. Pillar in Gautamiputra Cave, Nasik 185 105. Plan of Sri Yajna Cave, No. 15, at Nasik . . . .187 1 06. Pillar in Sri Yajna Cave . .188 107. Plan of Cave No. 16, at Ajanta 189 108. View of Interior of Vihara, No. 1 6, at Ajanta . . . 190 109. View in Cave No. 17, at Ajanta 191 no. Pillar in Vihara Cave No. 17 at Ajanta ..... 192 in. Capital from Verandah of Cave 24, Ajanta . . . .194 112. Pillar in the Verandah of Cave I, Ajanta .... 195 113. Plan of Great Vihara Cave at Bagh 198 114. Buddhist Viharas at the south end of the Elura group . . 201 115. Plan of Maharwara Cave, Elura 202 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I. xxi No. PAGE 116. Ancient Buddhist Tower at Negapattam .... 206 117. Ancient capital found at Patna 207 1 1 8. Capital in Side Chapel of Cave No. 19, Ajanta . . .208 119. Plan of Monastery at Jamalgarhi 212 1 20. Plan of Monastery at Takht-i- Bahai .... 212 121. Corinthian Capital from Jamal- garhi . . . . .214 122. Corinthian Capital from Jamal- garhi ..... 214 123. Conventional Elevation of the Fa9ade of a Cell from Jamal- garhi ..... 216 124. Plan of Ionic Monastery, Shah- Dheri 125. Ionic Pillar, Shah-Dheri . 126. Footprints of Buddha (From a bas-relief at Amaravati) . 127. View of the north side of west chapel, Ruwanveli Dagaba . 128. Part Elevation (restored) of front of south chapel, Ruwan- veli Dagaba . 1 29. Stelce at east end of north chapel , Abhayagiri Dagaba 130. Thuparama Dagaba, Anuradha- pura ..... 131. Capital from outer circle at Thuparama Dagaba 132. Lankarama Dagaba, Anuradha- pura ..... 133. Capital of Lankarama Dagaba Pillars, inner circles 134. Pavilion with Steps west of Ruwanveli Dagaba 135. Moonstone at the Steps of the Bo-tree platform 136. View of the Sacred Bo-tree vihara, Anuradhapura . 137. Sat Mahal Prasada and Galpota 138. Capital of a Pilaster, Pitalkhora 139- Tomb of Zainu-l-'Abidin. Ele- vation of Arches . 140. Takht-i-Sulaiman — Elevation of Arches .... 141. Model of Temple in Kashmir . 142. Pillar at Srinagar 143. Capital from Shadipur 144. Restoration of Vihara Cells, at Takht-i-Bahai No. MS- 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. IS*- 152- 153. 154. 155- 218 '57' 223 158- 231 159- 1 60. 232 161. 233 162. 163. 234 164. 235 165. 236 1 66. 236 J67 240 168. 240 169. 243 170. 246 171. 250 172. 173- 253 175- 176. 254 177. 256 257 178. 257 179. 1 80. 258 181. PAGE Temple of Martand, Plan . 259 View of Temple at Martand . 260 View of Central Cell of Court at Martand . . . .261 Niche with Figure at Martand . 263 Soffit of Arch at Martand . 264 Pillar at Avantipur . . . 265 View of Court of Temple at Buniar ..... 266 View of Temple at Pandrethan 268 View of Temple at Payer . 269 View of Temple at Malot, in the Salt Range . . . .271 View of Temple of Swayam- bhimath, Nepal . . . 278 Nepalese Kosthakar . . 280 View of Devi Bhawani Temple, Bhatgaon . . . .281 View of Temples of Mahadeva and Krishna, Patan . '. 283 Pajupati — General view of the temples and burning ghat . 284 Doorway of Darbar, Bhatgaon 285 View of Hindu Temple at Cher- gion in ChambS . . . 287 Monoliths at Dimapur . . 288 Doorway in the Temple at Tashiding .... 295 Interior of Temple at Pemi- ongchi ..... 296 View of Temples at Kiragrama, Kingra District . . . 299 Pillar in Porch of a Vaishnava Temple at Eran . . .301 Capital of Half Column from a Temple in Orissa . . . 301 View of City Gateway, Vijaya- nagar . . . . . 3 1 1 Gateway Jhinjhuwada . . 312 Radiating Arch . . . 313 Horizontal Arch . . -3^3 Diagram of Roofing . . 314 174. Diagrams of Roofing . 314 Diagram of Roofing . . 315 Diagram of Indian Construction 315 Diagram of the arrangement of the pillars of a Jaina Dome . 317 Diagram Plan of Jaina Porch . 317 Diagram of Jaina Porch . . 318 Old Temple at Aihole, Plan . 320 View of Old Temple at Aihole . 321 XX11 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME 1. No. 182. Plan of Papanatha Temple at Pattadakal 183. Restored Elevation of the Sun Temple at Kanarak 184. Diagram Plan and Section of the Temple at Kanarak 185. View of the Raths, Mamalla- puram 1 86. View of Draupadi's Rath 187. Plan of Bhima's Rath 1 88. Pillar in Bhima's Rath . 189. Plan of Dharmaraja Rath 190. Elevation of Dharmaraja Rath . 191. Section of Dharmaraja Rath, with suggested internal ar- rangements .... 192. Plan of Sahadeva's Rath . 193. View of Sahadeva's Rath 194. View of Gane^a Rath 195. View of Perumal Temple at Madura .... 196. Entrance to a Hindu Temple, Colombo .... 197. Head of the Naga figure, at Mamallapuram . 198. View of Cave Temple, Saluvan- kuppam 199. Plan of KailSs Temple, at Elura 200. View of Kailas Elura 201. Shrine of the River Goddesses, Elura 202. Dhwajastambha at Kailas, Elura 203. Dipdan in Dharw&r 204. Plan of Great Temple at Patta- dakal 205. South elevation of Virupaksha Temple at Pattadakal . 206. Plan of Sangamejvar Temple at Pattadakal 207. Plan of Malegitti Temple, at Badami .... 208. Plan of Meguti Jaina Temple at Aihole .... 209. Plan of Kailasanatha Temple, Conjivaram .... 210. Section of Vaikuntha Perumal Temple, Conjivaram 211. Plan of the Shore Temple at Mamallapuram 212. Diagram Plan of Tanjor Temple PAGE No. 213. 322 214. 323 215- 324 216. 329 217. 330 331 218. 332 333 219. 334 220. 221. 222. 335 336 223. 337 338 224. 339 225. 226. 34° 227. 341 I . 228. 341 343 229. 344 230. 345 231. 346 232. 347 233- 234- 353 235. 354 236. 355 237. 356 238. 356 239' 240. 358 241. 359 242. 243. 36i 244. View of the Great Temple at Tanjor ..... View of Temple of Subrah- manya, Tanjor . . . Pier in Subrahmanya Temple . Plan of Inner Temple at Tiru- valur ..... Bird's-eye view of Temple at Tiruvalur .... Plan of .Srirangam Temple — the four inner courts . . . View of the eastern half of the Great Temple at .Srirangam . Plan of Temple of Chidambaram View of Porch of Chidambaram Section of Porch of Temple at Chidambaram . . - View of Ruined Temple at Chidambaram . . . Plan of Great Temple at Ram- e^varam, before 1905 . - Central Corridor, Rame^varam Plan of Tirumalai Nayyak's Chaultrt, Madura . . . Pillar in Tirumalai Nayyak's Chaultri . . . . View in Tirumalai Nayyak's Chaultri .... Plan of Madura Temple . Half-plan of Temple at Tinne- 63 Gopuram at Kumbakonam . Portico of Temple at Vellor . Compound Pillar at Vellor . Compound Pillar at Periir . Plan of Vitthalaswamin Temple at Vijayanagar . . . View of Porch of Temple of Vitthalasvamin . . . Entrance through Gopuram at Tadpatri .... Portion of Gopuram at Tadpatri Plan of Temples at 6"ri-6ailam . Plan of Tirumalai Nayyak's Palace at Madura . . - Hall in Palace, Madura . - Court in Palace, Tanjor . - Garden Pavilion at Vijayanagar South Elevation of Chandragiri Palace . . . . . PAGE 364 365 366 367 367 369 371 375 376 377 378 381 383 387 387 389 391 393 395 397 399 399 402 403 405 406 409 413 414 415 417 418 LIST OF PLATES TO VOLUME I. xxiii No. PAGE . No. PAGE 245. Plan of the ground floor of j 255. Plan of Ke.ra.va Temple at Som- Chandragiri Palace . .418 nathpur . . . . 437 246. Plan of Ittagi Temples . . 425 256. Temple at Somnathpur . . 438 247. Plan of Temples at Kukkanur . 426 I 257. Plan of Chenna Kej-ava Temple 248. Plan of Some^var Temple, at Belur .... 439 Gadag .... 427 358. View of part of Porch at Belur 440 249. Plan of Kuruvatti Temple . 430 259. Pavilion at Belur . . .441 250. Kuruvatti Temple — south eleva- tion ..... 430 251. Plan of Dambal Temple of 260. View of Kedaresvara Temple, Halebid .... 443 261. Plan of Hoysale-rvara Temple Dodda Basavanna . . . 431 j at Halebid . . . . 444 252. Doorway of Great Temple at 262. Restored view of Temple at Hanamkonda . . . 433 253. Kirtti-Stambha at Worangal . 434 254. Temple at Buchhanapalli . 436 Halebid . . . .445 263. Central Pavilion, Halebid, East Front 447 LIST OF PLATES TO VOL. I. PLATE X. OLD DRAVIDIAN TEMPLE AT MAMALLAPURAM (page 362) Frontispiece to Vohinie 1. JAMES FERGUSSON To face page I I. ALI MASJID — STUPA NO 5 ,, 92 II. THUPARAMA DAGABA (AS RESTORED) .... ,, 234 III. THE WATA-DA-GE AT POLONNARUWA .... ,, 246 IV. THE THUPARAMA TEMPLE, POLONNARUWA ... ,, 247 V. SAIVA TEMPLE AT POLONNARUWA ,, 248 VI. THE POTALA AT LHASA FROM THE W.S. W. ... ,, 292 VII. GOLDEN TEMPLE AT GYAN-TSE ..... ,, 294 VIII. MALEGITT1 SAIVA TEMPLE AT BADAMI .... ,, 356 IX. VIEW OF MAIN SHRINE, KAILASANATHA TEMPLE, KANCHfPURAM ,, 359 XI. STONE CAR, AT THE TEMPLE OF VITTHALA, VIJAYANAGAR, 1881 (NOW DESTROYED) ,, 403 XII. GREAT TEMPLE AT ITTAGI, FROM S.W ,, 424 XIII. TEMPLE OF SOMESVAR AT GADAG, FROM N.E. . . ,, 427 XIV. DOORWAY OF THE SHRINE IN KASIVISVESVAR TEMPLE AT LAKKUNDI „ 428 XV. CHAUDADAMPUR TEMPLE OF MUKTESVARA ... ., 429 XVI. GALAGANATH TEMPLE FROM N.W ,, 432 XVII. TEMPLE OF KEDARESVARA AT BALAGAMI ... ,, 441 Buddha preaching, (From a fresco painting at Ajanta. JAMES FERGUSSON. [To face page I, Volume I. HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. VOL. I. HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. INTRODUCTION. IT is in vain, perhaps, to expect that the literature or the Arts of any other people can be so interesting to even the best educated Europeans as those of their own country. Until it is forced on their attention, few are aware how much education does to concentrate attention within a very narrow field of observation. We become familiar in the nursery with the names of the heroes of Greek and Roman history. In every school their history and their arts are taught, memorials of their greatness meet us at every turn through life, and their thoughts and aspirations become, as it were, part of ourselves. So, too, with the Middle Ages : their religion is our religion ; their architecture our architecture ; and their history fades so insensibly into our own, that we can draw no line of demarca- tion that would separate us from them. How different is the state of feeling, when from this familiar home we turn to such a country as India ! Its geography is hardly taught in schools, and seldom mastered perfectly ; its history is a puzzle ; l its literature a mythic dream ; its arts a quaint perplexity. But, above all, the names of its heroes and great men are so unfamiliar that, except a few of those who go to India, scarcely any ever become so acquainted with them, that they call up any memories which are either pleasing or worth dwelling upon. Were it not for this, there is probably no country — out of Europe at least— that would so well repay attention as India: none, where all the problems of natural science or of art are presented to us in so distinct and so pleasing a form. Nowhere does nature show herself in such grand and such luxurious 1 The last thirty years have added greatly to the number and quality of the text-books on Indian history, and the general reader has no longer a valid excuse for ignorance of it. HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. features, and nowhere does humanity exist in more varied and more pleasing conditions. Side by side with the intellectual Brahman caste, and the chivalrous Rajput, are found the wild Bhil and the naked Gond, not antagonistic and warring one against the other, as elsewhere, but living now as they have done for thousands of years, each content with his own lot, and prepared to follow, without repining, in the footsteps of his forefathers. It cannot, of course, be for one moment contended that India ever reached the intellectual supremacy of Greece, or the moral greatness of Rome ; but, though on a lower step of the ladder, her arts are more original and more varied, and her forms of civilisation present an ever-changing variety, such as are nowhere else to be found. What, however, really renders India so interesting as an object of study is that "it is now a living entity. Greece and Rome are dead and have passed away, and we are living so completely in the midst of modern Europe, that we cannot get outside to contemplate it as a whole. But India is a complete cosmos in itself; bounded on the north by the Himalayas, on the south by the sea, on the east by jungles inhabited by rude tribes, and only on the west having one door of communication, across the Indus, open to the outer world. Across that stream, nation after nation have poured their myriads into her coveted domain, but no reflex waves ever mixed her people with those beyond her boundaries. In consequence of all this, every problem of anthropology or ethnography can be studied here more easily than anywhere else; every art has its living -representative, and often of the most pleasing form ; every science has its illustration, and many on a scale not easily matched elsewhere. But, notwith- standing all this, in nine cases out of ten, India and Indian matters fail to interest, because they are to most people new and unfamiliar. The rudiments have not been mastered when young, and, when grown up, few men have the leisure or the inclination to set to work to learn the forms of a new world, demanding both care and study ; and till this is attained, it can hardly be hoped that the arts and the architecture of India will interest many European readers to the same extent as those styles treated of in the volumes on ancient and mediaeval architecture.1 Notwithstanding these drawbacks, it may still be possible to present the subject of Indian architecture in such a form as to be interesting, even if not attractive. To do this, however, i 'History of Architecture in all vols. i. and ii., 3rd ed. (1893). Edited Countries from the Earliest Times.' By .by R. Phen£ Spiers, F.S.A. the late Jas. Fergusson, C.I.E., D.C.L., INTRODUCTION. 5 the narrative form must be followed as far as is compatible with such a subject. All technical and unfamiliar names must be avoided wherever it is possible to do so, and the whole accompanied with a sufficient number of illustrations to enable its forms to be mastered without difficulty. Even if this is attended to, no one volume can tell the whole of so varied and so complex a history. Without preliminary or subsequent study it can hardly be expected that so new and so vast a subject can be grasped ; but one volume may contain a complete outline of the whole, and enable any one who wishes for more information to know where to look for it, or how to appreciate it when found. Whether successful or not, it seems well worth while that an attempt should be made to interest the public in Indian architectural art ; first, because the artist and architect will certainly acquire broader and more varied views of their art by its study than they can acquire from any other source. More than this, any one who masters the subject sufficiently to be able to understand their art in its best and highest forms, will rise from the study with a kindlier feeling towards the nations of India, and a higher — certainly a corrector — appreciation of their social status than could be obtained from their literature, or from anything that now exists in their anomalous social and political position. Notwithstanding all this, many may be inclined to ask, Is it worth while to master all the geographical and historical details necessary to unravel so tangled a web as this, and then try to become so familiar with their ever-varying forms as not only to be able to discriminate between the different styles, but also to follow them through all their ceaseless changes ? My impression is that this question may fairly be answered in the affirmative. No one has a right to say that he under- stands the history of architecture who leaves out of his view the works of an immense portion of the human race, which has always shown itself so capable of artistic development. But, more than this, architecture in India is still a living art, practised on the principles which caused its wonderful develop- ment in Europe in the I2th and I3th centuries; and there, consequently, and there alone, the student of architecture has a chance of seeing the real principles of the art in action. In Europe, at the present day, architecture is practised in a manner so anomalous and abnormal that few, if any, have hitherto been able to shake off the influence of a false system, and to see that the art of ornamental building can be based on principles of common sense ; and that, when so practised, the result not only is, but must be, satisfactory. Those who 6 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. have an opportunity of seeing what perfect buildings the uneducated natives of India produce, will easily understand how success may be achieved, while those who observe what failures the best educated and most talented architects in Europe frequently perpetrate, may, by a study of Indian models, easily see why this must inevitably be the result. It is only in India that the two systems can be seen practised side by side — the educated and intellectual European failing because his principles are wrong, the feeble and uneducated native as inevitably succeeding because his principles are right. The Indian builders think only of what they are doing, and how they can best produce the effect they desire. In the European system it is considered more essential that a building, especially in its details, should be a correct copy of something else, than good in itself or appropriate to its purpose : hence the difference in the result. In one other respect India affords a singularly favourable field to the student of architecture. In no other country of the same extent are there so many distinct nationalities, each retain- ing its old belief and its old feelings, and impressing these on its art. There is consequently no country where the outlines of ethnology as applied to art can be so easily perceived, or their application to the elucidation of the various problems so pre- eminently important. The mode in which the art has been practised in Europe for the last three centuries has been very confusing. In India it is clear and intelligible. No one can look at the subject without seeing its importance, and no one can study the art as practised there without recognising what the principles of the science really are. In addition, however, to these scientific advantages, it will undoubtedly be conceded by those who are familiar with the subject that for certain qualities the Indian buildings are un- rivalled. They display an exuberance of fancy, a lavishness of labour, and an elaboration of detail to be found nowhere else. They may contain nothing so sublime as the hall at Karnak, nothing so intellectual as the Parthenon, nor so constructively grand as a mediaeval cathedral ; but for certain other qualities — not perhaps of the highest kind, yet very important in architectural art — the Indian buildings stand alone. They consequently fill up a great gap in our knowledge of the subject, which without them would remain a void. HISTORV. One of the greatest difficulties that exist — perhaps the greatest — in exciting an interest in Indian antiquities arises INTRODUCTION. 7 from the fact, that India has no history properly so called, before the Muhammadan invasion in the I3th century. Had India been a great united kingdom, like China, with a long line of dynasties and well-recorded dates attached to them, the task would have been comparatively easy ; but nothing of the sort ever existed within her boundaries. On the contrary, so far as our knowledge extends, India has always been occupied by three or four different races of mankind, who have never amalgamated so as to become one people, and each of these races has been again subdivided into numerous tribes or small nationalities nearly, sometimes wholly, independent of each other — and, what is worse than all, not one of them ever kept a chronicle or preserved a series of dates commencing from any well-known era.1 The absence of any historical record is the more striking, because India possesses a written literature equal to, if not sur- passing in variety and extent, that possessed by any other nation, before the adoption and use of printing. The Vedas themselves, with their Upanishads and Brahmanas, and the commentaries on them, form a literature in themselves of vast extent, and some parts of which are as old, possibly older, than any written works that are now known to exist ; and the Puranas, though comparatively modern, make up a body of doctrine mixed with mythology and tradition such as few nations can boast of. Besides this, however, are the two great epics, surpassing in extent, if not in merit, those of any ancient nation, and a drama of great beauty, written at periods extending through a long series of years. In addition to these we have treatises on law, on grammar, on astronomy, on metaphysics and mathematics, on almost every branch of mental science — a literature extend- ing in fact to many thousand works, but in all this not one book that can be called historical. No man in ancient India, so far as is known, ever thought of recording the events of his own life, or of repeating the previous experience of others, and it was not till shortly before the Christian Era that they thought of establishing eras from which to date deeds or events. All this is the more curious because in Ceylon we have, in the ' Dipawansa,' ' Mahawansa,' and other books of a like nature, 1 The following brief resume of the order to make it readable, all references principal events in the ancient history and all proofs of disputed facts have of India has no pretensions to being a I been here avoided. They will be found complete or exhaustive view of the sub- 1 in the body of the work, where they are ject. It is intended only as such a popular sketch as shall enable the general reader to grasp the main features of the story to such an extent as may enable him to understand what follows. In more appropriate. But without some such introductory notice of the political history and ethnography, the artistic history would be nearly, if not wholly unintelligible. 8 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. a consecutive history of that island, with dates which, with certain corrections, may be depended upon within certain limits of error, for periods extending from about B.C. 250 to the present time. At the other extremity of India, we have also in the ' Rajatarangini ' of Kashmir, a work of the 1 2th century, which Professor Wilson characterised as "the only Sanskrit composition yet discovered to which the title of History can with any propriety be applied."1 It hardly helps us, however, to any ancient historical data, its early chronology being only traditional and confused ; but from the beginning of the 9th Christian century, its materials are of great value.2 In India Proper, however, we have no such guides as even these, but for written history are almost wholly dependent on the Puranas. They furnish us with a list of kings' names, with the length of their reigns, so apparently truthful that they may, within certain limits, be of use. They are only, however, of one range of dynasties — probably also sometimes contemporary — and extend only from the accession of Chandragupta — the Sandrokottos of the Greeks — about B.C. 320, to the decline of the Andhra dynasty, about the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. It seems possible we may yet find sufficient confirmation of these lists as far back as the 6th century B.C., so as to include the period marked by the life and labours of Sakyamuni — the last Buddha — in our chronology, with tolerable certainty. All chronology before that period is as yet merely conjectural. From the period of the Gupta dynasty in the 4th century onwards, when the Puranas began to be put into their present form, in consequence of the revival of the Brahmanical religion, instead of recording contemporary events, they purposely confused them so as to maintain their pretended prophetic character, and prevent the detection of the falsehood of their claim to an antiquity equal to that of the Vedas. For Indian history after the 5th century we are consequently left mainly to inscriptions on monuments or on copper-plates, to coins, and to the works of foreigners for the necessary informa- tion with which the natives of the country itself have neglected to supply us. Inscriptions fortunately are more abundant in India than, perhaps, in any other country, and nearly all of them contain historical information ; and, thanks to the great advances made in epigraphy during the last thirty-five years, we are now able to piece together a tolerably accurate historical 1 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. xv. p. i. ! a valuable commentary and notes by * Kalhana's ' Rajatarangini ' has been | Dr. A. M. Stein, 2 vols. (London, very carefully translated and edited with 1900). INTRODUCTION. 9 outline of the course of events from the 3rd century B.C.1 This is more especially the case for the Dekhan and the north of India ; in the Tamil country so much has not yet been done, but this is more because there have been fewer labourers in the field than from want of materials. There are literally thousands of inscriptions in the south which have not been copied, and of those that have been collected only a portion have yet been translated ; but they are such as to give us assurance that, when the requisite amount of labour is bestowed upon them, we shall be able to fix the chronology of the kings of the south with a degree of certainty sufficient for all ordinary purposes.2 It is a far more difficult task to ascertain whether we shall ever recover the History of India before the time of the advent of Buddha. Here we certainly will find no coins or inscriptions to guide us, and no buildings to illustrate the arts, or to mark the position of cities, while all ethnographic traces have become so blurred, if not obliterated, that they serve us little as guides through the labyrinth. Yet on the other hand there is so much literature — such as it is — bearing on the subject, that we cannot but hope that, when a sufficient amount of learning is brought to bear upon it, the leading features of the history of even that period may be recovered. In order, however, to render it available, it will not require industry so much as a severe spirit of criticism to winnow the few grains of useful truth out of the mass of worthless chaff this literature contains. But it does not seem too much to expect even this, from the severely critical spirit of the age. Meanwhile, the main facts of the case seem to be nearly as follows, in so far as it is necessary to state them, in order to make what follows intelligible. ARYANS. At some very remote period in the world's history the Aryas or Aryans3 — a people speaking an early form of Sanskrit — 1 The chronological results have been systematically arranged in that useful handbook.— Duff's 'Chronology of India' (London, 1899). 2 Almost the only person who had done anything in this direction till forty years ago was the late Sir Walter Elliot. Since 1872 the labours of Drs. Fleet, Biihler, Kielhorn, R. G. Bhandarkar and others have thrown a flood of light on the history of southern as well as northern India ; and within the last twenty years Dr. Hultzsch's work among the Tamil inscriptions of Madras has yielded very important chronological and historical information for the south of the penin- sula. The Mysore Government has also issued the great ' Epigraphia Carnatica,' under the direction of Mr. Lewis Rice. 3 We have the word in the ' Aria ' and ' Ariana ' of the Greek writers, applied to the country lying to the north-east of Persia adjoining Baktriana. The early Zoroastrians called their country ' Airy- anavaej6' — the Afya. home, and in the Behistun inscriptions it is styled ' Ariya.' See Lassen, ' Indische Alterthumskunde,' Bd. i. Ss. 5ff. to HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. entered India across the Upper Indus, coming from Central Asia. They were a fair complexioned people as compared with the Aborigines, and for a long time they remained settled in the Panjab, or on the banks of the Sarasvati, then a more important stream than now, the main body, however, still remaining to the westward of the Indus. If, however, we may trust our chronology, we find them settled 150x3 to 2000 years before the Christian Era, in Ayodhya and then in the plenitude of their power. Naturally we look for some light on their early history in the two great Indian epics — the Ramayana recording the exploits of Rama, King of Ayodhya, of the Solar race, and in much later times regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu ; and the Mahabharata celebrating the contest between the Kurus and Pandus, of the Lunar family. Both are steeped in Brahman doctrines, almost certainly inserted in later ages among the original legends. It thus becomes very difficult to separate what belongs to the original spirit and aim of the works from the interpolated materials. The Ramayana is so largely allegorical and cast in the form it has reached us so long after the period to which it refers that it is doubtful whether we can draw any inference with safety from its contents, except that it relates to the spread of Aryan civilisation — which had probably then occupied most of the country north of the Vindhyan range — into southern India, and as far as Ceylon.1 From a very early period the Aryans had, doubtless, become mixed with aboriginal races, and could not be regarded as pure at this period. But whether they formed settlements in the Dekhan or not, it was opened up to them, and by slow degrees imbibed that amount of Brahmanism which eventually pervaded the south. By B.C. 700, or thereabouts, they had begun to be tolerably well acquainted with the whole of the peninsula. The events that form the theme of the western epic — the Mahabharata — may have occurred almost as early as, or even several centuries later than the times of Rama. It opens up an entirely new view of Indian social life. If the heroes of that poem were Aryans at all, they were of a much less pure type than those who composed the songs of the Vedas, or are depicted in the verses of the Ramayana. Their polyandry, their drinking bouts, their gambling tastes, and love of fighting, mark them as a very different race from the peaceful shepherd immigrants of the earlier age, and point much more distinctly towards a Tartar, trans- Himalayan origin, than to the cradle of 1 For some account of the probable spread of the Aryas southwards, see Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar's 'Early History of the Dekhan,' in Bombay Gazetteer (1895), vol. i. pt. ii. pp. I32tf. INTRODUCTION. ii the Aryan stock in Central Asia. We are tempted to ask whether the Pandavas, who conquered in the great strife, were not a confederacy of hostile tribes, headed by a band of warriors of mixed or non-Aryan descent. Their helper and counsellor, KrishnS, is a divinity unknown to the early Aryans, and with him as an incarnation of Vishnu, the Siva, and Brahma, of modern Hinduism, take the place of the older gods. As if to mark the difference of which the warriors themselves felt the existence, they distinguished themselves, by name, as belonging to a Lunar race, distinct from, and generally antagonistic to, the Solar race, which was the proud distinction of the purer and earlier Aryan settlers in India.1 By about B.C. 700, we again find a totally different state of affairs in India. The Aryans no longer exist as a separate nationality, and neither the Solar nor the Lunar race are the rulers of the earth. The Brahmans have become a priestly caste, and share the power with the Kshatriyas, a race of far less purity of descent. The Vai^yas, as merchants and husbandmen, have become a power, and even the Sudras are acknowledged as a part of the body politic ; and — though not mentioned in the Scriptures — the Nagas, or Snake people, had become an influential part of the population. They are first mentioned in the Mahabharata, where they play a most important part in causing the death of Parikshit, which led to the great sacrifice for the destruction of the Nagas of Taksha^ila by Janamejaya, which practically closes the history of the time. Destroyed, however, they were not, for we find Naga dynasties ruling in various parts of Central India and Rajputana from the 7th century B.C., till at least the 4th century A.D.2 Although Buddhism was first taught probably by one belong- ing to the Solar race, and of Aryan blood, and though its first disciples were Brahmans, it had as little affinity with the religion of the Vedas as Christianity had with the Pentateuch, and its fate was the same. The one religion was taught by one of Jewish ex- traction to the Jews ; but it was ultimately rejected by them, and adopted by the Gentiles, who had no affinity of race or religion with the inhabitants of Judaea. Though meant originally, no doubt, for Aryans, the Buddhist religion was ultimately rejected by the Brahmans, who were consequently eclipsed and superseded by it for nearly a thousand years ; and we hear little of them and their religion till they rise again at the court of the great Gupta 1 Orientalists have expressed very varying opinions as to the historical teachings of the epics. See Weber, ' On the Ramayana,' etc. 2 The Naga or Karkota dynasty of Kashmir ruled as late as from about the beginning of the 7th till the middle of the gth century. iz HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. kings in the 4th century A.D., when their religion began to assume that strange shape which it now still retains in India. In its new form it is as unlike the religion of the Vedas as it is possible to conceive one religion being to another ; unlike that, also, of the older portions of the Mahabharata ; but a confused mess of local superstitions and imported myths, covering up and hiding the Vedantic and Buddhist doctrines, which may some- times be detected as underlying it. Whatever it be, however, it was invented by and for as mixed a population as probably were ever gathered together into one country — a people whose feelings and superstitions it only too truly represents. DRAVIDIANS. Although, therefore, as was hinted above, there might be no great difficulty in recovering the main incidents and leading features of the history of the Aryans, from their first entry into India till they were entirely absorbed into the mass of the popula- tion some time before the Christian Era, there could be no greater mistake than to suppose that their history would fully represent the ancient history of the country. The Dravidians are a people who, in historical times, seem to have been probably as numerous as the pure Aryans, and at the present day form one-fifth of the whole population of India. They belong, it is true, to a lower intellectual status than the Aryans, but they have preserved their nationality pure and unmixed, and, such as they were at the dawn of history, so they seem to be now. Their settlement in India extends to such remote pre-historic times, that we cannot feel even sure that we should regard them as immigrants, or, at least, as either conquerors or colonists on a large scale, but rather as aboriginal in the sense in which that term is usually understood. Generally it is assumed that they entered India across the Lower Indus, leaving the cognate Brahui in Baluchistan as a mark of the road by which they came, and, as the affinities of their language seem to be with the Ugrians and Northern Turanian tongues, this view seems probable.1 But they have certainly left no trace of their migra- tions anywhere between the Indus and the Narbada, and all the facts of their history, so far as they are known, would seem to lead to an opposite conclusion. The hypothesis that would represent what we know of their history most correctly would place their original seat in the extreme south, somewhere 1 Dr. Caldwell, the author of the I and most trustworthy advocate of this ' Dravidian Grammar,' is the greatest J view. INTRODUCTION. 13 probably not far from Madura or Tanjor, and thence spread- ing fan-like towards the north, till they met the Aryans in the northern Dekhan. The question, again, is not of much importance for our present purposes, as we do not know to what degree of civilisation they had reached anterior to the Christian Era, or when they were first able to practise the arts of civilised life with such success as to bring them within the scope of a work devoted to the history of art.1 It may be that at some future period, when we know more of the ancient arts of these Dravidians than we now do, some fresh light may be thrown on this very obscure part of history. Geographically, however, one thing seems tolerably clear. If the Dravidians came into India in historical times it was not from Central Asia that they migrated, but from Persia, or some southern region of the Asiatic continent. DASYUS. In addition to these two great distinct and opposite nationa- lities, there exists in India a third, which, in pre-Buddhist times, was as numerous, perhaps even more so, than either the Aryans or the Dravidians, but of whose history we know even less than we do of the two others. Ethnologists have not agreed on a name by which to call them. I have suggested Dasyus,2 a slave people, as that is the name by which the Aryans designated them when they found them there on their first entrance into India, and subjected them to their sway.3 Possibly they were partly of Mongol-Tibetan origin, and partly they may have been a mixed race allied to the Dravidians, and now represented by Gonds, Santals, Bhils, etc. The Dasyus, however, were not mere barbarians ; for they had towns, and traces of at least a partial civilisation ; they had leaders or chiefs possessed of strong fortified retreats, and they possessed treasures of gold and rich jewels.4 Whoever they were they seem to have been a people of less intellectual capacity, less muscular, and less united than their invaders. When the Aryans first entered India they seem to have found them occupying the whole valley of the Ganges — the whole 1 In the ' Ramayana ' the monkey- soldiers are directed to the countries of the Andhras, Pandyas, Cholas, and Keralas, in the south, and are told they will there see the gate of the city of the Pandyas adorned with gold and jewels. 2 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' pp. 244-247. 1 ' Dasyu ' probably meant 'provincial,' 'aboriginal,' and was used much as 'Gentiles,' 'Pagans,' 'Barbarians,' in early times. They are also termed Yadvas, of which we may have a survival in the 'Jats.' A 4 Vivian de Saint Martin's ' Etude sur la Geographic et les populations primi- tives du Nord-ouest de 1'Inde, d'apres les Hymnes vediques.' i4 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. country in fact between the Vindhya and the Himalaya Mountains. At present they are only found in anything like purity in the mountain ranges that bound that great plain. There they are known as Bhils, Gonds, Kandhs, Mundas, Oraons, Hos, Kols, Santals, Nagas, and other mountain and forest tribes. But they certainly form the lowest underlying stratum of the population over the whole of the Gangetic plain. So far as their affinities have been ascertained, they are with the trans - Himalayan population, and it either is that they entered India through the passes of that great mountain range, or it might be more correct to say that the Tibetans are a fragment of a great population that occupied both the northern and southern slope of that great chain of hills at some very remote pre-historic time. Whoever they were, they were the people who, in remote times, were apparently the worshippers of Trees and Serpents ; l but what interests us more in them, and makes the enquiry into their history more desirable, is that it was where the people were largely of this aboriginal stock that Buddhism seems to have been most readily adopted, and it is largely among allied races that it is still adhered to. In Ceylon, Tibet, Burma, Siam, and China — wherever a people allied to the Mongol or Tibetan family exists, there Buddhism flourished and still prevails. But in India a revival of Brahmanism abolished it. Architecturally, there is no difficulty in defining the limits of the Dasyu province : wherever a square tower-like temple exists with a perpendicular base, but a curvilinear outline above, such as that shown in the woodcut (No. i), there we mav feel certain of the existence, past or present, of a people of Dasyu extrac- tion. No one can accuse the pure Aryans of introducing this form into India, or of building temples at all, or of worshipping images of Siva or Vishnu, with which these temples are filled, and they consequently have little title to confer their name on the style. The Aryans had, however, become so impure in blood before these temples were erected, and were so mixed up with the aboriginal tribes whose superstitions had so influenced their religion and their arts that they accepted their temples with their gods. Be this as it may, one thing seems tolerably clear, that the regions occupied by the Aryans in India were conterminous with those of the Dasyus, or, in other words, that the Aryans conquered the whole of the aboriginal or native tribes who occupied the plains of northern India, and ruled over them to such an extent as materially to 1 See ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. iv. pp. 5f. INTRODUCTION. influence their religion and their arts, and also very materially to modify even their language. So much so, indeed, that after some four thousand years of domination we should not be surprised if we have some difficulty in recovering traces of the original population, and could probably not do so, if some fragments of the people had not sought refuge in the hills on the north and south of the great Gangetic plain, and there have remained fossilised, or at least sufficiently permanent for purposes of investigation. i. Hindu Temple, at Bahulara, near Bankura. SAISUNAGA DYNASTY, ABOUT B.C. 650 TO 318. Leaving these, which must, for the present at least, be considered as practically pre-historic times, we tread on surer ground when we approach the period when Buddha was born, and devoted his life to solve the problem of suffering and transmigration. There seems little reason for doubting that he was born about the year 560, taught during the reign of Bimbisara, the fifth king of the SaLrunuga dynasty, and died B.C. 480,1 at the age of eighty, in the eighth year of Ajatajatru, the sixth king.2 New sources of information regarding these 1 Dr. J. F. Fleet, in 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1906, pp. 9845. the dates given are quite near enough. The ' Matsya Purana ' alone inserts • f *r A . * / i -7 — ) t'r" ^^t*. * tit, ifirtta^d. i u; una, luune inseris ces the death or Nirvana of Buddha in the reignsof Kan vSyana— nine years— and B.C. 482, with other connected dates in j Bhumimitra — fourteen years — between >rdance with it. For our purpose | Bimbisara and Ajata-ratru. i6 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. times are opening out, and we may before long be able to recover a fairly authentic account of the political events of that period, and as perfect a picture of the manners and the customs of those days. It is too true, however, that those who wrote the biography of Buddha in subsequent ages so overlaid the narrative of his life with fables and absurdities, that it is now difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff; but we have sculptures extending back to within three centuries of his death, at which time we may fairly assume that a purer tradition may have prevailed. From what has already occurred, we may hope to creep even further back than this, and eventu- ally to find early illustrations which will enable us to exercise so sound a criticism on the books as to enable us to restore the life of Buddha to such an extent as to place it on a basis of credible historicity. Immense progress has been made during the last fifty or sixty years in investigating the origin of Buddhism, and the propagation of its doctrines in India, and in communicating the knowledge so gained to the public in Europe. More, how- ever, remains to be done before the story is complete, and divested of all the absurdities which subsequent commentators have heaped upon it. Still, the leading events in the life of the founder of the religion are simple, and now sufficiently well ascertained for all practical purposes.1 The founder of this religion was claimed by tradition as one of the last of a long line of kings, known as the Solar dynasties, who, from a period shortly subsequent to the advent of the Aryans into India, had held paramount sway in Ayodhya — the modern Oudh. About the I2th or I3th century B.C. they were superseded by another race of much less purely Aryan blood, known as the Lunar race, who transferred the seat of power to capitals situated in the northern parts of the Doab. But the tradition of the royal birth of Sakyamuni can hardly be sustained historically. He seems to have been born at Kapilavastu, at the foot of the Himalayas, as the son of 1 The most pleasing of the histories of Buddha, written wholly from a European point of view, is that of Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Paris. Of those partially native, partly European, are those of Bishop Bigandet, from the Burmese legends, and the ' Romantic History of Buddha,' translated from the Chinese by the Rev. S. Beal. The ' Lalita Vis- tara,' translated by Foucaux, is more modern than these, and consequently more fabulous and absurd. In more recent years a large literature has appeared on the subject. Prof. H. Oldenberg's ' Buddha : his Life, his Doctrine, his Order,' translated from the German by W. Hoey (1882) supplies an able critical estimate of the teacher. Dr. H. Kern's ' History of Buddhism in India' has been translated into French by G. Huet (Paris, 1901-1903); and W. W. Rockhill's 'Life of Buddha, and the Early History of his Order,' 1884, are also valuable works. INTRODUCTION. 17 a petty chief. For twenty-nine years he is represented as enjoying the pleasures, and following the occupations, usual to the men of his rank and position ; but at that age, becoming painfully impressed by the misery incident to human existence, he determined to devote the rest of his life to an attempt to alleviate it. For this purpose he forsook his parents and wife, abandoned friends and the advantages of his position, and, for the following fifty years, devoted himself steadily to the task he had set before himself. Years were spent in the meditation and mortification supposed to be necessary to fit him for his mission ; the rest of his long life was devoted to wandering from city to city, teaching and preaching, and doing everything that gentle means could effect to disseminate the doctrines which he believed were to regenerate the world, and take the sting out of human misery. He died, or, in the phraseology of his followers, entered Nirvana or Parinirvana — was absorbed into nothingness — at Kujinara, in the eightieth year of his age, about 480 years B.C. With the information that has accumulated around the subject, there seems no great difficulty in surmising why the mission of Sakyamuni was so successful as it proved to be. He was born in an age when the purity of the Aryan races, especially in eastern India, had become so deteriorated by intermixture with aborigines, and with less pure tribes coming from the north, that their power, and consequently their distinctive influence was fading away. At that time, too, the native and mixed races had acquired such a degree of civili- sation as led them to claim something like equality with their Aryan masters. In such a condition of things the preacher was sure of a willing audience who ignored caste, and taught that all men, of whatever nation or degree, had an equal chance of reaching happiness, and ultimately Nirvana, by the practice of virtue : in a word — to be delivered from the wearisome bondage of ritual or caste observances and the depressing prospect of interminable transmigration. Aboriginal or Turanian Dasyus, perhaps even more readily than the mixed Aryans, would hail him as a deliverer, and by the former the new religion was specially adopted and propagated, whilst that of the Brahman Aryans was, for a time at least, overshadowed and obscured. It is by no means clear how far Buddha was successful in converting the multitude to his doctrines during his lifetime. At his death, the first synod or council was held at Rajagriha, and five hundred monks of a superior order, it is said, were VOL. i. B i8 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. assembled there on that occasion,1 and if so they must have represented a great multitude. But the accounts of this, and of a second convocation, said, by the southern Buddhists, to have been held one hundred years afterwards at Vaijali, are of doubtful authenticity. Indeed, the whole annals of the .Saijunaga dynasty from the death of Buddha till the accession of Chandragupta, dr. B.C. 320, are about the least satisfactory of the time. Those of Ceylon were falsified in order to make the landing of Vijaya, the alleged first conqueror from Kalinga, coincident with the date of Buddha's death, while a period of some length elapsed between the two events.2 We have annals, and we may possibly recover inscriptions3 and sculptures belonging to this period, and though it is most improbable we shall recover any archi- tectural remains, there are possibly materials existing which, when utilised, may suffice for the purpose. The kings of this dynasty seem to have been considered as of a low caste, and were not, consequently, in favour either with the Brahman or, at that time, with the Buddhist ; and no events which seem to have been thought worthy of being remembered, except the second convocation — the fact of which is doubtful — are recorded as happening in their reigns, after the death of the great Ascetic — or, at all events, of being recorded in such annals as we possess. MAURYA DYNASTY, B.C. 320 TO 180. The case was widely different with the Maurya dynasty, which was certainly one of the most brilliant, and is fortunately one of the best known, of the ancient dynasties of India. The first king was Chandragupta, the Sandrokottos of the Greeks, to 1 See Rockhill, ' Life of the Buddha,' p. 156; Kern's 'Histoire du Bouddhisme dans 1'Inde,' torn. ii. pp. 253ff. (French trans. ). 2 There is an error of about sixty years in the usual date — B.C. 543, derived from the Singhalese chronicles, which is else- where corrected. The revised date may not be precisely correct, but it must be approximately so. * We have no very early Hindu coins ; the earliest are square or oblong punch- marked pieces, which seem to date from about a century before Alexander, and supply no historical data. The late Mr. Ed. Thomas supposed a coin, bearing the name of Amoghabhuti, a Kuninda, belonged to one of the nine Nandas with whom this dynasty closed ('Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' N.S., vol. i. pp. 447ff.). It is now known that such coins do not belong to a date earlier than about B.C. 100. The earliest coins of historical value for India are those of the Grseco-Baktrians and their con- temporaries or successors on the north- west frontier. INTRODUCTION. 19 whom Megasthenes was sent as ambassador by Seleukos, the successor of Alexander in the western parts of his Asiatic empire. It is from his narrative — now unfortunately lost — that the Greeks acquired almost all the knowledge they possessed of India at that period.1 The country was then divided into 120 smaller principalities, but the Maurya residing in Palibothra (Pataliputra) — the modern Patna — seems to have exercised a paramount sway over the whole. It was not, however, this king, but his grandson, the great A^oka (B.C. 262 to 225), who raised this dynasty to its highest pitch of prosperity and power. Though utterly unknown to the Greeks, we have from native sources a more complete picture of the incidents of his reign than of any ancient sovereign of India. The great event that made him famous in Buddhist history was his conversion to that faith, and the zeal he showed in propagating the doctrines of his new religion. He did, in fact, for Buddhism, what Constantine did for Christianity, and at about the same distance of time from the death of the founder of the faith. From a struggling sect he made it the religion of the State, and established it on the basis on which it lasted supreme for nearly 1000 years. In order to render his subjects familiar with the doctrines of his new faith, he caused a series of edicts embody- ing them to be engraved on rocks near Peshawar, in Gujarat, in the valley of the Dun under the Himalayas, in Hazara, in Katak and Ganjam, in Mysore, and other places. He held a great convocation or council of the faithful in his capital at Pataliputra, and, on its dissolution, missionaries were sent to spread the religion in the Yavana country, whose capital was Alexandria, near the present city of Kabul. Others were despatched to Kashmir and Gandhara ; one was sent to the Himawanta — the valleys of the Himalaya, and possibly part of Tibet ; others were despatched to the Maharatta country, and to Mysore, to Vanavasi in Kanara, and to Aparantaka or the north Konkan. Two missionaries were sent to Suvarnabhumi, now known as Thatun on the Sitang river, in Pegu, and, tradition says, his own son and daughter were deputed to Ceylon.2 All those countries, in fact, which might be called foreign, were then sought to be converted to the faith. He also formed alliances with Antiokhos the Great, Antigonos, and with Ptolemy Philadelphos, Alexander of Epeiros, and Magas of Cyrene, 1 For this period, see M'Crindle's | -' All these particulars, it need hardly ' Ancient India as described by Megas thenes and Arrian ' (1877) ; the 'Inva- sion of India by Alexander the Great ' (1896); and ' Ancient India as described in Classical Literature ' (1901). be said, are taken from the 1 2th and 1 5th chapters of the 'Mahawansa,' which relates the traditions of a time six centuries and more before its composition. 20 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. for the establishment of hospitals and the protection of his co-religionists in their countries. More than all this, he built innumerable topes or stupas and monasteries all over the country ; and, though none of those now existing can positively be identified as those actually built by him, there seems no reason for doubting that the sculptured rails at Bodh-Gaya and Bharaut, the caves at Barabar in Bihar, some of those at Udayagiri in Katak, and the oldest of those in the Western Ghats were all erected or excavated during the existence of this dynasty, if not under himself. These, with inscriptions and such histories as exist, make up a mass of materials for a picture of India during this dynasty such as no other can present ; and, above all, they offer a complete representation of the religious forms and beliefs of the kings and people, which render any mistake regarding them impossible.1 It was Buddhism, but without a deified Buddha, and with Tree and Serpent worship cropping up in every unexpected corner. There is certainly no dynasty in the whole range of ancient Indian history that would better repay the labour of an exhaustive investigation than that of these Maurya kings. Not only were they the first in historical times who, so far as we know, united nearly the whole of India into one great kingdom, but they were practically the first who came in contact with European civilisation and Western politics. More than even this, it is probably owing to the action of the third king of this dynasty that Buddhism, from being the religion of an obscure sect, became, at one time, the creed of so large a proportion of the human race, and influenced the belief and the moral feelings of such multitudes of men in Asia. It is to this dynasty, and to it only, that must be applied all those passages in classical authors which describe the internal state of India, and they are neither few nor insignificant. Though the Hindus themselves cannot be said to have contributed much history, they have given us, in the c Mudra-Rakshasa,' 2 a poetical version of the causes of the revolution that placed the Mauryas on the throne. But, putting these aside, their own inscriptions supply us with a perfectly authentic contemporary account of the religious faith and feelings of the period; while the numerous bas-reliefs of the rails at Bodh - Gaya and Bharaut afford a picture of the manners, customs, and costumes of the day, and a gauge by which we can measure their artistic status and judge how far their art was indigenous, how far influenced by foreign 1 For fuller information about Aroka reference may be made to Edm. Hardy's •KonigAsoka,'and V. A. Smith's 'Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of India.' 2 Wilson's ' Hindu Drama,' in 'Works,' vol. xii, pp. 151 et si edition 1871. his INTRODUCTION. 21 elements. The dates of the kings of this dynasty are also approximately known, and the whole framework of their history depends so completely on contemporary native monuments, that there need be no real uncertainty regarding any of the outlines of the picture when once the subject is fairly grasped and thoroughly handled. It is the firmest standpoint we have from which to judge of Indian civilisation and history, whether looking to the past or to the future, and it is one that gives a very high idea of the position at which the Hindus had arrived before they came practically into contact with the civilisation of the West. SUNGA DYNASTY, B.C. 180 TO 70. KANWAYANA DYNASTY, B.C. 70 TO 36. History affords us little beyond the lengths of the kings' reigns for the next two dynasties, and we are obliged to trust to the general correctness with which these are recorded in the Puranas, and by degrees we are collecting inscriptions, and we know of caves that belong to their time, so that we may hope to breathe life into what has hitherto appeared only a dry list of names. Possibly the Kanwas had usurped the power of the Sungas, so that the two families may have been nominally con- temporary during the period assigned to the latter, and that both came to an end about 40 B.C. Anyhow we know that the Andhras had risen to power on the decline of the Mauryas. These dynasties were not, however, apparently known to the Greeks, and possibly, being Buddhist, are passed over in com- parative silence in the Puranas. It is thus only from their monuments that we can hope to recover their history. Up to the present time, the most important inscription discovered is that of a prince Dhanabhuti who " in the time of the Sungas " erected a gateway at the Bharaut stupa. ANDHRA DYNASTY, ABOUT B.C. 170 TO A.D. 220. The dynasty that ruled the Dekhan at least, contemporary with these Rois faineants is — after the Mauryas — the most important of all those about this period of Indian history. To the classical authors they are known as the Andrae, in the Puranas as Andhrabhrityas, and in the inscriptions as .Satakarnis or .Satavahanas ; but under whatever name, notwithstanding occasional periods of depression, they played a most important part in the history of India, during more than four centuries. They were a South-Indian dynasty, first mentioned in a HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. Khandagiri inscription about B.C. I5O.1 Their capital was at DhSnyakataka, on the lower Krishna, close to Amaravati ; but, at a later date, they had a second capital at Paithan on the upper Godavari. They ruled over Malwa and the Dekhan from sea to sea, but about the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd century the provinces north of the Narbada seem to have been conquered by Saka. satraps, who were overthrown about A.D. 125, by Gautamiputra Satakarni, who raised the dynasty to the height of its power. The kings of this race have, however, left many and most interesting inscriptions in the western caves, and traces of their existence occur in many parts of India. Architecturally, their history begins with the gateways of the Tope at Sanchi ; the southern of these was almost certainly erected during the reign of the first Satakarni about the middle of the 2nd century before our era — and the other three in the course of that century. It ends with the com- pletion of the rail at Amaravati, which was probably commenced in the ist century, and completed before the end of the 2nd.2 Between these two monuments there is no great difficulty in filling up the architectural picture from the caves, at Nasik, Kanheri and Ajanta, and other places in western India, and more materials may still eventually be discovered. The history of this dynasty is more than usually interesting for our purposes, as it embraces nearly the whole period during which Buddhism reigned almost supreme in India. It became a State religion, it is true, somewhat earlier under A^oka, but there is no reason for believing that the Vedic religion or Brahmanism then vanished. During four or five centuries, however, after the A-roka Era we have not a trace of a Hindu building or cave, and, so far as any material evidence goes, it seems that Buddhism at the time was the predominant religion of the land. It is not, of course, to be supposed that the Hindu cult was wholly obliterated, but it was dormant, and in abeyance, and, to use a Buddhist expression, the yellow robes shone over the length and breadth of the land. It was during the rule of these Andhras, though not by them, that the fourth convocation was held by Kanishka, in the north of India, and the new doctrine, the Mahayana, 1 ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 88-89. 2 For fuller details of the Sanchi and Amaravati Stupas, the reader is referred to 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' which is practically devoted to a description of them. For a further account of Amaravati, and a rectification of the dates in accordance with later dis- coveries, reference may be made to ' The Amaravati and Jaggayapeta Stupas ' (1887); and to Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar's ' Early Dekhan Dynasties ' in the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. i. pt. ii. INTRODUCTION. 23 introduced by Nagarjuna — a change similar to that made by Gregory the Great when he established the Church, as opposed to the primitive forms of Christianity, at about the same dis- tance of time from the death of the founder of the religion. This convocation was probably held about B.C. 40. Certain at least it is, that it was about, or very soon after, that time that Buddhism was first practically introduced into China, Tibet, and Burma, and apparently by missionaries sent out from this as they were from the A^oka convocation. KSHATRAPAS OF KATHIAWAR, A.D. I2O TO 388. GUPTAS, 320 TO ABOUT 535. VALABHIS, ABOUT 600 TO 770. The Andhras disappear from history early in the 3rd century ; the Kshatrapas of Gujarat held sway in the west for a century and a half longer, when they were superseded by the Gupta dynasty who, at the end of the 4th century of our era, seem to have attained to the position of lords paramount in northern India. They date their inscriptions, which are numerous and interesting, from an era established by the Gupta king, Chandragupta I., dating 242 years after the Saka era of A.D. 78, or in 320 ; but it was not apparently till under the third king, Samudragupta, about 380, that they really obtained the empire of northern India, which they retained till the death of Skandagupta, about the year 465, or it may be a little later.1 It was during the reign of the Guptas that Fah Hian visited India (A.D. 400). As his objects in doing so were entirely of a religious nature, he does not allude to worldly politics, nor give us a king's name we can identify ; but the picture we gather from his narrative is one of peace and prosperity in so far as the country is concerned, and of supremacy generally for his religion. Heretics are, it is true, mentioned occasionally, but they are few and far between. Buddhism was then the religion of the north, especially in the north-west of India ; but even then there were symptoms of a change in the central provinces and outlying parts of the country. It is during their rule that we first perceive in high places the germs of that change which was gradually creeping over the religious system of India. That the Guptas were not inimical to Buddhism may be inferred from the gifts that Amarakardava, an officer of Chandragupta II., made to the 1 The Guptas and their inscriptions have been dealt with by Dr. J. F. Fleet, in his work, ' Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings,' Corp. Inscr. Ind., vol. iii. 24 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. stupa at Sanchi in the year A.D. 412, and recorded on the rail of that Monument, but their other inscriptions, on the lats at Allahabad, Junagadh, and Bhitari, show a decided tendency towards Hinduism of the Vaishnava form, but which was still far removed from the wild extravagances of the Puranas. There seems little doubt that the boar at Eran, and the buildings there, belong to this dynasty, and are consequently among the earliest if not the very oldest temples in India, dedicated to the new religion, which was then raising its head in defiance to Buddhism. From their coins and inscriptions, we may feel certain that the Guptas possessed, when in the plenitude of their power, the whole of northern India with the province of Gujarat, but how far the boasts of Samudragupta (3/0-380) on the Allahabad pillar were justified is by no means clear. If that inscription is to be believed, the whole of the southern country as far as Ceylon, together with, or up to the borders of Asam and Nepal, were subject to their sway. However brilliant it may have been, their power was of short duration. Gujarat, with Kathiawar, from about A.D. 500, was held by the Maitrakas of Valabhi, at first as feudatories of the Guptas, but, as the paramount power declined, the Valabhi chiefs gradually assumed independence, and founded a separate kingdom, which sometimes included western Malwa, and lasted into the middle of the 8th century. Although it was evident in the time of the Guptas that a change was creeping over the religious belief of India, it was not then that the blow was struck which eventually proved fatal, but by a dynasty which succeeded them in Central India. THE SIXTH CENTURY AND AFTER. The Gupta power seems to have given way before the inroads of Sakas or Huns, chiefly under Toramana and his son Mihirakula, who succeeded him about 515, and was a bitter persecutor of the Buddhists in the North- West. A coalition was formed against him, and under Ya^odharman of Ujjain he was totally defeated about 530. At this period the ' Raja- tarangini' describes Vikramaditya-Harsha of Ujjain as sole sovereign of India, the destroyer of the Sakas, and patron of poets, who placed Matrigupta on the throne of Kashmir. It is possible that this Yajodharman and Vikramaditya are only birudas or titles of the same sovereign, who may have ruled till 550 or thereabouts.1 Further, the period seems to suggest 1 Taranitha states that Vikramaditya- I Mlechchhas, massacring them ai Multan, Harsha abolished the teaching of the | and was succeeded by ilia. The Man- INTRODUCTION. that this may have been that Vikramaditya, who, by his liberality and magnificence, acquired a renown among the Hindus, only second to that obtained by Solomon among the Jews. By his patronage of literature and his encouragement of art, his fame spread over the length and breadth of the land, and to this day his name is quoted as the symbol of all that is great and magnificent in India. What is more to our present purpose, he was an undoubted patron of the Brahmanical religion, and no tradition associates his name directly or indirectly with anything connected with Buddhism. Unfortunately we have no buildings which can be attributed to him. But the main fact of a Brahmanical king reigning and acquiring such influence in Central India at that time may be significant of the declining position of the Buddhist religion at that period. His successor, Pratapa-rila-Siladitya's reign would fall about the end of the 6th century, and he is spoken of by Hiuen Tsiang as a patron of Buddhism.1 But it was usual with Hindu kings to show favour to the various sects among their subjects indiscriminately, and the Chinese pilgrim's statement that during his long reign of about sixty years he honoured the Buddhists and their doctrines, is no proof of his personal religious creed. In the beginning of the next century, after a short period of anarchy, we find another Siladitya, Harsha-varddhana, seated on the throne of Kanauj, and, during a prosperous reign of about forty years (606-646), exercising supreme sway in that country. It was during his reign that the Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Tsiang visited India, and gave a much more full and graphic account of what he saw than his predecessor Fah Hian. Nothing can be more characteristic of the state of religious feeling, and the spirit of toleration then prevailing, than the fete given by this king at Prayaga or Allahabad in the year 643, at which the kings of Valabhi and Kamarupa (Asam) were present. The first days of the festival were devoted to the distribution, among the followers of Buddhism, of the treasures accumulated during the previous five years, and then came the turn of the Brahmans, who were treated with equal honour and liberality ; then followed the fete of the other sects, among whom the Jains appear conspicuous. All were feasted and dasor inscriptions of A.D. 532-534, describe Yarodharman as one who ruled from the Brahmaputra to the western ocean, and to whom even Mihirakula paid ^homage. King Bhoja, the patron of Kalidasa and others, may be the same prince under a third name ; and Ballala- mLrra says he reigned for fifty-five or fifty-six years. 1 Conf. 'Journal des Savants,' Oct. 1905, pp. 534-548 ; and Beal, ' Buddhist Records,' vol. ii. pp. 261, 267. 26 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. feted, and sent away laden with gifts and mementoes of the magnificence and liberality of the great king. Pleasant as this picture is to look upon, it is evident that such a state of affairs could hardly be stable, and it was in vain to expect that peace could long be maintained between a rising and ambitious sect, and one which was fast sinking into decay ; apparently beneath the load of an overgrown priest- hood. Accordingly we find that ten years after the death of Harsha troubles supervened as prophesied,1 and the curtain soon descends on the great drama of the history of northern India, not to be raised again for nearly three centuries. It is true, we can still follow the history of the Valabhis for some time longer, and it would be satisfactory if we could fix the date of their destruction with precision, as it was the event which in the Hindu mind is considered the closing act of the drama. If it was destroyed by a foreign enemy, it must have been by the Moslim — perhaps by some expedition under Amru ibn Jamal, the general of Hasham, ibn Amru al Taghlabi, who was ruler of Sindh about 757 to 776.2 Valabhi was a flourishing city in 640, when visited by Hiuen Tsiang, and from that time, till the end of next century, the Moslims were in such power on the Indus, and their historians tell us the events of these years in such detail, that no other foreigner could have crossed the river during that period. If it perished by some internal revolution of convulsion, which is probable, it only shared the fate that overtook all northern India about this period. Strange to say, even the Moslims, then in the plenitude of their power during the Khalifat of Baghdad, retired from their Indian conquests, as if the seething cauldron were too hot for even them to exist within its limits. The more southern dynasty of the Western Chalukyas seem to have retained their power down to about 757, and may, up to that time, have exercised a partial sway to the north of the Narbada, but after that we lose all sight of them for more than two centuries till 973 when the dynasty was restored under Taila II.; while, as a closing act in the great drama, the ' Rajatarangini ' boastfully represents the king of Kashmir — Lalitaditya Muktapida (cir. 725-762) — as defeating Yajovarman of Kanauj, conquering India from north to south, and subjecting all the five kingdoms, into which it was nominally divided, to his imperious sway. We need not stop now to enquire whether this was exactly 1 'Vie et Voyages de Hiouen Thsang,' 'Elliot and Dowson's 'History of trans, by Stanislas Julien, torn. i. p. 215 ; India,' vol. i. p. 444. or Beal, ' Life of Hiuen Tsiang,' p. 156. INTRODUCTION. 27 what happened or not. It is sufficient for present purposes to know that about the middle of the 8th century a dark cloud settled over the north of India, and that during the next two centuries she was torn to pieces by internal troubles, which have left nothing but negative evidence of their existence. During that period the Rashtrakuta kings in the Dekhan, having overthrown the Western Chalukyas, extended their dominions from the Vindhyas to the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers, if not even farther south, waging war with the Cholas. But after fully two centuries of successful domina- tion, they were overthrown in 973 by the later Chalukyas of Maharashtra. In the north were a number of smaller kingdoms as the Chandellas in Bundelkhand, the Kalachuris of Chedi, the Paramaras of Malwa, the Palas of Bengal, etc. When light again appears in the middle of the loth century the scene is wonderfully changed. Buddhism had practically disappeared in the north and west at least, though it still lingered on in Bengal, and Jainism had supplanted it in most places ; but the mass of the people had become followers of Vishnu or Siva. New dynasties had arisen which, though they try to trace their lineage back to the troublous times when Valabhi fell, were new to Indian history. Old India had passed away, and the history of modern India was about to open. The old dynasties had become extinct, and the Rajput races were gaily stepping forward to assume their places — too soon, alas ! to be engaged in a life or death struggle with the most implacable foe to their race and religion that India has ever known. It was a cruel Nemesis that their victories over the Buddhists should soon have been followed by the fatal siege of Somnath in 1025, and the fight on the banks of the Ghaghar in 1193, which practically laid India at the feet of the Moslim invader, and changed the whole course of her subsequent career. But, as hinted above, with the appearance of the Moslim on the scene, our chronological difficulties cease, and the subject need not there- fore be further pursued in this introduction. IMMIGRATIONS. From the above brief sketch of ancient Indian history it may be gathered that it is doubtful whether we shall ever be able to clothe with solid flesh the skeleton of history which is all we possess anterior to the advent of Buddha. It is also possible that pious frauds may have so confused the sequence of events between his death and the rise of the Mauryas, that 28 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. there will be great difficulty in restoring that period to any- thing like completeness. But for the thousand years that elapsed between "the revenge of Chanakya" and the fall of Valabhi the materials are ample, and when sufficient industry is applied to their elucidation there is little doubt that the whole may be made clear and intelligible. It does not fall within the scope of this work to attempt such a task ; but it is necessary to endeavour to make its outlines clear, as, with- out this being done, what follows will be utterly unintelligible ; while, at the same time, one of the principal objects of this work is to point out how the architecture, which is one important branch of the evidence and the best aid we can have to the teaching of history, may be brought to bear on the subject. No direct evidence, however, derived only from events that occurred in India itself, would suffice to make the phenomena of her history clear, without taking into account the successive migrations of tribes and peoples who, in all ages, so far as we know, poured across the Indus from the westward to occupy her fertile plains. As mentioned above, the great master fact that explains almost all we know of the ancient history of India is our know- ledge that two thousand years or more before the birth of Christ a Sanskrit-speaking nation migrated from the valleys of the Oxus and Jaxartes. They crossed the Indus in such numbers as to impress their civilisation and their language on the whole of the north of India, and this to such an extent as practically to obliterate, as far as history is concerned, the original inhabitants of the valley of the Ganges, whoever they may have been. At the time when this migration took place the power and civilisation of Central Asia were concentrated on the lower Euphrates, and the Babylonian empire never seems to have extended across the Karmanian desert to the eastward. The road, consequently, between Baktria and India was open, and nations might pass and re-pass between the two countries without fear of interruption from any other people. If any of the ancient dynasties of Babylonia extended their power towards the East, it was along the coast of Gedrosia, and not in a north-easterly direction. It is, indeed, by no means improbable, as hinted above, that the origin of the Dravidians may be found among some of the Turanian peoples who occupied southern and eastern Persia in ancient times, and who may, either by sea or land, have passed to the western shores of India. Till, however, further information is available, this is mere speculation, though probably in the direction in which truth may hereafter be found. When the seat of power was moved northward to Nineveh, INTRODUCTION. 29 the Assyrians seem to have occupied the country eastward of the Caspian in sufficient force to prevent any further migration. At least, after — say B.C. 1000 — we have no further trace of any Aryan tribe crossing the Indus going eastward, and it seems mainly to have been a consequence of this cutting off of the supply of fresh blood that the purity of their race in India was so far weakened as to admit of the Buddhist reform taking root, and being adopted to the extent it afterwards attained. During the period of the Akhaemenian sway (B.C. 558-334) the Persians certainly occupied the countries about the Oxus in sufficient strength to prevent any movement of the peoples. So essentially indeed had Baktria and Sogdiana become parts of the Persian empire, that Alexander was obliged to turn aside from his direct route to conquer them, as well as the rest of the kingdom of Darius, before advancing on India. Whether it were founded for that purpose or not, the little Greek kingdom of Baktria was sufficiently powerful, while it lasted, to keep the barbarians in check ; but when, about or after B.C. 160, the Yue-chi and other cognate tribes invaded Sogdiana — driving out the Sakas, who next invaded Baktria, and finally, about half a century later, the Yue-chi conquered the whole of Baktria,1 they opened a new chapter in the history of India, the effects of which are felt to the present day. It is not yet quite clear how soon after the destruction of the Baktrian kingdom these Turanian tribes conquered Kabul, and occupied the country between that city and the Indus. Certain it is, however, that they were firmly seated on the banks of that river before the Christian Era, and under the great king Kanishka of the Kushana tribe had become an Indian power of very considerable importance. The date of this king is, unfortunately, one of those puzzles that still remain to be finally solved. It has been held that he was the founder of the Saka. Era, A.D. 78, and that his reign must be placed in the last quarter of the 1st century of our era.2 But this era is only employed generally in the south and east ; and it now seems almost certain that Kanishka's reign began in B.C. 58 — the epoch of what was once known as the ' Malava era,' and later as the 'Vikrama Samvat,' the reckoning in common use in northern India.3 1 See Vivien de St Martin's ' Les Huns i Royal Asiatic Society,' 1907, p. 676. blancs,' Paris, 1849; Franke, ' Beitrage I 2 Fergusson, in 'Journal of the Royal aus chinesischen Quellen zur Kenntniss i Asiatic Society,' N.S. xii. pp. 259-285 ; der Turkvolker und sky then Centralasien' Oldenberg in 'Indian Antiquary,' vol. x. in'Abhandlungender konig. preussischen pp. 213-227. Academic der Wissenschaften,' 1904 — 3 Fleet in ' Journal of the Royal Asiatic summarised in 'Indian Antiquary,' vol. Society,' 1906, pp. 979-992. xxxv. (1906), pp. 33-47 ; 'Journal of the 3o HISTORY OF INDIA ARCHITECTURE. It also appears certain that the power of these Kushan kings spread over the whole of the Panjab, and extended as far at least as Mathura on the Jumna, before the commence- ment of the Christian Era. Apparently the last of them was Vasudeva, who ruled at least till A.D. 42. Soon after him we meet with the name of a king Guduphara or Gondophernes, which appears also in the legend of the Apostle Thomas : an inscription of the 26th year of his reign is dated in the iO3rd of the era, or A.D. 47 1 — when his rule must have extended into the north of the Panjab. Next there followed two (if not three) kings named Kadphises, who may have ruled till the end of the century, after which northern India was divided into separate kingdoms and tribal governments till the rise of the Guptas in the 4th century. Before the end of the first century another horde, known to us only from coins and inscriptions in which they call themselves Kshaharatas or Kshatrapas, occupied the whole of the province of Gujarat ; one of the first of them — Nahapana, for whom we have dates about A.D. 119 and in 124 — extended his power over part of Malwa and the Nasik district. He was overthrown by the Andhra king, Gautamiputra Satakarni, and deprived of the districts south of the Narbada. Soon after, we find another Kshatrapa, named Chashtana, ruling in Malwa, and his successors founded a kingdom of their own. They date their coins and inscriptions from the Saka Era, A.D. 78, and the series extends from about 140 to 388 A.D. It thus happens that this dynasty of Kshatrapas were only finally disposed of by the rise of the Guptas. The whole external history of northern India, from the time of Kanishka to that of Ahmad Shah Durani (1761) is a narrative of a continuous succession of tribes of Skythian origin, pouring across the Upper Indus into India, each more Turanian than the one that preceded it, till the whole culminated in the Mughal conquest of India, in the I5th century, by a people as distinct in blood from the Aryans as any that exist. Of the older races, it seems probable that the Yavanas must be distinguished from the Turanians. They were not Greeks, though their name may be merely a mispronunciation of Ionian. The term seems to have been applied by Indian authors to any foreign race coming from the westward who did not belong to one of the acknowledged kingdoms known to them. The Kambojas seem to have been a people inhabiting the country between Kandahar and Kabul, who, when the tide was setting Grunwedel, ' Buddhist Art in India.' English ed. p, 84. INTRODUCTION. 31 eastward, joined the crowd, and sought settlements in the more fertile countries within the Indus. The Sakas were well known to classical authors as the Sacae, or Skythians. They were pressed on at first by the Yue-chi, and became apparently most formidable during the earlier centuries of the Christian Era. Another important horde were the Ephthalites or White Huns, who came into India apparently in the 5th century, and one of whose kings, named Gollas, if we may trust Cosmas Indicopleustes, was the head of a powerful state in northern India, about the year 53O.1 They, too, seem to have been conquered about the same time by the Hindus, and, as the 6akas, if not the Hiinas,2 were Buddhists, it may have been their destruction that first weakened the cause of that religion, and which led to its ultimate defeat a little more than a century afterwards. During the dark age, 750 to 950, we do not know of any horde passing the Indus. The Muhammadans were probably too strong on the frontier to admit of its being done, and after that age they — and they only — conducted the various invasions which completely changed the face and character of northern India. For seven centuries they were continued, with only occasional interruptions, and at last resulted in placing the Muhammadan power supreme, practically, over the whole of India, but only to fall to pieces like a house of cards, before the touch of Western civilisation. All this, however, is written, and written so distinctly, in so many books, that it need not be recapitulated here. SOUTHERN INDIA. If the records of the ancient history of northern India are unsatisfactory and untrustworthy, those of the southern part of the peninsula are much more so. The Dravidians have no ancient literature like that of the Vedas. They have no traditions which point to any seat of their race out of India, or of their having migrated from any country with whose inhabitants they can claim any kindred. So far as they know, they are indigenous and aboriginal. The utmost extent to which even their traditions extend is to claim for their leading race of kings — the Pandyas — a descent from Arjuna, one of the heroes of 1 'Christian Topography of Cosmas,' translated by Dr. J. W. M'Crindle (Hakluyt Soc.), pp. 370-371. This Gollas seems probably the same as Mihirakula or Mihiragula. - We can hardly hope to discriminate among these foreign invaders between Hunas, Turushkas, .Sakas, Shahis, Daivaputras, etc. , and may regard them together as Indo-Skythians. 32 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. the Mahabharata. He, it is said, when on his travels, married a princess of the land, and she gave birth to the eponymous hero of their race, and hence their name. But in later times all the dynastic families got genealogies framed to trace their descent from gods and early heroes. It is true, indeed, that they pro- duce long lists of kings, which they pretend stretch back till the times of the Pandavas. These were examined by the late Professor Wilson in 1836, and he conjectured that they might extend back to the 5th or 6th century before our era.1 But all that has since come to light has tended to show that even this may be an over-estimate of their antiquity. If, however, " the Choda, Pada, and Keralaputra " of the second edict of Ajoka represent the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, of more modern times, this triarchy existed in the 3rd century B.C. In fact, all we really do know is that, in classical times, there was a " Regio Pandionis " in the country afterwards known as the Pandyan, kingdom of Madhura, and it has been conjectured that the king who sent an embassy to Augustus in B.C. 27 z was not a Porus, which would indicate a northern race, but this very king of the south. Be this, however, as it may, we do know, by the frequent mention of this country by classical authors, that it was at least sufficiently civilised in the early centuries of our era to carry on a consider- able amount of commerce with the western nations, and there is consequently no improbability that one or more powerful dynasties may then have been established in the south. If one, that dynasty was certainly the Pandyan. The Chola and the Chera became important states only at a later date — preceded by the Pallavas. The discovery in 1892, by Mr. L. Rice, of a copy of the Ajoka inscriptions so far south as Mysore, indicates that even in the 3rd century B.C., the Kanarese country was in communication with, and subject to, the Maurya empire ; 3 and the civilisation of the north must even then have penetrated into the south. When we turn to their literature we find little to en- courage any hope that we may penetrate further back into their history than we have hitherto been able to do. Dr Caldwell ascribes the oldest work in the Tamil, or any southern language, to the 8th or pth century of our era,4 and it undoubtedly belongs to the Jains, who are originally a 1 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. iii. p. 202. 2 For an exhaustive description of this subject see Priaulx, ' The Indian Travels of Apollonius of Tyana, and the Indian Embassies to Rome' (London, 1873), pp. 65-87. We are now in a position to prove a connection between the north of India and Rome at that time. With the south it seems to have been only trade, but of this hereafter. 3 ' Epigraphia Carnatica,' vol. xi. pp. if. ' Dravidian Grammar,' 2nd ed. London, 1875, pp. 129 et seqq. INTRODUCTION. 33 northern sect. According to the same authority, it was super- seded by a Vaishnava literature about the I2th or I3th century, and that again made way for one of Saiva tendency about the latter date. There is no trace left of any Buddhist literature in the south, and but little, consequently, that would enable us to connect the history of the south with the chronology of Ceylon or northern India, nor am I aware of the existence of ancient Buddhist monuments south of the Krishna river which would help us in this difficulty.1 Not having passed through Baktria, or having lived in contact with any people making or using coins, the Dravidians had none of their own, and consequently that source of informa- tion is not available. Whatever hoards of ancient coins have been found in the Madras Presidency have been of purely Roman origin, brought there for the purpose of trade, and buried to protect them from spoliation. The inscriptions, which are literally innumerable all over the Presidency, are the one source from which we can hope that new light may be thrown on the history of the country, but, with the exception of the edicts of A-roka found in Mysore, none of these inscriptions hitherto brought to light go further back than the 5th or 6th century, and it is not clear that earlier ones may be found.2 It is, at all events, the most hopeful field that lies open to future explorers in these dark domains ; and, by the labours of epigraphists within the last thirty years, most important light has been derived from them for the mediaeval history of southern India. Those on the raths of Mamallapuram and the caves at Badami, are in Sanskrit, and consequently look more like an evidence of the northern races pushing southward than of the southern races extending their influence northward. From a study of the architecture of the south we arrive at the same conclusions as to the antiquity of Dravidian civilisation that Dr Caldwell arrived at from a study of their literature. The most important Buddhist monument yet discovered in the 1 The Buddhist tower at Negapattam, destroyed in 1867, will be noticed in Book I. chap. vi. p. 206. a The Government of Mysore, with laudable beneficence, employed Mr. L. Rice with a staff of pandits for many years, collecting and publishing the inscriptions found in the state. The results fill twelve volumes, forming the 'Epigraphia Carnatica' (1886-1905), and when properly studied and analysed, these must yield valuable results. For Madras, Dr. E. Hultzsch was engaged VOL. I. in 1886 to collect the Tamil, Kanarese, and Telugu inscriptions of the Pre- sidency, and the results of his work were published in six fasciculi of ' South Indian Inscriptions' (3 vols. 1890-1903), and, partly — with numerous Sanskrit records from the other presidencies, — in the 'Epigraphia Indica,' vol. iii. el stqq. Previous to 1894, many Sanskrit and Canarese inscriptions were published in the 'Indian Antiquary' (vols. i.-xxiii.), and in the ' Epigraphia Indica,' vols. i. and ii. 34 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. Presidency is that at Amaravati, on the Krishna ; and from that vicinity northwards to Orissa there are remains showing that there must have been flourishing communities there both of Buddhists and Jains in early times. Whether the prevalence of such structures in this region was due to a colony or settle- ment formed by the northern Buddhists, at or near their port of departure for Java and their eastern settlements, may be doubted. The Andhras who ruled over the districts, were either Buddhists or very liberal patrons of the sect. At Guntupalle in the Godavari district have been found a group of rock-cut caves, a structural chaitya, and a stupa, whilst at Chezarla, in the Nellor district, another chaitya has been discovered almost entire, though now used as a Hindu shrine.1 And remains of stupas have been excavated in the Kistna district — at Jaggayyapeta, Bhattiprolu, Gudivada, Guntupalle and Ghantarala ; 2 unfortun- ately they have been utterly destroyed — some within living memory.3 The rock-cut temples at Badami and Mamallapuram are the works of Hindus in the 6th and /th centuries, and the structural temples of Kailasanath and Vaikunthaperumal at Conjivaram are of nearly the same age, and, with some others, they help materially to illustrate the history of the style till the 8th century. From that time forward their building activity was enormous. The style culminated in the i6th and I7th centuries, to perish in the 1 8th. When the history of the south does acquire something like consistency it takes the form of a triarchy of small states. The eldest and most important, that of Madura — so called after Mathura (or Muttra) on the Jamna — was also the most civilised, and continued longest as a united and independent kingdom. The Cholas rose into power on the banks of the Kaveri, and to the northward of it, about the year 1000, though no doubt they existed as a small state about Conjivaram for some centuries before that time. The third, the Chera, were located on the west coast, extending from the Tulu country southwards, and including Malabar and most of Travankor. Tradition assigns to them a dynasty of kings called Perumals which ended in the 9th century. Chola and Chalukya inscriptions speak of their being frequently defeated, but we have no inscriptions of any 1 See below Book I. chap. v. p. 166. These very interesting structures were surveyed several years ago, but the results have not yet been fully published. The caves are Buddhist of an early type. 2 'South Indian Buddhist Antiquities,' by A. Rea, 1894 ; ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 323-329. 3 The Gudivada and Bhattiprolu stupas, were demolished by the Public Works officers about thirty-six years ago, for bricks to use in road-making, and the marbles of the latter were built into the walls and floor of the Vellatur sluice, or burnt for lime. — ' Madras Government Orders,' No. 1620, of 1st Nov. 1878. INTRODUCTION. 35 Chera sovereign and, as yet, know very little for certain of their history. With the other southern states, they were, however, superseded, first by the Cholas, about A.D. 1000, and finally eclipsed by the Hoysala Ballalas, a century or so afterwards. These last became the paramount power in the south, till their capital — Halebid — was taken, and their dynasty destroyed by the Muhammadans, in the year 1310. With the appearance of the Muhammadans on the scene the difficulties of Indian chronology disappear in the south, as well as in the north. From that time forward the history of India is found in such works as those written by Firishta or Abul Fazl, and has been abstracted and condensed in numerous books in almost every European language. There are still, it must be confessed, slight discrepancies and difficulties about the sequence of some events in the history of the native principalities.1 These, however, are not of such importance as at all to affect, much less to invalidate, any reasoning that may be put forward regarding the history or affinities of any buildings, and this is the class of evidence which principally concerns what is written in the following pages. SCULPTURE. In order to render the subject treated of in the following pages quite complete, it ought, no doubt, to be preceded by an introduction describing first the sculpture and then the mythology of the Hindus in so far as they are at present known to us. There are in fact few works connected with this subject more wanted at the present day than a good treatise on these subjects. When Major Moor published the ' Hindu Pantheon ' in 1810, the subject was comparatively new, and the materials did not exist in this country for a full and satisfactory illustration of it in all its branches. When, in 1832, Coleman published his 'Mythology of the Hindus,' he was enabled from the more recent researches of Colebrooke and Wilson, to improve the text considerably, but his illustrations are very inferior to those of his predecessor. Moor chose his from such bronzes or marbles as existed in our museums, and from an important private collection he formed principally in western India.2 Coleman's were generally taken from modern drawings, or the tawdry plaster images made for the Durga puja of Bengali Babus.3 By the aid of photography Much information on the history of : descendants in Suffolk, these states will be found in Elliot and j 3 Similarly the small work — ' Hindu Dowson's 'History of India,' and in other recent works. 2 His collection, brought from Bombay a century ago, is still preserved by his Mythology, Vedicand Puranic,' by W. J. Wilkins (Calcutta, 1893), is illustrated solely from modern bazar pictures. 36 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. any one now attempting the task would be able to select perfectly authentic examples from Hindu temples of the best age. If this were done judiciously, and the examples carefully reproduced, it would not only afford a more satisfactory illustration of the mythology of the Hindus than has yet been given to the public, but it might also be made a history of the art of sculpture in India, in all the ages in which it is known to us. From its very nature, it is evident that sculpture can hardly ever be so important as architecture as an illustration of the progress of the arts, or the affinities of nations. Tied down to the reproduction of the immutable human figure, sculpture hardly admits of the same variety, or the same development, as such an art as architecture, whose business it is to administer to all the varied wants of mankind, and to express the multifarious aspirations of the human mind. Yet sculpture has a history, and one that can at times convey its meaning with considerable distinctness. No one, for instance, can take up such a book as that of Cicognara,1 and follow the gradual development of the art as he describes it, from the first rude carvings of the Byzantine school, till it returned in the present day to the mechanical perfection of the old Greek art, though without its ennobling spirit, and not feel that he has before him a fairly distinct illustration of the progress of the human mind during that period. Sculpture in India may fairly claim to rank, in power of expression, with mediaeval sculpture in Europe, and to tell its tale of rise and decay with equal distinctness ; but it is also interesting as having that curious Indian peculiarity of being written in decay. The story that Cicognara tells is one of steady forward progress towards higher aims and better execution. The Indian story is that of backward decline, from the sculptures of the Bharaut and Amaravati topes, to the illustrations of Coleman's or Wilkins's ' Hindu Mythology.' When Hindu sculpture first dawns upon us in the rails at Bodh-Gaya, and Bharaut B.C. 200 to 250, it is thoroughly original, almost without a trace of foreign influence, but quite capable of expressing its ideas, and of telling its story with a distinctness that never was surpassed — at least in India. Some animals, such as elephants, deer, and monkeys, are better represented there than in any sculpture known in any part of the world ; so, too, are some trees, and the architectural details are cut with an elegance and precision which are very admirable. The human figures, too, though very different from our standard of beauty and grace, are truthful to nature, and, where grouped together, combine to express the action intended with singular felicity. 1 ' Storia della Scultura, dal suo risorgimento in Italia sino al seculo di Napoleone.' Venezia, 1813. INTRODUCTION. 37 For an honest purpose-like pre-Raphaelite kind of art, there is probably nothing much better to be found elsewhere. The art had apparently begun to decline when the gateways at Sanchi were executed somewhat later ; but whether this was not mainly due to the more refractory character of the stone, and a different school of workmen, it is hard to say. They may then have gained a little in breadth of treatment, but it had lost in delicacy and precision. Its downward progress was, how- ever, arrested, apparently by the rise, in the extreme north-west of India, of a school of sculpture strongly impregnated with the traditions of classical art. The Graeco-Baktrians, driven out by the Yue-chi, continued to hold some sort of domination in Afghanistan till not very long before our era, and a vast inter- change of ideas was, at that period, carried on between the east and west by means of newly - opened highways. Thus Greek models and art became familiar, and when once a demand arose for such workmanship, a school of art would appear. For the present it is sufficient to know that a quasi-classical school of sculpture did exist in the Panjab, and to the west of the Indus during the first four centuries after Christ, and it can hardly have flourished there so long, without its presence being felt in India.1 Its effects were certainly apparent at Amaravati in the 1st and 2nd centuries, where a school of sculpture was developed, partaking of the characteristics of both those of Central India and of the west. Though it may, in some respects, be inferior to either of the parent styles, the degree of perfection reached by the art of sculpture at Amaravati may probably be considered as the culminating point attained by that art in India. When we meet it again in the early Hindu temples, and later Buddhist caves, it has lost much of its higher aesthetic and phonetic qualities, and frequently resorts to such expedients as giving dignity to the principal personages by making them double the size of less important characters, and of distinguish- ing gods from men by giving them more heads and arms than mortal man can use or understand. All this is developed, it must be confessed, with considerable vigour and richness of effect in the temples of Orissa and of Mysore, down to the I3th or I4th century. After that, in the north it was checked by the presence of the Moslims ; but, in the south, some of the most remarkable groups and statues — and they are very remarkable — were executed after this time, 1 For some account of Buddhist art in Gandhara and of early Indian sculpture, see Grunwedel's ' Buddhist Art in India,' Eng. translation (Quaritch, 1901). A work on 'Indian Sculpture and Painting,' by Mr E. B. Havell, has recently been published by Mr Murray. 38 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. and continued to be executed, in considerable perfection, down to the middle of the i8th century. As we shall see in the sequel, the art of architecture continues to be practised with considerable success in parts of India remote from European influence ; so much so, that it requires a practised eye to discriminate between what is new and what is old. But the moment any figures are introduced, especially if in action, the illusion vanishes. No mistake is then possible, for the veriest novice can see how painfully low the art of sculpture has fallen. Were it not for this, some of the modern temples in Gujarat and Central India are worthy to rank with those of past centuries ; but their paintings and their sculptured decorations excite only feelings of dismay, and lead one to despair of true art being ever again revived in the East. To those who are familiar with the principles on which these arts are practised, the cause of this difference is obvious enough. Architecture being a technic art, its forms may be handed down traditionally, and its principles practised almost mechanically. The higher phonetic arts, however, of sculpture and painting admit of no such mechanical treatment. They require individual excellence, and a higher class of intellectual power of expression, to ensure their successful development. Architecture may, consequently, linger on amidst much political decay ; but, like literature, the phonetic arts can only be successfully cultivated where a higher moral and intellectual standard prevails than, it is feared, is at present to be found in India. MYTHOLOGY. Whenever any one will seriously undertake to write the history of sculpture in India, he will find the materials abundant and the sequence by no means difficult to follow ; but, with regard to mythology, the case is different. It cannot, however, be said that the materials are not abundant for this branch of the enquiry also ; but they are of a much less tangible or satisfactory nature, and have become so entangled, that it is extremely difficult to obtain any clear ideas regarding them ; and it is to be feared they must remain so, until those who investigate the subject will condescend to study the architecture and the sculpture of the country as well as its books. The latter contain a good deal, but they do not contain all the information available on the subject, and they require to be steadied and confirmed by what is built or carved, which alone can give precision and substance to what is written. It is remarkable that, with all the present day activity in every branch of Sanskrit research, so very little has been done for the illustration of mythology, which is so intimately INTRODUCTION. 39 connected with the whole literature. It would be a legitimate part of the duty of the Archaeological Surveys to collect materials on a systematic plan for this object ; and the production of illustra- tions has now become so easy and inexpensive that photographs from original materials of a satisfactory class might readily be published to supply this most pressing desideratum. The details of the emblems and symbols of the numerous divinities of the pantheon could also be collected, along with the delinea- tions, by those familiar with such symbols. All this could easily be accomplished, and it is consequently hoped it may before long be attempted.1 Much of the confusion of ideas that prevails on this subject no doubt arises from the exaggerated importance it has been the fashion to ascribe to the Vedas, as explaining everything connected with the mythology of the Hindus. It would, indeed, be impossible to over-estimate the value of these writings from a philological or ethnological point of view. Their discovery and elaboration have revolutionised our ideas as to the migra- tions of races in the remote ages of antiquity, and established the affiliation of the Aryan races on a basis that seems absolutely unassailable ; but it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the Aryans are a race of strangers in India, distinct from the Indian peoples themselves. They may, as hinted above, have come into India some three thousand years before Christ, and may have retained their purity of blood and faith for many generations ; but with the beginning of the political Kaliyug — or, to speak more correctly, at the time of the events detailed in the Mahabharata, say 1200 years B.C. — they had lost much of both ; while every successive wave of immigration that has crossed the Indus during the last three thousand years has impaired the purity of their race. From this cause, and from their admixture with the aborigines, it may probably be with confidence asserted that there is not now five per cent. — perhaps not one — of pure Aryan blood in the present population of India, nor, consequently, does the religion of the Vedas constitute one-twentieth part of the present religion of the people.2 With the Vedas, however, we have very little to do in the present work. The worship they foreshadow is of a class too purely intellectual to require the assistance of the stonemason and the carver to give it expression. The worship of the 1 Numerous excellent illustrations exist among the materials already accumulated by the Archseological Surveys in Southern and Western India and in the Calcutta Museum — but, at present, there seems little prospect of their publication. ? For the mythology of the Vedas, see Professor A. A. Macdonell's ' Vedic Mythology ' in the ' Grundriss der indo- arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde,' in Bd. iii. A useful general handbook is Dowson's ' Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, ' 4o HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. Aryans was addressed to the sun and moon ; the firmament and all its hosts ; the rain-bearing cloud ; the sun-ushering dawn. All that was beautiful in the heavens above or beneficent on earth, was sung by them in hymns of elevated praise, and addressed in terms of awe or endearment as fear or hope pre- vailed in the bosom of the worshipper.1 Had this gone on for some time longer than it did, the objects worshipped by the Aryans in India might have become imaged as gods, like those of Greece and Rome, endowed with all the feelings and all the failings of humanity. In India it was otherwise ; the deities were dethroned, but were not degraded. There is no trace in Vedic times, so far as at present known, of Indra or Varuna, of Agni or Ushas, being represented in wood or stone, or of their requiring houses or temples to shelter them. It is true indeed that the terms of endearment in which they are addressed are frequently such as mortals use in speaking of each other ; but how otherwise can man express his feeling of love or fear, or address his supplication to the being whose assistance he implores ? The great beauty of the Veda is, that it stops short before the powers of nature are dwarfed into human forms, and when every man stood independently by himself, and sought through the intervention of all that was great or glorious on the earth, or in the skies, to approach the great spirit that is beyond and above all created things. Had the Aryans been a numerical majority in India, and able to preserve their blood and caste in tolerable purity, the religion of India could hardly ever have sunk so low as it did, though it might have fallen below the standard of the Veda. What really destroyed it was, that each succeeding immigration of less pure Aryan or of Turanian races rendered their numerical majority relatively less and less, while their inevitable influence so educated the subject races as to render their moral majority even less important. These processes went on steadily and uninterruptedly till, in the time of Buddha, the native religions rose fairly to an equality with that of the Aryans, and after- wards for a while eclipsed it. The Vedas were only ultimately saved from absolute annihilation in India, by being connected with the Vaishnava and »Saiva superstitions, where their inanimate forms may still be recognised, but painfully degraded from their primitive elevation. When we turn from the Vedas, and try to investigate the origin of those religions that finally absorbed the Vedas in 1 The ritual of the Veda is chiefly, if not wholly, addressed to the elements, particu- larly to fire. — H. H. Wilson, 'Asiatic Re- searches,' vol. xvii. p. 194 ; ibid., p. 614. Conf. Bergaigne, 'La Religion Vedique' ; Oldenburg, ' Die Religion des Veda, ' INTRODUCTION. their abominations, we find our means of information painfully scanty and unsatisfactory. As will appear in the sequel, all that was written in India that is worth reading was written by the Aryans ; what was built was built by Turanians and Dravidians. But the known buildings extend back only to the 3rd century B.C., while the books may be ten centuries earlier, and, as might be expected, it is only accidentally and in the most contemptuous terms that the proud Aryans even allude to the abject Dasyus or their religion. What, therefore, we practically know of them is little more than inferences drawn from results, and from what we now see passing in India. Notwithstanding the admitted imperfection of materials, it seems to be becoming more and more evident, that we have in the north of India one great group of native religions, which we know in their latest developments as the Buddhist, Jaina, and Vaishnava religions. The first named we only know as it was taught by vSakyamuni before his death about 480 B.C., but no one I presume supposes that he was the first to invent that form of belief, or that it was not based on some preceding forms. The Buddhists themselves, accord- ing to the shortest calculation, admit of four preceding Buddhas — according to the more formal accounts, of twenty-four. A place is assigned to each of these, where he was born, and where he died, the father and mother's name is recorded, and the name, too, of the Bodhi - tree under whose shade he attained Buddhahood. The dates assigned to each of these are childishly fabulous, but they may have been real personages, whose dates extended back to a very remote antiquity.1 The Jains, in like manner, claim the existence of twenty- four Tirthankars, including Mahavira the last. Their places of birth and death, ages and numbers of converts, are equally recorded, all are in northern India, though little else is told of them ; but, from their fabulous ages, stature, and the immeasurable periods of the past when they are said to have lived — they can only be looked on as purely fabulous. The series ends with Mahavira, who was the contemporary of vSakyamuni, and is said to have died before him at Pawa in Bihar. The Vaishnava series is shorter, consisting of only ten Avatars ; but it, too, closes at the same time, Buddha himself being the ninth, whilst the last is yet to come. Its fifth 1 A list of the twenty-four Buddhas, with these particulars, is given in the introduction to Tumour's ' Mahawansa,' introd. p. 32. See also Spence Hardy's ' Manual of Budhism,' 2nd. ed. pp. 96ff. Representations of six or seven of their Bodhi-trees, with the names attached, have been found at Bharaut and AjantS, showing at least that more than four were recognised, HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. Avatar takes us back to Rama, who, if our chronology is correct, may have lived B.C. 2000 ; the fourth — Narasimha, or the man lion — may possibly point to the time the Aryans entered India. The three first deal with creation and events anterior to man's appearance on earth. In this respect the Vaishnava list differs from the other two. They only record the exist- ence of men who attained greatness by the practice of virtue, and immortality by teaching the ways of emancipation from rebirths. The Vaishnavas brought their god to earth, to mix and interfere in mundane affairs in a manner that neither the earlier Aryan nor the Buddhist dreamt of, and so degraded the earlier religion of India into the monstrous system of idolatry that now prevails in that country. No attempt, so far as I know, has been made to explain the origin of the .Saiva religion ; it was, however, most probably an aboriginal superstition assimilated by the Brahmans. The earliest authentic written allusion to it seems to be that of the Indian ambassador to Bardisanes (cir. A.D. 220), who described a cave in the north of India which contained an image of a god, half-man, half-woman.1 This is beyond doubt the Ardhanama form of Siva, so familiar afterwards at Elephanta and in every part of India. The earliest engraved representations of this god seem to be those on the coins of Kadphises II. (about 80 to 90 A.D.), where the figure with the trident and the Bull certainly prefigure the principal personage in this religion.2 Besides all this, it seems now tolerably well ascertained, that the practice of endowing gods with a multiplicity of limbs took a much greater development in Tibet and the trans-Himalayan countries than in India, and that the wildest Tantric forms of Durga and other divinities or demons are more common and more developed in Nepal and Tibet than they are even in India Proper.3 If this is so, it seems pretty clear, as the evidence now stands, that Saivism is an aboriginal or northern superstition — possibly introduced into India by some of the northern hordes who migrated into India long before the Christian Era. It is also only too true that no attempt has yet been made to ascertain what the religion of the Dravidians was before they adopted either the Jaina or the Vaishnava or Saiva forms of religion. It is possible that among the Pdndu Kallus, and other forms of ' Rude Stone Monuments ' that are found every - 1 Stobseus, ' Physica,' Gaisford's ed. p. 54 ; see also Priaulx, ' India and Rome,' p. 153; Burgess, 'Rock-Temples of Elephanta,' 8vo ed. p. 67. 8 Wilson's ' Ariana Antiqua,' plates 10, 1 1 ; P. Gardner's ' Coins of the Greek a.nd Scythic Kings of Bactria and India,' pp. 124-128, plate 25, and introd. p. 50. 3 Compare Griinwedel's ' Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet and der Mongolei. ' Buddhist figures have been subjected to the same treatment as the gods : to make them demoniac, INTRODUCTION. 43 where in the south, we may find the fossil remains of the old Dravidian religion before they adopted that of the Hindus. These monuments, however, have not been examined with anything like the care requisite for the solution of a complex problem like this, and till it is done we must rest content with our ignorance.1 In the north we have been somewhat more fortunate, and enough is now known to make it clear that, so soon as enquirers apply themselves earnestly to the task, we may know enough to make the general outline at least tolerably clear. When I first published my work on ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' in 1869, no one suspected, at least no one had hinted in type, that such a form of religion existed in Bengal. Since that time, however, so much has been written on the subject, and proofs have accumulated with such rapidity, that few will now be bold enough to deny that Trees were worshipped in India in the earliest times, and that a Naga people did exist, especially in the north - west, who had a strange veneration for snakes. In the Buddhist legends, Buddha is constantly represented as converting Nagas, and whilst a superhuman character is ascribed to them, they doubtless represent people of Turanian descent.2 Further, snake worship is prevalent still, especially among the lower castes, and, though to a less extent, yet somehow connected with it, is the veneration of trees.3 It is also quite certain that underlying Buddhism we everywhere find evidence of a stratum of Tree and Serpent Worship. Sometimes it may be repressed and obscured, but at others it crops up again, and, to a certain extent, the worship of the Tree and the Serpent, at some times and in certain places, almost supersedes that of the founder of the religion himself. The five, or seven, or thousand-headed Naga is everywhere 1 A book was published in 1873 by the late Mr. Breeks, of the Madras Civil Service, on the Primitive -Tribes of the Nilagiris, which gives a fuller account of these "rude stone monu- ments" than any other yet given to the public. It can hardly, however, be accepted as a solution of the problem, which requires a wider survey than he was able to make. See also Fergusson's 'Rude Stone Monuments' (1872), pp. 455-499- '2 The Nagbansis of Chutia Nagpur, who appear to have come from about Gorakh- pur in northern Bihar, are evidently of an early Naga or snake - worshipping 3 In Malabar, " a clump of wild jungle trees luxuriantly festooned with graceful creepers is usually found in the south- west corner of the gardens of all respect- able Malayali Hindus. The spot is left free to nature to deal with as she likes ; every tree and bush, every branch and twig is sacred. This is the 'viskdttnm kdvu ' (poison shrine) or ' ndga kotta ' (snake shrine). Usually there is a granite stone (chittra kuta ka/lu) carved after the fashion of a cobra's hood set up and consecrated in this waste spot." — Logan's ' Malabar,' vol. i. p. 183. For some account of Trees worshipped in Western India, see Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ix. pt. i. pp. 382-388, 44 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. present in the temples of the Jains, and pervades the whole religion of the Vaishnavas.1 In the great act of creation the Naga performs the principal part in the churning of the ocean, and in almost every representation of Vishnu he appears either as supporting and watching over him, or as performing some subsidiary part in the scene. It is, in fact, the Naga that binds together and gives unity to this great group of religions, and it is the presence of the Tree and Serpent worship under- lying Buddhism, Jainism, and Vaishnavism that seems to prove almost incontestably that there existed a people in the north of India, whether we call them Dasyus, Kolarians, or by any other name, who were Tree and Serpent worshippers, before they adopted any of the later Hindu forms of faith. Nothing can be more antagonistic to the thoughts and feelings of a pure Aryan race than such forms of worship, and nothing more completely ante-Vedic than its rites.2 We seem, then, almost forced to assume that it was an aboriginal superstition in the north of India, and it was the conversion of the people to whom it belonged that gave rise to that triarchy of religions that have competed with each other in the north during the last two thousand years. This solution of the difficulty has the further advantage that it steps in at once clearly to explain what philology is only dimly guessing at, though its whole tendency, as well as that of ethnology, now seems in the same direction. If this view of the mythology be correct, it seems certain that there existed in the north of India, before the arrival of the Aryans, a people whose affinities were all with the Tibetans, Burmese, Siamese, and other trans - Himalayan populations, and who were not Dravidians, though they may have been intimately connected with one division at least of the inhabitants of Ceylon. Both the pre- Aryan races of India belonged to the 1 Snake worship may have been intro- duced into the south from the north ; and it has been remarked that snake images are very frequent about Jaina temples in Mysore and Kanara. At Negapatam is a temple dedicated to Naganath, and at Subrahmanya in South Kanara, at Nagarkoil, at Manarchal in Travankor, and elsewhere, are also snake temples much resorted to. No Brahman ever officiates in a Naga temple. See also Thurston, ' Ethnographic Notes in Southern India,' 1906, pp. 283-293. 2 Though .Siva is always represented with a black snake as one of his symbols there does not seem to be any very close connection between Snake worship and .Saivism, though there are some coinci- dences that may point that way ; in Kanara, Naga images are set up facing the east, under the shade of two pipal trees — a male and female growing together and married with proper rites. Beside them grow a margosa and bilva tree as witnesses ; now these latter trees are more or less consecrated to Siva. On the other hand no trace of Tree-worship seems to be mingled with the various forms of adoration paid to this divinity. The tulasi or basil is sacred to Vishnu. INTRODUCTION. 45 Turanian group ; but, as hinted above, the Dravidians belonged to a different and more westerly branch of that great family of mankind. These, however, are speculations which hardly admit of proof in the present state of our knowledge, and would con- sequently be quite out of place here, were it not that some such theory seems indispensable to explain the phenomena of the architectural history of India. That of the north is so essentially different from that of the south that they cannot possibly belong to the same people. Neither of them are Aryan ; and unless we admit that the two divisions of the country were occupied by people essentially different in blood, though still belonging to the building races of mankind, we cannot possibly understand how they always practised, and to the present employ, styles so essentially different. Until these various ethnographical and mythological problems are understood and appreciated, the styles of architecture in India seem a chaos without purpose or meaning. Once, however, they are grasped and applied, their history assumes a dignity and importance far greater than is due to any merely aesthetic merits they may possess. Even that, how- ever, is in many respects remarkable, and, when combined with the scientific value of the styles, seems to render them as worthy of study as those of any other people with whose arts we are acquainted. STATISTICS. It would add very much to the clearness of what follows if it were possible to compile any statistical tables which would represent with anything like precision the mode in which the people of India are distributed, either as regards their religious beliefs or their ethnographical relations. The late census of 1901 has afforded a mass of material for this purpose, but the information is distributed through some thirty folio volumes, in such a manner as to make it difficult to abstract what is wanted so as to render it intelligible to the general reader. Even, however, if this were done, the result would hardly, for several reasons, be satisfactory. The uneducated masses have hazy ideas even with regard to their religion, and can hardly be expected to know to which of the larger sections of Hinduism their particular sect belongs. Hence, in the tables we are given the enumeration of the members of numerous Hindu sects, but not classified under Saiva, Vaishnava, etc., though these larger groups are the most interesting for us. 46 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. The census results for all India may be briefly stated as follows : British Provinces in India . 221,409,000 Burma .... 10,490,000 Native States . . . 62,462,000 TOTAL . . 294,361,000 Notwithstanding difficulties or defects, it may be useful to state here that the population of the whole of India, inclusive of Burma — when arranged by religions — was found to stand as follows : Hindus of all sects . . 207,147,000, or 7-1 oths Musalmans . . . 62,458,000, or fully i-5th Buddhists — mostly in Burma 9,477,000, scarcely i-soth Primitive or Animistic . 8,584,000, about i-34th Christians .... 2,923,200, about i-ggth Sikhs .... 2,195,300, about i-i34th Jains 1,334,200, about r-22Oth Parsis, Jews, and others . 242,300, about i-i2ooth The tables of this census also afford us some information with regard to the distribution of races among the people, though it could not be expected that the ethnological survey should yet be able to organise a satisfactory census of the races, though the distribution of languages helps us somewhat. Here, however, it is to be borne in mind that, especially in northern India, many aboriginal or non-Aryan tribes have changed their language for one of the Sanskritic family spoken by their neighbours. Hence we must regard the Indo- Aryan group of languages as including a vast number of people of Turanian and mixed descent. The tables show that upwards of 221,000,000 speak Indo- Aryan tongues — including Baloch, Pashtu, Marathi, Bengali, etc. — that is about three-fourths of the entire population, whilst close on 60,000,000 or a fifth are Dravidians and Kolarians, Gonds, Brahuis, etc., which the census has grouped together as a Dravida - Munda group. Lastly, the Indo-Chinese and Malayan, including Tibetan, Burmese, etc., number 11,720,000, or about four per cent, of the whole. The first linguistic group includes, of course, the Muham- madans ; but we know that many of the Moslims of India were recruited from slaves purchased and brought up in the creed of their masters. In Bengal especially, where they are most numerous, they are Bengalis pure and simple, many perhaps most, of whom have adopted that creed quite recently from motives it is not difficult to understand or explain. INTRODUCTION. 47 Though there may consequently be 62,458,000 of Musalmans in India at the present day, we may feel quite certain that not one-half of this number are immigrants or the descendants of emigrants who entered India during the last eight centuries. The same is probably true of the Turanian races, who entered India in the first ten centuries after our era. It is scarcely probable that they were sufficiently numerous to be the progenitors of thirty millions of people, and, if they were so, the mothers, in nine cases out of ten, were most probably natives of India. Of the Aryans we know less ; but, if so great a number as forty millions can trace anything like a direct descent from them at the present day, the amount of pure Aryan blood in their veins must be infinitesimally small. Yet, though their blood may be diluted, the influence of their intellect remains so powerfully impressed on every institution of the country that, had they perished altogether,, their previous presence is still an element of the utmost importance in the ethnic relations of the land. Another census may enable us to speak with still more precision with regard to these various divisions of the mass of the people of Hindustan, but meanwhile the element that seems to be most important, though the least investigated hitherto, is the extent of the aboriginal race. It has been so overlooked, that putting it at a hundred millions may seem an exaggeration. Its intellectual inferiority has kept it in the background, but its presence everywhere seems to me the only means of explaining most of the phenomena we meet con- tinually, especially those connected with the history of the architecture of the country. Except on some such hypothesis as that just shadowed forth, I do not know how we are to account for the presence of certain local forms of buildings we find in the north, or to explain the persistence with which they were adhered to. When from these purely ethnographic speculations we turn to ask how far religion and race coincide, we are left with still less information of a reliable character. As a rule, the Dravidians are 6aivas, and .Saiva in the exact proportion of the purity of their blood. In other words, in the extreme south of India they are immensely in the majority. In some districts of the Madras Presidency they are as 6 or 7 to I of the followers of Vishnu, and generally in the south, 2 to I ; but as we proceed northward they become equal, and in some of the northern districts of the Madras Presidency the pro- portions are reversed. In Bengal, and wherever Buddhism once prevailed, the HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. Vaishnava sects are, as might be expected, the most numerous. Indeed if it were not that so much of the present Hindu religion is an importation into the south, and was taught to the Dravidians by Brahmans from the north, it would be difficult to understand how the Vaishnava religion ever took root there, except in succession to Buddhism itself, which existed to a considerable extent, but where it, too, was an importation. If, however, it be correct to assume that Saivism had its origin to the northward of the Himalayas, among the Tartar tribes of these regions, there is no difficulty in under- standing its presence in Bengal to the extent to which it is found to prevail there. But, on the other hand, nothing can be more natural than that an aboriginal Naga people, who worshipped trees and serpents, should become Buddhists, as Buddhism was originally understood, and, being Buddhists, should slide downwards into the corruptions of the present Vaishnava form of cult, which is that most fashionable and prevalent in the north of India. One of the most startling facts brought out by the census, is that about one-third of the population of Eastern Bengal are Muhammadan — 25,500,000, out of 74,750,000 — while in the United Provinces the Muhammadans are scarcely more than i-6th — 4,567,000 among 25,430,000; and in Madras little more than i-i5th. It thus looks more like a matter of feeling than of race ; it seems that as the inhabitants of Bengal were Buddhists, and clung to that faith long after it had dis- appeared in other parts of India, they came in contact with the Moslim religion before they had adopted the modern form of Vaishnavism, and naturally preferred a faith which acknow- ledged no caste, and freed them from the exactions and tyranny of a dominant priesthood. The Muhammadan religion is in fact much more like Buddhism than are any of the modern Hindu forms, and when this non-Aryan casteless population came in contact with it and they were free to choose, after the mysterious evaporation of their old beliefs, they adopted the religion most resembling that in which they had been brought up. It is only in this way that it seems possible to account for the predominance of the Moslim religion in Lower Bengal l and in the Panjab, where the followers of the Prophet out- number the Hindus, in the proportion of 3 to 2, or as 14,000,000 in a population of 20,300,000. 1 In Bihar and West Bengal, the Muhammadans number 4,050,000, or less than 14 per cent, of the population, whilst in Central, North, and East Bengal, they number 20,870,000 or quite 60 per cent., and in East Bengal alone, there are 66 per cent, of Moslims or 11,220,000 ; in several of the districts they form quite three-fourths of the population. INTRODUCTION. 49 Where ^Saivism held its place or crept in was apparently among those races who were Dravidians or Turanians, or had affinities with the Tartar races, who immigrated from the north long before the Muhammadan conquest. To most people these may appear as rash generalisations, and at the present stage of the enquiry would be so in reality, if no further proof could be afforded. After reading the follow- ing pages, I trust most of them at least will be found to rest on the basis of a fair induction from the facts brought forward. It might, consequently, have appeared more logical to defer these statements to the end of the work, instead of placing them at the beginning. Unless, however, they are read and mastered first, a great deal that is stated in the following pages will be unintelligible, and the scope and purpose of the work can be neither understood nor appreciated.1 1 For a fuller statement of the author's views on Ethnography as applied to Architectural art, see his ' History of Architecture in all Countries,' 3rd ed. vol. i. introd. pp. 52-85. 2. Naga people worshipping the Triratna emblem of Buddha, on a fiery pillar. (From a bas-relief at Amaravati. ) VOL. I. I) 5° Sri or Gaja Lakshml, seated on a Lotus, with two Elephants pouring water over her. (From a modern sculpture from Indor. ) Map of INDIA Showing the Principal Buddhist Locaiities London. BOOK I. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. <s> CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION AND CLASSIFICATION. IT may create a feeling of disappointment in some minds when they are told that there is no stone architecture in India older than two and a half centuries before the Christian Era ; but, on the other hand, it adds immensely to the clear- ness of what follows to be able to assert that India owes the introduction of the use of stone for architectural purposes, as she does that of Buddhism as a state religion, to the great A^oka, who reigned from about B.C. 265 to 228. It is not, of course, meant to insinuate that the people of India had no architecture before that date ; on the contrary, it can be proved that they possessed palaces and halls of assembly, perhaps even temples, of great magnificence and splendour, long anterior to A^oka's accession ; but, like the buildings of the Burmese at the present day, they were all in wood. Stone, in those days, seems to have been employed only for the foundations of buildings, or in engineering works, such as city walls and gates, or bridges or embankments ; all else, as will appear from the sequel, were framed in carpentry. Much as we may now regret this, as all these buildings have consequently perished, it is not so clear, as it may at first appear, that the Indians were wrong in this, inasmuch as, in all respects, except durability, wood is a better building material than stone. It is far more easily cut and carved, larger spaces can be covered with fewer and less cumbrous points of support than is possible with stone, and colour and gilding are much more easily applied to wood than to stone. For the same outlay twice the space can be covered, and more than twice the splendour obtained by the use of the more perishable material, the one great defect being that it 52 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. is ephemeral. It fails also in producing that impression of durability which is so essential to architectural effect ; while, at the same time, the facility with which it can be carved and adorned tends to produce a barbaric splendour far less satisfactory than the more sober forms necessitated by the employment of the less tractable material. Be this as it may, it will, if I mistake not, become quite clear when we examine the earliest " rock-cut temples " that, whether from ignorance or from choice, the Indians employed wood and that only, in the construction of their ornamental buildings, before A-roka's time.1 From this the inference seems inevitable that it was in consequence of India being brought into contact with the western world, first by Alexander's raid, and then by the establishment of the Baktrian kingdom in its immediate proximity, that led to this change. We do not yet know pre- cisely how far the Baktrian kingdom extended towards the Indus, but we feel Greek influence on the coinage, on the sculpture, and generally on the arts of India, from an early date, and it seems as if we might be able to fix with precision not only the dates, but the forms in which the arts of the Western world exerted their influence on those of the East. Meanwhile it may be sufficient to state here that we know absolutely nothing of the temples or architecture of the various peoples or religions who occupied India before the rise of Buddhism,2 and it is only by inference that we know anything of that of the Buddhists before the age of Asoka. From that time forward, however, all is clear and intelligible; we have a sufficient number of examples whose dates and forms are known to enable us to write a fairly consecutive history of the architectural style during the 1000 years Buddhism was prevalent in India, and thence to trace its various developments in the extra Indian countries to which it was carried, and where it is still practised at the present day.3 1 These remarks must not be taken as applying to sculpture also. It is quite true that no stone sculptures have yet been found in India of an earlier date than the age of Aroka ; but, as will be seen in the sequel, the perfection the Indian artists had attained in stone sculpture when they executed the bas- reliefs at Bharaut (B.C. 200), shows a familiarity with the material that could only be attained by long practice. 2 No mention of temples, or, indeed, of buildings is, I believe, found in the Vedas, and though both are frequently alluded to, and described in the Epic Poems and the Puranas, this hardly helps us ; first because, like all verbal descriptions of buildings, they are too vague to be intelligible, and secondly, because there is no proof that the passages containing these descriptions may not have been interpolated after — possibly long after — the Christian Era. 3 I believe I was the first to ascertain these facts from a personal inspection of the monuments themselves. They were communicated to the Royal Asiatic Society in a paper I read on the ' Rock- cut Temples of India,' in 1842. Every subsequent research, and every increase of our knowledge, has tended to confirm those views to such an extent that they are not now disputed by any one acquainted with the literature of the subject. CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION. 53 This being the case, it would be in vain to look for any earlier architecture of any importance in India before A^oka's time : such could be expected only in countries where stone had been in use from the very earliest times. The Aryans, who were dominant before the rise of Buddhism, wrote books and expressed their ideas in words, like their congeners all the world over, but they do not seem successfully to have cultivated the aesthetic arts, or to have sought for immortality through the splendour or durability of their buildings. That was the aspira- tion of the Turanian and other races, and we owe it to this circumstance that we are enabled to write with any certainty the history of their rise and fall as evidenced in their archi- tectural productions. There is no d priori improbability that the Dravidian races of the south of India, or the indigenous races of the north, may not have erected temples or other buildings at a very early date, but if so, all that can be said is that all trace of them is lost. When we first meet the Buddhist style it is in its infancy — a wooden style painfully struggling into lithic forms — and we have no reason to suppose that other styles were then more advanced. When, however, we first meet them, some six or seven centuries afterwards, they are so complete in all their details, and so truly lithic in their forms, that they have hitherto baffled all attempts to trace them back to their original types, either in the wood or brick work, from which they may have been derived. So completely, indeed, have all the earlier examples been obliterated, that it is now doubtful whether the missing links can ever be replaced. Still, as one single example of a Hindu temple dating before the Christian Era might solve the difficulty, we ought not to despair of such being found, while the central provinces of India remain so unexplored as they are. Where, under ordinary circumstances, we ought to look for them, would be among the ruins of the ancient cities which once crowded the valley of the Ganges ; but there the ruthless Moslim or the careless Hindu have thoroughly obliterated all traces of any that may ever have existed. In the remote valleys of the Himalaya, or of Central India, there may, however, exist remains which will render the origin and progress of Hindu architecture as clear and as certain as that of the Buddhist ; but till these are discovered, it is with the architecture of the Buddhist that our history naturally begins. Besides this, however, from the happy accident of the Buddhists very early adopting the mode of excavating their temples in the living rock, their remains are imperishably preserved to us, while it is only too probable that those of the Hindu, being in less durable forms, have disappeared. The former, therefore, 54 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. are easily classified and dated, while the origin of the latter, for the present, seems lost in the mist of the early ages of Indian arts. Meanwhile, the knowledge that the architectural history of India commences about B.C. 250, and that all the monuments now known to us are Buddhist, or of cognate sects, for at least five or six centuries after that time, are cardinal facts that cannot be too strongly insisted upon by those who wish to clear away a great deal of what has hitherto tended to render the subject obscure and unintelligible. CLASSIFICATION. For convenience of description it will probably be found expedient to classify the various objects of Buddhist art under the five following groups, though of course it is at times impossible to separate them entirely from one another, and sometimes two or more of them must be taken together as parts of one monument. ist. Stambhas or Ldts. — These pillars are common to all the styles of Indian architecture. With the Buddhists they were employed to bear inscriptions on their shafts, with emblems or animals on their capitals. With the Jains they were generally Dipdans, or lamp-bearing pillars, but sometimes supporting quadruple figures of a Jina ; with the Vaishnavas they as generally bore statues of Garuda or Hanuman ; with the .Saivas they bore the trLmla symbol or were Dipdans and flag-staffs ; but, whatever their destination, they were always among the most original, and frequently the most elegant, productions of Indian art. 2nd. Stiipas or Topes. — These, again, were primarily relic- shrines, but may be divided into two classes, according to their destination : first, Stupas proper, or monuments containing relics of Buddha or of some Buddhist saint ; x secondly, the stupas or towers erected to commemorate some event or mark some sacred spot dear to the followers of the Buddha. If it were possible, these two ought to be kept separate, but no external signs have yet been discovered by which they can be dis- tinguished from one another, and till this is so, they must be considered, architecturally at least, as one.2 1 The Jains in very early times had Mathura'; 'Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. stupas and worshipped at them. Even plates at pp. 314-321; ' Actes du Vienna still the Samosaranas in some^ of their Congres Int. Orient.' vol. iii. pt. ii., temples at 5atrunjaya, Girnar, Abu, etc., plate at p. 142; and z'«/ra pp. ill, 130. are survivals of the earlier stupas. They \ 2 Dagaba is a Singalese word applied to were also known as' Chaityas — as stupas a stupa, from the Sanskrit "dhatu," a are still called in Nepal and Tibet. — | 'relic,' 'element,' and "garbha" (in Biihler, 'Legend of the Jaina Stupa at Pali "gabbho") a 'womb,' 'receptacle,' CHAP. I. CLASSIFICATION. 55 3rd. Rails. — These must be recognised as one of the most important features of Buddhist architecture. Generally they are found surrounding Topes, but they are also represented as enclosing sacred trees, temples, pillars, and other objects. It may be objected that treating them separately is like de- scribing the peristyle of a Greek temple apart from the cella. The Buddhist rail, however, in early ages at least, is never attached to the tope, and is used for so many other, and such various purposes, that it will certainly tend to the clearness of what follows if they are treated separately. 4th. Chaityas * or Assembly Halls. — Chaitya is a more general term than stupa, and may be applied to any building of the nature of a religious monument, but more correctly to the second division of stupas, or those commemorative of acts, miracles, etc., or not funerary.2 But it has further been restricted so as to correspond with the churches of the Christian religion : their plans, the position of the altar or relic casket, the aisles, and other peculiarities are the same in both, and their uses are identical in so far as the ritual forms of the one religion correspond to those of the other. 5th. Vihdras or Monasteries. — With the Buddhists and Jains a Vihara was a hall where the monks met and walked about ; afterwards these halls came to be used as temples, and sometimes became the centres of monastic establishments. Like the Chaityas, they resemble very closely the corresponding institutions among Christians. In the earlier ages they accompanied, but were detached from, the Chaityas or churches. In later times they were furnished with chapels in which the service could be performed independently of the Chaitya halls which may or may not be found in their proximity. or 'shrine.' Dhatugarbha is thus the relic-receptacle or inner shrine, and is strictly applicable only to the dome of the stupa, sometimes called the "anda" or egg. ' Dhatus ' were not merely relics in the literal sense, but memorials in an extended acceptation, and were classified as — corporeal remains ; objects belonging to the teacher, as his staff, bowl, robe, holy spots, etc. ; and any memorial, text of a sacred book, cenotaph of a teacher, etc. Stupas are known as Chaityas in Nepal, and as Dagabas in Ceylon. 1 The word Chaitya, like Stupa, means primarily a heap or tumulus, but it also means a place of sacrifice or religious worship, an altar — from chitd, a heap, an assemblage, etc. Properly speaking, therefore, the chaitya caves ought perhaps to be called " halls containing a chaitya," or "chaitya halls," and this latter term will consequently be used wherever any ambiguity is likely to arise from the use of the simple term Chaitya. 2 All structures of the nature of sanctuaries are Chaityas, so that sacred trees, statues, religious inscriptions and sacred places come also under this general BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. CHAPTER II. STAMBHAS OR LATS. IT is not clear whether we ought to claim a wooden origin for these, as we can for all the other objects of Buddhist archi- tecture. Certain it is, however, that the lats of Ajoka, with shafts averaging twelve diameters in height, are much more like wooden posts than any forms derived from stone architecture, and in an age when wooden pillars were certainly employed to support the roofs of halls, it is much more likely that the same material should be employed for the purposes to which these stambhas were applied, than the more intractable material of stone. The oldest authentic examples of these lats that we are acquainted with, are those which King Ajoka set up in the twenty-seventh year after his consecration — the thirty-first of his reign — to bear inscriptions conveying to his subjects the leading doctrines of the new religion he had adopted. The rock-cut edicts of the same king are dated in his twelfth year, and convey in a less condensed form the same information — Buddhism without Buddha — but inculcating respect to parents and priests, kindness and charity to all men, and, above all, tenderness towards animal life.1 The best known of these lats is that removed from Topra in Ambala district, and set up in 1356, by Firoz Shah Tughlak, in his Kotila at Delhi, without, however, his being in the least aware of the original purpose for which it was erected, or the contents of the inscription. A fragment of a second was found lying on the ridge, north of Delhi, where it had been set up by Firoz 1 These inscriptions have been pub- lished in various forms and at various times by Sanskrit scholars, such as Burnouf, Kern, Senart, Biihler, etc. Among these reference may be made to ]£. Senart, ' Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi ' (2 vols.) Paris, 1881-1886; Buhler, in ' Epigraphia Indica,' vols. i. and ii. ; and 'Archaeological Survey of Southern India,' vol. i. Among other things, they explain to us negatively why we have so little history in India in these days. Ajoka is only busied about doctrines. He does not even mention his father's name ; and makes no allusion to any historical event, not even those connected with the life of the founder of the religion. Among a people so careless of genealogy, history is impossible. CHAP. II. STAMBHAS OR LATS. 57 5. Assyrian honeysuckle ornament from capital of Lat, at Allahabad. tree — a deodar pine, for instance — than anything designed in stone. Like all the others of this class, this lat has lost its crowning ornament, which Shah, in his hunting lodge ; and was re-erected in 1867.* Two others exist in Champaran district at Radhia, and Mathia,2 and a fragment of another was recognised — utilised as a roller for the station roads by an utilitarian member of the Civil Service. The most complete shaft, however, is that which, in 1837, was found lying on the ground in the fort at Allahabad, and then re-erected with a pedestal, from a design by Captain Smith.3 This pillar is more than usually interesting, as in addition to the A-yoka inscriptions it contains one by Samu- dragupta (A.D. 380 to 400), detailing the glories of his reign, and the great deeds of his ancestors.4 It seems again to have been thrown down, and was re-erected, as a Persian inscription tells us, by Jahangir (A.D. 1605), to commemorate his accession. It is represented without the pedestal (Woodcut No. 4). The shaft, it will be observed, is more than 3 ft. wide at the base, diminishing to f 2 ft. 2 in. at the summit, which in a length of 33 £ ft.5 looks more like the tapering of the stem of a j it v.y.y. r&A w>" | W«Y:j . i'i/i' SL i~l •& i 1 ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. vi. p. 794. had been brought from Mirath in 1356. 2 The first of these is known as the Lauriya-Araraj or Bakhira pillar, being at the village of Lauriya about a mile from the temple of Mahadeva Araraj, the shaft of which rises nearly 40 ft. above the water level ; and the second is the Lauriya Navandgarh lat, 3 miles north of Mathia. Cunningham, 'Archaeological Survey Reports,' vol. i. pp. 67 and 73; xvi. plate 17; ' Epigraphia I Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 2450*". 3 ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. vi. plate 40, at P- 798. Fleet's 'Gupta Inscriptions,' pp. 1-17. 5 These dimensions are taken from Capt. Burt's drawings pub- lished in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. iii. pp. 105-123 and plate 3. 4. L4t at Allahabad. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. probably was a Buddhist emblem — a wheel or the triratna orna- ment1— but the necking still remains (Woodcut No. 5), and is almost a literal copy of the honeysuckle ornament we are so familiar with as used by the Greeks with the Ionic order. In this instance, however, it is hardly probable that it was in- troduced direct by the Greeks, but is more likely to have been borrowed, through Persia, from Assyria, whence the Greeks also originally obtained it. The honeysuckle ornament, again, occurs as the crowning member of a pillar at Sankisa, in the Doab, half-way between Mathura and Kanauj (Woodcut No. 6), and this time surmounting a capital of so essentially Persepolitan a type, that there can be little doubt that the design of the whole capital came from Persia. This pillar, of which the greater part of the shaft is lost, is surmounted by an elephant, but so mutilated that even in the 7th century the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsiang mistook it for a lion, if this is indeed the effigy he was looking at, as General Cunningham supposes,2 which, however, is by no means so clear as might at first sight appear. 6. Capital at Sankisa. (From a Drawing by Gen. Cunningham.) Capital of Lat in Tirhut. (From a Drawing by Capt. Kittoe.) Another capital of a similar nature to that last described crowns the Lauriya Navandgarh lat in Champaran — this time surmounted by a lion of bold and good design (Woodcut No. 7). In this instance, however, the honeysuckle ornament 1 ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' plates 9, 10, loa, et passim. 2 ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. i. p. 274, plate 46. CHAP. II. STAMBHAS OR LATS. 59 is replaced by the more purely Buddhist ornament of a flock of the sacred hansas or geese. In both instances there are cable ornaments used as neckings, and the bead and reel so familiar to the student of classical art. The last named form is also, however, found at Persepolis. These features it may be remarked are only found on the lats of Ajoka, and are never seen afterwards in India, though common in Gandhara and on the Indus for long afterwards, which seems a tolerably clear indication that it was from Persia that he obtained those hints which in India led to the conversion of wooden archi- tecture into stone. After his death, these classical features disappear, and wooden forms resume their sway, though the Persian form of capital long retained its position in Indian art. Whatever the Hindus copied, however, was changed, in the course of time, by decorative additions and modifications, in accordance with their own tastes. To the preceding five we have to add four more lats found in recent years. These are: (i) one at Rampurwa near Pipariya, also in Champaran district, on the edge of the Tarai, discovered in 1881, but not quite excavated; (2) at Nigliva in the Nepal Tarai, about 18 miles north from Chilliya in Basti district, a broken pillar, bearing an inscription by Asoka, stating that it had marked the birthplace of Kanakamuni Buddha ; (3) at Rummindei about 13 miles south-east from the preceding and north of Paderiya, the lower 22 ft. of a lat, discovered by Dr. A. Fiihrer in 1896, and bearing an inscription stating that it marked the spot where Sakyamuni was born,1 and (4) a large fragment and capital found, about three years ago, at Sarnath, bearing a portion of an Asoka. inscription. It is more than probable that each of these A^oka lats stood in front of, or in connection with some stupa, or building of some sort ; but all these have disappeared, and the lats themselves have — some of them at least — been moved more than once, so that this cannot now be proved. So far, however, as can now be ascertained, one or two stambhas stood in front of, or beside each gateway of every great tope, and one or two in front of each chaitya hall. At least we know that six or seven can be traced at Sanchi, and nearly an equal number at Amaravati,2 and in the representation of topes at the latter place, these lats are frequently represented both outside and inside the rails. At Karle, one still stands in front of the great cave sur- 1 Cunningham, ' Archaeological Re- ports,' vol. xvi. pp. nof. and plate 28 ; Fiihrer, ' Buddha Sakyamuni's Birth- place.'pp. 2;f. ,33f.,andplates4-6. There is also a fragment of a stambha at the great Sanchi stupa, with remains of an A^oka inscription on it. 2 ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' plates I, 5, 89 and 90. 6o BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. mounted by four lions, which, judging from analogy, once bore a chakra or wheel, probably in metal.1 (Woodcut No. 8.) A corresponding pillar probably once stood on the opposite side of the entrance bearing some similar emblem. Two such are represented in these positions in front of the great cave at Kan her i, which is a debased copy of the great Karle cave.2 The lat at Eran and the iron pillar at Meharauli nearDelhi,thoughsimilarin many respects to those just described, seem certainly to belong to the era of the Guptas during the 5th century of our era — the latter about 415, and the former in A.D. 484 — and to be dedicated to the Vaishnava creed, and in consequence belong to a subsequent chapter. That at Pathari in Bhopal bears a much obliterated in- scription of a Rashtrakuta king, Parabala, dated in A.D. 86i.3 This is a meagre ac- count, it must be confessed, of Buddhist lats, which probably at one time could be counted by hundreds in the important Buddhist localities in Bengal ; but it is feared we shall hardly be able to add many more to our list. They are so easily overthrown and so readily utilised in populous localities, that all trace of most of them has pro- bably been irrecoverably lost, though one or two more examples may possibly be found in remote, out-of-the-way places. There is no instance, so far as I am aware, of a built monumental pillar of ancient date now standing in India. This is sufficiently accounted for by the ease with which they Capital of the Lion pillar at Karl£. (From a sketch by Mr. H. Cousens.) 1 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' plate 42. 1 In the description accompanying Daniell's view of this cave he says : " On the pillar to the right, above the capital, is a group of lions, from the centre of which a few years since arose the chakra . . . though not the least appearance of it at present remains." 3 ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 'vol. xvii. pp. 3O5f. ; Cunningham, ' Archaeological Reports, ' vol. x. p. 70 ; Kielhorn, in ' Nachrichten Gottingen Gesellschaft : Phil. Hist. Kl.,' 1901, pp. CHAP. II. STAMBHAS OR LATS. 61 could be thrown down and their materials removed, when they had lost the sanctity which alone protected them. There are, however, two such pillars among the topes of Kabul, and evidently coeval with them, now called the Surkh Min^r and the Minar Chakri (Woodcut No. 9). These are ascribed by the traditions of the place to Alexander the Great, though they are evidently Buddhist monuments, meant to mark some sacred spot, or to commemorate some event, the memory of which has passed away. There can be little doubt that their upper members are meant to be copies of the tall capitals of the Persepolitan pillars, which were probably common throughout this part of Asia, but their shape and outline exhibit great degeneracy from the purer forms with which that architecture commenced in India, and which were there retained in their purity to a much later period than in this remote province. No reliable data seem to exist for ascertaining what the age of these monuments may be. It probably was the 3rd or 4th century of our era, or it may be even earlier. 9. Min&r Chakri, Kabul. (From a Drawing by Mr. Masson, in Wilson's ' Ariana Antiqua. ') 62 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. CHAPTER III. STtJPAS. CONTENTS. Relic Worship— Bhilsa Topes— Topes at Sarnath and in Bihar— Amaravati Stupa— Gandhara Topes— Jalalabad Topes— Manikyala Stupa. THERE are few subjects of like nature that would better reward the labour of some competent student than an investigation into the origin of Relic Worship and its subsequent diffusion over the greater part of the old world. So far as is at present known, it did not exist in Egypt, nor in Greece or Rome in classical times, nor in Babylon or Assyria. In some of these countries the greatest possible respect was shown to the remains of departed greatness, and the bones and ashes of persons who were respected in life were preserved with care and affection ; l but there was no individual so respected that a hair of his head, a tooth, or a toe-nail, even a garment or a utensil he had used, was considered as a most precious treasure after his death. In none of these countries does it appear to have occurred to any one that a bone or the begging-pot of a deceased saint was a thing worth fighting for ; or that honour done to such things was a meritorious act, and that prayers addressed to them were likely to be granted. Yet so ingrained do these sentiments appear to be among the followers of Buddha, that it is difficult to believe that the first occasion on which this sentiment arose, was at the distribution of his remains on his attaining Nirvana at Kusinagara, about B.C. 480. On that occasion, eight cities or principalities are said to have contended for the honour of possessing his mortal remains, and the difficulty was met by assigning a portion to each of the contending parties, who are said to have erected stupas to contain them in each of their respective localities.2 None of these can now be identified with 1 Examples of this may be cited in the reverence of the Athenians for the remains of Theseus and Oedipus, and the honours paid to those of Demetrius ; but this bears no analogy to the relic- worship of India, and Central Asia. 2 These were Rajagriha, Vauali, Kapilavastu, Allakappa, Rimagrama, Vethadipa, Pava, and Kunnara.—' Bud- dhist Art in India,' p. 15 ; S. Hardy's 'Eastern Monachism,' p. 221. The fame of this distribution seems to CHAP. III. STUPAS. certainty — everything in future ages being ascribed to Aj-oka, who, according to popular tradition, is said to have erected the fabulous number of 84,000 relic shrines, or towers to mark sacred spots.1 Some of these may be those we now see, or are encased within their domes ; but if so, they, like everything else architectural in India, are the earliest things we find there. It is true, the great pagoda — the Shwe Dagon at Rangun — is said to contain relics of all the four Buddhas of the present Kalpa, the staff of Kakusandho ; the water-dipper of Kon^gamano ; the bathing garment of Kajyapa, and eight hairs from the head of Gautama Buddha ; 2 but supposing this to be true, we only now see the last and most modern, which covers over the older erections. This is at least the case with the great dagaba at Bintenne, near Kandy, in Ceylon, in which the thorax-bone of the great ascetic is said to lie enshrined. The ' Mahawansa,' or Buddhist history of Ceylon, describes the mode in which this last building was raised, by successive additions, in a manner so illustrative of the principle on which these relic shrines arrived at completion, that it is well worth quoting: — "The chief of the Devas, Sumana, supplicated of the deity worthy of offerings for something worthy of worship. The Vanquisher, passing his hand over his head, bestowed on him a handful of his pure blue locks from the growing hair of the head. Receiving it in a superb golden casket, on the spot where the divine teacher had stood, he raised an emerald stupa over it and bowed down in worship. " The thero Sarabhu, at the demise of the supreme Buddha, receiving at his funeral pile the Thorax-bone, brought and deposited it in that identical dagaba. This inspired personage caused a dagaba to be erected twelve cubits high to enshrine it, and thereon departed. The younger brother of King Devanampiyatissa (B.C. 244), having discovered this marvellous dagaba, constructed another encasing it, thirty cubits in height. King Dutthagamini (cir. B.C. 96), while residing there, during his subjugation of the Malabars, constructed a dagaba, encasing that one, eighty cubits in height." Thus was the " Mahiyangana have reached Europe at least as early as the 1st century of the Christian Era, inasmuch as Plutarch (' Moralia,' p. 1002, Diibner, ed., Paris, 1841) describes a similar partition of the remains of Menander, among eight cities who are said to have desired to possess his remains ; but as he does not hint that it was for purposes of worship, the significance of the fact does not seem to have been appreciated. Conf. ' Questions of King Milinda ' in ' Sacred Books of the East,' vol. xxxv. introd. p. 20. 1 ' Mahawansa,' p. 26, ' Hiouen Thsang,' torn. ii. p. 417 ; Beal, 'Buddhist Records,' vol. ii. pp. 87-88. 2 Account of the great bell at Rangun. — Hough, ' Asiatic Researches,' vol. xiv, p. 270. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. dagaba completed."1 It is possible that at each successive addition some new deposit was made ; at least most of the topes examined in Afghanistan and the Panjab, which show signs of these successive increments, seem also to have had successive deposits, one above the other. Of the four canine teeth of Sakyamuni, one is said to have been honoured among the Devas or gods, another among the Nagas or water-spirits, the third was carried to Gandhara,2 and the fourth to Kalinga. Little or nothing is related of the first three ; the most celebrated is the left canine tooth. At the original distribution it is said to have fallen to the lot of Orissa, and to have been enshrined in a town called from that circum- stance " Dantapura." This, most probably, was near the modern town of Kalingapatam ; or possibly, as has been supposed, the celebrated temple of Jagannath, which now flourishes at Puri, may be on the site of the temple to which the tooth belonged. Be this as it may, it seems to have remained there in peace for more than eight centuries, when Guha^iva, the king of the country, being attracted by some miracles performed by it, and by the demeanour of the priests, became converted from the Brahmanical cult, to which he had belonged, to the religion of Buddha. The dispossessed Brahmans thereon complained to his suzerain lord, resident at Pataliputra, in the narrative called only by his title Pandu. He ordered the tooth to be brought to the capital, when, from the wonders it exhibited, he was con- verted also; but this, and the excitement it caused, led to its being ultimately conveyed surreptitiously to Ceylon, where it is said to have arrived about the year 310; and in spite of various vicissitudes, its representative still remains in British custody, the palladium of the kingdom, as it has been regarded during the last sixteen centuries.3 Almost as celebrated was the begging -pot of Sakyamuni, which was long kept in a dagaba or vihara erected by Kanishka at Peshawar, and worshipped with the greatest reverence.4 After 1 Abstracted from the ' MaMwansa,' chap. I. 2 It was preserved at Nagara or Nagarahara near Jalalabad, where Fah- Ilian, A.D. 400, in his I3th chapter describes it as perfect. Hiouen Thsang, ' Memoires,' tome ii. p. 97, describes the stupa as ruined, and the tooth having disappeared. — Beal, ' Buddhist Records,' vol. i. p. 92. 3 The principal particulars of this story are contained in a Singalese work called the ' Daladavamsa,' translated by Sir Mutu Comara Swamy. See also 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society' i (N.S.) vol. iii. pp. 132 et seqq. ; 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' pp. 174 et seqq. ; S. Hardy's ' Eastern Monachism,' pp. 224(7"; and Dr J. Gerson da Cunha's ' Memoir on the History of the Tooth Relic,' in 'Journal of the Bombay Br. Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. xi. pp. 115- 146. 4 ' Foe Koue Ki,' ch. xii. pp. 77, 82, 83 ; Beal's 'Travels of Fah-Hian,' pp. 36- 37, or ' Buddhist Records,' vol. i. introd. pp. xxxii., xxxiii. Conf. Cunningham, ' Archreological Reports,' vol. xvi. pp. 8-1 1, and plate 3. CHAP. III. STUPAS. paying a visit to Benares,1 it was conveyed to Kandahar, and is said to be still preserved there by the Musalmans, and looked upon even by them as a most precious relic.2 All this will become plainer as we proceed, for we shall find every Buddhist locality sanctified by the presence of relics, and that these were worshipped apparently from the hour of the death of the founder of the religion to the present day. Were this the place to do it, it would be interesting to try and trace the path by which, and the time when, this belief in the efficacy of relics spread towards the west, and how and when it was first adopted by the Catholic Church, and became with them as important an element of worship as with the Buddhists.3 That would require a volume to itself; mean- while, what is more important for our present purpose is the knowledge that this relic-worship gave rise to the building of these great stupas or dagabas, which are the most important feature of Buddhist architectural art. No one can, I fancy, hesitate in believing that the Buddhist stupa is the direct descendant of the sepulchral tumulus of the Turanian races, whether found in Etruria, Lydia, or among the Skyths of the northern steppes. The Indians, however, never seem to have buried, but always to have burnt, their dead, and consequently never, so far as we know, had any tumuli among them. It may be in consequence of this that the stupas, in the earliest times, took a rounded or domical form, while all the tumuli, from being of earth, necessarily assumed the form of cones. Not only out of doors, but in the earliest caves, the forms of dagabas are always rounded ; and no example of a straight - lined cone covering a stupa has yet been discovered. This peculiarity, being so universal, would seem to indicate that they had been long in use before the earliest known example, and that some other material than earth had been employed in their construction ; but we have as yet no hint when the rounded form was first employed, nor when it was refined into a relic shrine. We know, indeed, from the caves, and from the earliest bas-reliefs, that all the 1 ' Hiouen Thsang,' tome i. p. 83, or Beal, ' Life of Hiuen Tsiang,' p. 63. 2 ' Foe Koue Ki,' pp. 351-352 ; Beal's 'Travels of Fah-Hian,' p. 161. A de- tailed account of its transference from the true Gandhara — Peshawar — to the new Gandhara in Kandahar will be found in a paper by Sir Henry Rawlinson, 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. xi. p. 127. Conf. 'Indian Anti- VOL. I. quary,' vol. iv. p. 141. 3 The craze for relics that sprang up in the 5th century was largely stimulated by the writings of such authorities as Augustine, Ambrose, Basil, and Chrysostom. It was strictly akin to the belief of the Buddhists. The reverence for the " qadam-i-rasul," and relics of Muhammad by his followers is also of a similar character. E 66 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. roofs of the Indians were curvilinear — probably derived from the roofs of thatched huts ; and if one can fancy a circular chamber with a domical roof — not in stone, of course — as the original receptacle of the relic, we may imagine that the form was derived from this.1 The worship of stupas probably arose from the popular idea that the sanctity of the relics was shared by their shrines ; and gradually stupas, simply in memory of the Buddha or of any of his notable followers, came to be multiplied and reverenced everywhere. Many were solid blocks without any receptacle for a relic ; but in those inside chaitya halls, the casket was placed in the capital or Tee, whence it could be readily transferred, or taken out on the occasion of a festival. The earlier ones were very plain, consisting of a base or drum and dome, with a square capital in the form of a box ; the dome was regarded as the essential feature of a stupa, and with the "chhattra" or umbrella over it, as a symbol of dignity, and a surrounding path for " pradakshina " or circum- ambulation fenced off by a wall or railing, it was complete. In course of time they came to be honoured almost as the Buddha himself — had his image affixed to their drums, and were decked with parasols, garlands of flowers, and flags or long ribbons, whilst presentations of money were made for their service. BniLSA TOPES. The most extensive, and taking it altogether, perhaps the most interesting, group of topes in India is that known as the Bhilsi Stupas or Topes, from a town of that name on the north border of Bhopal, near which they are situated. There, within a district not exceeding 10 miles east and west and 6 north and south, are five or six groups of topes, containing altogether between twenty-five and thirty individual examples. The principal of these, known as the great tope at Sanchi- Kanakheda, has been frequently described, the smaller ones are known from General Cunningham's descriptions only ; 2 but 1 Among the bas-reliefs of the Bharaut tope is one representing just such a domical roof as this (Woodcut No. 81). It is not, however, quite easy to make out its plan, nor to feel sure whether the object on the altar is a relic, or whether it may not be some other kind of offering. 2 ' Bhilsa Topes, or Buddhist Monu- ments in Central India,' 1854. One half of the work on ' Tree and Serpent Worship," and forty-five of its plates, besides woodcuts, are devoted to the illustration of the great Tope ; and numerous papers have appeared on the same subject in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society ' and elsewhere. A cast of the eastern gateway is in the South Kensington Museum ; also in Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, and Paris Museums. CHAP. III. BHILSA TOPES. 67 altogether they have excited so much attention that they are perhaps better known than any group in India. We are not however, perhaps, justified in assuming, from the greater extent of this group as now existing, that it possessed the same pre- eminence in Buddhist times. If we could now see the topes that once adorned any of the great Buddhist sites in the Doab or in Bihar, the Bhilsa group might sink into insignificance. It may only be that, situated in a remote and thinly peopled part of India, they have not been exposed to the destructive energy of opposing sects of the Hindu religion, and the bigoted Moslim has not wanted their materials for the erection of his mosques. They consequently remain to us, while it may be that nobler and more extensive groups of monuments have been swept from the face of the earth. Notwithstanding all that has been written about them, we know very little that is certain regarding their object and their history.1 Our usual guides, the Chinese Pilgrims, fail us here. Fah Hian never was within some hundreds of miles of the place ; and if Hiuen Tsiang ever was there, it was after leaving Valabhi, when his journal becomes so confused and curt that it is always difficult, sometimes impossible, to follow him. He has, at all events, left no description by which we can now identify the place, and nothing to tell us for what purpose the great tope or any of the smaller ones were erected. The ' Mahawansa,' it is true, helps us a little in our difficulties. It is there narrated that A^oka, when on his way to Ujjeni (Ujjain), of which place he had been nominated governor, tarried some time at Chetyagiri, or, as it is elsewhere called, Wessanagara, the modern Besnagar, close to Sanchi. He there married the daughter of a chief, and by her had twin sons, Ujjenia and Mahinda, and afterwards a daughter, Sanghamitta. The two last named are said to have entered the priesthood, and played a most important part in the introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon. Before setting out on this mission, Mahinda visited his royal mother at Chetyagiri, and was lodged in " a superb vihara," which had been erected by herself.2 In all this there is no mention of the great tope, which may have existed before that time ; but till some building is found in India which can be proved to have existed before that age, it may be assumed that this is one of the 84,000 topes said to have been erected by A^oka. Had Sanchi been one of the 1 Colonel F. C. Maisey was sent by Government in 1849 to make drawings of the gateways and sculptures at Sanchi- Kanakheda. These drawings — which had been first used in ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' — here-published in 1892, with letterpress based on a fanciful theory as to their age and origin. 2 ' Mahawansa,' chap. 13. See also 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' pp. 99 et seqq., where all this is more fully set out than is necessary here. 68 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. eight cities which obtained relics of Buddha at the funeral pyre, the case might have been different ; but it has been dug into, and found to be a stupa without relics.1 It consequently may have been erected to mark some sacred spot or to commemorate some event, and we have no reason to believe that this was done anywhere before A^oka's time. On the other hand, two smaller topes at the same place contained relics of a historical character. That called No. 2 Tope contained those of some of the Buddhist teachers who took part in the third great convocation held under A^oka, and some of whom were sent on missions to the Himalayas, to disseminate the doctrines then settled, and with these were associated the names of others, probably contemporaries, but of whom we know nothing otherwise.2 No 3 Tope contained two relic caskets, represented in the accompanying woodcuts (Nos. 10 10. Relic Casket of Moggalana. ii. Relic Casket of Sariputra. and 11). One of these contained relics of Maha Moggalana, the other of Sariputra, friends and companions of Buddha him- self, and usually called his right and left hand disciples.3 It does not of course follow from this that this dagaba is as old as the time of Buddha ; on the contrary, the probability seems to be that these relics were deposited there in A^oka's time, in close proximity to the sacred spot, which the great tope was erected to commemorate. The tope containing relics of his contemporaries may, of course, be more modern, possibly contemporary with the gateways.4 The general appearance of the Sanchi - Kanakheda Stupa will be understood from the view of it on Woodcut No. 12, and its shape and arrangement from the plan and section, Nos. 13 1 At least the excavations failed in the discovery of a deposit. 2 The ' Dipawansa ' names the four missionaries who accompanied Kasapa- gota Kotiputa to convert the tribe of Yakkas in Himavanta, as — Majjhima, Dudubhisara, Sahadevaand Mulakadeva. Kasapagota, Majjhima and Dudubhisara, are named on relic-boxes from Sanchi and Sonari. — 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1905, pp. 6836°. 3 Cunningham, 'Bhilsa Topes,' pp. 297, 299 et seqq. * The Chandragupta inscription on the rail near the eastern gateway is a subse- quent addition, and belongs to Chandra- gupta II., of the year A.D. 412. Fleet, ' Early Gupta Inscriptions,' pp. 29-34. CHAP. III. BHILSA TOPES. 69 and 14. From these it will be observed that the principal 12. View of the great Tope at Sanchi, north-east' side. W Scale HO ft. to 1 in. 13. Plan of great Tope at Sanchi. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in. 14. Section of great Tope at Sanchi. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. building consists of a dome somewhat less than a hemisphere, 1 06 ft. in diameter, and 42 ft. in height.1 On the top of the stupa is a flat space about 34 ft. in diameter, formerly surrounded by a stone railing, some parts of which were found still lying there ; and in the centre of this once stood a feature known to Indian archaeologists as a ' Tee.'2 The woodcut (No. 15), from a rock-cut example at Ajanta, represents the usual form at this age. The lower part is adorned with the usual Bud- hist rail (to be described here- after), the upper by the con- ventional window pattern, two features which are uni- versal. It is crowned by a 15. -Tee 'cut in the rock on a Digaba at Ajanta. Hd of three slabs> an<j nQ doubt either was or simulated a relic casket. No tope, and no representation of a tope — and we have hundreds — are without this feature, and generally it is or was surmounted by one or more discs representing the umbrellas of state ; in modern times by as many as nine of these. The only ancient wooden one now known to exist is that in the cave at Karle (Woodcut No. 70), but the repre- sentations of them in stone and painting are literally thousands in number. The dome rests on a sloping base, 14 ft. in height by 121 ft. in diameter, having an offset on its summit about 6 ft. wide.3 This, to judge from the representations of topes on the sculptures, must have been surrounded by a balustrade, and was ascended by a broad double ramp on one side. It was probably used for processions round the monument, which seem to have been among the most common Buddhist cere- monials. The centre of this great mound is quite solid, being composed of bricks laid in mud ; but the exterior is faced with dressed stones. Over these was laid a coating of cement nearly 4 inches in thickness, which was, no doubt, originally adorned either with painting or ornaments in low relief. 1 These views, plans, etc., are taken from a Memoir by Capt. J. D. Cunning- ham, ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xvi. (August, 1847), pp. 739-763- 2 This is an Anglicised form of the Burmese " Hti," by which this member is known ; in Sanskrit it is called harmikd. The lower part is called gala in Nepal — the " neck," and the whole cMddmani — "thecrestorcrestjewel.'' The umbrellas grouped over it were termed chhattrd- vali, and the shaft on which they are supported the yashti. — Foucher, 'L'Art Greco-Bouddhique,' tome i. p. 97. 3 ' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1902, pp. 29-44 5 an^ Griin- wedel's ' Buddhist Art in India,' (English ed.), pp. 24-26. CHAP. III. TOPES AT SARNATH AND IN BIHAR. 71 Besides the group at Sanchi, which compromises six or seven stupas — mostly ruined, there is at Sonari, 6 miles distant, another group of eight topes. Two of these are important structures, enclosed in square courtyards, and one of them yielded numerous relics to the explorers. At Satdhara, 3 miles further on, is a great tope 101 ft. in diameter, but which, like that at Sanchi, yielded no relics. No. 2, however, though only 24 ft. in diameter, was found to contain relics of vSariputra and Moggalana, like No. 3 at Sanchi. Besides these there are several others, all small, and very much ruined. The most numerous group, however, is situated at Bhojpur, 7 miles south-east from Sanchi, where thirty-seven distinct topes were grouped together on various platforms. The largest is 66 ft. in diameter, but No. 2 is described as one of the most perfect in the neighbourhood, and, like several others in this group, contained important relics. At Andher, about 5 miles west of Bhojpur, was a fine group of three small, but very interesting topes. With those above enumerated, this makes up about sixty distinct and separate topes, in this small district, which certainly was not one of the most important in India in a religious point of view, and consequently was probably surpassed by many, not only in the number but in the splendour of its religious edifices.1 Without more data than we at present possess, it is of course impossible to speak with certainty with regard to the age of this group of topes, but, so far as can be at present ascertained, there seems no reason for assuming that any of them are earlier than the age of A^oka, B.C. 250, nor is it probable that any of them can be of later date than, say, the first century before our era. The topes themselves seem all to be included within these two centuries, or possibly even less. TOPES AT SARNATH AND IN BlHAR. Not only is there no other group of topes in India Proper that can be compared, either in extent or in preservation, to those of Bhilsa, but our knowledge of the subject is now so complete that it is probably safe to assert that only two, or at most three, topes exist between the Satlaj and the sea, sufficiently perfect to enable their form and architectural 1 As the particulars regarding all these ; ' Bhilsa Topes,' published in 1854, it has topes, except those at Sanchi, are taken ' not been thought necessary to repeat the from Gen. Cunningham's work entitled ! reference at every statement. 72 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. features to be distinguished. There are, of course, numerous mounds near all the Buddhist cities which mark the site, and many of which probably hide the remains, of some of the hundreds of stupas or dagabas mentioned by the Chinese Tope at S3.rna.th, near Benares. (From a Photograph.) Pilgrims, besides many that they failed to distinguish. All, however, with the fewest possible exceptions, have perished ; nor is it difficult to see why this should be so. All, or nearly all, were composed of brick or small stones, laid either without mortar, or with cement that was little better than mud. They CHAP. III. TOPES AT SARNATH AND IN BIHAR. 73 consequently, when desecrated and deserted, formed such convenient quarries for the villagers, that nearly all have been utilised for building huts and houses of the Hindus, or the mosques of the Musalmans. Their rails, being composed of larger stones and not so easily removed, have in some instances remained, and some will no doubt be recovered when looked for ; and as these, in the earlier ages at least, were the iconostasis of the shrine, their recovery will largely compensate for the loss of the topes which they surrounded. The best known, as well as the best preserved of the Bengal topes, is that called Dhamek, at Sarnath, near Benares (Wood- cut No. 16). It was explored by General Cunningham in 1835-36, and found to be a stupa or chaitya — not containing relics, but erected to mark some spot sanctified by the presence of Buddha, or by some act of his during his long residence there. In 1904-05 further excavations were made under Mr. Oertel, but the results have not yet been made public. It is situated in the Deer Park, where Buddha took up his residence with his five disciples when he first removed from Gaya on claiming to have attained Buddhahood, and commenced his mission as a teacher. That it commemorates this event, is exceedingly probable, since that stupa, of all others, would be religiously preserved and restored. There are several mounds in the neighbourhood, but the descriptions of the Chinese Pilgrims are not sufficiently precise to enable us always to discriminate between them. The building consists of a stone basement, 93 ft. in diameter, and solidly built, the stones being clamped together with iron to the height of 43 ft. Above that it is in brickwork, rising to a height of no ft. above the surrounding ruins, and 128 ft. above the plain.1 Externally the lower part is relieved by eight projecting faces, each 21 ft. 6 in. wide, and 15 ft. apart. In each is a small niche, intended apparently to contain a seated figure of Buddha, and below them, encircling the monument, is a band of sculptured ornament of the most exquisite beauty. The central part consists — as will be seen by the cut (No. 17) on the next page — of geometric patterns of great intricacy, but combined with singular skill ; and, above and below, foliage equally well designed, and so much resembling that carved by Hindu artists on the earliest Muhammadan mosques at Ajmir and Delhi, as at first sight might suggest that they may not be very distant in date. 1 These dimensions and details are taken from Gen. Cunningham's 'Archaeo- logical Reports,' vol. i. pp. 107 et seqq. ; for his account of the exploration, see 'Journal Bengal Asiatic Society,' vol. xxxii. ; Sherring's ' Sacred City of the Hindus,' pp. 236-243. 74 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. The carvings round the niches and on the projections have been left so unfinished — in some instances only outlined— that it is impossible to guess what ultimate form it may have been intended to give them. The upper part of the tower was , ;;:;,; ^,; y ,.,.,., „,*.• ^J^^^ '^"^-^^ la^s&Kgassg^^r^^r^:^---: — •&**• .rS^T^ —^l^r^rJ::' "J "7""' T :;i"'- /" v> - 17- Panel on the Tope at Sarnath. (From a Photograph. ) possibly an addition of even later date than the lower part, and may never have been finished at all ; but from our knowledge of the Afghanistan topes we may surmise that it was intended to encircle it with a range of pilasters, and then some bold mouldings, before covering it with a hemispherical dome. CHAP. III. TOPES AT SARNATH AND IN BIHAR. 75 In his excavations, General Cunningham found, buried in the solid masonry, at the depth of io£ feet from the summit, a large stone on which was engraved the usual Buddhist formula, " Ye dharmma hetu," etc., in characters belonging, he thought, to the /th century, from which he inferred that the monument belongs to the 6th century. But I cannot accept the conclusion ; it seems to me much more probable that this stone may have belonged to some building which had fallen into decay, or to have been the pedestal of some statue which had been dis- used, and was consequently utilised in the erection or repair of this structure. One feels consequently more inclined to adopt the tradition preserved by Captain Wilford,1 to the effect that the Sarnath monument was erected by the sons of Mahipala, and destroyed (interrupted ?) before its completion.2 We know that the Deer Park, where the Buddha preached his first sermon, was the site of one of the early and most sacred stupas, and the excavations recently made have brought to light remains of all ages from that of A^oka down to the nth century at least. An inscription, found long since, and dated in A.D. 1026, records the repair of a Buddhist stupa and Dharmachakra, and the erection of a Gandhakuti temple in the time of Mahipala — probably by his sons.3 Whether it refers to this stupa or not, it indicates that large restorations did take place as late as the nth century, when this also was probably encased, as we now find it, with a modernised exterior. The form of the monument with the eight projecting faces that decorate its drum, the character of its sculptured ornaments, the unfinished condition in which it is left, and indeed the whole circumstances of the case, render this date so probable that it may be accepted for the present at least, though it is quite possible that further research may require us to modify this opinion. The only stone building yet found in India that has any pretension to be dated before Ajoka's time is one at Rajgir, having the popular name of Jarasandha-ka-baithak. As will be seen from the annexed woodcut (No. 18), it is in the form of a platform 85 ft. square at the base and sloping upwards for 20 or 28 ft. to a platform measuring 74 by 78 ft.4 It is built wholly of stones, neatly fitted together without mortar ; and its most remarkable peculiarity is that it contains fifteen cells, one of which is shown in the woodcut. They are from 1 ' Asiatic Researches,' vol. ix. p. 203, and vol. x., p. 130. 2 See also paper by Vesey Westmacott, 'Calcutta Review,' vol. lix., 1874, p. 68. 1 ' Asiatic Researches,' vol. v. p. 133 ; ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. xiv. p. 139. The contents of this inscription was prob- ably the basis of Wilford's statement. 4 ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. i. p. 72. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. 6 to 7 ft. in length, by about half that in breadth, and they are occupied at times up to the present day by Jogis whose bodies are constantly smeared with ashes.1 "U up CELL 18. View and Plan of Jarasandha-ka-baithak. (From Cunningham, 'Archaeological Survey Report,' vol. iii. plate 42.) The other Bengal tope existing nearly entire, also known as Jarasandha-ka-baithak, is opposite to the village of Giriyek, about 6 miles east - north - east of the preceding. General Cunningham states its dimensions to be 28 ft. in diameter by 21 ft in height, resting on a basement 14 ft. high, so that its total height, when complete, may have been about 55 ft. As it was not mentioned by Fah Hian, A.D. 400, and is, apparently, by Hiuen Tsiang, A.D. 640, its age is probably, as General Cunningham states, intermediate between these dates, or about A.D. 5<x>.2 It is a bold, fine tower, evidently earlier than that at Sarnath, and showing nothing of the tendency towards Hindu forms there displayed. It has, too, the remains of a procession-path, or extended basement which is wholly want- ing at Sarnath, but which is always found in the earlier monu- ments. It was erected, as Hiuen Tsiang tells us, in honour of a Hama — goose — who devoted itself to relieve the wants of a starving community of Bhikshus.3 The third stupa, if it may be so called, is the celebrated temple or, properly, chaitya at Bodh - Gaya, which stands 1 'Cave-Temples,' pp. 331". ; Cunning- ham, ' Archaeological Survey Report,' vol. i. p. 20 ; vol. iii. p. 142. 2 'Archaeological Survey Report,' vol. i. pp. 16-19, and plate 15. 3 ' Hiouen Thsang,' torn. iii. p. 60; or Beal, 'Buddhist Records,' vol. ii. p. 181. CHAP. III. BODH-GAYA. 77 immediately in front of the celebrated Bodhi - tree (Ficus religiosaj- under whose shade Buddha is said to have attained complete enlightenment in the thirty-fifth year of his age, dr. B.C. 525. Its history is told in such detail by Hiuen Tsiang2 that there seems little doubt as to the main facts of the case. According to this authority, Ajoka built a small yjMra here, but long afterwards this was replaced by a temple 160 ft. high and 60 ft. (20 paces) wide, which are the exact dimen- sions of the present building, according to Cunningham,3 and we are further told that it was erected by a Brahman, who was warned by Mahe^wara (Siva), in a vision, to execute this work.4 In this temple there was a cella corresponding with the dimensions of that found there, in which the Brahman placed a statue of Buddha, seated cross-legged, with one hand pointing to the earth.6 The date of the erection of this temple is still obscure : General Cunningham laboured, on rather doubtful data, to prove that it was erected in the reign of the Kushan king, Huvishka, in the century B.C., and, from a coin found in a later image, he concluded that additions and restorations were made in the 4th century.6 There are sculptures and inscriptions that must belong between the 2nd and 7th centuries, and they are numerous between the 9th and end of the I2th; but none of them help us in definitely fixing the date of the temple. From the style and what remains of the older sculptures, we can only assume that it may belong to somewhere about the 6th' century, though considerably altered in later times by successive restorations. From an Arakanese inscription on the spot, first translated by Colonel H. Burney, we further learn that the 1 Buchanan Hamilton was told by the priests on the spot, in 1811, that it was planted there 2225 years ago, or B.C. 414, and that the temple was built 126 years afterwards, or in 289 B.C. : — not a bad guess for A^oka's age in a locality where Buddhism has been so long forgotten. — Montgomery Martin's ' Eastern India,' vol. i. p. 76. 2 ' Hiouen Thsang,' torn. ii. pp. 464- 468 ; or Beal, 'Buddhist Records,' vol. ii. pp. 118-121. 3 'Archaeological Reports,' vol. i. p. 5; and ' Mahabodhi,' p. 18. 4 Wassiliev, in his work on the Doctrine, History, etc., of Buddhism, pp. 41-42, gives a somewhat different account, stating that it was erected by Punya, one of three brothers converted by Uttara, one of whom built a temple in the Deer Park at Benares, and the other a temple in the Venuvana garden at Rajagriha. Gen. Cunningham refers to a story related by Taranath of two brothers, one of whom built the Nalanda temple, and, from the resemblance in style, he infers that the MahSbodi temple belongs to the same date, if not to one of the brothers. 5 That is in the attitude known as the ' Bhumisparja mudrji. ', in which .Sakya- mum sat wKen Ee attained supreme knowledge. 8 'Mahabodhi,' pp. 17-25. This was a coin of Pa^upati, Raja of Nepal, whose name — possibly the Pampreksha of the chronologies — is well-known to numis- matists from his coins ; but nothing is certain about his date, except that most probably he lived subsequently to the 7th century. — 'Indian Antiquary,' vol. xiii. p. 412; Wright's, 'History of Nepal,' p. 113; Sylvain Levi, ' Le Nepal,' tome ii. pp. 108-111; 'Journal Royal Asiatic Society,' 1908, p. 68 1. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. place, having fallen into decay, was restored by the Burmese in the year 1105, and again in i2gS.1 From the data these accounts afford us we gather that the building we now see before us (Woodcut No. 19) is substantially 19. Temple at Bodh-Gaya with Bo-tree. (From a Photograph by Mr. Peppe, C.E.) that erected in the 6th century, but the niches Hiuen Tsiang saw, containing golden statues of Buddha, cannot be those now existing — most of the images round the basement are f l ' Asiatic Researches,' vol.xx. pp. 161- 189 ; Rajendralal Mitra, ' Buddha Gaya,' p. 209 ; Phayre's ' History of Burma,' p. 46 ; and 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xxxvii. p. 97, note. Gen. Cunningham read the dates as equivalent to 1079 and 1086 A. D. ; ' Mahabodhi,' pp. 27, 28, and 77. But though a scholarly translation of the inscriptions has yet to be made, the readings of the Burmese or, Arakanese dates as 467 and 660 of their lj era, can hardly be questioned — i.e. 1105 and 1298 A.D, CHAP. III. BODH-GAYA. 79 distinctly of Burmese type, though some few of them appear to be of about the 6th century — and the sculptures he mentions find no place in the present design ; the amalakas of gilt copper that crowned the whole, as he saw it, have also disappeared.1 The changes in detail, as well as the introduction of radiating arches in the interior, must belong to the Burmese restorations in the beginning of the I2th and end of the I3th centuries. Though these, consequently, may have altered its appearance in detail, it is probable that, until the "restoration" in 1 880-81, we still had before us a straight-lined pyramidal nine-storeyed temple of about the 6th century, retaining all its essential forms — anomalous and unlike anything else we find in India, either before or afterwards, but probably the parent of many nine- storeyed towers found beyond the Himalayas, both in China and elsewhere. Unfortunately, instead of carefully preserving this very interesting monument, the Government of Bengal was advised to " restore " it, and this was carried out under the superintend- ence of General Cunningham and his assistant, by which — as might have been anticipated — it was materially modified, and from an archaeological point of view seriously injured.2 Eventually we may discover other examples which may render this noble tower less exceptional than it now appears to be. At Kesariya in Champaran, about 20 miles south- east from Lauriya-Araraj, where one of the pillars of A^oka mentioned above is found, are the ruins of what appears to have been a very large tope. It is, however, entirely ruined externally, and has never been explored, so that we cannot tell what was its original shape or purpose.3 At Piprahwa also in the north of Basti district, on the Nepal frontier, a mound containing the remains of a stupa was excavated in 1897-98, but, apparently, more attention was given to the discovery of the relic casket, than to the construction and dimensions of the stupa. It seems, however, to have been about 90 feet, in diameter at the base, and about 13^ ft. from the ground level ; the dome began with a diameter of about 62 ft.4 The inscription 1 Beat's 'Buddhist Records,' vol. ii. pp. 118 and 136, note 2. 2 Cunningham's 'Mahabodhi,' preface, p. ix. The restoration cost the Govern- ment somewhere about 200,000 rupees ; and then the Mahant of the neighbouring monastery appropriated the renovated temple for his Vaishnava followers and consecrated the image by applying to it the "tilak" or frontal mark of Vishnu, so that it might be worshipped as that divinity, whilst he set both the Buddhists and Government at defiance to re-occupy the shrine. 3 Cunningham, 'Archaeological Re- ports,' vol. i. pp. 64ff. and plate 24. 4 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1898, p. 577 ; and ' Report on a Tour of Exploration of the Antiquities in the Tarai, Nepal,' by Babu P. C. Mukherji, 1899, pp. 43-47, in which the "approxi- mate total diameter of the whole stftpa " is given as 9p£ ft. ; but both illustrations and descriptions are very unsatisfactory. 8o BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. on one of the relic caskets has attracted much attention on the part of scholars as recording the deposit of relics of the Sakya clansmen of Buddha.1 All along this line of country numerous Buddhist remains are found, all more or less ruined, and they have not yet been examined with the scientific care necessary to ascertain their forms. This is the more to be regretted as this was the native country of the founder of the religion, and the place where his doctrines appear to have been originally promulgated. If any- thing older than the age of A^oka is preserved in India, it is probably in this district that it must be looked for. A MAR A VAT! Although not a vestige remains in situ of the central stupa at Amaravatt, there is no great difficulty, by piecing together the fragments of it now in the British Museum — as is done in Plates 48 and 49 of 'Tree and Serpent Worship' — in ascertain- ing what its dimensions and general appearance were. When Colonel Mackenzie first saw it, in 1797, the central portion of the mound was still untouched, and rose in a turreted shape to a height of 20 ft. with a diameter of about 90 ft. at the top, and had been cased round with bricks, and so may have been 40 or 50 ft. in height. This indicates a dome of considerable size ; the base or drum was probably 162^ ft. in diameter, and wainscotted with sculptured marble ; how broad it was above we have no means of knowing, or whether there may not have been even a second terrace ; but if, as is most probable, there was only one, the dome may have been 120 to 140 ft. in diameter. The perpendicular part was covered with sculptures in low relief, representing stupas and scenes from the life of Buddha. The domical part was covered with stucco, and with wreaths and medallions either executed in relief or painted. No fragment of them remains by which it can be ascertained which mode of decoration was the one adopted.2 Altogether, there seems no doubt that the representation of a stupa (Woodcut No. 20), copied from the Amaravati marbles, fairly represents the central building there. There were probably forty-eight such representations of dagabas on the basement of the stupa. In each the subject of the sculpture is varied, but the general design is the same throughout ; and, on the whole, the woodcut may be taken as representing the 1 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1899, pp. 149-180; 1905, pp. 679f; and 1907, pp. I05f. 2 For a detailed account of the Amara- vati Stupa, see ' Archaeological Survey of Southern India : The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta, ' 1887. CHAP. III. AMARAVATI. 81 mode in which a Buddhist stupa was ornamented in the ist or 2nd century, at which time the style seems to have reached its highest point of elaboration, in India at least.1 20. Re sentation of a Stupa from the Rail at Amaravati. (From a bas-relief in the British Museum.) In the Andhra country — or, at least, in the districts adjoining the deltas of the Krishna and Godavan rivers — Buddhism must 1 The recent discovery of the base of a stupa, about 1 1 ft. in diameter, outside where the south gate of the great Amara- vati stupa was, has revealed the style in which the base or drum of these eastern stupas was decorated — by marble slabs VOL. I. richly carved with representations of stupas, placed at intervals, and with other sculptures between. There was no "inner rail" around the large stupa, as was at one time assumed. 82 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. have had a very strong hold in early times. This is abundantly evidenced by the numbers of their remains in the area. A list of the mounds or " dibbas " — as they are called — indicates about three hundred in the Kistna district alone ; probably most of these cover ancient remains, and, as excavation has shown, many of them were stupas.1 How many may exist in neighbouring districts we do not yet know. Unfortunately many, including the largest of these, containing the most important remains, have been used as quarries for brick and marble — not by natives only — but by Government Public Works engineers, the record of whose vandalism in utilising the materials is most deplorable.2 The stupa at Bhattiprolu, about 6 miles north of Repalle, was for long one of the best preserved in the district — presenting a circular mound or dome of 40 ft. or more in height, though ruined at the top, a marble pillar 1 5 ft. high standing erect beside it, and with clear indications of the procession-path round it.3 This was destroyed, about 1 870 ; 4 what was left of it, on being surveyed in 1892, showed that the dome had been about 132 ft. in diameter, while the basement was of about 148 ft, the procession-path had been 8 ft. 4 in. wide and fenced on the outside by a marble rail — of which the bases of six piers were found in situ. Towards each of the cardinal points the base projected about 2 ft. 4 in., with a straight front, probably for the support of the five monoliths — represented on all the sculptured stupas from Amaravati, and as was the case at Jaggayyapeta.5 The sculptures of the latter stupa, indeed, bear a close resemblance in their archaic character, to the only two fragments recovered here, and, so far as they go, indicate that this stupa may have been of considerably earlier date than even the great rail at Amaravati. We might suppose also that the sculptures would be confined chiefly to the projecting facades, whilst the rest of the basement was faced with plain slabs and pilasters. At least one relic casket had been found by the first excavators at a considerable height above the ground level ; but the enclosing slabs, whether inscribed or not, were broken and cast aside, and the casket was smashed on the voyage to England and thrown away. During the survey, Mr. Rea dis- covered three more relic boxes at a lower level, and bearing 1 ' Madras Government Orders,' No. 462 of 2gth May 1889. 2 See e.g. ' Madras Government Orders,' No. 467, 30th April 1888, p. 15. 3 'Indian Antiquary,' vol. i. pp. 153, 348» 374 > ' Madras Journal of Literature and Science,' vol. xix. p. 225 ; Sewell's ' Topographical Lists of Antiquarian Remains,' pp. 77-78. 4 Ante, p. 34, note 3. 5 ' The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta,' p. lio. These pro- jecting pedestals with their five Aryaka (worshipful) columns, may be analogous to the chapels for the Dhyani-Buddhas at the bases of the dagabas of Ceylon and of the chaityas of Nepal. CHAP. III. JAGGAYYAPETA, ETC. inscriptions of considerable palaeographic interest, the alphabet of which can hardly be placed later than 200 B.C.1 At Gudivada, 20 miles north-west from Masulipatam, there was a "dibba" containing the remains of a stupa, which was also demolished by the local engineers, it is said about 1860, and so little was left of it that its dimensions cannot now be ascertained. Four relic caskets are said to have been found, though we can learn nothing about their age ; but considerable numbers of Andhra coins, mostly of lead, are turned up about the site belonging, probably, to the first three centuries of our era.2 The stupa at Jaggayyapeta or Betavolu, 30 miles north- west from Amaravati, had been plundered of its rail, and of much of the marble casing of its basement, the dome had been destroyed, and relic casket dug out before it was surveyed in 1882. The basement was 31^- ft. in diameter, and portions of the facing remained, chiefly on the south side where the slabs on the projection for the support of the five stelae bore archaeic sculptures. The procession-path had been about 5 ft. wide, surrounded by a rail or wall, of which every fragment had disappeared.8 At Ghantayala, 13 miles west from Masulipatam, a mound was surveyed by Mr. Rea in 1892, and was found to contain the remains of a stupa with a diameter at the ground level of about in ft. contained by a circular brick wall 18 ft. thick, forming the drum of the stupa. Inside this was a curious reticulation of walls, between which the spaces were packed with black earth : a circular wall of 56 ft. outside diameter was connected by sixteen radiating partitions with the outer wall ; and inside this was a square of 26 ft, in the middle of which was a column of brick 10 ft. square, joined to the preceding by four partitions from the middle of its sides, which ran right through the whole interior, while the sides of the outer square were continued to the inner circle.* In the centre of the column was a well, varying in width from 9 in. to 2 ft, 6 in. square, in which was a relic casket, but without anything to indicate its age. On each of the four faces of the base were projections, as at Jaggayyapeta, about 17 ft. in length by 5 1 ft. broad and 4^ ft. high. Sculptured slabs were 1 ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. , preface, pp.ix.-xiii. , and pp. 323-329; Rea's' South Indian Buddhist Antiquities,' pp. 7-16 ; and conf. Fleet 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1903, pp. 996°. 2 Sewell, ' Topographical Lists of Antiquarian Remains, 'p. 52 ; Rea, op. <r;V.pp. 18-23. 3 ' The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta,' pp. 107-113, and plates 53-55. 4 Rea, ' South Indian Buddhist Antiquities,' plate 14 ; a less complex arrangement of interior partitions was found by Dr Fiihrer in the Kankali-Tila at Mathura. — Foucher, ' L'Art Greco- Bouddhique,' torn. i. p. 95 ; and V. Smith, 'Jain Stupa,' plates I and 3. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. found in the neighbourhood bearing a strong resemblance to those of Amaravati ; and some had been utilised to carve on them Hindu divinities.1 It is not quite clear how this stupa was completed ; possibly there may have been more than one platform round the dome ; but we may suppose, as is most probable, that the massive brick wall formed the true basement or drum, faced with sculptures, and crowned by a procession - path round the dome, as at Sanchi ; this latter may have had a diameter of about 84 ft, rising as a hemisphere to about 54 ft. from the ground.2 At many other places, both in the Godavari and Kistna districts, remains of other stupas, as also of rock-temples and other Buddhist antiquities, including some structural chaitya chapels, have been found — testifying to the predominance of Buddhism in this province, and their prosperity for some centuries before and after the Christian Era. Jaina images are also met with — evidencing their spread southwards from Orissa.3 GANDHARA TOPES. The extreme paucity of examples retaining their archi- tectural form, in the valley of the Ganges, is, to some extent, compensated for by the existence of a very extensive range of examples in Afghanistan and the western Panjab. In his memoir of these topes, published by Professor Wilson, in his ' Ariana Antiqua,' Mr. Masson enumerates and describes, in more or less detail, some sixty examples,4 or almost exactly the same number which General Cunningham described as existing in Bhopal. In this instance, however, they extend over a range of 200 miles, from Kabul to the Indus, instead of only 1 6 or 17 miles from Sonari to Andher. To these must be added some fifteen or twenty examples, found at Manikyala 1 One slab had represented a fine stupa, with Buddha, having a halo about his head, as the central figure, and with the usual five stelae above ; another, represented a Bodhi tree, under which is a throne on which lie two round objects like cushions (perhaps relics), whilst, curiously enough, the figures at each side are not the usual worshippers, but Mara and his hosts of Marakayakas. Photographs of such sculptures would be preferable to pen and ink drawings. — Rea, loc. cit. plates 27 and 28. 2 Mr Rea, loc. cit., pp. 33-41, has pro- posed a somewhat fanciful theory of the construction of this stupa. 3 Since the publication of the volume on the Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta stupas in 1886, the sole addition has been Mr. Rea's report on the excavation of three sites — Bhattiprolu, Ghantajala, and Gudivada. Detailed accounts of the rock-temples at Guntupalle or Jilligera- gudem, and of the structural chaityas at Chezarla, Vidyadharapuram, .Sankaram, etc., illustrated with photographs and plans, would be of great archaeological importance. See below, page 167. * Masson, however, distinguished be- tween topes, of which portions of the masonry were visible, and "mounds" that, in most instances, cover the remains of stupas, such as the Ahin-posh Stupa, and in some cases at least, they cover whole groups of stupas. CHAP. III. GANDHARA TOPES. or in its neighbourhood, together with those discovered in Swat and on the north-west frontier within the last twenty-five years, and it is certain that numbers still exist undescribed, making altogether quite a hundred stupas in this province. Notwithstanding this wealth of examples, we miss one, which was probably the finest of all. When Fah Hian passed through the province in A.D. 400, he describes the dagaba which King Kanishka had erected at Peshawar as " more than 470 ft. in height, and decorated with every sort of precious substance, so that all who passed by, and saw the exquisite beauty and graceful proportions of the tower and the temple attached to it, exclaimed in delight that it was incomparable for beauty " ; and he adds, " Tradition says this was the highest tower in Jambudwipa." l When Hiuen Tsiang passed that way more than 200 years afterwards, he reports the tower as having been 400 ft. high, but it was then ruined — " the part that remained, a li and a half in circumference (1000 feet) and 1 50 ft. high " ; and he adds, in twenty-five stages of the tower there were a "ho" — 10 pecks — of relics of Buddha.2 No trace of this monument now exists. These north-western stupas are so important for our history, and all have so much that is common among them, and are distinguished by so many characteristics from those of India Proper, that it would be extremely convenient if we could find some term which would describe them without involving either a theory or a geographical error. The term Afghanistan topes, by which they have been designated, is too modern, and has the defect of not including Peshawar and the western Panjab. " Ariana," as defined by Professor Wilson, describes very nearly the correct limits of the province ; for, though it includes Baktria and the valley of the Upper Oxus, where no topes have yet been found, we know from the Chinese Pilgrims that in the 5th and 7th centuries these countries, as far as Khotan, were intensely Buddhist, and monuments exist there, and have recently been found in Khotan both by Dr. Sven Hedin and by Dr. M. A. Stein.3 The name, however, has of late almost disappeared in favour of Gandhara — the early Indian name of the eastern portion of the district under notice. When the Sanskrit-speaking races first broke up from their original settlements in the valley of the Oxus, they passed through the valley of the Kabul river on their way to India, 1 Beal's ' Fah-Hian,' p. 35 ; ' Buddhist Records,' vol. i., introd. p. xxxii. 2 ' Vie et Voyages de Hiouen Thsang,' torn. i. p. 8-) ; Beal, ' Life of Hiuen Tsiang,' p. 63. 3 Stein's ' Archjeological Exploration in Chinese Turkistan ' (1901); 'Sand- buried Ruins of Khotan' (1903); and 'Ancient Khotan,' 2 vols. (4to), 1907. 86 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. and lingered, in all probability, both there and in the Panjab before reaching their first permanent position on the Saraswati — in the true " Arya Varta " — between the Satlaj and the Jamna. It is also nearly certain that they remained the dominant race in these countries down to the time of Alexander's invasion, and during the supremacy of the Baktrian kingdom. About 150 years, however, before the Christian Era, if we may trust the Chinese accounts,1 the Yue-chi, and other tribes of Tartar origin, were on the move in this direction. Somewhat later they struck down the Baktrian monarchy, and appear from thence- forward to have permanently occupied their country. It is not clear whether they immediately, or at what interval they penetrated into the Kabul valley ; but between that time and the Christian Era successive hordes of Yue-chi, Sakas, Turushkas, and Hunas, had poured into the valley and the western Panjab to such an extent as to obliterate, or, at least for the time, supersede the Aryan population, and supplant it by one of Turanian origin, and with this change of race came the change of religion. Gandhara is, however, a local name, which certainly, in early times, included the best part of this province, and in Kanishka's time seems to have included all he reigned over, and, if so, is the most appropriate term we could find. It has, moreover, this advantage, that it is essentially Buddhist. In the time of A^oka, it was Kashmir and Gandhara to which the Buddhist Council sent its missionaries, and from that time forward Gandhara is the term by which, in all Buddhist books, that kingdom is described, of which Taxila was at one time the capital, and which is, as nearly as can now be ascertained, conterminous with our architectural province. It is not clear whether Kanishka was or was not the first Buddhist king of this country ; but, so far as is at present known, he seems to have done for Buddhism in Gandhara what A^-oka did for that religion in Central India. He elevated it from its position as a struggling sect to that of being the religion of the State. We know, however, that A^oka's Council sent missionaries to this country ;2 and, more than this, that he engraved a complete set of his edicts on a rock at Kapurdigiri, 30 miles north-east from Peshawar, but we do not know what success they or he attained. Certain it is, as Professor Wilson remarks, that " no coin of a Greek prince of Baktria has ever been met with in any tope." 3 The local coins that are found in them all belong to dynasties subsequent to the destruction of the Baktrian kingdom, and, according to the same authority 1 De Guigne's ' Histoire des Huns,' vol. ii. pp. 40 et seqq. 2 Tumour's ' Mahawansa,' p. 71. 3 'Ariana Antiqua,' p, 43, CHAP. III. GANDHARA TOPES. (p. 322), "were selected from the prevailing currency, which was not of any remotely previous issue ; " " while the Graeco-Baktrian coins had long ceased to be current, though they had not, perhaps, become so scarce as to be enshrined as rarities " (p. 44). Under these circumstances, Professor Wilson arrives at the con- clusion that the topes " are undoubtedly all subsequent to the Christian Era" (p. 322). It is true that some of the kings whose coins are found in the topes, such as Hermaeus, Azes, and others, probably lived prior to that epoch, but none of their coins show a trace of Buddhism. With Kanishka, how- ever, all this is altered. He is represented as a Buddhist, beyond all doubt ; he held the convocation, called the third by the northern Buddhists — the fourth according to the southern — at which Nagarjuna was apparently the presiding genius. From about that time the Tibetans, Burmese, and Chinese date the first introduction of Buddhism into their countries ; not, however, the old simple Buddhism, known as the Hinayana, which prevailed before, but the corrupt Mahayana, which, as a new revelation, Ndgarjuna spread from Peshawar over the whole of central and eastern Asia. It was precisely analogous to the revolution that took place in the Christian Church, about the same time after the death of its founder. Six hundred years after Christ, Gregory the Great established the hierarchical Roman Catholic system, in supersession of the simpler primitive forms. In the fifth century after the Nirvana, Nagarjuna intro- duced the complicated ritualistic and idolatrous Mahayana,1 though, as we learn from the Chinese Pilgrims, a minority still adhered in after times to the lesser vehicule or Hinayana system. Although, therefore, we are probably safe in asserting that none of the Gandhara stupas date much before the Christian Era, it is not because there is any inherent, d priori improbability that they should date before Kanishka, as there is that those of India Proper cannot extend beyond A^oka. There is no trace of wooden construction here : all is stone and all complete, and copied probably from originals that may have existed two centuries earlier. Their dates depend principally on the coins, which are almost invariably found deposited with the relics, in these topes. Coins have rarely been found in any Indian tope.2 They are found in hundreds in these north-western ones, and always fix a date beyond which the tope cannot be carried back, and generally enable us to approximate to the true date of the monument in 1 Vassilief, ' Le Bouddhisme, ses Dogmes,' etc., Paris, 1865, p. 31, et passim. 2 A silver coin of one of the Andhra kings, belonging to the 2nd century A. D., was found in the Sopara stupa. 88 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. question. If those of Kanishka are the earliest, which appears to be the case, the great one which he commenced, at Manikyala, is probably also the last to be finished in its present form, inasmuch as below 12 ft. of solid masonry, a coin of Yajovarman of Kanauj was found, and his date cannot be carried back beyond A.D. 720. Between these dates, there- fore, must be ranged the whole of this great group of Buddhist monuments. There were perhaps no great Buddhist establishments in Gandhara before Kanishka, and as few, if any, after the 8th century, yet we learn that, during the earlier part of the period between these dates this province was as essentially Buddhist as any part of India. Fah Hian tells us, emphatically, that the law of Buddha was universally honoured, and mentions 500 monasteries,1 and Hiuen Tsiang makes no complaint of heretics, while both dilate in ecstasies on the wealth of relics everywhere displayed. Part of the skull, teeth, garments, staffs, pots of Buddha — impressions of his feet, even his shadow — was to be seen in this favoured district, which was besides sanctified by many actions which had been commemorated by towers erected on the spot where these meritorious acts were performed. Many of these spots have been identified, and more will no doubt reward the industry of future investigators, but meanwhile enough is known to render this province one of the most interesting of all India for the study of the traditions or art of Mediaeval Buddhism. The antiquities of the western part of the province were first investigated by Dr. Honigberger, in the years i833-i834,2 and the result of his numismatic discoveries published in Paris and elsewhere ; but the first account we have of the buildings them- selves is that given by Mr. Masson, who, with singular per- severance and sagacity, completed what Dr. Honigberger had left undone.3 Those of the eastern district and about Manikyala were first investigated by General Ventura and M. Court, officers in the service of Ranjit Singh, and the result of their researches published by Prinsep in the third volume of his ' Journal ' in 1 830 ; but considerably further light was thrown on them by the explorations of General Cunningham, published in the second volume of his 'Archaeological Reports' for 1863-1864 (pp. 82 et seqq.}. Since then still further additions have been 1 Beal's translation, p. 26 ; ' Buddhist Records,' introd. pp. xxx. , xxxi. 2 Honigberger, ' Reise' ; see also J. G. Gerard's 'Memoir' in 'Jour. Asiat. Soc. Beng.' vol. iii. p. 321 ; and Jacquet's 'Notice' in 'Jour. Asiatique' I He. serie, tome ii. p. 234 ; iv. p. 401 ; and vii. p. 385. 3 Mr. Masson's account was com- municated to Professor Wilson, and by him published in his ' Ariana Antiqua,' with lithographs from Mr. Masson's sketches which, though not so detailed as we could wish, are still sufficient to render their form and appearance intelligible. CHAP. Ill, JALALABAD TOPES. 89 made to our knowledge of the Gandhara remains. In 1879 the late Mr. Wm. Simpson, whilst accompanying the British forces, excavated the Ahin-posh stupa, to the south of Jalalabad, and his account of it formed a valuable contribution to our knowledge of this and other remains in the valley.1 Under Major Cole and others, extensive excavations were also made in Yusufzai and Swat in search of sculptures ; but plans of the structures have but seldom been secured.2 Lastly, in 1895-1897, a mission was sent out from France, under the direction of Mons. A. Foucher, to make a scientific survey of the Buddhist remains in the Yusufzai and Swat districts. The first volume of the results of this expedition was published in 1905, containing an account of the whole subject, abundantly illustrated and thoroughly scientific.3 JALALABAD TOPES. The topes examined and described by Mr. Masson as exist- ing round Jalalabad are thirty-seven in number, viz., eighteen distinguished as the Daranta group, six at Chahar Bagh, and thirteen at Hidda. Of these about one-half yielded coins and relics of more or less importance, which proved the dates of their erection to extend from somewhat before the Christian Era to the 7th or 8th century. One of the most remarkable of these is No. 10 of Hidda or Hada, which contained, besides a whole museum of gems and rings, five gold solidi of the emperors Theodosius (A.D. 408), Marcian and Leo (474) ; two gold Kanauj coins ; and 202 Sassanian coins extending to, if not beyond, the Hijra.4 This tope, therefore, must belong to the 7th century, and would be a 1 ' Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects,' 1879-80, pp. 37-64. The plates in Gen. Cunningham's paper, to a native jamadar, is severely criticised (' L'Art Greco-Bouddhiquedu Gandhara,' tomei. p. 2 1 ), as is also the destruction of — ' Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of interesting ancient structures by the Public Bengal,' 1879, pp. 205-210, supplied to Works Department. — Foucher, in ' Le him by Lieut. Mayne, R.E. — do not add j Tourdu Monde, 1899,' p. 486, and 'L'Art to Mr. Simpson's drawings. Mr. J. D. ; Greco-Bouddhique,' pp. I4ff, 47, etc. Beglar, Gen. Cunningham's assistant, was ; 3 Foucher, ' L'Art Greco Bouddhique sent to excavate the stupas at 'Ali Masjid, ; du Gandhara,' contains a masterly account at the same time, but no account of his I of the origin of the classical influence on work seems to have been given — not even I Buddhist art in India and the East, and a plan of the stupas excavated ; a few | is richly illustrated from his surveys and photographs in the Calcutta Museum (of | the sculptures stored in various museums, which six were published in the ' Ancient j * The length of time over which these Monuments of India,' plates 103-108) are j coins range — more than 200 years — is the only evidence of this excavation. ! sufficient to warn us what caution is 2 The way in which the excavations of | requisite in fixing the date of buildings so many of these sites were conducted, \ from their deposits. A tope cannot be must ever be regretted. Major Cole's i earlier than the coins deposited in it, but, " lointaine direction" of the excavations as in this case, it may be one or two in Yusufzai, leaving the entire supervision hundred years more modern. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. most convenient landmark in architectural history, were it not that the whole of its exterior is completely peeled off, so that no architectural mouldings remain, and, apparently from the difficulty of ascertaining them, no dimensions are quoted in the text.1 About one - half of the others contained relics, but none were found to be so rich as this. In general appearance they differ considerably from the great Indian topes just described, being taller in proportion to their breadth, and having a far more tower-like appearance, than any found in India, except the Sarnath example. They are mostly smaller, one of the largest at Daranta being only 160 ft in circumference or about 51 ft. in diameter. This is about the usual size of the topes in Afghanistan, the second class being a little more than 100 ft, while many are much smaller. There are, however, some of larger size, for Mr. William Simpson found the circumference of the Ahin-posh stupa to be about 250 ft., and of the Umar Khel tope at Daranta, a rough measurement gave 300 ft. circumference to the circular drum.2 In every instance they seem to have rested on a square base, though in many this has been removed, and in others it is buried in rubbish ; in many cases also, if not always, there was a deep plinth or low terrace below this base. Above this rises a circular drum, crowned by a belt sometimes composed merely of two architectural string-courses, with different coloured stones disposed as a diaper pattern between them. Sometimes a range of plain pilasters occupies this space. More generally the pilasters are joined by arches sometimes circular, sometimes of an ogee form. In one instance — the Red (Surkh) Tope — they are alternately circular and three-sided arches. That this belt represents the enclosing rail at Sanchi and the pilastered base at Manikyala need not be doubted. It shows, however, a very considerable change in style to find it elevated so far up the monument as it is here. Generally speaking, the dome or roof rises immediately above this, but no example in this group retains its termination in a perfect state. Some appear to have had hemispherical roofs, some more nearly conical, of greater or less steepness of pitch ; and some (like that represented in Woodcut No. 21) had, perhaps, only a slight elevation in the centre. It seems possible there may have been some connection between the shape of the roof and the purpose for which the tope was raised, or the age 1 ' Ariana Antiqua,' p. 109. - ' Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects,' 1879-80, p. 53. The Nagara-gundi tope, at old Nagarahara, appears to have been also of similar size. One between Cherat and Giiniyar passes in Swat, is 140 ft. in circumference at the bottom of the cylindric part. — Foucher, ' L'Art Greco-Bouddhique du Gandhara,' tome i. p, 65. CHAP. III. JALALABAD TOPES. 21. Tope at Bimaran. (From a Drawing by Mr. Masson, in Wilson's ' Ariana Antiqua.') of its erection. But we have no evidence to lead us to any decision of this point. One interesting peculiarity was brought to light by Mr. Masson in his excavation of the tope at Sultanpur, 9 miles west of Jalalabad, and is shown in the an- nexed section (Woodcut No. 22). It appears that the monument origin- ally consisted of a small tope on a large square base, with the relic placed on its sum- mit. This was afterwards in- creased in size by a second tope being built over it.1 Among the later discoveries in the North- West Frontier districts, the following may be mentioned as adding to our knowledge of these stupas. At Chakpat near Chakdarra fort in the Swat valley, a mound was excavated by Mr. A. Caddy in 1896, in search of sculptures for the Calcutta Museum, and was found to contain a small stupa in the form of a simple hemispherical dome, about 20 ft. in diameter. This unique form, probably one of the earliest types for such a structure, points to the derivation of these structures from the simple tumulus (Woodcut No. 23). The dome was fairly complete and was encircled by the base of a wall about 30 ft in diameter. This was evidently the remains of an outer casing that had been built at a later date over the original structure — enlarging it and probably altering the contour. The debris of this — when the stones of the outer surface were carried off — 22. Tope at Sultanpur. (From a Drawing by Mr. Masson, in Wilson's ' Ariana Antiqua.') 1 At Hada, near Jalalabad, Mr. Simpson found a somewhat similar instance, - 'Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects,' 1879-80, p. 56. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. had concealed and helped to preserve the original. A circular stone disc, of quite 1 1 ft. 6 in. in diameter, which had formed one of the chhattras or umbrellas crowning the larger stupa, 23- Stupa at Chakpat. (From a Photograph.) and had slid down from the higher dome when first ruined, is seen in the illustration.1 Half a mile below 'Alt Masjid in the Khaibar Pass, on a small hill, are the remains of a religious establishment sur- rounded by a group of ruined stupas of a very interesting character. They were excavated in 1879 by General Cunning- ham's assistant, and are said to have yielded important materials, never published. Little more than the bases of these stupas remained, but they were very rich in stucco figure decoration ; the accompanying reproduction of a photograph of No. 5 of the series (Plate i) will convey some idea of their form.2 Beyond 'Ali Masjid and near Lalabeg is the Ishpola tope — M. Court's Pishbulak 3 — placed on the summit of a rock projecting into, and dominating the valley. It appears about nearly as large as the Manikyala stupa, and, like it, the hemispherical dome that crowns it, is only slightly raised on a short cylindrical neck resting on a square base which is further supported by walls forming a second and lower quadrangular terrace. The base had fourteen pilasters on 1 Foucher, ' L'Art Greco-Bouddhique,' tome i. pp. 56-59, 67, and 74. 2 Burgess, ' Monuments of Ancient India,' plate 106. Three coins of Vasu- deva, the third Kushan King, were found here, but the stupas can hardly be ascribed to an earlier date than the 3rd century A.D. 3 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. v. p. 393. PLATE I. ;^ ? -r .^M.. " *"' -•" •' • ALI MASJID STUl'A NO. 5. [To face page cp, Vol. I. CHAP. III. MANIKYALA. 93 each side with quasi-Corinthian capitals ; and three of the interspaces have recesses as if for images of the Buddha, whilst on the lower member of the base was a continuous row of Buddhist figures about 18 in. high and placed close together. The stair leading to the top of the base was on the east side, and both the base and south side of the dome were still fairly entire in iS?g.1 Of the Ahin-posh stupa mentioned above, only the base remained and was 100 ft. square with extensions on the sides for the stairs, of which the principal appear to have been on the north and south sides — those on the other two sides having been added afterwards. Parts of the lowest course of the drum or dome showed that its diameter had been 80 ft., and the base seems to have been about 23 ft. high, with fourteen pilasters on the east and west faces. Under this base is a plinth 5^ ft. high and projecting 6 ft. In the relic chamber were found three Roman coins of Domitian (A.D. 81-96), Trajan, and the empress of Hadrian (117-138), and seventeen of Kanishka, Huvishka and Kadphises : hence this stupa can hardly be ascribed to an earlier date than the end of the 2nd century, but probably considerably later.2 The most imposing ruin of a stupa noticed in Swat is one between the passes of Cherat and Guniyar, to the south of Chakdarra, of which the circumference of the drum is about 140 ft, or 45 ft. in diameter. Like the Ishpola stupa, its dome rises on a double drum, by which the vertical lines in the outline seem to gain in importance at the cost of the downward curve. The case is similar with the Barikot tope, about 9 miles up the valley from Chakdarra, which, as M. Foucher points out, is very probably the Uttarasena stupa mentioned by Hiuen Tsiang.3 It has lost its square base or platform, of which the stones have been used to build modern walls in the vicinity, but it has preserved the belt of arches which divides the cylindrical portion into two sections, one above the other ; and the dome is pretty entire. About a mile south-east from Haibatgram, in the same locality, is another stupa, hid away in a valley that takes from it the name of Top-darra. It has a circular base about 31 ft. in diameter and 7 ft. in height, introduced above the square base. This latter is some 12 ft. high and 58 ft. square, has nine pilasters on each face, and remains almost intact 1 Simpson, ' Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects,' 1879-80, pp. 40, 41 ; Foucher, ' L'Art Greco- Bouddhique,' tome i. p. 74 and fig. 14. 2 Simpson, ut sup. p. 49. 3 Beal's 'Buddhist Records,' vol. i. pp. 126-127, and 132-133; Julien, ' Memoires,' tome ii. pp. 139, 146-149. A view is given in Foucher, ' L'Art Greco-Bouddhique,' tome i. p. 67. 94 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. except the stair on one side ascending to the platform, which a trifling excavation would probably disinter.1 The height of this structure to the top of the dome must have been nearly 40 ft. Besides those already mentioned there are about twenty or thirty topes in the neighbourhood of Kabul, but all much ruined, and few of any striking appearance. So at least we are led to infer from Mr. Masson's very brief notice of them. No doubt many others still remain in spots hitherto unvisited by Europeans. In the immediate vicinity of these topes are found caves and tumuli, the former being the residences of priests, the latter partly burying - places, and partly ruined viharas, perhaps in some instances smaller relic-shrines. Their exact destination cannot be ascertained without a careful investigation by persons thoroughly conversant with the subject. There are still, also, many other points of great interest which require to be cleared up by actual examination. When this has been done we may hope to be able to judge with some certainty of their affinity with the Indian buildings on the one hand, and those of Persia on the other. MANIKYALA. The most important group, however, of the Gandhara topes is that at Manikyala in the Panjab, situated between the Indus and the Jehlam or Hydaspes, about 20 miles south-east of Rawalpindi. Fifteen or twenty examples are found at this place, most of which were opened by General Ventura and M. Court about the year 1830, when several of them yielded relics of great value, though no record has been preserved of the greater part of their excavations. In one opened by M. Court, a square chamber was found at a height of 10 ft. above the ground level. In this was a gold cylinder enclosed in one of silver, and that again in one of copper. The inner one contained four gold coins, ten precious stones, and four pearls. These were, no doubt, the relics which the tope was intended to preserve. The inscription has been read, and is dated in the eighteenth year of Kanishka,2 so that we may feel assured it was erected during, or not long after, his reign. Seven Roman coins were found much worn, as if by long use,3 before they reached this remote locality ; and, as they extend down to 1 Foucher, loc. cit. pp. 70, 71 and 74, and figs. 17, 1 8. 2 'Journal Asiatique,' IX* Ser., tome vii. , 1896, pp. 1-25. 3 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. iii. p. 559. CHAP. III. MAN IKY ALA. 95 B.C. 43,1 it is certain the monument was erected after that date. The gold coins were all those of Kanishka. This tope, therefore, could hardly have been erected earlier than thirty years before Christ. To the antiquary the enquiry is of con- siderable interest, but less so to the architect, as the tope is so completely ruined that neither its form nor its dimensions can now be distinguished. Another was opened in 1863 by General Cunningham, in the relic chamber of which he found a copper coin, belonging to the Satrap Zeionises, who is supposed to have governed this part of the country about the be- ginning of the Christian Era, and we may therefore assume that the tope was erected by him or in his time. This and other relics were enclosed in a glass-stoppered vessel, placed in a miniature representa- tion of the tope itself, 4^ in. wide at base, and 8|- in. high (Woodcut No. 24), which may.be considered as a fair representation of what a tope was or was intended to be, in that day. It is, perhaps, taller, however, than a structural example would have been ; and the tee, with its four umbrellas, is, possibly, exaggerated.2 The principal tope of the group is, perhaps, the most remarkable of its class in India, though inferior in size to several in Ceylon. It was first noticed by Mountstuart Elphinstone, and a very correct view of it published by him, with the narrative of his mission to Kabul in iSoQ.3 It was afterwards thoroughly explored by General Ventura, in 1830, and a complete account of his investi- gations published by Prinsep in the third volume of his 'Journal.' Since then its basement has been cleared of the rubbish that hid it to a depth of 12 ft. to 15 ft. all round, by the officers 24. Relic Casket from Tope at Manikyala. (Found and drawn by Gen. Cunningham.) 1 Thomas in ' Prinsep,' vol. i. p. 150; and 'Journal R. Asiatic Soc. ,' vol. ix. (N.S.), pp. 217-218. 2 ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. ii. p. 167, plate 65. A similar reliquary, with five umbrellas or chattras, was found by Gerard in the Burj-i-yak-dereh tope to the east of Kabul; Jacquet, in 'Jour. Asiatique,' III6 serie, tome vii. pp. 394- 395 ; Foucher, 'L'Art Greco-Bouddhique du Gandhara,' tome i. pp. iqf. and 75. 3 Elphinstone's 'Account of Caubul,' pp. 78, and 376, ist ed. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. of the Public Works Department. They also made careful plans and sections of the whole.1 From these it appears that the dome is an exact hemisphere, 127 ft. in diameter, and consequently as nearly as may be, 400 ft. in circumference. The outer circle measures in like manner 159 ft. 2 in., or 500 ft. in circumference, and is ascended by four very grand flights of steps, one in each face, leading to a procession-path 16 ft. in width, ornamented both above and below by a range of dwarf pilasters, representing the detached rail of the older Indian monuments. It is, indeed, one of the most marked characteristics of these Gandhara topes, that none of them possess, or ever seem to have possessed, any trace of an independent rail ; but most have an ornamental belt of pilasters, joined generally by arches simulating the original rail. This can hardly be an early architectural form, and leads to the suspicion that, in spite of their deposits, their outward casing may be more modern than the coins they contain ; yet, on the other hand, we must admit that the simple hemispherical dome, without drum, placed on a low platform, 1 Cunningham, 'Archaeological Reports,' vol. v. pp. 75-79, and plates 21-24. CHAP. III. MANIKYALA. 97 (as at Chakpat) must have been an early form, and that the rail was a feature confined to purely Indian stupas, whilst among those of the Gandhara region it never appeared. The outward appearance of the Manikyala tope, in its half- ruined state, may be judged of from the view (Woodcut No. 25). All that it really requires to complete its outline is the tee, which was an invariable adjunct to these buildings : no other 26. Restored Elevation of the Tope at Manikyala. Scale 50 ft. to i in. feature has wholly disappeared. The restored elevation, half- section, half- elevation (Woodcut No. 26), to the usual scale, 50 ft. to i in., will afford the means of comparison with other monuments ; l and the section and elevation of the base. Woodcut No. 27, on the next page, will explain its architectural details in so far as they can be made out. On digging into this monument, General Ventura found three separate deposits of relics, arranged at apparently equal distances of 25 ft. from the surface of the finished monument and from each other, and each apparently increasing in value or importance as it descended. The first was at the base of a solid cubical mass of squared masonry, and contained, inter a/z'a, some Sassanian coins and one of Yajovarman (about A.D. 720), and one of Abdullah bin Hazim, struck at Merv A.H. 66, or A.D. 685.2 The second, at a depth of 50 ft., contained no coins. The principal deposit, at a depth of 75 ft, was on the exact level of the procession-path outside. It consisted of a copper vessel, in which was a relic casket in brass, represented in the 1 The restored elevation here, omits the stairs (sapana) in front and at the sides, as also the umbrellas that crowned the whole. — See Cunningham, 'Archceo- VOL. I. logical Survey Reports,' vol. v. plates 21 and 22. 2 Thomas's ' Prinsep,' vol. i. p. 94. G BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. woodcut No. 28 on next page, containing a smaller vessel of gold, filled with a brown liquid, and with an inscription on the PART OF FRONT ELEVATION. 27. Elevation and Section of portion of Basement of Stupa at Manikyala. lid which has not yet been fully deciphered, but around it were one gold and six copper coins of the Kanishka type. If this were all, it would be easy to assert that the original smaller tope, as shown in the section (Woodcut No. 26), was erected under Kanishka, or in his time, and that the square block on its summit was the original tee, and that in the 8th century an envelope 25 ft. in thickness, but following the original form, was added to it,1 and with the extended procession- path it assumed its present form, which is very much lower than we would otherwise expect from its age. Against this theory, however, there is an ugly little fact. It is said that a fragment2 or, as it is printed, three Sassanian coins 1 It is not to be assumed that, when a stupa was enveloped by an addition, the enlarged form was symmetrical with the original ; rather it would usually add pro- portionately more to the height than to the diameter. 2 In the text it is certainly printed "three" with a reference to 19 in the plate 21 of vol. iii. The latter is un- doubtedly a misprint, and I cannot help believing the former is so also, as only one fragment is figured ; and Prinsep complains more than once of the state of the French MS. from which he was compiling his account. I observe that Gen. Cunningham adopts the same views. At p. 78, vol. v., he says: "I have a strong suspicion that Gen. Ventura's record of three Sassanian coins having been found below deposit B may be erroneous." CHAP. III. MANIKYALA. 99 were found at a depth of 64 ft. (69 ft. from the finished surface) ; and if this were so, as the whole masonry was found perfectly solid and undisturbed from the surface to the base, the whole monument must be of the age of this coin. As engraved, however, it is such a fragment l that it seems hardly sufficient to base much upon it. Unless the General had discovered it himself, and noted it at the time, it might so easily have been mislabelled or mixed up with other Sassanian fragments belonging to the upper deposits that its posi- tion may be wrongly described. If, however, there were three, this explanation will not suffice. It may, however, be that the princi- pal deposit was accessible, as we know was sometimes the case,2 in this instance at the bottom of an open well-hole or side gallery, before the time of the rebuilding in the 8th century, and was then, and then only, built up solid. If we may disregard this deposit, its story seems self-evident as above explained. But whatever its internal arrangements may have been, it seems perfectly certain that its present external appearance is due to a rebuilding, possibly as late as the early part of the 8th century. General Cunningham attempted to identify M. Court's tope with that erected to commemorate the Buddha, in a previous stage of existence, offering his body to appease the hunger of a tigress, or — according to another version — of its seven famishing cubs ; 3 but this was based on a mistaken reading of some words in the inscription. The stupa of the " body- offering" must have been far to the north-east of Taxila — probably in the Hazara country.4 Unfortunately nothing of the exterior coating now remains on any of the sixteen topes at this place, and, what is worse, of all the fifty or fifty-five which can still be identified at Taxila. As General Cunningham remarks, of all these sixty or seventy stupas there is not one, excepting the great Manikyala tope, that retains in its original position a single wrought stone of its outer facing;5 none 28. Relic Casket, Manikyala. 1 ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. iii. plate 21, fig. 18. 2 ' Foe Koue Ki,' ch. xiii. pp. 85- 86; Beal, 'Buddhist Records,' vol. i. p. xxxiv. 3 S. Julien's ' Memoires sur les Con- trees Occidentals, ' tome i. p. 164, and 'Vie de H. Th.' p. 89; or Beal's ' Buddhist Records,' vol. i. pp. 145^ ; and ' Life of H. T.' p. 67 ; Sp. Hardy's ' Manual of Budhism,' 2nd ed. pp. 93f. 4 E. Chavannes, ' Song Yun ' in 'Bulletin de 1'Ecole Fran9aise de 1'Ex- treme-Orient,' tome iii. (19x33), p. 411. 5 ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. ii. p. 172. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. consequently, are entitled to a longer notice in a work wholly devoted to architecture. Over all India there must have been large numbers of stupas in Buddhist times, though now so very few remain above ground. There is, however, near Daulatpur in the Haidarabad district of Sind, a large tope, known as Thai Rukhan, fully 50 ft. in diameter, and about the same in height. The inner core is of sun-dried brick cased outside with good burnt bricks — moulded for the cornices and capitals of pilasters. It has been surrounded by a platform about 6 yards wide, now ruined and covered with debris.1 The lower portion of the stupa is much peeled and injured ; but above are two belts of pilasters — about twenty in each — with moulded bases and quasi-Corinthian capitals. Over the lower belt a cornice ran, above which the diameter of the tower is contracted by perhaps 5 ft. In the upper section the pilasters are better preserved, and though the top is much ruined, the dome probably began at about 8 ft. above this.2 The bricks are very large, measuring 16 in. in length by n in breadth and 3 in. thick. The stupa probably belongs to an early age, and, as M. Foucher remarks, in style, it appears to have descended directly from those of the Swat valleys and Kabul. In 1877 a stone box containing a crystal reliquary was found embedded in brick when excavating a small mound at Kolhapur ; the casket was broken, but the lid of the box bore a short inscription in early letters, of the maker's name and of the person for whom it was made.3 In 1882 Mr J. M. Campbell of the Civil Service excavated the remains of a stupa at Sopara, 5 miles north of Basein. The dimensions of it, given by Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji are unfortunately not consistent.4 If the diameter of the stupa was, as stated, 67 ft, and the circular platform on which it stood was 268 ft. in circumference and 18 ft. high, the ramp round the dome would be just 9 ft. wide (not 18 ft). But possibly the 1 Among the debris were found some 27 bricks, about 7 inches square, each bearing a small figure of Buddha, seated with the legs down : these may have formed part of a string course. Others bore representations of the birth of Buddha and of the bedroom scene before his leaving home. 2 Burgess, ' Ancient Monts. of India,' plate 62. Other stupas, more ruined, have been noted in Sindh. At Kahu near Mirpur Khas, one was excavated for bricks when making the Haidarabad Umarkot railway, and figures of Buddhas moulded in brick and other ornamental forms were found and appropriated by officials. At Depar, 4 miles from Brahmanabad, and atTando near Tando- Muhammad - Khan, are brick mounds which are remains of stupas. — ' Jour. Bombay B. R. Asiatic Soc.' vol. xix. P- 45- 3 'Jour. Bombay B. R. Asiat. Soc.' vol. xiv. pp. 147-151. * 'Jour. Bombay B. R. Asiat. Soc.' vol. xv. pp. 292-311. It is twice stated (pp. 293 and 295) that the terrace was ' 18 ft. wide.' The plan and section on plate 3 are evidently not drawn to any scale, and afford no help. CHAP. III. STUPAS. 101 diameter of the stiipa was only 49 ft., and the height of it, before excavation, must have been about 50 ft, The special interest of the excavators, however, was in the relic caskets, which, with some interesting figures of Buddhas, contained a silver coin of Sri Yadnya Gautamiputra, who reigned about the end of the 3rd century A.D.1 1 In 1889 Mr Campbell had the Boria slupa, at the foot of Mount Girnar excavated ; but the account given in the ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. Ix. pp. 17-23, is defective in details. In April 1898 Mr. Cousens found the basement of another stiipa at Sopara with the empty relic casket. 29. Parinirvana of Buddha. From Cave 26 at Ajanta. 102 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. RAILS. CONTENTS. Rails at Bharaut, Mathura, Sanchi, and Amaravati. IT is only within the last forty years or so, that our rapidly- increasing knowledge has enabled us to appreciate the important part which Rails play in the history of Buddhist architecture. The rail of the great Tope at Sanchi has, it is true, been long known ; but it is the plainest of those yet discovered, and without the inscriptions which are found on it, and the gate- ways that were subsequently added to it, presents few features to interest any one. There is a second rail at Sanchi which is more ornamented and more interesting, but it has not yet been published in such a manner as to render its features or its history intelligible. The great rail at Bodh - Gaya is one of the oldest and finest of its kind, but, though it was examined and reported on by Rajendralal Mitra and by General Cunningham, neither of them added much to our previous information. When the Amaravati sculptures were brought to light and pieced together,1 it was perceived that the rail might, and in that instance did, become one of the most elaborate and ornamental features of the style. In 1863 General Cunningham found two or three rail pillars at Mathura (Muttra), of an early Jaina stupa, but his discovery, in 1874, of the great rail at Bharaut made it clear that this was the feature on which the early Buddhist architects lavished all the resources of their art, and from the study of which we may consequently expect to learn most. The two oldest rails of which we have any knowledge in India are those at Bodh-Gaya and at Bharaut. The former, General Cunningham thought, cannot be of much later date than Ajoka.2 The latter has been ascribed to the period of 1 ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' Preface to the First Edition. 2 ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. i. p. 10. CHAP. IV. RAILS. 103 the Sunga dynasty, or about two centuries before the Christian Era. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the Bodh- Gaya rail was really erected by Asoka, or during his reign. At all events, we know from the fifteenth chapter of the ' Mahawansa ' that even if he did not worship this tree, he is said to have reverenced it to such an extent that, as tradition reports, when he sent his daughter Sanghamitta to aid in the conversion of Ceylon to the Buddhist creed, he cut off and entrusted her with a branch of this tree planted in a golden vessel. That tree was replanted with infinite ceremony at Anuradhapura, and it, or its lineal descendant, remains the principal numen of the island to this day. Hiuen Tsiang tells us that Ajoka built a small vihara to the east of the tree on the spot where the present temple stands ; l and nothing is consequently more probable than that he should have added this rail, which is concentric with his vihara, but not with the / tree. There certainly is no inherent improbability that he should have done so, for it seems hardly doubtful that this was the traditional tree under whose shade Sakyamuni attained " complete enlightenment," or, in other words, reached Buddha- hood ; and no spot consequently could be considered more sacred in the eyes of a Buddhist, or was more likely to be reverenced from the time forward. The Bharaut rail, according to an inscription on it, was erected by a Prince "Vatsi-putra Dhanabhuti, son of Gaupti- putra Angaradyut, and grandson of Gargiputra VLsvadeva " — " in the time of the .Sungas." 2 This helps us only to a small extent, indicating, however, that this rail is of somewhat later date than the time of Aroka. Some fragments of another rail of early date were also found at Patna — the ancient Pataliputra — in excavations conducted there by Dr. L. A. Waddell, in 1895, which are much of the same type as those of Bodh - Gaya.3 As already mentioned, we have no complete set of photographs of the Bodh - Gaya rail. It is true the drawings by Major Kittoe, in the India Office Library, are very much better than those published by General Cunningham in his report;4 but they do not 1 Griinwedel, ' Buddhist Art,' Eng. tr. p. 7° j Julien, ' Memoires,' tome i. pp. 464-465; Deal, ' Records,' vol. ii. p. 118. 2 ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. xxi. p. 227. 3 Waddell's ' Report on the Excava- tions at Pataliputra ' (Calcutta, 1903), plates i and 3. 4 ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. i. plates 8 to ii. In Rajendralal Mitra's ' Buddha-Gaya,' plates 34-38 and 44, 45, a number of medallions from the rail- pillars are given ; but the drawings in the volume are so often inaccurate in details that we cannot altogether trust them. In Cunningham's ' Mahabodhi,' plates 8 and 9, are given small photographs of a few discs. A complete survey should give the whole pillar in each case ; of eight of them there are photographs in the Calcutta Museum and India Office. IO4 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. suffice for this purpose. In so far, however, as the evidence at present available enables us to judge, it seems nearly certain that the Bharaut sculptures are somewhere between those of the gateways at Sanchi and those at Bodh-Gaya ; and conse- quently we may, for the present at least, assume the latter rail to be B.C. 250, that at Bharaut B.C. 200, and the gateways at Sanchi to range from about B.C. 160 to say B.C. 100. The Bodh-Gaya rail is a rectangle, measuring 145 ft. by 108 ft, and is very much ruined. Its dimensions were, indeed, only obtained by excavation.1 The pillars are apparently only 6 ft. 8 in. in height, standing on a plinth, and are generally ornamented with a semi-disc top and bottom containing a single figure, or a group of several. They have also a central circular disc, with either an animal or bust in the centre of a lotus. Portions of the coping of the rail have been recovered, the inner faces of which are ornamented with long lines of animals — elephants, deer, bulls, winged horses, makaras, centaurs, etc.; and the outer faces are carved with bands of flowers. The intermediate rails between the pillars are sculptured with circular lotus flowers on both sides, some of them containing busts or animals. As the most ancient sculptured monument in India, it would be extremely interesting to have this rail fully illustrated,2 not so much for its artistic merit as because it is the earliest authentic monument representing manners and mythology in India. Its religion, as might be expected, is principally Tree and Serpent worship, mingled with venera- tion for dagabas, wheels, and Buddhist emblems. The domestic scenes represent love-making, and drinking — anything, in fact, but Buddha or Buddhism, as we afterwards come to understand the term. BHARAUT OR BHARHUT. Whatever interest may attach to the rail at Bodh-Gaya it is surpassed ten times over by that of the rail at Bharaut, which, taking it all in all, is perhaps the most interesting monument — certainly in a historical point of view — known to exist in India. The tope itself, which seems to have been 1 Gen. Cunningham assumed that the original rail formed a rectangle, about 74 ft. from north to south by 54 ft. from east to west ; but at a later date it was reconstructed as an enclosure for an enlarged temple, measuring 145 ft. from east to west, and 108 from north to south ( ' Archaeological Reports, ' vol. iii. p. 90, and plate 25). In ' Archaeological Reports,' vol i. plate 4, he gave the dimensions of the enclosure as only 131 ft. by 98 ; and Rajendralal Mitra (' Buddha-Gaya,' p. 73), contends that it measured 154 ft. by 114 ft. 8 in. 2 Major Kittoe made careful drawings of most of the medallions to be seen seventy years ago. Two of them are reproduced here, the first representing a CHAP. IV. RAIL AT BHARAUT. 105 about 68 ft. in diameter, had entirely disappeared, having been utilised by the natives to build their villages ; but about one- half of the rail, which was partly thrown down and buried in the rubbish, had been preserved. Originally it was 88 ft. in diameter, and consequently some 277 ft. in length. It was divided into four quadrants by the four entrances, each of which was guarded by statues 4^ ft. high, of Yakshas and Yakshinis, and Nagarajas carved in relief on the corner pillars. The eastern gateway only is known to have been adorned with a Toran — or, as the Chinese would call it, a " P'ai-lu " — like those at Sanchi. One pillar of it is shown in the woodcut (No. 32) on next page, and sufficient fragments were found in the excavations to enable General Cunningham to restore it with considerable certainty. From his restoration it appears to have been 22 ft. 6 in. in height from the ground to the top of the chakra, or wheel, which was the central emblem on the top of all, supported by a honeysuckle ornament of great beauty. The beams had no human figures on them, like those at Sanchi. The lower had a procession of elephants, bringing offerings to a tree ; the middle beam, of lions similarly employed ; the upper beam has not been recovered, but the beam-ends are ornamented with conventional crocodiles or makaras, and show man on his knees before an altar worshipping a tree, while a flying figure brings a garland to adorn it. The other represents a relic casket, over which a seven- 30. Tree Worship ; Bodh-Gaya Rail. 31. Relic Casket : Bodh-Gaya Rail. headed Naga spreads his hood, and over him an umbrella of state. There are, besides, two trees in a sacred enclosure, and another casket with three umbrellas (Woodcuts No. 30, 31). io6 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. elevations of buildings so correctly drawn as to enable us to recognise all their features in the rock-cut edifices now existing. The toran, most like this one, is that which surmounted the southern entrance at Sanchi, which I believe to be the oldest of the four found there, and to have been erected in the middle of the 2nd century, before our era (B.C. 160-150). This one, however, is so much more wooden and constructively so inferior, that I would, on architectural grounds alone, be inclined to affirm that it was the older. The age of the rail, however, does not depend on this determination, as the toran may have been added afterwards. The rail was apparently 9 ft. in height, including the coping, CHAP. IV. RAIL AT BHARAUT. 107 and had three discs on intermediate rails. The inner side of the upper rail was ornamented by a continuous series of bas- reliefs, divided from each other by a beautiful flowing scroll. The inside also of the discs was similarly ornamented — their sculptures bearing an evident analogy to those on the Bodh- Gaya rail, whilst some of the pillars had bas-reliefs in three storeys on three of their sides. Altogether, I fancy not less than one hundred separate bas-reliefs were recovered, all representing some scene or legend of the time, and nearly all inscribed l not only with the names of the principal persons represented, but with the title of the jataka or legend, so that they are easily recognised in the books now current in Buddhist countries. It is the only monument in India that is so inscribed,2 and it is this that consequently gives it such value for the history not only of art but of Buddhist mythology. If this work professed to be a history of Indian art, including sculpture, it would be necessary to illustrate this rail to a much greater extent than is here attempted ; but as architecturally it is hardly more important than others, the reader who is interested in it may be referred to the volume published by its discoverer.3 Meanwhile, however, it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the art here displayed is purely indigenous. There is absolutely no trace of Egyptian influence. It is, indeed, in every detail antagonistic to that art ; nor is there any trace of classical art. The capitals of the pillars do resemble some- what those at Persepolis, and the honeysuckle ornaments point in the same direction ; 4 but, barring that, the art, especially the figure-sculpture belonging to the rail, seems an art elaborated on the spot by Indians, and by Indians only.5 Assuming these facts to be as stated, they give rise to one or two inferences which have an important bearing on our investigations. First, the architecture of this rail, with its toran, are more essentially wooden than even those at Sanchi, and, so 1 ¥01 the translation of these inscrip- tions by Dr. Hultzsch, see ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. xxi. pp. 225-242. See also vol. x. pp. iiSff, 2556°. ; vol. xi. pp. 258". ; and vol. xiv. pp. I3?f. 2 The sculptures on the walls of the old Papnath temple at Pattadakal are also labelled ; but it is an almost exceptional instance. 3 General Cunningham's 'Stiipa of Bharhut,' London, 1879. 4 Whatever the early Hindus borrowed from Persia or elsewhere they gradually modified by varying the details, until it became native in form. 5 The following outline (Woodcut No. 33, on the next page) of one of the bas- reliefs on a pillar at Bharaut may serve to convey an idea of the style of art and of the quaint way in which the stories are there told. On the left, a king with a five-headed snake-hood is represented kneeling before an altar strewn with flowers, behind which is a tree (Sirisa dcasia?) hung with garlands. Behind him is an inscription to this effect : — "Erapato (Air^vata) the Nagaraja wor- ships the blessed one (Bhagavat)." Above him is the great five-headed Naga him- self, rising from a lake. To its right a io8 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. far as it goes, tends to confirm the conclusion that, at the period they were erected, the style was passing from wood to stone. man in the robes of a priest standing up to his middle in the water, and above the Naga a female genius, apparently floating in the air. Below is another Nagaraja, with his quintuple snake-hood, and behind him two females with a single 33. Tree and Serpent Worship at Bharaut, (From a Photograph.) snake at the back of their heads — an arrangement which is universal in all Naga sculpture. They are standing up to their waists in water. If we may depend on the inscription below him, this is Erapato twice over, and the females are his two wives. The inscription up the side states that this is " the gift of Rishidatta, a preacher." — Cunningham's ' Stiipa of Bharhut,' plate 14. This bas-relief is further interesting as being an epitome of my work on ' Tree and Serpent Worship.' As expressing in the shortest possible compass nearly all that is said there at length, it will also serve to explain much that is advanced in the following pages. As it is years older than anything that was known when that book was written, it is a confirmation of its theories, as satisfactory as it is complete. CHAP. IV. RAIL AT BHARAUT. 109 On the other hand, however, the sculpture is so sharp and clean, and every detail so well and so cleverly expressed in the hard sandstone in which it is cut, that it is equally evident the carvers were perfectly familiar with the material they were using. It is far from being a first attempt. They must have had chisels and tools quite equal to carving the hardest stone, and must have been perfectly familiar with their use. How long it may have taken them to acquire this degree of perfection in stone carving, it is of course impossible to guess, without further data ; but it must have been centuries. Though, therefore, we may despair of finding any architectural buildings older than the time of A.roka, it is by no means improbable that we may find images or bas-reliefs, and inscriptions of a much earlier date, and for the history of India and her arts they would be as useful as the larger examples. For the present we must be content with the knowledge that we now know perfectly what the state of the arts was in India when the Greeks first visited it. Neither the Bodh- Gaya nor the Bharaut rails were, it is true, in existence in Alexander's time ; but both were erected within the limits of the century in which Megasthenes visited the country, as ambassador from Seleukos, and it is principally from him that we know what India was at that time. If he did not see these monuments he may have seen others like them, and at all events saw carvings executed in the same style, and wooden chaityas and temples similar to those depicted in these sculptures. But one of the curious points they bring out is, that the religious observances he witnessed at the courts of the Brahmanical king, Chandragupta, are not those he would have witnessed had he been deputed to his Buddhist grandson the great A^oka. Here, as everything else at this age, everything is Buddhist, but it is Buddhism without Buddha. He nowhere appears, either as a heavenly person to be worshipped, or even as an ascetic. The nearest indication of his presence is in a scene where Ajata^atru — the king in whose reign he attained Nirvana — kneels before an altar in front of which are impressions of his feet. His feet, too, seem impressed on the step of the triple ladder, by which he descended from Heaven at Sankisa ; Maya's dream, and the descent of the white elephant, can be recognised, and other indications sufficient to convince an expert that Buddhism is the religion indicated. But, as at Sanchi, by far the most numerous objects to which worship is addressed in these sculptures, are trees, one of which, the inscription tells us, is the Bodhi-tree of Sakyamuni. Besides this, the Bo-trees of six or seven of his predecessors are represented in these sculptures, and both by their foliage and no BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I, their inscriptions we can easily recognise them as those known at the present day as ascribed to these previous Buddhas.1 Naga people, and kings with their five-headed serpent-hoods, are common ; but only one instance has yet been brought to light in which the serpent can be said to be worshipped. Making love and drinking are not represented here as at Sanchi — nor are females represented nude as they are on the Jaina sculptures at Mathura. All are decently clothed, from the waist downwards at least, and altogether the manners and customs at Bharaut are as much purer as the art is better than it is in the example of Sanchi. MATHURA (MUTTRA). When excavating at Mathura, General Cunningham found several pillars of a rail, which, judging from the style, is pro- bably later than that at Bharaut, but still certainly anterior to the Christian Era. The pillars, however, are only 4^ ft. high, and few traces of the top rail or of the intermediate discs have been found. Each pillar is adorned by a figure of a nude female in high relief, singularly well executed, richly adorned with necklaces and bangles, and a bead belt or truss around their middles. Each stands on a crouching dwarf or demon, and above each, in a separate compartment, are the busts of two figures, a male and female, on a somewhat smaller scale, either making love to each other, or drinking something stronger than water.2 Though the sculptures at Sanchi and Katak have made us familiar with some strange scenes, of what might be supposed an anti-Buddhistic tendency, this rail, we cannot now doubt, belonged to a group of Jaina temples and monastic buildings of a very early age. We do not, indeed, know if the rail was straight or circular, or to what class of building it was attached ; but it is pretty certain that these pillars belonged to one or more Jaina stupas such as that of which the remains were excavated by Dr. Fiihrer in 1888-89. Jaina tradition had always claimed Mathura as one of the centres of their sect, and an inscription found there and dated in the year 79 of the Kushan kings, records the consecration of a statue to the stupa of Suparyva.8 This confirms what had previously been anticipated — that the Jains, as well as the Buddhists, erected stupas in honour of their 1 Tumour's 'Mahawansa,' Introd. p. 32 ; Griinwedel, ' Buddhist Art in India ' (Eng. tr.), p. 74. 2 Outlines of these sculptures are given in Gen. Cunningham's ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. iii. plate 6 ; also in Fiihrer's plates 60-64, in V. A. Smith's 'Jaina Stupa, etc., at Mathura.' 3 'Epigraphia Indica,'vol. ii. pp. 204, 32lf. CHAP. IV. RAIL AT SANCHI. prophets, and that their art did not differ materially from that of the latter.1 £ tftlfVta.tlfl.fJ: #fe ' '•'_• J J J SANCHI-KANAKHEDA. Though the rails surrounding the topes at Sanchi are not, in themselves, so interesting as those at Bodh-Gaya and Bharaut, still they are useful in exhibiting the various steps by which the modes of decorating rails were arrived at, and the torans or gateways of the great rail are quite unequalled by any other examples known to exist in India. The rail that surrounds the great tope may be described as a circular enclosure 140 ft. in diameter, but not quite regular, being oval on one side, to admit of the ramp or stairs leading to the berm or procession - path surrounding the monument. As will be seen from the annexed woodcut (No. 34), it consists of octagonal pillars 8 34 ft. in height, and spaced 2 ft. apart. These are joined to- gether at the top by a rail 2 ft. 3 in. deep, held in its position by a tenon cut on the top of the pillars, as at Stonehenge ; between the pillars are three intermediate rails, which are slipped into lens - shaped holes, on either side, the whole showing how essentially wooden the construction is. The pillars, for instance, could not have been put up first, and the rails added afterwards. They must have been inserted into the right or left hand posts, and supported while the next pillar was pushed laterally, so as to take their ends, and when the top rail was shut down the whole became mortised together as a piece of carpentry, but not as any stone - work was done either before or afterwards. The rail of the No. 2 Stupa at Sanchi is of special interest as being more ornamented with sculptures which, with many of the inscriptions, appear to belong to a period distinctly antecedent to those of the gateways of the great stupa (Woodcut No. 35); there circular discs are added in the centre of each pillar, Rail at Sanchi. (From a Drawing by Gen. Cunningham.) 1 Biihler, ' Legend of the Jaina Stupa at Mathura ' ; and ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 311 et seqq. and plates; see also the curious tale about Kanishka and a Jaina stupa that he worshipped by mistake. — 'Journal Asiatique,' JXe ser. tome viii. ( 1896), pp. 458ff. Conf. Arite, p. 54, note I. 112 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. and semicircular plates at top and bottom.1 In carpentry the circular ones would represent a great nail meant to keep the centre bar in its place ; the half discs top and bottom, metal plates to strengthen the junctions — and this it seems most probably may really have been the origin of these forms. If from this we attempt Ifo follow the progress made in the ornamentation of these rails, it seems to have been arrived at by placing a circular disc in each of the intermediate rails, as shown in the woodcut (No. 36), copied from a representation of the outer face of the Amaravati rail, carved upon it. In the actual rail the pillars are proportionally taller and the spaces somewhat wider, but in all other respects it is the same — it has the same zoophorus below, and the same conventional figures bearing a roll above, both of which features are met with almost everywhere. 35- Rail, No. 2 Tope, Sanchi. (From a Drawing by Col. Maisey.) 36. Representation of Rail, (From a Bas-relief at Amara vat!,) A fourth stage was reached in that shown in the next woodcut (No. 37), from a representation of a rail in the 1 The sculptures on this rail have not | drawn by Col. Maisey. See his ' Sanchi,' been fully illustrated ; some of them were | plates 29-31, and pp. 67-70. CHAP. IV. RAIL AT SANCHI. Gautamiputra cave at Nasik, dr. A.D. 160 to 175, where there are three full discs on the pillars as well as on the rails, and no doubt other variations may yet be found ; but these are sufficient to show how the discs were multiplied till the pillars almost become evanescent quantities in the composition. Rail in Gautamiputra Cave, Nasik, The greatest innovation, however, that took place, was the substitution of figure - sculpture for the lotus or water leaves of the discs, if that can be called an innovation, which certainly took place in the wooden age of architecture, before it was thought of translating these things into stone. The earliest rails we know, those at Bodh-Gaya and Bharaut, show these changes already completed in the manner above described. The plainness of the rail, or the absence of figure-sculpture, is consequently no test of its greater or less antiquity, though the extreme multiplication of discs, as shown in the last example, seems only to have taken place just before their discontinuance. To return, however, from this digression. The rail that surrounds the great tope at Sanchi was probably commenced immediately after its erection, which, as explained above, was probably in A^oka's time, B.C. 250; but as each rail, as shown by the inscription on it, was the gift of a different individual,1 1 Gen. Cunningham collected and translated 196 inscriptions from this tope, in his work on the Bhilsa Topes, pp. 235 ef seqq., plates 16-19 ; but the more accurate versions of a larger collec- VOL. I. tion of 378 from this rail and 78 from that of Stupa No. 2, are those by Professor Buhler, published in ' Epi- graphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 87 et seqq., and 366 et seqq. H BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. it may have taken a hundred years to erect. The age of the torans is more easily ascertained. There is an inscription on the south gateway, which is certainly integral, which states that the gateway was erected during the reign of King Satakarni of the Andhra dynasty, and it is nearly certain that this applies to a king of that name who reigned about B.C. 155. If we assume that this gateway — which leads to the steps by which the berm is ascended — is probably the oldest of the four, it gives us a starting-point from which to determine the age of the others. The next to be erected would be the northern. That may have been followed by the eastern — the one of which there is a cast at South Kensington — and the last erected was perhaps the western.1 The style and details of all these show a succes- sion and a progress that could hardly have taken place in much less than a century, and, with other reasons, enable us to assert without much hesitation, that the four gateways were added to the rail of the great tope during the 2nd century before the Christian Era.2 The northern gateway is shown in the general view of the building (Woodcut No. 12), but more in detail in the cut (No. 38) on the following page. In design and dimensions these four gateways are all very similar to one another. The northern is the finest,3 as well as somewhat larger than the others. Its pillars, to the underside of the lower beam, measure 18 ft, including the elephant capitals, and the total height to the top of the emblem is 35 ft. The extreme width across the lower beam is 20 ft. The other gateways are somewhat less in dimen- sions, the eastern being only 33 ft. in height. The other two having fallen, and — though re-erected by Government — we cannot be sure what their exact dimensions may originally have been. All these four gateways, or torans as they are properly called, were covered with the most elaborate sculptures both in front and rear — wherever, in fact, their surface was not hidden by being attached to the rail behind them. Generally the sculptures represent scenes from the life or legend of 1 In later stupas, the west side seems to have been frequently regarded as the front ; but generally it was on the side facing the monastic buildings. 2 The details from which these de- terminations are arrived at will be found in ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' pp. 98 et seqq. Since that work was published, however, the discovery of .Satakarni's name in the Hathigumpha inscription, at Khandagiri, the re - adjustment of the chronology of the Andhras, and other epigraphical results, have considerably altered the actual dates ascribed to monuments of this early period ; their relative ages, however, are not materially affected by this. * It is very much to be regretted that when Lieut. Cole had the opportunity he did not take a cast of this one instead of the eastern gateway. It is far more com- plete, and its sculptures more interesting. • .- £*s Northern Gateway of Tope at Sanchi. (From a Photograph. n6 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. Buddha,1 but nowhere is he represented in the conventional forms either standing or seated cross-legged, which afterwards became universal. In addition to these are scenes from the jatakas or legends, narrating events or actions that took place during the five hundred births through which Sakyamuni had passed before he became so purified as to reach perfect Buddha- hood. One of these, the Wessantara, or "alms-giving Jataka," occupies the whole of the lower beam of the northern gateway, and reproduces all the events of that wonderful tale, exactly as it is narrated in Sinhalese and Pali books at the present day. Besides these legendary scenes, the worship of trees is repre- sented at least seventy-six times ; of dagabas or relic shrines, thirty-eight times ; of the chakra, or wheel, the emblem of Dharma — the law — ten times ; and of Sri, the goddess of fortune, who afterwards, in the Hindu Pantheon, became Lakshmi the consort of Vishnu, ten times. The Triratna or trident emblem which crowns the gateways may, and I am inclined to believe does, represent the Buddhist creed. On the left-hand pillar of the north gateway it crowns a pillar, hung with wreaths and emblems, at the bottom of which are the sacred feet (Woodcut No. 39) : — the whole looking like a mystic emblem of a divinity, it was forbidden to represent under a human form. The corresponding face of the opposite pillar is adorned with architectural scrolls, wholly without any esoteric meaning so far as can be detected, but of great beauty of design (Woodcut No. 40). Other sculptures represent sieges and fighting, and con- sequent triumphs. Others portray men and women eating and drinking and making love, and otherwise occupied, in a manner as unlike anything we have been accustomed to connect with Buddhism as can well be imagined. Be this as it may, the sculptures of these gateways form a perfect picture Bible of Buddhism as it existed in India in the 2nd century before the Christian Era, and as such are as important historically as they are interesting artistically.2 The small tope (No. 3) on the same platform, and about 40 yards north-north-east from the great tope at Sanchi, was surrounded by a rail which has now almost entirely disappeared. It had, however, at least one toran, the pillars and one beam of 1 See Griinwedel's ' Buddhist Art in India,' Eng. transl., pp. 58-74. 2 For details of these sculptures and references, the reader must be referred to ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' where a great number of them are represented and described in great detail. Sculptures do not, strictly speaking, belong to this work, and, except for historical purposes, are not generally alluded to. The sculptures were all photographed to scale some years ago by Mr. H. Cousens of the Archaeological Survey, but as yet there is no prospect of their publication. — 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1902, pp. 29-45. CHAP. IV. RAIL AT SANCHI. 117 which were still standing twenty years ago, when the upper two beams were also pieced together and replaced. It is only about half the size of those of the great tope, measuring about 17 ft. to the top of the upper beam, and 13 ft. across its lower beam. It is apparently somewhat more modern than the great gateways, and its sculptures may have re- ference to the acts of vSariputra and Mogga- lana, whose relics, as above mentioned, were deposited in it. This tope was only 40 ft. in diameter, which is about the same dimen- sion as No. 2 Tope, con- taining the relics of some of the apostles who took part in the third convocation under Asoka., and afterwards in the diffusion of the Buddhist religion in the countries bordering on India. As above pointed out, the rails at Bodh- Gaya and Bharaut afford a similar picture of Buddhism at a time perhaps a century earlier. The difference is not striking, but on a close examination it is evident that the art, if not also the morals, had degener- ated during the interval. There is a precision and a sharpness about the Bharaut sculptures which is not found here, and drinking and \ Bas-relief on left-hand Pillar, Northern Gateway, Ornament on right-hand Pillar, Northern Gateway. n8 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. love-making do not occur in what remains of the sculptures — they do, however, occur at Bodh-Gaya — to anything like the extent they do at Sanchi. There is no instance at Bharaut of any figure entirely nude ; at Sanchi apparent nudity among the females is rather the rule than the exception. The objects of worship are nearly the same in both instances, but are better expressed in the earlier than in the later examples. We may, however, make some allowance for differences of material and race or locality — possibly also to peculiarities in the different sects for which the two monuments were executed.1 The Mathura sculptures may suggest that the Digambara Jains regarded female as well as male nudity as a mark of sanctity. Before leaving these torans, it may be well to draw attention again to the fact of their being, even more evidently than the rails, so little removed from the wooden originals out of which they were elaborated. No one can look at them, however carelessly, without perceiving that their forms are such as a carpenter would imagine, and could construct, but which could not be invented by any process of stone or brick masonry with which we are familiar. The real wonder is that, when the new fashion was introduced of repeating in stone what had previously been executed only in wood, any one had the hardihood to attempt such an erection in stone ; and still more wonderful is it that, having been done, three of them should have stood during eighteen centuries, till one was knocked down by some clumsy Englishmen, and that only one — probably the earliest, and consequently the slightest and most wooden — should have fallen from natural causes. Although these Sanchi torans are not the earliest specimens of their class executed wholly in stone, neither are they the last. We have, it is true, no means of knowing whether those represented at Amaravati2 were in stone or in wood, but, from their different appearances, some of them most probably were in the more permanent material. At all events, in China and Japan their descendants are counted by thousands. The "p'ai-lus" in the former country, and the " tori-is " in the latter, are copies more or less correct of these Sanchi gateways, and like their 1 The difference of style may be com- pared with that which prevails among Musalman monuments in different parts of India in the I5th and i6th centuries. 2 They must certainly have been very common in India, for, though only one representation of them has been detected among the sculptures at Sanchi ('Tree and Serpent Worship,' plate 27, fig. 2), at least ten representations of them are found at Amaravati, plates 59 (fig. 2), 60 (fig. I), 63 (fig. 3), 64 (fig. i) 69, 83 (fig. 2), 85 (figs, i and 2), 96 (fig. 3), 98 (fig. 2), and no doubt many more may yet be found. In Cave 10 at Ajanta, containing the oldest paintings there, two were represented on the left wall. ' Notes on the Bauddha Rock-Temples of Ajanta, 'p. 51, and plate II. CHAP. IV. RAIL AT AMARAVATI. 119 Indian prototypes are sometimes in stone, sometimes in wood and frequently compounded of both materials, in varying pro- portions. What is still more curious, a toran with five bars was erected in front of the Temple at Jerusalem, to bear the sacred golden vine. It, however, was partly in wood, partly in stone, and was erected to replace one that adorned Solomon's Temple, which was wholly in bronze, and supported by the celebrated pillars Jachin and Boaz.1 AMARAVATI. Although the rail at Bharaut is the most interesting and important in India in an historical sense, it is far from being equal to that at Amaravati, either in elaboration or in artistic merit. Indeed, in these respects, the Amaravati rail is probably the most remarkable monument in India. In the first place, it is more than twice the dimensions of the rail at Bharaut, the great rail being 192 ft. in diameter, the base i6a| ft.,2 or almost exactly twice the dimensions of that at Bharaut ; between these two was the procession-path — 13 ft. wide. The inner wall of sculptures was the facing of the base that supported the plat- form on which the dome stood. Externally, the total height of the great rail was about 14 ft. ; internally, it was 2 ft. less, while the sculptured facing of the base was, perhaps, only 6 ft. in height, with a frieze and cornice over it. The external appearance of the great rail may be judged of from the annexed woodcut (No. 41), representing a small section of it. The lower part, or plinth, was ornamented by a frieze of animals and boys or dwarfs, generally in ludicrous and comic attitudes. The pillars, as usual, were rectangular with the corners splayed off, ornamented with full discs in the centre, and half discs top and bottom, between which were figure sculptures of more or less importance. On the three rail-bars were full discs, all most elaborately carved, and all different. Above runs the usual undulating roll moulding, which was universal in all ages,3 but is here richly inter- spersed with figures and emblems. The inside of the rail was very much more richly ornamented than the outside ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' Appen- dix I. p. 270; 'Temples of the Jews,' pp. 152, 155. 1 From some misunderstanding of the first accounts, it was supposed the Amara- vati stupa had an inner rail ; this was a mistake — the inner circle of sculptures was the facing of the base of the stupa. 3 In Burma at the present day a roll precisely similar to this, formed of coloured muslin, distended by light bamboo hoops, is borne on men's shoulders in the same manner as shown here, on each side of the procession that accompanies a high priest or other ecclesiastical dignitary to the grave. 120 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. shown in the woodcut. All the central range of discs, both on the pillars and on the rails, were carved with figured External Elevation of Great Rail at Amaravati. subjects, generally of very great elaboration and beauty of detail ; and the coping was one continuous bas-relief upwards of 600 ft. in length. At the returns of the gateways another system was adopted, as shown in next woodcut (No. 42). The pillars being narrower, and the discs smaller, the principal sculpture was on the intermediate space : in this instance a king on his throne receives a messenger, while his army in front defends the walls ; lower down the infantry, cavalry, and elephants sally forth in battle array, while one of the enemy sues for peace, which is probably the information being com- municated to the king. The sculptured base, though, perhaps, lower than the rail, was even more richly ornamented than it, generally with figures of dagabas — apparently twelve in each quadrant — CHAP. IV. RAIL AT AMARAVATI. 121 most elaborately carved with scenes from the life of Buddha or from the legends. One of these dagabas has already been given (Woodcut No. 20, page Si).1 Between these were pillars and slabs ornamented, either as shown in Woodcuts Nos. 43 and 44, or with other Buddhist % 42. Angle pillar at Amaravat!. 43. Slab from Base of the Stupa, Amaravati. designs or emblems, but all as rich, at least, as these ; whilst 1 For other examples, see 'Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta Stiipas,' plates i., xxxi. figs- 6, 7, and xxxiii, xxxix. 122 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. over these slabs was an architrave, carved like ivory, with scenes from the life of Buddha ; the whole making up a series of pictures of Buddhism, as it was understood in the ist and 2nd centuries, unsurpassed by anything now known to exist in India. The slab represented in Woodcut No. 43 (p. 121), though now much ruined, is interesting as showing the three great objects of Buddhist worship at once. At the top is the dagaba with its rail, but with the five-headed Naga in the place usually occupied by Buddha. In the central compartment is the chakra or wheel, now generally acknow- ledged to be the emblem of Dharma, the second member of the Buddhist Triad ; below that the tree, possibly repre- senting the Sangha or the con- gregation ; and in front of all a throne, on which is placed what I believe to be a relic, wrapt up in a silken cloth. This combination is repeated again and again in the earlier of these sculptures, and may be almost designated as the shorter Buddhist catechism, or rather the creed — Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. The last woodcut (No. 44) is also interest- ing, as showing, besides the three emblems, the form of pillars with double animal capitals so common in structures of this and an earlier period. The age of this monument can hardly be fixed with certainty ; the sculptures on the rail and on some of the slabs that probably belonged to the stupa itself, are sufficiently analogous in general style to those left of the Bharaut stupa to suggest that they may be of scarcely more than a century later. It must have been commenced at least before figures of Buddha were represented in sculpture — the relic casket and pair of footmarks being the symbols employed to represent him. But among the figures that appear to have belonged to the base of the stupa, there are many that can hardly be earlier than the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. From an inscrip- tion of the reign of Pulumavi Vasishthiputra, it would seem D^gaba (from a Slab), Amaravati. CHAP. IV. RAIL AT AMARAVATI. 123 that the stupa — called a "great chaitya" — belonged to the Chaitika or Purva^aila school, and must have undergone a great restoration about A.D. 1 50 ; l but we find pieces of very ancient sculpture, some of which have been reworked on the back to fit into new places ; and at least one inscription was found that is engraved in pure Maurya characters of about B.C. 200. It seems probable then that an early stupa existed here, of which only a few archaic sculptures have survived. This was restored — perhaps reconstructed and much enlarged — a century or more B.C., the sculptures of the rail represent- ing the veneration of relics, the Triratna, domestic and other scenes, etc., but without the figure of Buddha. Then, in the 2nd century A.D., the stupa itself seems to have been restored when the sculptures wainscotting its base were added, picturing scenes from the legend of Buddha.2 When Hiuen Tsiang visited this place in the year 639 it had already been deserted for more than a century, but he speaks of its magnificence and the beauty of its site in more glowing terms than he applies to almost any other monument in India. Among other expressions, he uses one not easily understood at first sight, for he says, " it was ornamented with all the magnificence of the palaces of Baktria " 3 (Tahia). Now, how- ever, that we know what the native art of India was from the sculptures at Bharaut and Sanchi, and as we also know nearly what the art of Baktria was from those dug up near Peshawar, especially at Jamalgarhi, we see at once that it was by a marriage of these two arts that the Amaravati school of sculpture was produced, but with a stronger classical influence than anything of its kind found elsewhere in India.4 With this, which is certainly the most splendid specimen of its class, we must conclude our history of Buddhist rails. No later example is known to exist ; and the Gandhara topes, which generally seem to be of this age or later, have all their rails attached to their sides in the shape of a row of pilasters. If they had any figured illustrations, they were either in the form of paintings on plaster on the panels or 1 There is no record of the positions of the sculptures belonging to the basement ; and the Government excavation of the whole area in 1881 destroyed the last chance of any further determination. 2 For a full account of the Amaravati stupa, see thevolume of the Archaeological Survey, ' The Buddhist Stupas of Amara- vati and Jaggayyapeta,' 1887. 3 ' Histoire de Hiouen Thsang traduite par Julien,' vol. i. p. 188 ; Beal, ' Life of Hiuen Tsiang,' pp. i^6f. 4 In some of the technical details of the sculptures, notably in the treatment of drapery, the influence of classic art is perceptible ; and it is perhaps here alone in India Proper that this foreign impress is seen. The age of the later sculptures nearly coinciding with the same influence in Gandhara may account for this. Conf. Dr. Le Bon, ' Les Monuments de 1'Inde,' p. 14. 124 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. rilievos between the pilasters ; for we cannot understand any Buddhist monument existing anywhere, without the jatakas or legends being portrayed on its walls in some shape or other. At Sarnath all reminiscences of a rail had disappeared, and a new mode of ornamentation introduced, which bore no resemblance to anything found on the earlier topes. Although, therefore, our history of the rails may finish about A.D. 200, it by no means follows that examples may not yet be brought to light belonging to the five centuries that elapsed between that date and the age of A^oka. As they all certainly were sculptured to a greater or less extent, when they are examined and published, we may hope to have an ancient pictorial history of India for those ages nearly as complete as that possessed by any other country in the world. At present, however, we only know of ten or twelve examples, but they are so easily thrown down and buried that we may hope to find more whenever they are looked for, and from them to learn the whole story of Buddhist art. NOTE. — The central crowning orna- ment in Woodcut No. 38, page 115, is a chakra or wheel in the centre, with Triratna emblems right and left. These triratna symbols represent the three "Jewels" of Buddhism, — Buddha, the Dharma and Sangha. On the upper beam five dagabas and two trees are worshipped; on the intermediate blocks, .Sri and a chakra ; on the middle beam are seven sacred trees, with altars ; on the intermediate blocks, Sri and the chakra again. The lower beam is wholly occupied by the early scenes in the Wessantara jataka, which is continued in the rear. The subjects on the pillars have been described in ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' but are on too small a scale to be distinguishable in the woodcut. See also Griinwedel's ' Buddhist Art in India,' Eng. trans., pp 19, 74, 145. The Triratna is also a Jaina symbol. 45. Triratna Emblem. (From a sculpture at 46. Triratna Symbol from Amaravatt.) Sanchi. CHAP. V. CHAITYA HALLS 125 CHAPTER V. CHAITYA HALLS. CONTENTS. Structural Chaityas— Bihar Caves — Western Chaitya Halls, etc. ALTHOUGH, if looked at from a merely artistic point of view, it will probably be found that the rails are the most interesting Buddhist remains that have come down to our time, still, in an historical or architectural sense, they are certainly surpassed by the chaitya halls. These are the temples of the religion, properly so called, and the exact counterpart of the churches of the Christians, not only in form, but in use. Some twenty or thirty of these are known still to exist in a state of greater or less preservation, but — with very few exceptions — all cut in the rock. In so far as the interior is concerned this is of little or no consequence, but, were it not for one or two recent discoveries, we should not have been able to judge of their external form or effect,1 and, what is worse, we should not have known how their roofs were con- structed. We know that, generally at least, they were formed with semicircular ribs of timber, and it is also nearly certain that on these ribs planks in two or three thicknesses were laid, but we could hardly have guessed what covered the planks externally. Till recently the only structural one known was that at Sanchi, which is shown in plan in the accompanying woodcut (No. 47). It did not, however, suffice to show us how the roofs of the aisles were supported externally. What it does show, which the caves do not, is that when the aisle which 1 It had previously been considered probable that a tolerably correct idea of the general exterior appearance of the buildings from which these caves were copied may be obtained from the Raths (as they are called) of Mamallapuram or Mahavellipore (described further on). These are monuments of a later date, and belonging to a different religion, but they correspond so nearly in all their parts with the temples and monasteries now under consideration, that we could scarcely doubt their being, in most re- spects, close copies of them, as we now discover that they really are. Curiously enough, the best illustrations of some of them are to be found among the sculptures of the Bharaut Rail. 126 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. surrounded the apse could be lighted from the exterior, the apse was carried up solid. In all the caves the pillars sur- rounding the dagaba are of different form and plainer than those of the nave. They are, in fact, kept as subdued as possible, as if it was thought they had no business there, but were necessary to admit light into the circumambient aisle of the apse. The discovery of two old structural chaityas enables us now to realise the formation of their roofs. One of these, at Ter in the Naldrug district of Haidarabad,1 has been appropriated to Vaishnava worship, and to some extent altered, [>ian=of chait a but its arrangements will be understood from the Hail, Sanchi. accompanying view and plan (Woodcuts Nos. 48 Scale 3° ft> to T '"• and 49). The mandap on the east may possibly have been an addition,butifso,ofanearly date, as the mouldings and pilasters testify. The doors of this and of the shrine have been altered : that on the north side has been cut out, and the partition wall across the apse added, 48. Ancient Buddhist Chaitya at Ter. (From a photograph by H, Cousens,) fully laid in a cement of clay. 49. Plan of Ancient Buddhist Chaitya at Ter. Scale 50 ft. to i in. (From a Plan by H. Cousens.) whilst the dagaba — pro- bably of marble — has been removed to make room for two Vaishnava images. The shrine or chaitya is wholly built of bricks of large size, measuring 17 in. by 9, and 3 in. thick, care- This apartment measures 26 ft. 1 Ter was indentified by Dr. Fleet as the site of the ancient Tagara ( ' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1901, pp. 537ff.); and, led by this, Mr. H. Cousens visited the place in November 1901, and discovered this interesting monument. The plan (Illustration No. 49) and the substance of this account is based on his paper in the ' Archaeological Survey Annual, 1902-03,' pp. I95f. CHAP. V. CHAITYA HALLS. 127 in length by 12 ft. wide, the apsidal end and barrel-vaulted roof rising about 30 ft. from the floor ; it is of brick carefully corbelled inwards to form the vault, and rising to a ridge, all carefully plastered. The mandap in front is about 13 ft. high inside, and has a flat roof of wooden beams supported by wooden pillars, and over-laid by brick and plastered outside. Slender pilasters are formed on the outside walls, supporting thick roll mouldings of an early form. The facade of the chaitya rises about 1 8 ft. above the hall roof (Woodcut No. 48), and is of special interest : the recess in the middle of it now contains a Hindu image in plaster, but originally it must have been a window to admit light into the chaitya. And if we compare this facade with that of the Buddhist rock-cut chaitya at Elura, the close resemblance in style, and even in details, derived from earlier wood constructions, is very apparent. The early chaitya, discovered about eighteen years ago at Chezarla, in the Kistna district of the Madras presidency, has been preserved, like the pre- ceding, by being appropri- ated as a vSaiva temple of Kapotejvara — "the pigeon • iUbii-ii- ii- fTF-i! god " ; for the legend of .Sivi-Ujinara, — who offered his own flesh to feed a hawk rather than surrender a dove (kapotd) that had fled to him for protection — is well known from the Mahabharata and Elevation of Chezarla Chaitya Temple. Scale 25 ft. to i in. 52- Section on A B, of No, 50. other works;1 the story has also Buddhist forms in the Jataka book.2 Like the Ter example, this chaitya is built of bricks 1 Benfey's ' Panchatantra,' vol. i. p. 388 ; ' Kalhasaritsagara,' ch. 7 ; ' Maha- bharata,' Vana-parva, sect. 197. 2 The ' Kapota Jataka,' is No. 42, and the Sivi Jataka, No. 499 ; see also Beal's ' Buddhist Records,' vol. ii. pp. 182-183, and 'Life of Hiuen Tsiang,' p. 125; Burgess, ' Notes on the Bauddha Rock Temples of Ajanta: their Paintings, etc,' pp. 47, and 75-76. 128 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. of the same large size, and a mandapa 25 ft. in length by 9 ft. 9 in. wide has been added at some later date, at the east or front end of it. The original chapel is about 23 ft. in length inside and 8 ft. 9 in. wide in front and somewhat less at the apse. The walls are 3 ft. 6 in. thick, but inside pilasters have been built up to support a flat roof about 7^- ft. from the floor, hiding entirely the inside of the vaulting ; outside it is identical with that at Ter. The illustrations Nos. 50, 51, and 52, will enable the reader to form a fairly distinct conception of this interesting monument. These two examples, though of so small dimensions, fully confirm the inductions arrived at before their discovery, of the form of roof and arrangement of these chapels. They must at one time have been very numerous all over India, and further important discoveries may still reward careful research. At Guntupalle in the Godavari district is the ruin of one, measuring 53 ft. 6 in. in length by 14 ft. 6 in. wide ; but only a few feet of the walls remain. And at Vidyadharapuram, near Bezvvada, the foundations have been traced by Mr. Rea of still another. As so much of our information regarding the chaityas, as well as the viharas, which form the next group to be described, was first derived from the rock-cut examples in western India, it would be convenient, if it were possible, to present something like a statistical account of the number and distribution of the groups of caves found there. From what we know of their numbers and distribution we are warranted in assuming that there are at least fifty groups of caves in India proper. Some of these groups contain as many as 100 different and distinct excavations, many not more than ten or a dozen ; but altogether we may fairly assume that not less than 1 200 distinct specimens are to be found. Of these probably 300 may be of Brahmanical or Jaina origin ; the remaining 900 are Buddhist — either monasteries or temples, the former being incomparably the more numerous class ; for of the latter not more than twenty or thirty are known to exist. This difference arose, no doubt, from the greater number of the viharas being grouped around structural topes, as was always the case in Afghanistan and Ceylon ; and, consequently, they did not require any rock- cut place of worship while possessed of the more usual and appropriate edifice. The facades of the caves are generally perfect, and form an exception to what has been said of our ignorance of the external appearance of Indian temples and monasteries, since they are executed in the rock with all the detail that could have graced the buildings of which they are copies. In the investigation of these objects, the perfect immutability of a temple once hewn CHAP. V. CHAITYA HALLS. iag out of the living rock is a very important advantage. No repair can add to, or indeed scarcely alter, the general features of what is once so executed ; and there can be no doubt that we see them now, in all essentials, exactly as originally designed. This advantage will easily be appreciated by any one who has tried to grope for the evidence of a date in the design, afforded by our much-altered and often reconstructed cathedrals of the Middle Ages. The geographical distribution of the caves is somewhat singular, more than nine-tenths of those now known being found within the limits of the Bombay Presidency. The remainder consist of two groups in Bengal — those of Bihar and Katak, neither of which is important in extent ; those of Dhamnar, Kholvi, Besnagar, and Bagh in Rajputana ; in Madras, the groups at Mamallapuram, Bezwada and Guntupalle ; and two or three small groups in the Panjab and Afghanistan.1 This remarkable local distribution may be accounted for by the greater prevalence in western than in eastern India of rocks perfectly adapted to such works. The great cave district of western India is composed of horizontal strata of amygdaloid and other cognate trap formations, generally speaking of very considerable thickness and great uniformity of texture, and possessing besides the advantage that their edges are generally exposed in nearly perpendicular cliffs. No rock in any part of the world could either be more suited for the purpose or more favourably situated than these formations. They were easily accessible and easily worked. In the rarest possible instances are there any flaws or faults to disturb the uniformity of the design ; and, when complete, they afford a perfectly dry temple or abode, singularly uniform in temperature, and more durable than any class of temple found in any other part of the world. From the time of Asoka, B.C. 250, when the first cave was excavated at Rajagriha, till about the 8th century, or later, the series is uninterrupted ; and, if completely examined and drawn, the caves would furnish us with a complete religious and artistic history of the greater part of India during ten or eleven centuries, the darkest and most perplexing of her existence. But, although during this long period the practice was common to Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains, it ceased before the Muhammadan conquest. Hardly any excavations have been made or attempted since that period, except, perhaps, some rude Jaina monoliths in the rock at Gwaliar, and three in southern India. 1 For the Afghanistan caves, see W. Simpson's paper in ' Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects,' VOL. I. N.S., 1891, pp. 2S4ff, and 'Journal,' vol. vii. p. 244. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. BIHAR CAVES. As might be expected from what we know of the history of the localities, the oldest caves in India are situated in Bihar, in the neighbourhood of Rajagriha — now Rajgir— which was the capital of Bengal at the time of the advent of Buddha. Bihar, however, was also one of the earliest provinces in which the Jaina doctrines were propagated, and their great Tirthankara Mahavira was a native of Vai^ali,1 and a contemporary of Gautama Buddha. He preached in Tirhut, Bihar, and neighbouring districts, and is said to have died at Pawapuri, about 10 miles to the north-east of Rajgir, where his sarnosaran or stupa stands, marking one of the most sacred places of pilgrimage of the sect.2 They have several temples about Rajgir, and in early times they would have bhikshugrihas or residences for their ascetics hewn out in the rocks — just as other sects had. And on the wall of the Sonbhandar cave is an inscription dating perhaps from about A.D. 200, ascribing it to a Muni Vairadeva and as " fit for the residence of Arahants " — indicating that it then belonged to the Jains.3 The most interesting group is situated at a place called Barabar, 16 miles north of Gaya. One there, called the Kama Chaupar, bears an inscription which records the excava- tion of the cave in the nineteenth year after the coronation of A.yoka (B.C. 244).* It is simply a rectangular hall measuring 33 ft. 6 in. by 14, and except in an arched roof rising 4 ft. 8 in. above walls, 6 ft. I in. in height, it has no architectural feature of importance. At the right, or west end, is a low platform as if for an image, and the walls are polished quite smooth. A second, called the Sudama or Nyagrodha cave (Woodcut No. 53), bears an inscrip- tion of Ajoka's twelfth year, the same year in which most of his edicts are dated, B.C. 250, and, consequently, is the oldest architectural example in India. It dedi- cates the cave to the mendicants of the Ajivika sect.5 The cave consists of two apartments : an outer, 32 ft. 9 in. in length, and 19 ft. 6 in. in 53. Sudama Cave. 1 Near Chapra and Cherand, on the north bank of the Ganges, some 20 to 25 miles above Patna. — 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. Ixix. pp. 77ff. 2 Buhler ' On the Indian Sect of the Jainas,' Eng. trans., pp. 25<f. ; Cunning- ham, ' Archaeological Survey Reports,' vol. xi. pp. I7of. ; ante, p. 54, note I. 3 Cunningham, ' Archaeological Survey Reports,' vol i. p. 25, and plate 13. 4 ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. xx. pp. i68ff. and 36 iff. 5 The Ajivikas were followers of Makhali Gosala, a contemporary and opponent of Mahavira and of Buddha. They were naked recluse devotees and fatalists, and were often ranked with the Digambara Jains. The Vijva cave here, and the three caves in Nagarjuni hill, i excavated in the reign of Dajaratha, CHAP. V. BIHAR CAVES. breadth, and beyond this a nearly circular apartment 19 ft. u in. by 19 ft., in the place usually occupied by the solid dagaba ; l in front of which the roof hangs down and projects in a manner very much as if it were intended to represent thatch. The most interesting of the group is that called Lomas Rishi, which, though bearing no contemporary in- scription, certainly belongs to the same age. The frontispiece is singularly interesting as representing in the rock the form of the structural chaityas of the age. These, as will be seen from the woodcut (No 55), were apparently constructed with strong 55. Facade of Lomas Rishi Cave. (From a Photograph by Mr Peppe, C. EX) wooden posts, sloping slightly inwards, supporting a longitudinal purlin morticed into their heads, while three smaller purlins on each side are employed to keep the roof in form. Between the pillars was a framework of wood, above which are shown five were all made for the Ajivika ascetics. 1 Indian Antiquary,' vol. xx. p. 362 ; ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 272. 274 ; Buhler, ' Sect of the Jainas,' (English version) p. 39. 1 At Kondivte, in Salsette, near Bombay, there is a chaitya cave of more modern date, which possesses a circular chamber like this, except that it is sunk perpendicularly into the hill side. In the older examples it is probable a relic or some sacred symbol occupied the cell ; in the later it may have been an 54. Kondivte Cave, Salsette. Scale, 50 ft. to i in. image — though we know too little of the Ajivikas to say of whom or what. 132 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I- 56. Lomas Rishi Cave- smaller purlins. Over these lies the roof, apparently formed of three thicknesses of plank, or probably two of timber planks laid reverse ways, and one of metal or some other substance externally. The form of the roof is something of a pointed arch, with a slight ogee point on the summit to form a weather- ing. The door, like all those of this series, has sloping jambs l — a peculiarity arising, as we shall afterwards see, from the lines of the openings following, as in this instance, those of the supports of the roof. The interior, as will be seen from the annexed plan (No 56), is quite plain in form, and does not seem to have been ever quite completed. It consists of a hall 33 ft. by 19 ft, beyond which is an apartment of nearly circular form, forming a shrine, as in the Sudama cave. Three quarters of a mile to the north- east of these, in a ridge of granite, known as the Nagarjuni hill, are three more caves, each bearing an inscription of Da^aratha, the supposed grandson and successor of A^oka, about B.C. 220, dedicating them also to the Ajivikas. The largest is the Gopika or " Milkmaid's Cave," which is a hall 46 ft. 5 in. long, with circular ends, and 19 ft. 2 in. wide, with one door in the centre of the south side. The walls are 6| ft. high, and the vault of the roof rises to io| ft. in the middle. The whole interior is polished, but quite plain, and we can only conjecture that it was formed for a refectory or Dharmas-ala. The remaining two, called the Vahiyaka 2 and the Vadathika caves, are so small as hardly to deserve notice. They are on the north side of the ridge. The first is entered from the end, and consists of a single chamber 16 ft. 9 in. in length by 11 ft. 3 in. wide, and io£ ft. high at the middle of the vault, with highly polished walls. The Vadathika cave is also entered from the end, and is of about the same size.3 Judging from the inscriptions on these caves, the whole 1 Gen. Cunningham ('Archaeological Reports,' vol. i. p. 45) and others have called this an Egyptian form. This it certainly is not, as no Egyptian doorway had sloping jambs. Nor can it properly be called Pelasgic. The Pelasgi did use that form but derived it from stone con- structions. The Indians only obtained it from wood. — Conf. Foucher, ' L'Art Greco-Bouddhique du Gandhara,' tome i. pp. 107, 108, 130 ; Simpson, in ' Trans- actions of the Royal Institute of British Architects,' vol. xxx. (1879-1880), p. 56. 2 By an error in reading the inscription, this cave was formerly called Vapiyaka or " Well Cave " ; but the epigraph reads " Vahiyaka." — ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. xx. p. 364 note. 3 Gen. Cunningham, ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. i. p. 50, states the width of this cave as 4 ft. 3 in., but the small drawing on plate 19 measures about ioi ft. ; it is it ft. 3 in. — 'Jour. Asiat. Soc. Bengal,' vol. xvi., plate at p. 408. CHAP. V. WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS. 133 were excavated between the date of the Sudama and that of the " Milkmaid's Cave," so called (which was excavated by Dajaratha), probably within forty years of that date. They appear to range, therefore, from B.C. 250 to about 220, and the Lomas Rishi is probably the most modern — it certainly is the most richly ornamented. No great amount of elabora- tion, however, is found in these examples, inasmuch as the material in which they are excavated is the hardest and most close-grained granite ; and it was hardly to be expected that a people, who so recently had been using chiefly wood as a building material, would have patience sufficient for labours like these. They have polished them like glass in the interior, and with that they have been content. There is yet another small cave of this class — called Sita- marhi — about 13 miles south of Rajagriha, and 25 miles east from Gaya. It consists of a chamber rectangular in plan, and measuring 15 ft. 9 in., by 1 1 ft 3 in., which is hollowed out of an isolated granite boulder lying detached by itself, and not near any rocks. Inside it is as carefully polished as any of those at Barabar.1 Its principal interest, however, is in its section (Woodcut No. 57), which is that of a pointed arch rising from the floor level to a height of 6 ft. 7 in., without any perpendicular sides, which are found in the other caves here. The jambs of the doorway also slope inwards from the bottom to the top, about I in. each. From its peculiarities we might infer that it is possibly the oldest in the district ; but we must have a more extended series before we can form a reliable sequence in this direction. In 57- P^n and Section , r , . , of Sita-marm. Scale the meantime, however, we may feel sure that 2o ft. to i in. this hermitage belongs to the great Mauryan age, but whether before or after A^oka's time must be left at present undetermined.2 WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS. There are in the Western Ghats and elsewhere in the Bombay Presidency six or seven important chaitya caves whose dates can be made out, either from inscriptions, or from internal evidence, with very fair approximate certainty, and all of which were excavated, if I am not very much mistaken, before the Christian Era. The oldest of these is situated at a place 1 Beglar in ' Archaeological Survey of India Reports,' vol. viii. pp. 106-107. * ' Cave Temples,' pp. 52-53. 134 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. called B6r Ghat. 4 miles There is 58. Chaitya Cave, Bhaja. (From a Plan by J. Burgess.) Scale 50 ft. to i in. south of the great Karle cave in the no inscription upon it, but from the plan (Woodcut No. 58), it will be perceived that it is a chaitya hall of the usual plan, but of no great dimen- sions, being only 60 ft. from the back of the apse to the mortices (a a), in which the supports of the wooden screen once stood. From the wood- cut (No. 60), it will be perceived that the pillars of the interior slope in- wards at a considerable and most un- pleasing angle. The rood - screen which closes the front of other caves of this class is gone, as it is also in the case of the Kondane and Pital- khora examples, and in Cave No. 10 at Ajanta. In other examples it is in stone, and consequently remains, but in those instances, where it was originally in wood, it has disappeared, though the holes to receive its posts and the mortices by which it was attached to the walls are still there. The ogee fronton was covered with wooden ornaments, which have disappeared ; though the pin- holes remain by which they were fastened to the stone. The framework, or truss, that filled the upper part of the great front opening, no longer exists, but what its appearance was may be judged of by the numerous representations of itself with which it is covered, or from the representation of a chaitya facade from the con- temporary rail at Bodh- Gaya (Woodcut No. 59). and there are several others on the rail at Bharaut, which are not 59. Front of a Chaitya Hall. (From a Bas-relief at Bodh-Gaya.) only correct elevations of such a facade as this, but represent the wooden carved ornaments which — according to that authority — invariably adorned these facades. The only existing example of this wooden screen is that at Karle,1 but the innumerable 1 Little more than thirty years ago, the screen in Kondane chaitya cave was also tolerably entire. — 'Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. iv., frontispiece, CHAP. V. WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS. 135 small repetitions of it, not only here but in all these caves, shows not only its form, but how universal its employment was. The rafters of the roof were of wood, and many of them, as may be seen in the woodcut, remain to the present day. Everything, fact, that could be made in wood remained in wood, and in only the constructive parts necessary for stability were executed in the rock. 60. Fa9ade of the Cave at (From a Photograph. It is easy to understand that, the first time men undertook to repeat in stone forms they had only been accustomed to erect in wood, they should have done so literally. The sloping inwards of the pillars was requisite to resist the thrust of the circular roof in the wooden building, but it must have appeared so awkward in stone that it would hardly be often repeated. As, however, it was probably almost universal in structural buildings, the doorways and openings naturally followed the same lines, hence the sloping jambs. Though these were by 136 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. no means so objectionable in practice, they varied with the lines of the supports, and, as these became upright, the jambs became parallel. In like manner, when it was done, the architects could hardly fail to perceive that they had wasted both time and labour in cutting away the rock to make way for their wooden screen in front. Had they left it standing, with far less expense they could have got a more ornamental and more durable feature. This was so self-evident that it never, so far as is known, was repeated, but it was some time before the pillars of the interior got quite perpendicular, and the jambs of the doors quite parallel. There is very little figure sculpture about this cave ; none in the interior, and what there is on the facade seems to be of a very domestic character. But on the pillars in the interior at g and h in the plan (Woodcut No. 58), we find two emblems, and at #, £, and /"three others are found somewhat rudely formed, but which occur again so frequently that it may be worth while to quote them here (Woodcut No. 6I).1 They are known as the triratna, or trident — the central point being usually more im- portant than here shown — the shield, and the chakra, or wheel. The two first are generally found in combination, as in Woodcuts Nos. 39 and 45, and the wheel is frequently found edged with triratna ornaments, as in the central compartment of Woodcut No. 43 from Amaravati. The fourth emblem here is the triratna, Triratna. Shield. Chakra. Triratna. i in combination with a face, and the fifth is one which is fan-shaped and frequently repeated on coins and elsewhere, but to which no name has yet been given. At a short distance along the face of the scarp, is an excava- tion of some interest, containing a group of fourteen monolithic dagabas of various sizes. All of them have the Buddhist-rail pattern cut round the upper margin of the drum. Five under the overhanging rock vary in diameter from 4 ft. 8 in. to 6 ft. 3 in., and the front two have the square box only on the dome, as in the cave, and without the cornice, while the three behind See ' Cave Temples of India,' plate vij, CHAP. V. WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS. 137 62. Capital of a rock-cut Dagaba at Bhaja. (From a Photograph.) have also the heavy cornice : that upon the largest being con- nected with the roof by the stone shaft of the " chhattra " or umbrella, whilst the other two had been provided with wooden shafts. Of the nine in front, the first from the north has a handsome capital 3 ft. 8 in. high, very elaborately carved (Wood- cut No. 62) ; most of the others have been broken. One or more had only the box form without abacus, and on four of them are holes on the top as if for relics. The names of the Theras or priests, still legible on several of them, indicate that they served the place of monuments in a cemetery, though they may also have been reverenced as altars to saints. About 10 miles north-west from Karle, in a ravine of the Western Ghats, are the Kondane chaitya cave and vihara. This chaitya is interesting, inasmuch as its facade is even a more literal reproduction of the wooden forms from which it was derived than that at Bhaja. Nothing could be more literal than the copying of the overhanging forms of the con- structive parts of the facade, which shows no trace of stone construction in any feature, and which it would be hardly possible to construct in masonry. Its dimensions differ but little from those of the Bhaja chaitya, being 66J ft. from the line of the front pillars to the extremity of the apse, 26 ft. 8 in. wide, and 28 ft. 5 in. high to the crown of the arch ; the nave was 14 ft. 8 in. wide, surrounded by thirty pillars — most of which have rotted away, but which incline inwards as do the side walls of the aisles. The dagaba was 9 ft. in diameter with a capital, like that at Bhaja, of about double the usual height. These two chaityas may be considered as contemporary or nearly so, and they are the finest among the four which are the very oldest specimens of their class in the west of India.1 Pitalkhora is a ravine among the Indhyadri hills, about 1 'Cave Temples,' pp. 220-222 and plate 8 ; ' Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. iv. pp. 8-10, and plate ir 138 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. 12 miles south of Chalisgam in Khandesh, where there are several caves — Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jaina. Unfortunately the chaitya is entirely ruined by the decay of the rock, the front half of the temple having quite disappeared. From the style of the viharas, and a few epigraphs, we can only conclude that it must have ranked quite as early as the preceding.1 The fourth of this series will be treated of among the four AjantA chaitya temples. The next group of caves, however, that at Bedsa, 10 or 11 miles south of Karle, shows con- siderable progress towards lithic construction. The screen is in stone ; the pillars are more upright though still sloping slightly inwards, the jambs more nearly parallel ; and, in fact, we have nearly all the features of a well-designed chaitya cave. The two pillars in front, however, as will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 63), are so much too large in proportion to the 63. Plan of Cave at Bedsa. (From a Plan by J. Burgess.) Scale 50 ft, to i in. rest, that they are evidently stambhas, and ought to stand free instead of supporting a verandah. Their capitals (Woodcut No. 64, next page) are more like the Persepolitan type than almost any others in India, and are each surmounted by horses and elephants bearing men and women of bold and free execution.2 From the view (Woodcut No. 65 on page 140) it will be seen 1 ' Cave Temples,' pp. 242-246, and plate 15; 'Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. iv. pp. 11-12. 2 In the PitalkhorS. vihara, we find the Persepolitan capital repeated with a variety of animals over it ; for the Hindu artists, from their natural aptitude for modifying and adapting forms, very soon replaced the bicephalous bull and ram of the Persian columns by a great variety of animals, sphinxes, and even human figures in the most grotesque attitudes. — Dr. Le Bon, ' Les Monuments de 1'Inde,' P- I5- CHAP. V. WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS. 139 how much the surface is covered with the rail decoration, a repetition on a small scale of the rails described in the last section, and which it may here be mentioned is a fair test of 64. Capital of Pillar in front of Cave at Bedsa (From a Photograph.) the age of any building. It gradually becomes less and less used after the date of these two chaitya caves, and disappears wholly in the 4th or 5th centuries ; but during that period its greater or less prevalence in any building is one of the surest indications we have of the relative age of any two examples. In this cave, as will be observed, nearly the whole of the ornamentation is made up of miniature rails, and repetitions of window fronts or facades. It has also a semicircular open- work moulding, like basket-work, which is only found in the very oldest caves, and is evidently so unsuited for stone-work that it is no wonder it was dropped very early. No example of it is known after the Christian Era. There is an inscription in this cave in an ancient form of letters, but without date, and this alone is not sufficient to fix its age absolutely without further evidence. 140 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. 65- View on Verandah of Cave at Bedsa. (From a Photograph.) The next of these early caves is the chaitya at Nasik. Its pillars internally are so nearly perpendicular that their inclina- tion might escape detection, and the door jambs are nearly parallel. The facade, as seen in the woodcut (No. 66, p. 141), is a very perfect and complete design, but all its details are copied from wooden forms, and nothing was executed in wood in this 66. Chaitya Cave at Nasik, (From a Photograph.) i42 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. cave but the rafters of the roof internally, and these have fallen down. Outside this cave, over the doorway, there is an inscription, stating that " the villagers of Dhambika gave the carving over it " ; and another — though imperfect — on the projecting ledge over the guardian to the left of the entrance, reads that " the rail-pattern and the Yaksha were made by Nadasiri." A third inscription, on two of the pillars of the nave, ascribes the com- pletion of the " Chaityagriha " to Bhatapalika granddaughter (?) of Maha-Hakusiri. The first two are in nearly pure Maurya characters, and appear to be about coeval with the inscription of Krishna-raja in the small vihara close by, which we ascribe to about B.C. 160 ; and the third can hardly be much later.1 Taking these inscriptions in conjunction with the architecture, the age of this cave hardly seems doubtful. We may accept B.C. 1 60 as approximately the date of its inception, though its completion may be a quarter of a century later, and, if this is so, it carries back the caves of Bhaja, Bedsa, and the others, to a period considerably before that time, while, on the other hand, it as certainly is older than the Karle cave, which appears to come after it in age, whilst Cave No. 9 at Ajanta may be quite as old. KARLfi. The last of the caves mentioned above, known as that at Karle, is situated near the railway between Bombay and Poona, and is the finest of all — the finest, indeed, of its class. It is certainly the largest as well as the most complete chaitya cave known in India, and was excavated at a time when the style was^in its greatest purity. In it all the architectural defects of the previous examples are removed : the pillars of the nave are quite perpendicular. The screen is ornamented with sculpture — its first appearance apparently in such a position — and the style had reached a perfection that was never after- wards surpassed. In this cave there is an inscription in the left end of the porch, and another on the lion - pillar in front, which are certainly integral, and the first ascribes its completion to " Setthi Bhutapala of Vaijayanti " (or Banavasi), whilst the second states that the lion-pillar was the gift of the " Maharathi Agnimitranaka son of Goti " ; but neither of these, nor others on pillars, door- way, and arch, help us to a date. We are thus thrown back on style, without any help from examples closely akin in 1 ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. viii. pp. 91-93. CHAP. V. KARLE. details : we have also later inscriptions, of Ushabhadata, the son- in-law of the Kshatrapa Nahapana,1 and, as the latter belongs to the beginning of the 2nd century, Ushabhadata cannot be placed earlier than about A.D. 120. But the cave had been completed long before this, and we may pretty safely place it in the century B.C., and possibly early in that century. 67-68. Section and Plan of Chaitya Cave at Karle. Scale 50 ft. to i in. The building, as will be seen by the annexed woodcuts (Nos. 67, 68, 69), resembles, to a very great extent, an early Christian church in its arrangements : consisting of a nave and side-aisles, terminating in an apse or semidome, round which the aisle is carried. The general dimensions of the interior are 124 ft. 3 in. from the entrance to the back wall, by 45 ft. 6 in. in width. The side-aisles, however, are very much narrower than in Christian churches, the central one being 25 ft. 7 in., so that the others are only 10 ft. wide, including the thickness of the pillars. As a scale for comparison, it may be mentioned that its arrangement and dimensions are very similar to those of the choir of Norwich Cathedral, or 1 For the K&rle inscriptions, see ' Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. iv. pp. 90-92, 112-113 ; ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. vii. pp. 47ff. 144 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. of the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, omitting the outer aisles in the latter buildings. The thickness of the piers at Norwich and Caen nearly corresponds to the breadth of the aisles in the Indian temple. In height, however, Karle is very inferior, being only 45 ft. from the floor to the apex. Fifteen pillars on each side separate the nave from the CHAP. V. KARLE. 145 aisles ; each pillar has a tall base, an octagonal shaft, and richly ornamented capital, on the inner front of which kneel two elephants, each bearing two figures, generally a man and a woman, but sometimes two females, all very much better executed than such ornaments usually are ; behind are horses and tigers, each bearing a single figure.1 The seven pillars behind the altar are plain octagonal piers, without either base or capital, and the four under the entrance gallery differ con- siderably from those at the sides. The sculptures on the capitals supply the place usually occupied by frieze and cornice in Grecian architecture; and in other examples plain painted surfaces occupy the same space. Above this springs the roof, semicircular in general section, but somewhat stilted at the sides, so as to make its height greater than the semi-diameter. It is ornamented even at this day by a series of wooden ribs, probably coeval with the excavation, which prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the roof is not a copy of a masonry arch, but of some sort of timber construction which we cannot now very well understand. Immediately under the semidome of the apse, and nearly where the altar stands in Christian churches, is placed the Dagaba, in this instance a plain dome, on a two-storeyed circular drum, the upper margins of each section being carved with rail ornaments (Woodcut No. 70). Just under the lower of these are holes or mortices for woodwork, which may have been adorned with hangings, which some of the sculptured representations would lead us to suppose was the usual mode of ornamenting these altars. It is surmounted by a capital or Tee, the base of which is similar to the one shown on Woodcut No. 15, and on this still stand the remains of an umbrella in wood, some- what decayed and distorted by age. This canopy was circular and minutely carved on the under surface.2 Opposite this is the entrance, consisting of three doorways under a gallery exactly corresponding with our roodloft, one lead- ing to the centre, and one to each of the side-aisles ; and over the gallery the whole end of the hall is open, as in all these chaitya halls, forming one great window, through which all the light is admitted. This great window is formed in the shape of a horseshoe, and exactly resembles those used as ornaments on the facade of this cave, as well as on those of Bhaja, Bedsa, and at Nasik described above, and which are met with everywhere at this age. Within the arch is a frame- Drawings of some of the pillars are Western India,' vol. iv. plate 13. given in ' Cave Temples of India,' plates ! ' Cave Temples of India,' p. 235, and 12 and 14, and ' Archaeological Survey of VOL. I. plate 13. 146 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. work or centering of wood standing free (Woodcut No. 6g\ This, so far as we can judge, is, like the ribs of the interior, coeval with the building ; l at all events, if it has been renewed, it is an exact copy of the original form, for it is found repeated in stone in all the niches of the facade, over the doorways, and generally as an ornament everywhere, and, with the 70. View of Interior of Cave at Karle. (From a Photograph.) Buddhist "rail," copied from Sanchi, forms the most usual ornament of the style. The sculpture on the screen wall between the doors is mostly of much later date than the cave itself. All the figures of Buddha there represented are of late date and belong to the 1 About 1870 it was reported that this screen was in danger of falling outwards, and I wrote repeatedly to India begging that something might be done to preserve it ; this was eventually effected, but by "restoration" rather than by judicious repair. Only a small portion of the original ribbing of the Bhaja cave now remains. That of the Bedsa cave was destroyed about 1 86 1 ('Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. viii. p. 223) ; and it would be a thousand pities if this, which is the only original screen in India, were allowed to perish when a very small outlay would save it. Like the Iron pillar at Meharaull close to Delhi, which never rusts, teak wood that does not decay, though exposed to the atmosphere for 2000 years, is a phenomenon worth the attention not only of antiquaries, but of natural philosphers. CHAP. V. GREAT CHAITYA AT KARLE. 147 Mahayana school ; the larger pairs of figures, however, are earlier and may be original. The later inscriptions are of the time of the Andhra king Pulumavi (dr. A.D. 150). The presence of the woodwork is an additional proof, if any were wanted, that there were no arches of construction in any of these Buddhist buildings. There neither were nor are any in any Indian building anterior to the Muhammadan conquest, and very few indeed in any Hindu building afterwards. To return, however, to Karle, the outer porch is considerably wider than the body of the building, being 52 ft. wide by 15 ft. deep, and is closed in front by a screen composed of two stout octagonal pillars, without either base or capital, supporting what is now a plain mass of rock, but which was once ornamented by a wooden gallery forming the principal ornament of the facade. Above this a dwarf colonnade or attic of four columns between pilasters admitted light to the great window, and this again was surmounted by a wooden cornice or ornament of some sort, though we cannot now restore it, since only the mortices remain that attached it to the rock. In advance of this screen stands the lion-pillar, in this instance a plain shaft with sixteen flutes, or rather faces, surmounted by a capital not unlike that at Kesariya (Woodcut No. 7), but at Karle supporting four lions instead of one, and, for reasons given above (p. 60), they seem almost certainly to have supported a chakra or Buddhist wheel (Woodcut No. 8). A similar pillar probably stood on the opposite side, but it had either fallen or been removed to make way for the little Hindu temple that now occupies its place. The absence of the wooden ornaments of the external porch, as well as our ignorance of the mode in which this temple was finished laterally, and the porch joined to the main temple, prevents us from judging what the effect of the front would have been if belonging to a free-standing building. But the proportions of such parts as remain are so good, and the effect of the whole so pleasing, that there can be little hesitation in ascribing to such a design a tolerably high rank among architectural compositions. Of the interior we can judge perfectly, and it certainly is as solemn and grand as any interior can well be, and the mode of lighting the most perfect — one undivided volume of light coming through a single opening overhead at a very favourable angle, and falling directly on the dagaba or principal object in the building, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity. The effect is considerably heightened by the closely set thick columns that divide the aisles from the nave, as they suffice to prevent the boundary walls from ever being seen, and, 148 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. as there are no openings in the walls, the view between the pillars is practically unlimited. These peculiarities are found more or less developed in all the other caves of the same class in India, varying only with the age and the gradual change that took place from the more purely wooden forms of these caves to the lithic or stone architecture of the more modern ones. This is the principal test by which their relative ages can be determined, and it proves incontestably that the Karle cave was excavated not so very long after stone came to be generally used as a building material in India. There are caves at AjantS. and probably at Junnar which are as old as those just described, and supply details that are wanting in the examples just mentioned.1 Meanwhile, how- ever, their forms are sufficient to place the history on a firm basis, and to explain the origin and early progress of the style with sufficient distinctness. From the inscriptions and literary evidence, it seems hardly doubtful that the date of the Karle cave is about B.C. 80, and that at Nasik about B.C. 150. We have no literary authority for the date of the two earlier ones, but the archaeological evidence appears irresistible. The Bhaja and Kondane caves are so absolutely identical in style with the Lomas Rishi cave in Bihar (Woodcut No. 55) that they must be of very nearly the same age. Their pillars and their doorways slope so nearly at the same angle, and the essential woodenness — if the expression may be used — of each is so exactly the same, that, the one being of the age of Ajoka, the others cannot be far removed from the date of his reign. The Bedsa cave exhibits a degree of progress so nearly half-way between the Bhaja and Nasik examples, that it may be dated about B.C. 120. The Pitalkhora cave must also range about the same age, and the whole six, with one or two to be described at Ajanta, thus exhibit the progress of the style during nearly two centuries, and form a basis from which we may proceed to reason with little hesitation or doubt. AJANTA. There are four chaitya caves in the Ajanta series which, though not so magnificent as some of the four just mentioned, are nearly as important for the purposes of our history.2 The oldest there is the chaitya, No. 10, which is situated very near 1 A much fuller account of the Rock- 2 For further particulars regarding the Temples of India will be found in ' The j Ajanta caves, the reader is referred to Cave - Temples of India,' 1880, and 'Cave Temples,'