Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/155

THE ANCIENT ABBEY OF AJANTA 119 customed to think of as characteristically Buddhist. The spacings are constantly made with the stem of the date-palm, and ends and borders are painfully modish and secular. Such a want of ecclesiastical feeling, in sculpture that aims at a devotional use, can probably not be paralleled at any other age or place. The Corinthian finials and floral ornaments, to eyes looking for the gravity and significance of old Asiatic decoration, are very irritating. An excellent example is the Loriyan Tangai Buddha. Here we have a singularly phonetic piece of statuary. The feeling it portrays is exquisite. The pious beasts with their paws crossed are not less beautiful than the peacock which stands with tail spread to proclaim to the world the glories of the dawn of the morning of Nirvana. Yet even here a jarring note is struck in the irrelevancy of the borders, like a piece of school-girl embroidery.

Gandhara did really,^ however, have its period of influence over the sculpture of India. But this period began when its own style had reached its zenith. Comparatively early in the sixth century incursions of Huns swept over the country, and, in a year to which the date of A.D, 540 has been assigned, we are expressly told of the destruction of monasteries and stupas in an outburst of venge- ful cruelty, by the tyrant Mihiragula. This destruction was not complete, for a hundred years later the pilgrim Hiouen Tsang passed through the country and found many monasteries in- full vigour. Still, it cannot have failed to drive large numbers