Origin of Indian Stone Art

 

 

Was Indian Stone art Derived

 

from the Chaldeans, Greeks,

 

Romans or Persians?

Vedaprakash

Introduction: Indian writers on architecture have been repeating the dictum that the Indians have borrowed, copied or imitated the architecture of the Chaldeans, Greeks, Romans or the Persians, especially after the invasion of Alexander. Particularly, the argument that the usage of stone in India resulted with the cultural contact of the Greeks is repeated very often.

The Origin of the Hypothesis: James Fergusson was the fist to assert that Indians learnt the art of stone architecture from the Greeks after Alexander�s invasion¹. Later, it was obviously picked up by other writers. Buddhist preachers going to the Mediterranean countries, coming of the Megasthenes to India, marrying of Chandragupta Maurya with the daughter of Selukas Nicator etc., are cited as examples for such cultural contact². The same story is repeated by all the British writers and others who were heading ASI, Epigraphical and other societies and departments. Jas Burgess wrote:

�The spread of Buddhism to the westward and to the least, the invasion of Alexander brought India into contact with Persia, where, the succeeding Achamenian kings had hewn out mausoleums in the rocks and constructed palaces with stone basements, pillars and doorways, filling in the walls with brick, as in the early Assyrian buildings. The works would naturally attract the attention of Indian visitors � whether missionaries, or merchants; and the report of such magnificent structures would tempt Indian princes to copy them� ³.

The Sheet Anchor of Indian History and Chronology: The Max Mueller�s �sheet anchor� date of 327-326 BCE had been consistently working in the minds of every European writer. Jas Burgess wrote:

�We possess scarcely a landmark in history previous to the invasion of India by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B. C., nor do we know of an architectural monument earlier date"⁴.

Vincent Arthur Smith recognizes and places the so called �the earliest Indian building� around 450 BCE in round figures, for which, he has �very good reasons�:

�The earliest Indian building to which an approximate date can be assigned is the stupa at Piprahwa on the Nepalese frontier, explored by Mr. W. C. Peppe in 1898. Very strong reasons exist for assigning this building to 450 BC in round numbers, shortly after the decease of the Gautama Sakyamuni, commonly known as Buddha � ⁵.

Immediately, he explains exposing his psyche:

�Although the art of constructing substantial edifices of brick masonry was well understood in Northern India four or five centuries before Christ, and must have been introduced perhaps from Babylon, as a much earlier date, there is good reason of believing that the ornamental buildings of ancient India were mainly constructed of timber. Brick foundations and substructures were probably common; but the whole history of Indian architecture proves that the superstructures of the early buildings possessing architectural features must have been, as a rule, executed in wood, like the modern Burmese palaces. The Piprahwa is a monument of engineering rather than of architectural skill� ⁶.

Then, he deals with �the history of India� as follows:

�It is possible that when the really ancient sites of India, such as Taxila and Vaisali, shall be explored, remains of buildings assignable to the fourth, fifth and sixth found, are likely to consist of stupas and the plinths or substructures of wooden superstructures which have long since disappeared. But, the results of exploration of these ancient sites, so far, have been disappointing; and in our state of ignorance a great gap, to which no material remains can be assigned, exists between the date of Piprahwa stupa and that of Asoka Maurya, two centuries and half later. In fact, the history of Indian art may be said to begin in the reign of Asoka (272-231 BCE) and all the known remains assignable to the period are probably later than 260 BC� ⁷.

Some Scholars found out the Bias: H. P. Blavatsky, discussing about the prejudice and bias of the western scholars against the ancient Indians, has noted and pointed out the interesting details:

�But such existing prejudices will have to give way and disappear soon before the light of new discoveries. Already Prof. Weber�s and Max Mueller�s favorite theories � namely, that writing was not known in India even in the days of Panini; that Hindus had all their arts and sciences � even to the zodiac and their architecture (Fergusson) � from the Macedonian Greeks; these and other such cock-and-bull hypotheses are threatened with ruin. It is the ghost of old Chaldea that comes to the rescue of truth. In his third Hibbert Lecture (1887), Professor Saye of Oxford speaking of the newly discovered Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, refers at length to Ea, the God of Wisdom, now identified with the Oannes of Berosus, the half-man, half-fish, who taught the Baylonians culture and art of writing. The Ea, to whom, thanks only to the Biblical deluge, an antiquity of hardly 1500 B.C has been hitherto allowed, is now spoken of in the following terms, to summarize from the Professor:

The city of Ea was Eridu, which stood 6,000 years ago on the shores of the Persian gulf. The name means �the good city�, a particularly holy spot, since it was the centre from which the earliest Chadlean civilization made it sway to the north. As the culture-god was represented as coming from the sea, it was possible that the culture of Eridu was the seat of foreign importation. We know that there was intercourse at a very early period between Chaldea and Sinaitic peninsula, as well as with India. The statues discovered by the French at Tel-loh (dating from at least 4,000 B.C) were made of extremely hard stone as diorite, and the inscriptions on them stated the diorite to have been brought from Magan � i.e, the Sinaitic peninsula, which was ruled by the Pharohs. The statues are known to resemble in general style the diorite statue, Kephern, the builder of the second pyramid, while according to Mr. Petrie, the unit of measurement marked on the plan of the city, which one of the Tel-loh figures holds on his lap, is the same as that employed by the Pyramid builders. Teak wood has been found  at Mugheir, or Ur of the Chaldees, although that wood is an Indian special product; add to this that an ancient Babylonian list of clothing mentions Sindhu or �muslin�, explained as vegetable cloth�.

Muslin best now known as Dacca muslin, known in Chaldea as Hindu (Sindhu), and teak wood used 4,000 years old and yet the Hindus, to whom Chaldea owes its civilization, as has been proven by Colonel Vans Kennedy, were ignorant of the art of writing before the Greeks taught them their alphabet � if, at least, we have to believe Orientalists� ⁸.

Usage of Rock / Stone in India: The Vedic references (c.4500 BCE) about �Pratima� are discussed first:

Those who assert that there was no image worship during Vedic period quote the following verse:

�na tasya pratimahasti yasya nam mahadhashaha (Yajurveda.XXXII.3) meaning that �there is no image of (God), whose appellation is the great and glorious�.

Those who point out the prevalent of Idol worship during Vedic period quote the following verse:

�Shrushinam prastaroasi namaoastu devayaprastriya� (Atharvaveda.XVI.26) meaning that, �You are the couch of the Rishis. Let worship be paid to the divine couch�.

�Ka imam dashbhirmamndram kritnati dhenubhi� (Rigveda.IV.24.10) means that, �Indra can be purchased for ten cows (and such Indra should be only an image of Indra).

However, other descriptions like the Forts, destruction of three Forts by Shiva, different forms of disposal of dead, stone structures etc., show the prevalence of stone structure during the period.

Dwaraka Excavation: The Dwaraka excavation unearthed the stone boulders forming part of the submerged fort, triangular three-holed stone anchor, all datable to 15^th-1th century BCE. This clearly proves the usage of stones for construction purposes in India going back to 1500-1400 BCE⁹.

In 1863, Robert Bruce Foote discovered a stone tool, �hand-axe� manufactured, used and discarded by early hominids that inhabited the area of Pallavaram, Madras. This discovery pushed back the antiquity of man in Tamilnadu to more than half a million years ago i.e, 5,00,000 years¹⁰. Again, the rock paintings discovered in Madyapradesh takes man to 30,000 BCE¹¹.

Therefore, that man need not have waited for Alexander to copy the alien art of rock working and architecture.

The Sri Lankan Evidences explode the Myth of Greek, Roman, Persian Influence: The Brazen Palace (161-137 BCE) situated north of the Sacred Bo-tree, Buddhist railings at Jtvana Dagoba (276-309 CE), Abhayagiri Dagoba and Lakrama Dagoba built by Vattagamani Abhaya (89-77 BCE), Thuparama Stupa built by Devanampiyatissa (250-210 BCE), Ruwanveliseya and Mirisayati Dagoba built by Dattagamani (161-137 BCE) clearly prove that the stone architecture had been well developed in the 3^rd century BCE itself in Sri Lanka¹². The same type of architecture existing throughout India during the material period raises many crucial questions:

Sri Lanka is situated nearly 2,400 kms away from Pataliputra or Sanchi. How then the architects / sculptors could have built the same type of structures at these places?

Does it mean that the same type of technology and methodology was prevalent in the length and breadth of the country?

The western scholars assert that Chandra Gupta Maurya (c.322-288 BCE), in spite of his well established empire spreading throughout India, was using wood for its magnificent Royal palaces and other structures! Whereas, his grandson, Ashoka (c.298-273 BCE) immediately started using stone for building so many stupas, chaityas and monasteries and rocks for his edicts! Ashoka built the structures immediately at places situated between 2,400 kms, but just 100 years back, which his grandfather could not know such technology in spite of his so called cultural contacts with Greeks, Persians and so on!

How was it possible?

The distance between Greece and Paraliputra is (or was) 5,000 kms and from Persia 800 kms approximately. Then, why the Greek architecture should take more than 100 years to pass from grandfather to his grandson, when grandfather�s architecture could be prevalent at the same time at places separated by 2,400 kms?

Buddha�s period was assigned to c.567-487 BCE. Then, how could his followers immediately leave started building stupas, chaityas and monasteries, and sculpturing gigantic statues at different places?  Had the Buddhist architects and sculptors too copied from the Greeks or Persians?

Mahavira is also assigned to the same period c.599-527 BCE! Is it a wonder then, how Mahavira and Buddha never met each other in spite of their attitude against Vedic religion? What type of architecture was followed by the Jains? It is said that the grandfather was a Jain and came to Sravanabelagola all the way from Pataliputra to breadth his last!

Therefore, it is evident that there is something basically wrong in the methodology of western scholars in fixing the dates of events and personalities. Had the dates been correct, there could not have been any contradiction as pointed out above. In history, the chronology should be consistent with the progress and development of material and non-material cultures. Just by accusing one civilization or culture for not having any script, dubbing one people or group of people as borrowers or copiers of others, none can fix the chronology.

Rock Architecture and Iron technology: The rock architecture is closely connected with Iron technology. However, iron is understood to be an Asiatic discovery. Iron implements about 5,000 years old have been excavated. The art of iron and steel was known to the ancient Indians, Chinese and Egyptians. High quality steel manufactured in India about 1000 BCE found good market in Oman and Yemen in Arabia and other middle-east countries and used for making blades. The iron and steel produced in India was also very famous for its quality and exported to many countries including Britain till the beginning of 19^th century from the Vedic period.

Definitely, India had been ahead of other civilizations in Iron technology proved by many excellent specimens of Iron and steel. The samples analyzed confirmed the facts.

Iron seems to have been worked on an extensive scale in the past, as is evident from the w9idely scattered slag-heaps which are to be seen in many parts of India. The iron excavated was of high quality and was in much demand in distant parts of the world. The fame of the ancient Indian steel Wootz � a very superior kind of steel exported to Europe, in days before the Christian era, for the manufacture of swords and other weapons � testifies to the metallurgical skill of the early workers¹³.

Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used Indian Iron & Steel and Implements: Herodotus (c.485-425 BCE) mentions about Indian soldiers in the Persian army having iron tipped arrows. Ktesias extols the excellence of the two swords made of Indian steel presented to him and his mother by the Persian king Mallai¹⁴. Quintus Curtius of Alexander�s army records that Porus presented one hundred talents of Indian steel to Alexander. There was a Greek monograph on Indian steels. Under Marcus Aurleius, the Indian steel �Ferrum Indicum� was subjected to an import tax. Periplus of the Erithranean Sea (c.89CE) speaks of export of Indian iron and steel to Abyssinia and Rome in the first century A. D¹⁴. Indian iron tools were used in ancient Egypt for carving on hard stones. Particularly, Needle was invented and exported to other countries by Indians.

The secret of manufacturing the so called Damascas blades was learned by the Saracens from the Persians, who had mastered it from the Hindus¹⁶. In Persia, the Indian sword was proverbially known as the best sword and the phrase �Jawabee hind� (Indian sword) meant, �a cut with the sword made of Indian steel) ¹⁷.

Therefore, the date of finely carved sculptures can be placed at c.1000 BCE in India and such production of sculptures continued with the magnificent temples constructed at different parts of the ancient India. The Dwaraka evidence of Iron anchors takes the date of iron to 1500-1400 BCE. The cutting, chiselling and carving were carried on granite, soap stone, marble etc., of different hardness, colour shapes and size. It may be noted that lengthy idols, pillars and columns were carved out of single stone blocks. Even the minute and fine carvings were out on such stones.

Therefore, for cutting, chieselling and carving, different types of iron and steel implements must have been used. For miniaturized sculptures, special fine needle like chisels, punches, sharpeners etc., with high tensile strength must have been used. Accordingly, production of such high quality steel technology must have been developed by that time.

This again upsets the chronology of the westerners. So they have obviously introduced another theory that the usage of iron in India cannot be pushed back before 1000 BCE, as dealt with below.

The Ignorance of, Contempt and Bias against Indian art: The teavellogues of the Europeans about India expose how much ignorance they were having about India. Their contempt towards India had been mainly due to Christianity. Their search for roots led to the scholarly bias on any Indian subject. Partha Mitter in his preface to his book, �Much Maligned Monsters� has succinctly brought out the attitudes of Europeans towards Indian art¹⁸.

�The reception of Indian art in Europe presents a curious paradox. On the one hand, it still remains a misunderstood tradition in the modern west, whose aesthetic qualities are yet to be properly appreciated. On the other hand, possibly no other non-European artistic tradition has been responsible for so much discussion among the intellectuals from the very end of Middle Ages. It therefore offers a striking case study of the cultural reactions of a particular society to an alien one and nowhere can this clash of two essentially different, even antithetical, cultural and aesthetic values be better studied than in European interpretations of Hindu sculpture, painting and architecture. Indo-Islamic architecture or Moghul painting did not present any serious problems of assimilation for the European, as they reflected a taste that could be understood in the west. Accordingly, collections of Moghul paintings began at an early period. On the other hand, there is very little in literature to indicate whether they had much effect on prevailing tastes and interests, apart from being objects curiosity. The great Rembrandt was exceptional in his appreciation of their aesthetic qualities. In contrast to Indo-Islamic art, although very little Hindu art was collected before the nineteenth century, travellers, ethnographers, philosophers, and the literati in general showed an almost obsessive interest in it. In short, the problem of accommodating multiple-limbed Indian gods in the European aesthetic tradition became the leading intellectual preoccupation as early as the sixteenth century.

�India had meant a great deal to European since the time of Alexander, but the actual knowledge about it had become confused in the final days of the Roman empire and had given rise to certain myths. These myths about India could not but influence the way Indian art was seen in the west. Arguably, Indian art presented a test case for the western understanding of India, because its aesthetic standards differed much from those of the classical west. In the early period of European explorations of Asia, travellers saw Hindu sacred images as infernal creatures and diabolic multiple-limbed monsters. This early attitude may not be entirely unexpected; what is remarkable is that the attitude persisted even into the modern period, though different critics sought to evaluate these alleged monstrosities in different ways. A further aspect of Indian art which presented problems of assimilation, the eroticism connected with certain cults and images, was responsible for numerous speculations in the eighteenth century. The end of the century was marked by the discovery of the wealth of Sanskrit literature and Indian philosophy, which went hand in hand with increasing archaeological explorations of the subcontinent. However, even in the nineteenth century, the new accession of information was generally fitted into an earlier framework. Thus, Hegel saw in the supposedly formless images of Indian art an expression of Indian mentality which was identified by him as dreaming consciousness, a new aspect of Indian art came into focus with growing Victorian concern with the industrial arts and decorative ornament. Ruskin approved of the sense of colour and form of the native Indian craftsmen but abhorred Indian sculptures, painting, and architecture as representing unchristian ethos. It was only with the general revolt against the classical tradition that the search for alternative values led from the appreciation of medieval European art to the praise of the Indian tradition, which was exalted for its spirituality. The examination of these attitudes strongly suggests that the western world still has to find a way to appreciate the values of Indian art in its own context and in its own right� (emphasis added).

Hereinafter, the following excerpts are given from his above-mentioned book, which have great relevance on the subject matter and also exposes the European plot to reduce the Indian chronology using art as a weapon.

Indian Art followed no Rules! According to Sonnerat, Indian architecture, ����..subjects to no rules, the only monuments capable of giving an idea of their talents in this science are the greater towers over the gates of their temples, and their stories are seen sometimes very high, and sometimes very low. The numerous columns, which decorate inside of their pagodas, have no fixed proportion; some are very thick at the bottom and terminate like a cone, insensibly diminishing; others are very slender at the bottom and very large at the top. However, in my opinion, these temples have something more noble and majestic than those of the Chinese, or even of any people o the face of the earth. Those enormous machines which crown the gates, the decorations within, and the thousand columns which surround the pagodas, inspire veneration, and announce an abode of the deity� ¹⁹.

Caylus disparaged the Indian architecture as compared to that of Egyptians as follows: �The Egyptians works bear in their simplicity combined with an astonishing grandeur an original character. The Pyramids of India are loaded with an infinite details of little ornaments; this pursuit betrays an imitative spirit; on the contrary all is simple and grand in Egypt; it was in Egypt that marble was straightaway brought out of quarry, hewn simply, placed one on top of the other in the direction of the four cardinal points of the earth; they had formed the Pyramids. The other nations had arrived afterwards, chisel in hand, in order to make up for, by means of detailed embellishments what they lacked in respect of far-reaching ideas and grandeur of efforts. Men have always commenced by the simple in all their operations�.�²⁰. 

The idea of India as continually decaying society was already in air. But it was Fergusson who presented a vivid picture of how Indian architecture expressed itself only through continuous decline as opposed to constant progress. He saw that the early Buddhist architecture represented a certain simple treatment from later treatment of form, which was different from later architecture, especially of Hindu period. Significantly, Fergusson asserted that the development from the Buddhist to Hindu art showed a clear case of �decadence� was simply an elaborate scaffolding to justify his dislike of Hindu architecture. In a powerful, yet misleading, passage Fergusson contrasted the history of progressive decline in Indian art with the steady but sure progress of medieval European art:

�Sculpture in India may fairly claim to rank, in power of expression, with medieval 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 sculpture of Bharhut and Amaravati topes, to the illustrative Colreman�s Hindu mythology� ²¹.

Racial Interpretation of Indian Art: Patha Mitter noted that, �Decline naturally presupposes a prior �golden age�. So, evidently, the British historians invented such age and attributed to the Gupta�s period, which has been also brought down to 4^th cent.CE. Fergusson refused to be bound by the traditional chronology of political history. Cole accepted Buddha as non-Aryan, but this Fergusson refused to do. Because Buddhist art was superior to Hindu it only seemed reasonable to him that Buddha was a pure-blooded Aryan. Therefore it followed that later �decadent� Brahmanism was a non-Aryan faith. Social decline began when Aryan Buddha was turned down by Indians in favour of the degraded Hinduism of the Brahmin priests. He even claimed that Vaishmavism is contemporary of India was a corruption of Buddhism. It was inevitable that this degraded form of religion produced a decadent form of art, the art of the Hindu period. The Dasyus were, according to him, a third ethnic group in India who were neither Aryan nor Dravidian, but were inferior to both and the first to be converted to Buddhism. The Dasyus racial art of architecture was identified with the late Orissan temples with amalaka shaped towers. Fergusson believed Architecture to be a far more reliable guide than the surviving chronicles which were notoriously unreliable. His racialization of architecture has made him disparage the Indian art. He even has gone to the extent of asserting that the steady and inevitable decline of art was temporarily arrested by the intrusion of new blood in the form of Greek art²³.

Indians are incapable of Producing Great Art: Vincent Smith in his article on classical influence on Indian art in 1889 has perhaps consummated the plot hatched by the British historiographers. He declared that: �Nothing could arrest the sure and world-wide progress of ideas and cultures, which constituted the real strength of Hellas�. He was convinced that in art that the Greeks had left their indelible imprint, although he had no evidence to support his claim: �At Bahrut, Sanchi, Buddha Gaya, and Amaravati proof may be given that the local style of art was modified by contact with that of the western world, but the evidence does not lie upon the surface. He had rather a low opinion of Ajantha paintings. They did not reserve a rank: �When compared with the world�s master pieces - no Indian art work does � but they are entitled to a respectable place among the second or third class��.. no art at all deserving of such praise was ever born on Indian soil����.They are to be numbered among the fruits of foreign teaching either by Greek or Roman pupils of Greek masters�. In other words, Indians were incapable of producing great art and, if they did at all, this must have been the outcome of commerce with classical culture, i.e, Greek culture. �The Gandhara�.sculptures��..would be admitted by most persons competent to form an opinion, to be the best specimens of the classic art ever known to exist in India. At even this or only echoes of the second rate Roman art of 3^rd and 4^th century. In the elaboration of the minute, intricate, and often extremely pretty ornamentation and stone, it is true, the Indian artists are second to none���.But in the expression of human passion and emotion Indian has completely failed, except during the time when it was held in Greeco-Roman leading strings, and it has scarcely at any time essayed an attempt to give visible form to any divine idea� ²³.

Therefore, it is evident that the bias, prejudice and pre-determined notion, all against India have made them to cut down the chronology of India in all aspects, because India had a civilization with great antiquity with all art and architectural sculptures and monuments dated before the civilizations, which are considered as the mother of western civilization.

A Systematic Study Confirms the Chronology of India: The history of Indian art has definitely evolved from the Indus Valley Civilization, now known as Sindhu-Saraswati Civilization and attained refinement and perfection during the Gupta period. But the careful study of specimens of the Gupta period clearly show that they must have belonged to an early period than the 4^th century period of current era as has been assigned to it. The other view of the traditional chronology, in this aspect appears to tally with the date of the monuments. The wide gap between the date of IVC and Maurya period easily appears artificial and it has been purposely created by the western scholars like Max Mueller, Vince Smith, Fergusson, John Bentley etc. These scholars have meticulously worked in their respective fields and reduced the chronology.

All sch