Date of the Bharaut Stupa SculpturesAuthor(s): L. A. WaddellReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (Jan., 1914), pp.138-141Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25189116 .

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138 DATE OF BHARAUT STUPA SCULPTURES

Date of the Bharaut Stupa Sculptures

As the magnificent gallery of ancient sculptures upon the Bharaut Stupa railings and pillars fortunately

possesses the unique feature of bearing descriptive labels

incised on the stones, it affords an invaluable criterion

for determining the chronology of early Indian art, the

growth of religious legends, Buddhist and Brahminical, and the important historical questions associated therewith.

It is therefore desirable to fix the date of these authentic

ancient documents as precisely as possible. The generally accepted date amongst historiographers,

namely "

the second or first century B.C.",1 is based upon the inscription on the eastern gateway. This inscription states that

" During the reign of the Suiigas

. . . Vatsi

putra Dhanabhuti caused [this] gateway to be made and

the stonework arose ".2 As the Suriga dynasty is usually

assigned to about 184-72 B.C." the above-noted date is

thus arrived at.

But, as I have shown, the eastern gatewa}^ was

certainty not the main entrance, and indeed, from the

location elsewhere of the inscribed images of the four

guardian gods of the Quarters, this eastern gateway was

probably not a part of the original investing structure at

all.4 The main gateway was the southern, at which

I found were collected three out of the four great

guardians, namely, those of the south, east, and west; and over the southern was carved a miniature replica of the stupa. This position for the main entrance is

explained by the topography of the site with reference

to the old road and the adjoining stream-bed. The

1 Dr. Fleet, Imp. Oaz. India, ii, 46, 1908 ; Dr. Hoernle, Ind. Ant., x,

pp. 118 ff. : Dr. Hultzsch, IA., 1892, 225. 2 Dr. Hultzsch, loc. cit., 227. n V. A. Smith, Early Hisf. Ind., 1908, 180-02; Hoernle & Stark,

J list. India, 1900, 41. 4

My article on " Evolution of the Buddhist Cult" in Asiatic Quarterly

Ileview, January, 1912, reprint, pp. 34-5.

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date of bharaut stupa sculptures 139

second gate was on the north with the northern guardian "

Kupiro ", i.e. Kubera, in charge. Such an allocation of

these four guardians into two groups is the invariable

rule in Buddhist buildings only where two gateways exist. It is thus almost certain that the eastern (also

western) gateway was a later addition to the stupa enclosure.

In the light of this important new structural evidence

it seems to me desirable that the presumed date for the

Bharaut sculptures be revised, and the Surigan inscription on the eastern gateway kept distinct from the inscriptions on the rest of the railing, which apparently preceded it.

All the more so is this desirable as expert palasographic

opinion is clearly against the later date (see below). The chronological evidence of the

" Four Great

Guardian Kings" alone would, I find, presume a date

within the Mauryan period ; for the very archaic form of

their titles and attributes at Bharaut disclose, as I have

shown, a stage of evolution long anterior to that in which

we find them in the Pali redactions, not only of the

Jatakas but of the canonical Pali books.1

Palaeographic experts are practically unanimous in

ascribing the majority of the Bharaut inscriptions to

the older Mauryan era of Asoka's own period, that is the

third century B.C., and thus support the original opinion of the discoverer of the stupa,General (Sir A.) Cunningham. The latter wrote in his classic Stupa of Bharhut (p. 15), "

the absolute identity of the form of the Bharhut

characters with those of the Asoka period is proof sufficient that they belong to the same age."

2 Professor

Buhler records that "

the majority of the inscriptions on

the Bharaut Stupa" belong to "the older Maury a alphabet 1 See my article above cited, pp. 36 IF. -

Later in 1883 General Cunningham authorized Dr. J. Anderson in

his Catalogue of Antiquities in the India Museum (p. 6) to state the date

as 150 n.c. ; but in this he was manifestly influenced hy the inscription on the eastern gateway.

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140 DATE OF BHARAUT STUPA SCULPTURES

of the Asoka edicts ".l M. Senart writes: "

The ancient

inscriptions of the Bharhut Stupa are perhaps con

temporary with Piyadasi, of a surety not much later."2

No doubt the complete decoration of the entire railing of such a huge monument, by the piety of wealthy devotees,

must have extended over several generations; and some

of the rails probably were contributed within the Suriga

period. This circumstance, however, does not lower the

age of the great bulk of the rest.

The more trustworthy evidence thus, in the absence of

dated inscriptions, points to the bulk of the Bharaut

inscribed sculptures dating to the early Mauryan period of about Asoka's own time, and so takes us back to

General Cunningham's original estimate3 that they "are

certainly not later than B.C. 200 ", or, as we may put it

more positively, that they belong to the third century B.C.

Of the chronological inferences based upon these

sculptures which now require readjustment accordingly, an important one is the initial date for the Gandhara

school of Buddhist art. The date for this, as inferred

from the evidence of the Bharaut sculptures, depends, as

I have set forth in the Journal (1913, pp. 945 ff.), mainly on the revolutionary change that was effected in repre

senting Buddhas personality between the date of the

Bharaut sculptures and the rise of the Gandharan series.

Such a radical change, accompanied also bj' an extensive

development of the theory of divine Buddhas and

Bodhisattvas, postulated at the very least one century. This antedating now of the estimated age of the

Bharaut sculptures, by one or one and a half centuries,

admits of the initial date of the "

Greco - Buddhist"

sculptures being possibly put back from the first 1 Indian Paleography, ? 15. 2. Cf. English translation hy Dr. Fleet in

IA., p. 32. 2

"Inscriptions of Piyadasi," translated hy Sir (I. A. Orierson, IA.,

1892, 173. 3

Stiipa of Bharhut, p. 15.

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DICTIONARY OP CENTRAL PAIIARI 141

century A.D. to the first century B.C., and with it the

probable epoch of Kaniska, whose art I have suggested is related to the early or, what I would call, proto

Gandharan. Otherwise, the evidence I have there

adduced and the conclusions thereon remain undisturbed.

The only point perhaps requiring emendation is that the

expression "Gandhara art" in the references on pp. 947

and 948 to the style and motive as being "incompatible with a date before the Christian era" should be read as "

mature Gandhara art".

L. A. Waddell.

A DICTIONARY' OV CENTRAL PAHARI

The late Pandit Ganga Dat Upreti, deputy collector in

Kumaun, was an enthusiastic worker in the study of the

local language and ethnography. At the time of his

death he was engaged on the compilation of a dictionary of words and expressions of the Pahari language used in

the Kumaun division. The preliminary work was not

completed. Words beginning with the vowels and five

consonants have been faired, but it is clear that the rest

of the work would require revision before fairing out

for publication. The bundles of slips for the other letters

are incomplete, and the papers include a number of lists

of words not included in the slips. No scholar is available

Tor the comparison of these lists with the words in the

booklets and for the final revision which is required. The Government of the United Provinces, which has been

subsidizing Pandit Ganga Dat, has therefore decided that

the whole collection shall be deposited in the University

Library at Allahabad, where the work will be available

for future students, and it may be hoped that some

residents of Kumaun may in time be forthcoming who

will take up the work and complete it. R. Burn.

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