Date of the Bharaut Stupa Sculptures

Author(s): L. A. Waddell
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (Jan., 1914), pp.
138-141
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25189116 .
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138 DATE OF BHARAUT STUPA SCULPTURES
Date
of the Bharaut Stupa Sculptures
As the
magnificent gallery
of ancient
sculptures upon
the Bharaut
Stupa railings
and
pillars fortunately
possesses
the
unique
feature of
bearing descriptive
labels
incised
on
the
stones,
it affords
an
invaluable criterion
for
determining
the
chronology
of
early
Indian
art,
the
growth
of
religious legends,
Buddhist and
Brahminical,
and the
important
historical
questions
associated therewith.
It is therefore desirable to fix the date of these authentic
ancient documents
as
precisely
as
possible.
The
generally accepted
date
amongst historiographers,
namely
"
the second
or
first
century
B.C.",1
is based
upon
the
inscription
on
the eastern
gateway.
This
inscription
states that
"
During
the
reign
of the
Suiigas
. . .
Vatsi
putra
Dhanabhuti caused
[this] gateway
to be made and
the stonework
arose
".2 As the
Suriga dynasty
is
usually
assigned
to about 184-72 B.C." the above-noted date is
thus arrived at.
But,
as
I have
shown,
the eastern
gatewa}^
was
certainty
not the main
entrance,
and
indeed,
from the
location elsewhere of the inscribed
images
of the four
guardian gods
of the
Quarters,
this eastern
gateway
was
probably
not
a
part
of the
original investing
structure at
all.4 The main
gateway
was
the
southern,
at which
I found
were
collected three out of the four
great
guardians, namely,
those of the
south, east,
and
west;
and over
the southern
was carved
a
miniature
replica
of the
stupa.
This
position
for the main entrance is
explained by
the
topography
of the site with reference
to the old road and the
adjoining
stream-bed. The
1
Dr.
Fleet,
Imp.
Oaz.
India,
ii, 46,
1908
;
Dr.
Hoernle,
Ind.
Ant.,
x,
pp.
118 ff. : Dr.
Hultzsch, IA., 1892,
225.
2
Dr.
Hultzsch,
loc.
cit.,
227.
n
V. A.
Smith,
Early
Hisf.
Ind., 1908, 180-02;
Hoernle &
Stark,
J list.
India, 1900,
41.
4
My
article
on
"
Evolution of the Buddhist Cult" in Asiatic
Quarterly
Ileview, January,
1912,
reprint, pp.
34-5.
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date of bharaut stupa sculptures
139
second
gate
was on the north with the northern
guardian
"
Kupiro
",
i.e.
Kubera,
in
charge.
Such
an
allocation of
these four
guardians
into two
groups
is the invariable
rule in Buddhist
buildings only
where two
gateways
exist. It is thus almost certain that the eastern
(also
western) gateway
was a
later addition to the
stupa
enclosure.
In the
light
of this
important
new
structural evidence
it
seems to
me
desirable that the
presumed
date for the
Bharaut
sculptures
be
revised,
and the
Surigan inscription
on
the eastern
gateway kept
distinct from the
inscriptions
on
the rest of the
railing,
which
apparently preceded
it.
All the
more so
is this desirable
as
expert palasographic
opinion
is
clearly against
the later date
(see below).
The
chronological
evidence of the
"
Four Great
Guardian
Kings"
alone
would,
I
find,
presume
a
date
within the
Mauryan period
;
for the
very
archaic form of
their titles and attributes at Bharaut
disclose,
as
I have
shown,
a
stage
of evolution
long
anterior to that in which
we
find them in the Pali
redactions,
not
only
of the
Jatakas but of the canonical Pali books.1
Palaeographic experts
are
practically
unanimous in
ascribing
the
majority
of the Bharaut
inscriptions
to
the older
Mauryan
era
of Asoka's
own
period,
that is the
third
century
B.C.,
and thus
support
the
original opinion
of the discoverer of the
stupa,General (Sir
A.)
Cunningham.
The latter wrote in his classic
Stupa of
Bharhut
(p.
15),
"
the absolute
identity
of the form of the Bharhut
characters with those of the Asoka
period
is
proof
sufficient that
they belong
to the
same
age."
2
Professor
Buhler records that
"
the
majority
of the
inscriptions
on
the Bharaut
Stupa" belong
to "the older
Maury
a
alphabet
1
See
my
article above
cited, pp.
36 IF.
-
Later in 1883 General
Cunningham
authorized Dr. J. Anderson in
his
Catalogue of Antiquities
in the India Museum
(p.
6)
to state the date
as 150 n.c.
;
but in this he was
manifestly
influenced
hy
the
inscription
on the eastern
gateway.
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140 DATE OF BHARAUT STUPA SCULPTURES
of the Asoka edicts ".l M. Senart writes:
"
The ancient
inscriptions
of the Bharhut
Stupa
are
perhaps
con
temporary
with
Piyadasi,
of
a
surety
not much later."2
No doubt the
complete
decoration of the entire
railing
of such
a
huge
monument,
by
the
piety
of
wealthy
devotees,
must have extended
over
several
generations;
and
some
of the rails
probably
were
contributed within the
Suriga
period.
This
circumstance,
however,
does not lower the
age
of the
great
bulk of the rest.
The
more
trustworthy
evidence
thus,
in the absence of
dated
inscriptions, points
to the bulk of the Bharaut
inscribed
sculptures dating
to the
early Mauryan period
of about Asoka's
own
time,
and
so
takes
us
back to
General
Cunningham's original
estimate3 that
they
"are
certainly
not later than B.C. 200
",
or,
as we
may
put
it
more
positively,
that
they belong
to the third
century
B.C.
Of the
chronological
inferences based
upon
these
sculptures
which
now
require readjustment accordingly,
an
important
one is the initial date for the Gandhara
school of Buddhist art. The date for
this,
as inferred
from the evidence of the Bharaut
sculptures, depends,
as
I have set forth in the Journal
(1913, pp.
945
ff.), mainly
on
the
revolutionary change
that
was
effected
in
repre
senting
Buddhas
personality
between the date of the
Bharaut
sculptures
and the rise of the Gandharan series.
Such
a
radical
change, accompanied
also
bj'
an
extensive
development
of the
theory
of divine Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas,
postulated
at the
very
least
one
century.
This
antedating
now of the estimated
age
of the
Bharaut
sculptures, by
one or one
and
a
half
centuries,
admits of the initial date of the
"
Greco
-
Buddhist"
sculptures being possibly put
back from the first
1
Indian
Paleography,
?
15. 2. Cf.
English
translation
hy
Dr. Fleet in
IA., p.
32.
2
"Inscriptions
of
Piyadasi,"
translated
hy
Sir (I. A.
Orierson, IA.,
1892,
173.
3
Stiipa of Bharhut, p.
15.
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DICTIONARY OP CENTRAL PAIIARI
141
century
A.D. to the first
century
B.C.,
and with it the
probable epoch
of
Kaniska,
whose art I have
suggested
is related to the
early
or,
what I would
call,
proto
Gandharan.
Otherwise,
the evidence I have there
adduced and the conclusions thereon remain undisturbed.
The
only point perhaps requiring
emendation is that the
expression
"Gandhara art" in the references
on
pp.
947
and 948 to the
style
and motive
as
being "incompatible
with
a
date before the Christian era" should be read as
"
mature Gandhara art".
L. A. Waddell.
A DICTIONARY'
OV
CENTRAL PAHARI
The late Pandit
Ganga
Dat
Upreti, deputy
collector in
Kumaun,
was an
enthusiastic worker in the
study
of the
local
language
and
ethnography.
At the time of his
death he was
engaged
on
the
compilation
of
a
dictionary
of words and
expressions
of the Pahari
language
used in
the Kumaun division. The
preliminary
work
was
not
completed.
Words
beginning
with the vowels and five
consonants have been
faired,
but it is clear that the rest
of the work would
require
revision before
fairing
out
for
publication.
The bundles of
slips
for the other letters
are
incomplete,
and the
papers
include
a
number of lists
of words not included in the
slips.
No scholar is available
Tor the
comparison
of these lists with the words in the
booklets and for the final revision which is
required.
The Government of the United
Provinces,
which has been
subsidizing
Pandit
Ganga
Dat,
has therefore decided that
the whole collection shall be
deposited
in the
University
Library
at
Allahabad,
where the work will be available
for future
students,
and it
may
be
hoped
that some
residents of Kumaun
may
in time be
forthcoming
who
will take
up
the work and
complete
it.
R. Burn.
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