Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/143

Rh On the other hand, however, the sculpture is so sharp and clean, and every detail so well and so cleverly expressed in the hard sandstone in which it is cut, that it is equally evident the carvers were perfectly familiar with the material they were using. It is far from being a first attempt. They must have had chisels and tools quite equal to carving the hardest stone, and must have been perfectly familiar with their use. How long it may have taken them to acquire this degree of perfection in stone carving, it is of course impossible to guess, without further data; but it must have been centuries. Though, therefore, we may despair of finding any architectural buildings older than the time of Asoka, it is by no means improbable that we may find images or bas-reliefs, and inscriptions of a much earlier date, and for the history of India and her arts they would be as useful as the larger examples.

For the present we must be content with the knowledge that we now know perfectly what the state of the arts was in India when the Greeks first visited it. Neither the Bodh-Gayâ nor the Bharaut rails were, it is true, in existence in Alexander's time; but both were erected within the limits of the century in which Megasthenes visited the country, as ambassador from Seleukos, and it is principally from him that we know what India was at that time. If he did not see these monuments he may have seen others like them, and at all events saw carvings executed in the same style, and wooden chaityas and temples similar to those depicted in these sculptures. But one of the curious points they bring out is, that the religious observances he witnessed at the courts of the Brahmanical king, Chandragupta, are not those he would have witnessed had he been deputed to his Buddhist grandson the great Asoka. Here, as everything else at this age, everything is Buddhist, but it is Buddhism without Buddha. He nowhere appears, either as a heavenly person to be worshipped, or even as an ascetic. The nearest indication of his presence is in a scene where Ajâtasatru—the king in whose reign he attained Nirvâna—kneels before an altar in front of which are impressions of his feet. His feet, too, seem impressed on the step of the triple ladder, by which he descended from Heaven at Sankîsâ; Mayâ's dream, and the descent of the white elephant, can be recognised, and other indications sufficient to convince an expert that Buddhism is the religion indicated. But, as at Sânchi, by far the most numerous objects to which worship is addressed in these sculptures, are trees, one of which, the inscription tells us, is the Bodhi-tree of Sâkyamuni. Besides this, the Bo-trees of six or seven of his predecessors are represented in these sculptures, and both by their foliage and