Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/249

 CHAP. VII. GANDHARA MONASTERIES. 215 but more like Roman than Greek in the form of their volutes and general design. Perhaps it would be correct to say they are Indian copies or adaptations of classical capitals of the style of the Christian Era. Not one of these was found in situ, nor, apparently, one quite entire, so that their use or position is not at first sight apparent. Some of them were square, and it is consequently not difficult to see they may have formed the caps of the antae on each side of the cells, and are so represented in General Cunningham's plate (15). If this is so, the circular ones must have been placed on short circular pillars, one on each side, forming a porch to the cells. One at least seems to have stood free like a stambha and, as the General represents it (on plate 48), may have carried a group of elephants on its head. All these capitals were apparently originally richly gilt, and most of them, as well as some of the best of the sculptures, show traces of gilding, 1 and, as others show traces of colour, the effect of the whole must have been gorgeous in the extreme. From the analogy of what we find in the caves at Ajanta and Bagh, as well as elsewhere, there can be little doubt that fresco- painting was also employed : but no gilding, as far as I know, has been found in India, nor indeed, with one or two exceptions, any analogue to the Corinthian capital. 2 The capitals found in India are either such as grew out of the necessities of their own wooden construction, or were copied from bell-shaped forms we are familiar with at Persepolis, where alone in Central Asia they seem to have been carried out in stone ; 3 and they may have been so employed down to the time of Alexander, if not later. Certain it is, at all events, that this was the earliest form we know of employed in lithic architecture in India, and the one that retained its footing there certainly till after the Christian Era, and also among the Gandhara sculptures to a still later date. In the decorative sculptures of these monasteries, archi- tectural elements are largely employed in the representation of buildings in which scenes are pourtrayed, and in pillars separating the panels. These present forms of Perso- Indian pillars employed side by side, sometimes on the same slab, with columns having classical capitals and bases. The capitals of the old Perso-Indian type have new forms given to them the animal figures being changed, whilst the pillars themselves are placed on the backs of crouching figures with wings. It is the same absurd composition as is found in Assyrian and even 1 ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. v. pp. 49 and 196. 2 Ante, p. 207, note. 3 'The Palaces of Nineveh and Per- sepolis Restored.' By the Author. Part II. sect, i., et passim.