Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/142

io8 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY The conception of Narayana was taken up by the Guptas to be made into the basis of a national faith. This took shape as Krishna, and its epic was written in the Mahabharata. But the image associated with it was still that of Narayana. This was the form that was carried to the south by the missionary travellers who were the outcome of the educational and propagandist zeal of the Guptas, and there it is worshipped to this day. It was an image of this type that was placed by Skanda Gupta on the top of the Bhitari Lat when he erected it in A.D. 455 for the purpose of recording on his father's sradh pillar his own victory over the Huns.

There is therefore a continuous history of sculpture in Behar, beginning with the earliest period of Buddhism, and passing gradually, and by easily distinguished phases, into various forms of modern Hinduism. In this continuous development we can distinguish local schools, and this is the best answer to those who would talk of foreign influence.

The comparatively coarse, artisan-like work of Bodh-Gaya can never be mistaken for the soft, exquisitely curved and moulded forms of Baragaon, the ancient Nalanda. The Hindu carvings of Rajgir, again, are distinct from both. It is almost impossible therefore to speak of a single Magadhan school of sculpture. Much of the Rajgir work is Saivite in subject, being earlier than the Narayana types of Baragaon.

Early Buddhism has thus had two products : the portrait-statue and the iconic stupa. The stupa in