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196 Some few but very precious fragments of classic Indian painting have survived in the ancient monasteries of Ajantā and elsewhere, but with these exceptions the record of Indian painting before Muhammadan times seems to be a blank.

The chief reason for this striking contrast in the history of pictorial and plastic art in India is probably this, that from the time when Asoka determined to build the funeral monuments of Buddhist saints solidly in brick and stone instead of in impermanent materials, lasting at most for three generations, the art of the sculptor gradually took the foremost place in all religious works. The walls of the "picture-halls" in palaces and mansions were of wood, clay, or brick. Tempera or fresco paintings on these foundations, under the best conditions, would rarely last more than a few centuries in India. The banners painted with religious subjects hung up in temples and monasteries were still more liable to decay. So, although painting flourished, more especially in the chitra-sālas of princes, during the whole period of Buddhist and Hindu political supremacy in India, natural destructive agencies had obliterated most of the earlier works of Indian painters long before Muhammadan iconoclasts wreaked their fury upon the sculptures of temples and monasteries.

The court architect in these early times was perhaps also the court painter, and joined with the court poet and chronicler in recording the deeds of the royal house. But the builders employed by the great religious foundations usually combined sculpture with painting, as painted reliefs gradually superseded the fresco and tempera paintings which decorated the procession paths and assembly-halls of temples, relic-shrines and monasteries; for the artist-devotee who followed