Arts of Buddhist India

7/28/2019 Arts of Buddhist India

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T h e A r t s o f Buddhist I n d i ain the BostonMuseum

HE redesigning and renovation of the Indian galleriesat the Museum ofFine Arts hasbrought the collection into new and vital focus. Cleaned anddisplayed n striking nstallations,works which hadbeenfamiliar o genera-

tions of Bostoniansnow stand out with revived interestandimportance.The collec-tion hasin every sensebeenplaced n acrispandbrightnew light.Forover thirty yearsthe assemblingandinterpretationof these works were guidedby AnandaK. Coomaraswamy,an outspoken,versatilegeniuswho combined earlytraining in the science of geology with an ever increasingdevotion to philosophyand metaphysics.Coomaraswamylaid some of the solid foundation stones of Indianart history in his articlesin the Museum'sBulletin, in his History of Indianand Indo-nesian Art, and in his essays on the ideological basis of Indian aesthetics.He alsoplayed a marked role in the cultural renaissanceof modern India by his eloquent,uncompromising affirmationof traditionalAsian spiritualvalues and of their uni-versalsignificance.Since Coomaraswamy's death in I947, however, field excavations and specialstudies have releaseda torrent of historical data which has requirednew efforts toorganize and control. This has by no means invalidatedCoomaraswamy's insightsinto the ideological substratumof the arts,nor has it solved all vexing questionsofchronology and iconographic nterpretation.But the historicalpicturehaschanged-radicallyso in some parts.New views of the stylisticand iconic evolution of Indianart have emerged, and it is now possibleto ask questionswhich were not germanea generation ago.The Museum of FineArts is one of the few placesoutside India where under oneroof the studentcan trace much of the growth of India'sconceptionsof the arts andobserve the manner in which the various traditions- Buddhist or Jaina, Hindu orIslamic, that of Rajasor of primitive villagers- reachedtheir aestheticfulfillment.From this richarrayof material,I shouldlike to singleout some of the objectswhichwere made to serve the Buddhist faith and to consider them asillustrationsof a newtheory of the evolution of Buddhistart.'

IT is possibleto see the artsof the Buddhistcommunity as an autonomous and dis-tinctive aesthetic tradition. Indeed, these comprised the first mature expressionofIndian art following the collapse of the prehistoric Harappa (or Indus Valley)Civilization. Needless to say, aestheticattitudes,decorative motifs, and folkloristic130


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themes were sharedwith the Jainaand Hindu schools, but the Buddhist traditionwas increasinglyflavoredby the specialcharacterof the doctrines of the faith. Thiswas a faithfor which meditation remained he centraldiscipline eadingto the attain-ment of spiritualgrace;it was a faith for which the most characteristicmages werethose of a sageseated n deepcontemplationor dispensing he fruitof hismeditations,the Buddhist Dharma(Figs.II, 12, I8). Even though theologicaldoctrineswere sub-ject to debateand change and were divided into separate ectarian ines, they none-thelessexerted a pervasiveand unifying power, like that of a magnetic field, overthe realm of artisticexpression.As a result, the evolution of Indian Buddhist art, despite tortuous problems ofparticularhistoric detail, appearsas clear and consistentas that of Greek sculpturefrom the Archaic to the Hellenistic stages. It is not nearly so familiar to Westernstudentsof the history and theory of art, but it should be taken into account bythose who ask whether one may legitimately find certain lawful or predictableelements in the structureof artistictraditions. There is no doubt that historicallythere was a time when Indian Buddhistart did not exist, a time when it came intobeing, grew, and flourishedin many places, a time when it diminished and thenceased to exist in its homeland.The full process,from beginningto end, took nearlyfifteen hundredyears,and the forms of Buddhist art - in the largestsense- appearto have developed in an orderly, irreversibleway, and in a manner consistentwiththe objectives of the faith. Within this time, five distinct stages of developmentcan be defined which are, for the most part, entirely clear and distinctthroughoutthe land.2I. GerminalTHE origins of Indian Buddhist art are clear and even abrupt. They are seen in themonuments associatedwith Asoka, Emperorof the Mauryan dynasty, who placedthe vast resourcesof his state at the service of the Buddhist Church.They areprima-rily a seriesof stone columns with animalcapitalsused by the Emperorfor procla-mations at Buddhist sanctuaries.While they were erected over a number of years,250 B.C. can serveasa convenientreferentpoint for these works - over two hundredyearsafterthe deathof Sakyamuni.The examples of Mauryanart are otherwise extremely rare and no major workmay be seen outside India.3Their importance,however, exceeds their numbers,forthey comprise the very beginning of the continuous history of Indian art itself.Before this time, folk artssuch as terra-cottadolls and animisticvotive figurineshadbeen made; decorativeartsflourished n the ornamentationof furnitureand luxurygoods like mirrorsand cosmeticboxes. But for the periodin which the most originaland exalted of India's religious texts were composed - the Vedas, Brahmanas,Upanishads and the time of the careerof Sakyamuni himself, Indianscarved nostatue, built no temple, createdno great palacewhich has survived to the present.Indeed, most evidence indicates that the making of such things was either unim-portant or was anathemato the spiritualvalues which dominated Indian culture.This in itself is one of the most extraordinary acts in the entire history of art, andthe reasonsfor it have never been thoroughly explored. The ending of this long

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spanof indifference o the monumental artsmay well have beendue to the EmperorAsoka;it was certainlya symptom of the profound changes n the social andspiritualorderof Indiawrought by him and by the faith which he adopted,a faith which hehelped changeinto a religionfor laymenas well as for smallcommunitiesof monks.The Asokan animalcapitalsaresplendidheraldicemblems,but they by no meanscomprise an iconic language of the faith. They do possess,however, two stylisticfeatureswhich areimportantones in the laterBuddhist tradition.The Lion Capitalsof Sarnathand SanchT,or example (Fig. i), were inspired argely by the sumptuousi. Asokan LionCapital.Sandstone.Sarnath, a. 250 B.C.Sa,rnath Museum.

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art of AchaemenidIran.They areimperious n mien, heraldic, heir surfacespolishedto a high gloss. The absorptionof Iranianelementsinto Buddhist arts was to recuroften in the future,reflectinga cosmopolitanismwhich was characteristicf the faith.Far more than orthodox Brahmans,the Buddhists welcomed those born outsidethe sanctifiedHindu castesystem as well as foreign ideas- a major factor in Bud-dhism'srise to the statusof Asia'sforemost universalreligious system. On the otherhand, the Rampurva Bull Capital, for example (Fig. 2), has an amazingly sym-pathetic,intuitive feeling for the natureof the animal. The bulk and solidity of the2. Asokan Bull Capital. Sandstone. Rampurva, ca. 250 B.C.Indian Museum, Calcutta.

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3. Bust of a Yakshi. Red sandstone.Indian, rom Bharhut, a. I20 B.C. H. 1934 inches.Ross Collection. 31.435

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bull is strongly culpturesquen conception ndreveals, t an earlydate,thatdeepaffinityor stonesculpturewhichis a majoraspectof the Indiannational radition.Thequestion f whetherhe Asokanmonumentstand sabrief, solatedmomentin history, he creations f aninventivegenius,or whether heyweremorebroadlybasedandconnectedwiththe artistic tageswhich succeededhem, s stillunsolved.It is boundupwithalong standing ontroversyentered nthedatingof agroupoflarge, mpressivetone magesof folk deities uchasthe PatnaYakshas,he Yakshiof Didargafnj,nd he ParkhamndBarodiYakshas.Coomaraswamy,ogetherwiththemajority f scholarsnthesubject, eldthat hesebelongedo the time of Asokaor shortlyhereafter;therscholars, owever,would correlatehemwith thefiguralstylesof the next artistic poch.4A satisfactoryolutionof thisproblemhas beenhamperedby the rarityof the statues hemselvesand of supporting vidence.Fortunately,owever, urther rchaeologicalctivity slikelyto providemoredata.II. EarlyTHEMuseum sespeciallyich nmaterial rawn romsomeof themostimportantmonuments of this period, which lasted from ca. I25 B.C. to A.D. 50. These carvingsreflect he pioneereffortsof the growingBuddhist anctuarieso communicatenvisual ermswith the largenumbers f newlyconvertedaymen.Theyalso revealthesevereproblemof findinganappropriateestheticormto embodythe spiritualvaluesof thefaith.There s no questionhat he worksof thisagearemoreprimitivetechnically nd esselegant han,say,the AsokanLionCapital f Sarnath,or afterthefallof theMauryasndthe withdrawal f imperialupport,heresourcesvail-able to the Buddhist ommunitieswere lessgenerous ndthe unifyingspiritof asinglegreatpatronwas lost. The result,however, s a styleof great diversityandvigor,one born of the effortsof localivory-or woodcarvers,oldsmiths, ndthemakersof ceramic igurines o adapttheirold, small-scale raftto monumentalsculpturen stone.The oldestBuddhistconic magerywasin many waysanassortmentf miscel-laneous ecularmotifs which had been relatedor adapted o Buddhist hemes.Atypicalexample s the female igure rom Bharhutn Centralndia(Fig.3), datablefromca.I20 B.c. Tattooed verher aceandbodywithauspiciousigns, hewas oneof a seriesof animistic odlingscarvedon the outsideof the railingpillarswhichsurroundedhe sanctuaryn orderto give it supernaturalrotectionand also towelcome,as it were,the localvillagerswho weretheirdevotees.Thesepagandeitiesservedas protectors f roadsanddangerous asses,guardiansf localdistricts, slordsof wealthandof fertilityn manandhiscrops; heywerecommonlydepictedin theterra-cottaigurines f theday,of whichthe Museumhasanumberof hand-somespecimens. lthoughheyhadno direct onnectionwiththemystical, piritualconcerns f thefaith, heirpresencen a Buddhist hrine eflects very deep-rootedprinciple f Indian eligionandart,which sto recognize,whileworshiping negodin particular,he value or existence f others.The equations statedclearly n theMaitriUpanishad4:6)to the effect hatreverence f lesserdeities s permissibleutessentiallynferior:"Oneshouldmeditate n them andpraisehem butthendenythem,for with them onemoves [spiritually]igherandhigher n the world."

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4 & 4a. Torso of a Yakshi. Indian, from Gateway of Great Stalpaat Sdiichi,ca. 25 B.C.-A.D. 25. H. 28K2 inches.Ross Collectioni. 29.999


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The lovely torso from Sanichl Figs.4 & 4a) belongs to the same class of demi-gods, for she,like the Bharhutfigure,originally clung to the blossomingbranchof atree, exemplifying the common bond of fertilityin man andnature. She was one ofeight large tree-dryads,together with sixteen smallerones, which ornamented themonumentalgatewaysof the GreatStupaof Sahchl.The work was carvedaboutthetime of the birthof Christ,a centuryor so later than the Bharhutfigure, a centuryin which a greater familiaritywith the problemsof monumentalsculptureallowedthe artistsa greatersense of confidencein expressingboth the ponderousweight ofthe body as it twistsin spaceand the sensualvitality which is so basicto the meaningof the image. In both figures,the sculptorsdepictedthejewelry and hairwith almostnaturalistic idelity to detail (rhythmicallycomposed, the heavy braidedhair andgarlandsof flowers falling over the back of the Sanchi torso are extraordinarilygraceful);at the same time they idealized the featuresand proportionsto suggestabeauty surpassing hat of an ordinarymortal woman. Not in this early phase,norin any of the laterones (except in Gandhara,underWesterninfluence)did genuine,empiricalnaturalism nter nto the Buddhisttreatmentof divine imagesin India.The Museum collection includesa number of notable carvingsfrom Mathura,an important religious center on the Jumna River between Agra and Delhi, and acity whose sculptureworkshopsremainedin continuousactivity for centuries farlonger than thoseof anyothersinglesitein the land.Fromvery earlyin theirhistory,the mid-firstcenturyB.C.,hascome a smallequestrian igurein reliefon the crossbarof a railing (Fig. 5). The subject s probablya devotee, shown not in a portrait-likemanner but asthe representative f a particular lassor group of people. The sculptordepictedthe horsetrappingswith unusualcare- the bit and harness, he saddleandstirrupband- and this work is of great interest to students of Indiantechnology.It is rather similarto a small terra-cottafigurine of a slightly later date (Fig. 5a).Here the equestrian s dressed n an Indian style turbanand an Iranian tunic. Thefigurineandrailingrelief,however, arethe clearest xamples n the Museum'scollec-tion of the close connection between such popular art forms and early Buddhiststone sculpture.

From the sameperiodcomes the roundel from Mathuracarvedwith a menacingcrocodile-likecreature, he makara(Fig.6)-a motif drawn from thatrealm of Indianthought which Coomaraswamynamed "theaquaticcosmology."5In an essayfilledwith luminous insights,he explainedhow suchthemes as crocodiles,lotus creepers,and vases overflowing with flowers- major decorativefeatures in the arts of thisphase- reflected the outlook of Indianfarmersand villagersand how the makaraserved as a water demon, alternatelybenevolent and malevolent, the source ofdestructivefloods or life-giving moisturein the paddyfields. At Mathura,strangely,its malevolent guise was the more common one, as in this roundel or in the finetympanumof theearlyfirstcenturyA.D. (Fig.9).

The benevolent makaramay be seen on the lower partof a brokenpillarof this"early" period from the eastern Deccan (Fig. 7). Here the reptile disgorges anundulating otus creeper,engravedwith a delicate senseof rhythmicmotion whichsuggeststhe processesof growth and increase n the flow of the waters. Above it is ahalf-medallion,a schematized otus flower whose petalsare set in a preciselygeo-

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6. Makara.Red sandstone. ndian, fr MaMathura,a. 50 B.C. H. 94 inches.Thomas Oaks RogersFund. 25.460metric, radiantpattern.These may be subsidiary,decorativeforms, but they musthave evoked in the craftsmena number of deep-seatedvalues- a sense of purity,ofphysicaland spiritualprosperity- for they were carved with a fluencyand vitalitythat transcendsmere decoration.

This pillaris probablyfrom AmaravatT,he site of a complex sanctuarycenteredaround one of the largest stupasin the Buddhist world. This was in the ancientAndhrakingdom, in the lower reachesof the Kistna River north of Madras,wherethe Buddhist faith was extremely strong. The carvingsof the Andhra workshopswere done in a soft, marble-like white limestone,and most of them have sufferedbadly from weatheringand vandalism.Despite its damaged condition, one of thelarge slabs in the Museum gives remarkablensightsinto the evolution of style andsymbolism in this southernregion (Figs. 8 & 8a). It was carvedearly in the firstcentury A.D. with a scene of Sakyamunibathing in the waters of the NairanjanaRiver. About I50 years later (ca. A.D. 200), when the monument was refurbished,the stone was turnedaround,inverted,andrecarved n the vastlymore sophisticatedandvisionarymannerof what ishere calledthe "developed"styleof theregion.6On the older side may be seen one of the dominant characteristicsf the "early"phasethroughout the country: the refusalto represent he founder of the faith in ahuman guise. In the legend illustratedhere, the Buddha-to-be had bathed in thewaters of the riverjust before taking his seat beneath the tree where he attained

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supremeEnlightenment.The sculptor ndicatedSakyamuni'spresenceonly by meansof the two tiny feet placedbesidethe diagonal bandengravedwith a water pattern,makaras,turtles, and fish. In contrast to this anticlimactictreatmentof the mainfigureof the scene,the sculptor avishedgreatcareon the complexjewelry and cloth-ing of the maidenscoming to the riverwith their waterjarsas well as on the SerpentKingandhis wives who emergefrom the waterin gesturesof homage.

Throughout the Buddhistrealm,so exalted wasthe conceptionof the natureof theBuddha that he could not be depicted by mere craftsmen n a guise resemblingamortal being. Buddhist literatureof the day containsmany passageswhich state thatSakyamuni,having attainedEnlightenment,was drawn into an absoluterealmapartfrom that of the everyday world. The Majjhima-iikaya (I. 487-488), for example,statesthat because the Tathagatahasrid himselfof materialshape,feeling, and per-ception by which one might define him, he is freed from reckoning by materialshape;he is deep, immeasurable,and unfathomableas the greatocean. In the Sam-yutta-iiikdya (III.118), it is said thatthe BlessedOne, even when present, s incompre-hensible,and he is quoted as saying:"What is therein seeingthisvile body?Whososeesthe Dharmaseesme; whoso seesme seesthe Dharma."

7. Floral motifs. White marble.Indian, railing pillar from AmaravatT,ca. 50 B.C. H. 5 feet i inch.Gift of the GovernmtentMuseum, Madras. 21.1529

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8. Sakyamuni Bathing in the Nairahjana River. White marble.Indian, slab from an enclosing wall at Amaravati, ca. A.D. 50. H. 63 inches.Ross Collection. 29.151I42

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8a. Representation of a Stipa. White marble.Rearview of Fig. 8, ca. A.D. 200.I43


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9. Two sides of a broken Tympanum from a monastery doorway.Red sandstone. Indian, from Mathura, ca. A.D. 25-50. H. 30'2 inches.CharlesAmos Cutmings BequestFund. 26.241

This reluctanceto depict the person of the Buddha is also reflected in the reliefdecor on both sides of a panelused to frame the upper partof a monasterydoorwayfrom Mathura(Fig.9). It datesfrom aroundA.D. 25-50, andthe compositionin eachof the four narrow bands is centeredupon a symbol which refers to the Buddhawithout representinghim. The tree in the lower left undoubtedly symbolizes hisEnlightenment,while the wheel mountedon a column andfacedby deer and monksstandsfor his First Sermon in the Deer Parkof Benares.The small building in thelower right may depictone of the monasterieswhich he founded. The objectplacedon an altar(upper eft) is the Buddha'sbegging bowl, one of the holiestof the relics

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which he left behind and the focus of great popularveneration.The sanctityasso-ciated with thesesymbolswas indicatedby the halo which enclosesthe begging bowlandby the barriers f flame or supernaturaladiationswhich set them apart rom thedevotees - laymen bearing gifts, monks in patchwork robes, and fabulousgriffin-centaurs.The artists who carved this tympanum and the bathing scene from AmaravatThad a stronginterest n descriptivedetailandnarration,and these two works are theclearestexamples in the Museum collection of the pervasivedesire in this "early"

phaseto make the values of the faith understandablen dramatic erms. India was aI45


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land which producedstirringepic literature,which supportedan elaborate heatricaltradition at the princely courts, which honored its playwrights and village story-tellers; thus there was unusual awarenessof this aestheticdimension. A narrativestyle concernedwith dramaticcrisesand confrontations in the life of the Buddhawas a basicpartof earlyBuddhistart.Most characteristics f the "early"phase are clearly apparentin the Museum'scollection - the strongly distinctive regional styles, the taking over of decorativemotifs from the seculararts,the admissionof animistic deities into Buddhist iconicprograms, the frank delight in sensualimagery as expressionsof well-being andprosperity, the reluctanceto representthe sacredperson of the Buddha,-and theaffinity or storytellingandhighly descriptivedetailcoupled, however, with a systemof idealization or divine images.Theserichlyinventive schoolshad not yet evolveda language capableof evoking in aesthetic terms the more exalted ideas and ex-periencesof thefaith;thiswasto be thechiefproductof the next phase.III. DevelopedAROUND the middle of the firstcenturyA.D., most of India from the GangesRiverbasin to the northwest frontierregion was absorbed nto a vast empire ruled by theKushandynasty.The Kushanswere the leadersof the mostpowerful of several ribesof former Central Asian nomads, collectively called the Indo-Scythians,who hadpenetrated the northwestern mountain defenses of the subcontinent. AlthoughoriginallyIranian n languageandculture,the Indo-Scythianswere greatlyattractedby the Buddhist faith. Two celebratedKushanEmperors,Kanishka and Huvishka,along with many nobles andcourtiers,becameenergeticpatronsof the faith,helpingit spread through their provinces in Afghanistanand Bactria and into other partsof Central Asia.

For two and a half centuries,from ca. A.D. 50 to 300, Buddhist art north of theVindhyamountainswas dominatedby the workshopsof the KushanEmpire.In thesouth, the old schoolsof the Andhracountrycontinued to flourishasdid those in theWestern Ghats(thecave sitesof Karli, Nasik, Bhaja,etc.). The southernschools wereunder the aegis of the Satavahanadynasty, whose political and military power in-creasedas it successfullykepttheIndo-Scythians rompenetrating nto the Deccan.The existence of these two great contemporary political forces must have en-couraged a processof unification of artisticstyles. Distinctive local forms began tofuse into broaderregionalmanners.The so-called Amaravatistyle was shared(withvariations)by many of the sanctuariesn the lower Kistnaregion - Nagarjunikonda,Golli, Bhattiprolu,etc. The ateliersof Mathura,the chief Kushan citadel in centralIndia, set the patternfor the Buddhistsculptureof the entire Ganges-Jumna egion,while the Gandhara tyle permeatedIndo-Iranianborder lands.7At the same time,as the Buddhist faith steadilyincreased n its appealto laymen, the commissioningof statuesand shrinebuildingsbecame an importantway of gainingreligiousmerit.Consequently,these artisticworkshopsbecameproductiveto anunparalleleddegree,sending forth a flood of statuarywhich was frequently uninspiredand repetitious,with only the work of occasional,anonymous mastersrising to a more evocativeand accomplishedplane.

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At the beginning of this phase, images of the Buddha were produced,as werethose of Jainaand even Hindudeities;among the latterSuryaand Sivawere the mostprominent. This was anothermajor step in the reversalof religious-aesthetic alueswhich had been started(or accelerated)by Asoka, and it took place in the KushanEmpire.Although scholarshave long debatedwhether this was the resultof Greco-Roman influences n Gandharaor elsea naturaloutgrowth of nativeIndian mageryin Mathura,recent researchhas indicated that the artistic revolution was broughtabout not simply by the existence of artisticprototypesbut by changesin attitudesconcerningthe natureof the Buddha.Development of conceptssuch as the trikaya,or the three"bodies"of the Buddha,notions far too complex to explorehere,made ittheologically possible to representthe Blessed One in human guise, and the twomainKushanschools of sculpturedrew upon the prototypesat hand in order to formthe icon type. The Gandharan chool built chiefly upon Western examples, whilethe one at Mathuraadaptedsuch Indianimagesas the long familiaryakshas.The Museum possessesseveral important documents of this artisticrevolution.The oldest is an extremely raretype of gold coin issuedby the EmperorKanishka(Fig. io). On its reverseis the image of a standingfigure in monasticrobe, clearlydenoted in majusculeGreek letters as BODDO, the Buddha or EnlightenedOne. Theprecisedating of Kanishka's eign is still unclear,but this coin was probablymintedsome time between A.D. 80 and I30, by which time the iconic revolution had pro-gressedfarenough to permitthe Buddha'sappearancen such a secular,publicguise.From the heavy robes which seem to obscurethe body beneath,one canassumethatthistiny coin image is a reflectionof Gandharanmages n the Greco-Romanmanner.The accomplishmentsof the Mathuraschool may be seenin the Museum'sseatedBuddha flankedby two attendantsof ca. A.D. I50-I70 (Fig. ii). Although thisworkis, at best, an average example of its idiom, one can still experiencethe powerfulqualities of the native Indian cult image, free from apparentforeign influences.The Buddha is in the cross legged pose used in seatedmeditation;his body is re-vealed through the essentiallytransparent arment;the torso seemsto expandwitha sense of controlled vital energy successfully ranslated nto the massivebulk of thestone. Of about the same date and qualitative evel is another small Buddhaimage

io. StandingBuddha.Reverseof goldcoin of Kanishka . Indian,ca. A.D. 80-130. D. Y4 inches..^^;f^SS^ SetlhK. Siveetser und. 31.895

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I I. Seated figure of the Buddha. Red sandstone.Indian, from Mathura, last half of 2nd century A.D. H. 2812 inches.David P. KimballFund. 25.437carvedin spottedred sandstone Fig. I2). Here,however, the Mathurasculptorshadbeen influencedby the westernizedcanonsof the Gandharanchools,for theBuddha'srobe obscures the underlyingbody, and the folds establisha strong patternon thesurface.This is clear evidence of the transmissionof stylisticand also iconographicelements between two major regions. It reflects the great freedom of movementwithin the Buddhistrealm; monks and texts traveledvast distancesacross nationalboundaries,and the processof interconnectionwas to resultultimately in more uni-form artisticcriteria hroughoutthe land. Neitherof these statueshasany remarkablesubtletyin modeling or interpretation.Each is a direct andvigorous statementof anicon-type which, in the passingof centuries,would be graduallyrefinedin propor-tion and detail.

It is difficulttoday to sense the immensechallengewhich the creationof the earlyimagesof the Buddha must have offeredto the craftsmenof MathuraandGandhara,

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who sought to embody in stone the hallowedconceptionsof "the UttermostPerson,the SupernalPerson,the Attainerof the Supernal."Their solutions, however, havemuch in common with othertraditional, cclesiastic rts,for the Buddhistcult imageis most often placedin a strictlyfrontal,hieraticguise and the features dealized,sothat they sharenone of the imperfectionsand signsof mortalityof the averageman.The solutions were adaptedforJaina and Hindu imagery as well, and the Museumpossessesa small, crisply organized statue of the Sun God Sorya from Mathura,ca. A.D. 250 to 300 (Fig. I3). Seatedin a distinctive,squatting position, he wears anIranian unic and boots which beartestimonyto the fact that the revival of religiousinterest n this ancient solardeity had beenpromptedby the spreadof the cults of theIraniandeity Mithra.In theWest it had been carriedbyRomanLegionnaireshrough-out the Empire; in India, where solar worship had been practicedeven in Vedictimes, the revival of the cult of the Sun God was graduallyabsorbed nto orthodoxHinduism.

At the same time that these austere,hieratic icons were being perfected,nudefemale figures continued to appearin a semi-decorativeguise in Buddhisttemplesthroughout India- an exception being Gandhara,where the idiom seems to havefallen out of favor. The Museum has a number of examplesfrom Mathura,perhapsthe finest of which (Fig. I4) is a pillarfrom a stairrailing showing a heavilyjeweledI2. Seated igureof the Buddha.Red sandstone.Indian, rom Mathura, ast half 2nd centuryA.D. H. 122 inches.CharlesAmllosCummitgs BequestFund. 27.44813. Sirya. Creamsandstone.Indian, rom Mathura, a. A.D. 250-300. H. io inches.MariatnneBrimiiinerutd. 21. 1706

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woman holding a flamingtorch;behind her is a male figure peeringabove a curtainwith bawdy implications.Dating from approximatelythe last half of the secondcentury A.D., the work is simply anotherlink in the unbroken chain of appearancesof this type of image in almostall sanctuaries f all Indiancreeds,from BharhutandSanchi to the present. It became virtually a natural,intuitive act to include suchfigures n the decorationof publicmonuments.Within the KushanEmpire, the old narrativeand descriptivestyle graduallyde-clined in strengthwhereas the hieratic,isolatedfiguresof the Buddha and Bodhi-sattvasbecameincreasingly mportant n the artisticscheme.The Gandharan choolswere at firstespeciallygiven to illustratingn stonethe dramaticbiographical egendsof the Buddha,suchas Asvaghosha'sBuddhacarita,ut by the thirdcenturythis wasreplacedby an atmosphereof charismaticmagery, in which the mere presenceof adeity was of far more importance hanany specificdeed.Oppositepage:15. Temptation of Sakyamuni and the Worship of his Headdress. White marble.Indian, from Amaravatl, ca. A.D. 100. H. 62'4 inches.Marie AntoinetteEvans Funtd. 29.157I4. Woman with a lamp. Mottled red sandstone.Indian, railing pillar from Mathura. Last half 2nd century A.D. H. 22Y inches.BlackFund. 35.647


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In the Andhracountry, however, the workshopswere in many ways more con-servative. They adheredloyally to the narrativesystem until their activities wereended by, among other things, the conquestsof the Pallavas n the fourthcentury.They also frequentlyreverted to the older mannerof omitting the image of Sakya-muni long after his icon type had been accepted.Forexample, in the upperhalfof arelief-carvedpanel of the early second century (Fig. I5), the empty throne beneaththe Tree of Enlightenmentstands for the presenceof Sakyamuniin a Temptationscene. The dramatic content of this familiarlegend is emphasizedby the assaultofthe dwarf-likedemons, by the provocative posesof the daughtersof Mara,and bythe rush of the large elephantsin the background. A nervous, flickeringenergy

i6. Worshipof the Wheel of the Law. White marble.Indian, rom Amaravati, a.A.D. 200.H. 32 inches.Giftof theGovernmentMuseum, Madras. 21.1505

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animates these small figures.Much of the charm of this style resides n the sense offleeting motion and worldly awareness,as can be seen in the elegantly carvedfragmentof ca. A.D. 200, showing the Wheel of the Law with two lounging devoteesand a flying angel (Fig. I6). Missinghere,however, is the graveandhieraticspiritofthe Mathura school of sculpture,with its ability to suggest the concentration ofspiritualand psychic powers in a solidly conceived stone image.IV. MatureIN the fourth century A.D., feverish political and military turmoil destroyedtheindependenceof both the Indo-Scythians n the north and the kingdomsin the south

I7. Standing Buddha. Copper. Indian, early 6th century A.D. H. I9 inches.Gift of the Goveritnment useum, Madras. 21.1504

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under whom the Buddhist church had flourished.Much of the Indiansubcontinentwas brought under the rule of the Guptadynasty,which rose to power in Magadhaalong the east-central eachesof the Ganges;but the decadesfollowing A.D. 320, thedateof the foundingof theirhegemony, were markedby bloody wars of unification.The entire fourth century is still a rather blank page in art history due in part tothe decline in productivity and also to the lack of enough clearly dated works toenable us to define the style precisely.This is especially rue of Gandharan culpture.In the following century, the fifth, Buddhist sanctuaries gainbecame the centersof great artisticactivity from Ceylon in the south to Nepal and Asam on the east,into Kashmirand the Buddhist cities of Afghanistan.Throughout this vast area,

I8. SeatedBuddha.Coppergilt. Nepalese, 8th century A.D. or earlier. H. 3 ) inches.Ross-Coomarasvwamyollection. 17.2317ratheruniform artistic tandardsame into effect;the distinctiveflavorof the regionalstyles weakened but did not entirely disappear.The standards or this age were setchiefly by the workshops of Mathuraand also of Sarnath, he vast monasteryandpilgrimage center near Benareswhich grew up aroundthe spot where Sakyamunipreachedhis First Sermon. Despite its religious importance,however, it does notseem to have become an unusuallyactiveartisticcenteruntil the last half of the fifthcentury,when its influencesurpassedven that of Mathura.The maturephasecan be datedroughly between A.D.300 and 700, and the sculp-tures of thesetwo schoolsduringthe middle of thisperiod (fifthand sixthcenturies)deserve in more than one way the adjective "classic"by which they are oftendescribed.They are classicin the sense of sheerartisticexcellence, in the sensethatthey set a norm for Buddhist images throughout the land, and in the emotionalserenityand equipoisewith which they are imbued. The Museum's finestexemplarof the classicstyleis the large,earlysixth-centurybronzestatueof a standingBuddha(Fig. I7). Recent cleaning has removed the awkward green crustand revealedan

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19. Head of the Buddha. Mottled red sandstone. Indian, from Mathura, early 6th century A.D.H. I24 inches.Marianne Brimiuier und. 21.223020. Head of the Buddha. Basalt. Javanese, from Candi Sewu, ca. A.D. 800. H. 15 inches.Gift of GeorgeHoldenTinkhami.43.6

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interconnectionbetween the partsof the body which is softerandmore organicthanbefore. The gently swelling contours of the chest, waist, and hips impart to thefigure a feeling of expansionandcontraction, ike that of breathing.The transparenteffectsof the robe, the lithe and youthful canon of proportions,the sense of delicateequipoiseand balanceof the bodily masses these are all characteristics f the Sarnathstyle, and yet this piece probablycame from the Kistnavalley region not far fromAmaravatT.

The head of this bronze statueclosely resembles,in proportion and expression,the much larger stone head from Mathura (Fig. I9) which has, however, a morepowerful and brooding quality typical of its school. It also shows more clearlythandoes the bronze the stronglygeometricprinciplesof compositionwhich under-lay much Buddhist mageryof the time. The head was given a distinctly egg shapedcontour; the eyes and brows are highly abstractarc shapes;earsand hair curls aretightly schematized.The mouth, however, is more organic in form and injects asensuous,personaldimension n theheavily protruding ower lip.The aesthetic visions of the classic schools of this period pervaded the entireBuddhistworld, which, by the sixthcentury,hadgrown to includeKoreaandJapanas well as China,and had extendedinto SoutheastAsia andthe Indies. The style wasspreadby Indianmissionaries r by foreign pilgrimsto India who carriedaway textsand drawingsand actual cult objects.It is often quitedifficultto tell exactly where asmall image was originally made, like the tiny gilt-bronze statueof the preachingBuddha (Fig. i8). Foundin Nepal, it is said to date from the eighth century.Despiteits tiny scale,it is of extraordinarilyhigh qualityandwas made in close obediencetothe canons of the Sarnath chool.The same canonsare alsoreflected n the largeheadfrom Candi Sewu in Java (Fig. 20), but here a softer and more passivemood hasreplaced the disciplined animation of the Indian prototypes, which were nearlythree hundredyearsolder.A fine work from Sarnath tself in the Museum'scollection is the delicate figureof a Bodhisattvaof the earlysixthcentury (Fig. 2I). His long hairtumblesdown onhis shoulders,and he is adornedwith a lavishly eweled necklaceand crown in whichis placeda tiny image of the BuddhaAmitabha seated n deep meditation.It was inthis "mature"phasethat largenumbersof Bodhisattva mages began to be made inaccordancewith the preceptsof MahayanaBuddhism,the "GreaterVehicle" of thefaith, the doctrine of salvationthrough the graceand power of a vast pantheonofcompassionatedeities.It is truethatBodhisattvasarefrequently ound in the sculptureof the Kushanempire (see p. I20, Fig. 7), but they werenot yet the embodimentsofsacredwisdom andall powerful "skill n means"who work for the benefitof suffer-ing humanityas explainedin the Mahayana exts. These texts originatedas early asthe end of the firstcenturyB.C. and areknown to have beenaccepted n many partsof BuddhistIndia;however, the greatpopularsanctuariesmust haveremainedunderthe control of the monks of the more orthodox "LesserVehicle" (I-tinayana)throughoutthe "developed"phase n northandsouthIndia.The institutionalhistoryof Buddhism is still in its infancy, but it is a theory worth consideringthat the ap-parent revival of the arts and temples in the fifth century was due to the great


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2I. Avalokitesvara. andstone. ndian, rom Sarnath, arly6th centuryA.D. H. II inches.HelenandAliceColburntuntd. 34.229

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I23. The Goddess of the River Ganges (Ganga lDevT).Sandstone. Indian,6th century A.D. H. 29 7 inches. Charles Amos CummingsBequestFund. 26.26

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popularappealof the Mahayanasects and their gainingcontrol over a number ofimportantsanctuaries.The sturdy Bodhisattvafigure from Mathura(Fig. 22) contrastsstrikinglywiththe more lithe image from Sarnath,and points up - perhapsexcessively so - thedifferencesbetween the two schools. The Mathuristyleremainedsomewhat heavierand stolid; it had closeraffinities o the arts of the Hindu sanctuarieswhich, for thefirst time, had begun to rival those of the Buddhists in originality and aestheticexcitement. In CentralIndiaandthe WesternGhats,there areremains rom the earlyfifth century onward of images of the great Hindu deities- Siva, Vishnu,Krishna,and their consorts. Even though these were outgrowths of Buddhist canons ofbeauty and the idealized human form, they were also motivated by different con-ceptsof divinity, conceptsoften basedon irresistible hysicalmight.

24. Fragment of a wall painting from Ajanta. ndian, 6th century A.D. H. I5 inches.Clara BertramKimballFund. 21.1286

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The deeplycarved reliefof the Goddessof the RiverGanges(Fig. 23) from CentralIndia demonstrates the achievements of artistsof the "mature"phase outside ofthe restrictive idiom of cult imagery. The Goddess, a lineal descendant of theBhirhut and SanchTYakshisin both form and content, standsupon a ragingmakaraand is servedby two dwarf-like figures.In purelyvisualterms,the balancebetweenthe roundly modeled figures and the deeply recessed background, between thethrashingmakaraand the self-possessed,gracefulGoddess s achieved with a surenessthat is the fruit of centuriesof experience in composing such forms. It is also theproduct of the conscious aestheticismin the capital and provincial courts of the.Gupta Empire which cultivated excellence in the visual arts and in poetry, music,drama,and dance. Thus, even though it was merely the ornament of a doorway andits religiouscontent was not profound, this relief is one of the great treasuresof theMuseum'scollection, for it manifestsan aesthetic ntelligenceof the highestorder.

The narrative tradition was almost entirely extinct in Buddhist sculptureof this"mature"phase.In the celebrated wall paintingsof the cave monasteryof Ajanta,however, it was operative with full force alongside pictorial compositions whichwere as hieratic and grave as mandalas.A small, darkenedfragment of the Ajantawall paintingsin the Museum (Fig. 24) was taken from an unidentified narrativescene, perhaps from Cave II, but despite its fragmentary nature it is a worthyexemplar of that tradition. While the noses and mouths of the men might havebeen copied from a contemporaryBuddhaimage from Sarnath, he eyes arenot theintrospectiveones of the cult images. They are looking about in an animatedway.The figures were grouped with a view toward variety and overlap each other indepth in a semi-realisticmanner.Similarly,the leavesof the tree in the backgroundare carefully worked out in spatial terms by means of a searchingcontour line,while the play of light and shade over the bodies defines their volume withoutcreating highly illusionisticeffects.The paintersof such scenesat Ajantawere very much awareof theatricalgesturesand facialexpressions,of courtly musical instruments, ancy textiles,and sumptuousjewelry. They may well have been court artistssent by their employers to decoratethe dwelling halls of monks, even though their style was far removed from theaustere,monastic spirit of the stone images of Sarnath and Mathura or even thesculpturaldecor of the Ajanta caves themselves. Courtly arts must have been thetrue home of the narrativetradition,but of this time the only remainingrelics arethe paintingsat such Buddhist sitesasAjanti, or Sigiriya n Ceylon.V. LateTHEdeclining fortunesof Buddhism in India caused a greatreduction in the geo-graphic scopeof its activity. In the final stages(ca.A.D. 700-I200), the region whichwas the most productive artisticallywas the east - Bihar, Orissa,and Bengal - underthe protectionof the Palaand then the Senadynasties.However, pocketsof activityremained in the Deccan and in the northwest, the latterrepresented n the Museumby a rareand exquisitesmallivory figureof a seatedBuddha which was made, mostlikely, in Kashmir (Fig. I, p. 104).

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These schools are all characterizedby great refinements of technique, extremefinesseand sophistication n the handlingof materials,whether bronze or stone orivory. This is a trait shared with other "late"phasesof sculptural raditions thoseof Hellenistic Greece or the EuropeanBaroque, for example, in which the tech-nicalexperienceof centurieswas at the disposalof the craftsmenand the materialnolonger seemsto have offered much resistanceor to have disciplined he artist. Floralmotifs,jewelry, the postureof the human figure- all were imbued with a sinuous,effortlessgrace.The "late" Buddhist schools were strongly affected by the growth of Esotericor TantricBuddhism,the third of the greatdoctrinaldivisions of the faith.This wasan extremely complex religio-philosophic movement which embraced Indiansof all creeds and injected into Buddhism a number of magical cult practices,asthough to induce the state of spiritualenlightenment through the manipulationofoccult forces. A largenumber of new deities were admittedinto the faith,creatinganew pantheonof immense power and complexity which overawed the laymen andchallengedthe monks, who were obliged to master its full meaning. Some of thenew deities were folk gods, othersthe personifications f highly abstract heologicalnotions, others female deities, the Buddhistequivalentsof the dynamic consorts ofthe great Hindu gods, while still others were members of the older Mahayanapantheon, drawn into the Tantric system and reinterpreted.Of the latter, a greatnumber of new forms were devised for Avalokitesvara,for example, the mostwidely worshipedof the MahayanaBodhisattvas.A recently acquired tatueof Avalokitesvara(Fig. 2, p. I05) is of the type usuallycalledLokanatha,"Lordof Worlds,"an indicationof the deity's heightenedprestigeat this time. Dating from the tenth or eleventh century,its largescale,light-coloredstone, and boldly plastic quality suggeststhat it came from Orissa.The majorityof

25. Avalokitesvara. Bronze.Ceylon, 8th-9th century A.D. H. 3Y inches.Ross-Coomlarasvwamyollection. 17.2312

Opposite age:26. Khasarpana okesvara.Black late.Indian,I2th centuryA.D.H. 31 inches.Marshall H. Gould Fund. 61.129I62


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EasternIndiansculpturesof the era, however, were carved of a dark,shale-likestonewhich was susceptibleto finely carved detail and was often given a shiny surface.This may be seen in the Museum's KhasarpanaLokesvara,another of the variantforms of Avalokitesvara,a statuecoming from the Senakingdom of Bengal of thetwelfth century.Both of these works arepervadedby the mood which predominatesin the arts of the era - a searchfor exquisiteness,a sense of the sinuous,tendril-likerhythmswhich pervade hedrapery, loralmotifs,limbs,andtorsosof the figures.The scaleof the tiny bronze figure of an Avalokitesvaraof this period, seatedinthe position of "royal ease," belies the extraordinarilyhigh quality of the workitself (Fig. 25). The sculptorcreated a delicate balanceof the massesof body whichwere thrown out of simplealignmentby the relaxedposition,andhe madethe right

27. Avalokitesvara. Copper gilt. Nepalese, 9th century A.D. H. 12 inches.Ross-CoomarasivamyCollection. 17.2315

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hand (in the teaching gesture) the focus, as it were, of the balancedtensions of theform. Discovered in Ceylon, it reflects the rather universal canons of the "late"figural style, as can be seenby comparisonwith the KhasarpanaLokesvara(Fig. 26).On the other hand, the ratherangularand reserved mode of composition suggeststhat it is a work from the early partof thisphase- that is from theeighthcentury.From Nepal has come the Museum's well-known standingfigure in bronze ofAvalokitesvara(Fig. 27), which depicts the Bodhisattvain one of his simplestandmost ingratiatingforms as Padmapani,"Bearer of the Lotus." Nepal adjoinedthesmall kingdom where Sakyamuniwas born; it became a major Buddhistcenter,but its oldest artisticrelics date from only the fifth century A.D. and were subjectto artisticinfluencesfrom Mathura,Sarnath,or the Hindu schoolsof Central India

28. Illustrations from the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita. Painting on palm leaf.Nepalese, A.D. 1136. L. (of cover) 22 /8 inches.Harriet Otis Cruft Fund. 20.589


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(asin Fig. I9 which comes from Nepal). This standingfigure, however, is of a laterdate. In its rather simple drapery and restrainedcontrapostot reveals the strongflavor of the early Pala schools and dates probably from the ninth century. Through-out the remainder of the "late" phase, the workshops of Bihar and Bengal were thedominant influence in the arts of Nepal. After the demise of Buddhism in India,Nepal, along with Tibet, was one of the chief legatees of its artistic heritage.

Illustrated religious texts played a vital role in the transmission of the BuddhistDharma, and the Museum possesses one of the oldest extant examples of a palm-leafmanuscript, the long and narrow strips now quite worn from long use (Fig. 28).It was done in Nepal A.D. I 136, but it is closein techniqueto manuscriptsoriginatingin the Palaempireand sharesmuch of the aestheticcanonsof Palastone and bronzeimagery. The text itself is ThePerfection f Wisdomn 8o,000 Verses, he Astasdhas-rikaPrajnipdramitdhich is one of the fundamentalworks of Mahayanaphilosophy.Preservedare the two wooden cover boards,one paintedwith a scene of the Tempta-tion of the Buddha and the other with the image of the Yellow Tara,the consort ofAvalokitesvara,and her attendants.Two hundredand seven pages of the text arealso extant, but only six of them are adorned with paintings,each with three tinyscenes as shown in Fig. 28, two differentversions of the goddessTara. The lowerone presentsher in a war-like guise with elephant goad, sword, bow, and the like.In Tibet orJapan,Tantricimagery of this kind is pervadedby an atmosphereof de-monic and awful power, but the goddesshere is still imbued with the delicate lyri-cism of the late Pala and Sena schools.THE fifteenhundredyearlife spanof the Buddhist artistictradition n the land of itsbirth was dominated by the development of the cult image, hieraticin form andfreed of narrativefunctions. Suchimages were ultimately given the main burden ofboth religious and aestheticmeaning, and the fifteen centuriesmay be divided intothose in which the image was lacking, those in which it was invented and endowedwith ever more refined aestheticfeatures,and those in which the solutions of thepastwere repeatedwith increasing acility.Once conceived, it was never allowed tosharetoo closely in the appearances f the everyday world, for one of the dominantprinciplesof the Buddhist faith was the belief that "the conditioned world," thatwhich is known by immediatesensedata, s fundamentallyundesirable.The prime goal of the faithhadbeen to lead mankindto escape nto the "uncondi-tioned," to give up concernwith the world of illusionandof the self and of the ego,"... to conquerlust for forms and soundsand tastes,to conquerlust for scents andthings of touch" (SuttaNipata974-5). The naturalismwhich appeared n HellenisticGreek sculpturewould have been theologically impossiblein BuddhistIndia, eventhough "late"Buddhistand Hellenisticsculpturemight resembleeach other in themastery and refinements of techniques. But because of the distinctive pressuresexerted by Buddhisttheology, the evolution of IndianBuddhist artsfollowed pat-ternswhich differ from those of Greece, and, indeed, those of the figural traditionsof anyother civilization.

Nevertheless,the historicalphasesof Buddhist artand architecturen Indiaare ofgreat importancefor the study of East Asianculture,becauseIndiawas a generator

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of religious ideas and symbolic forms which were communicated, often very quickly,to the other Buddhist lands of Asia. And, coincidentally or otherwise, as the faithdied out in India, Buddhist art also waned in the East as a vital force stimulating themost impressive achievements. The thirteenth century is a rough bench mark forthe decline of traditional, hieratic styles of Buddhist imagery throughout Asia, nomatter how pleasant the twilight charm of later Thai, Nepalese, or Tibetan forms.In the Chinese and Japanese galleries of the Museum can be seen numerous re-flections and reinterpretations of the themes of Indian Buddhist art, and no one wasmore aware of this than Robert T. Paine, late Curator of the Asiatic Department anda specialist in Japanese art. With genuine insight, he had begun adding Indian objectsof great relevance to the international Buddhist tradition to the Museum's collectionand affirmed, once more, this great unifying force in the civilization of Asia.

JOHN ROSENFIELDHarvard University

NOTESI. This discussion will involve changes in the

previous dating of some of the objects.2. Many voices may be heard today warningof the dangers of interpreting the history

of art, as did Wolfflin and Riegl, in termsof biological or other patterns of evolution.It is said that this attitude can easily leadthe scholar into the swamps of determinism,that it sets his eyes upon artificialchronological distinctions and blinds themto the unique and expressive qualities ofthe individual works. (See the discussionsof James Ackerman in Ackerman andCarpenter, Art and Archaeology, Princetonstudies, Humanistic scholarship in America,Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, I963,pp. I64-I86; also Arnold Hauser, ThePhilosophyof Art History, Cleveland, I958,pp. 118-276.)Aware, hopefully, of such a pitfall, Ifeel that the establishment of a large,general scheme to account for the evolutionof Buddhist imagery helps to place dozensof monuments, hitherto unrelated, into asimple scheme which aids in their datingand interpretation.

The reader will note that I have avoidedsome of the familiar period labels forIndian art, such as Mauryan, Sunga,Kushan, early and late Andhra, Gupta,and the like. These are essential in detailedart history, but their use here woulddistract from the larger unities I have tried

to the five periodsareascolorlessandneutral n connotationas possible, n orderto avoidany suggestion hatone periodis more "valuable" han another.3. A smallfigureof a makara arved ninduratedpot-stonein the Museum

collection(Acc. no. 38.20), togetherwitha similarpiecenow in the ClevelandMuseumof Art, was thought possiblytodate from the Mauryanperiod (MFABulletin, April, 1936). Confirming evidencehas not appearedduringthreedecadesofarchaeologicalesearch, ndsincetheylack certainof the distinctive eaturesandscale of the Asokanmonuments, he datingof theseworksasMauryanmust still beconsideredasunverified.4. NiharanjanRay, Maurya ndSungaArt,Calcutta, 945, pp. 102-104.5. A. K. Coomaraswamy,"Yaksas,"SmithsonianMiscellaneousollections,No. 2926, Vol. 8o, 1928; No. 2059, I93I.6. Fora very similarwork in the BritishMuseum,see DouglasBarrett,SculpturesfromAmaravatTn the BritishMuseum,London, I954, Pls. iv-v. Barrett'schronologyof the AmaravatIculpturesdiffers rom thatemployedhere,for hedatesthe early phaseof the schoolca.A.D. I75.7. BenjaminRowland'sanalysisof the mannerby which the Gandharanworkshopscameunder HellenisticandRoman influencemay be found elsewhere n this issueof

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