Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/50

 20 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. for the establishment of hospitals and the protection of his co-religionists in their countries. More than all this, he built innumerable topes or stupas and monasteries all over the country ; and, though none of those now existing can positively be identified as those actually built by him, there seems no reason for doubting that the sculptured rails at Bodh-Gaya and Bharaut, the caves at Barabar in Bihar, some of those at Udayagiri in Katak, and the oldest of those in the Western Ghats were all erected or excavated during the existence of this dynasty, if not under himself. These, with inscriptions and such histories as exist, make up a mass of materials for a picture of India during this dynasty such as no other can present ; and, above all, they offer a complete representation of the religious forms and beliefs of the kings and people, which render any mistake regarding them impossible. 1 It was Buddhism, but without a deified Buddha, and with Tree and Serpent worship cropping up in every unexpected corner. There is certainly no dynasty in the whole range of ancient Indian history that would better repay the labour of an exhaustive investigation than that of these Maurya kings. Not only were they the first in historical times who, so far as we know, united nearly the whole of India into one great kingdom, but they were practically the first who came in contact with European civilisation and Western politics. More than even this, it is probably owing to the action of the third king of this dynasty that Buddhism, from being the religion of an obscure sect, became, at one time, the creed of so large a proportion of the human race, and influenced the belief and the moral feelings of such multitudes of men in Asia. It is to this dynasty, and to it only, that must be applied all those passages in classical authors which describe the internal state of India, and they are neither few nor insignificant. Though the Hindus themselves cannot be said to have contributed much history, they have given us, in the c Mudra-Rakshasa,' 2 a poetical version of the causes of the revolution that placed the Mauryas on the throne. But, putting these aside, their own inscriptions supply us with a perfectly authentic contemporary account of the religious faith and feelings of the period; while the numerous bas-reliefs of the rails at Bodh - Gaya and Bharaut afford a picture of the manners, customs, and costumes of the day, and a gauge by which we can measure their artistic status and judge how far their art was indigenous, how far influenced by foreign 1 For fuller information about Aroka reference may be made to Edm. Hardy's KonigAsoka,'and V. A. Smith's 'Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of India.' 2 Wilson's ' Hindu Drama,' in 'Works,' vol. xii, pp. 151 et si edition 1871. his