The essence of Indian art through the ages

The text below is the excerpt from the book Art of India (ISBN: 9781783107834), written by Vincent A. Smith, published by Parkstone International.

The isolation of India, so apparent on the map, has never been absolute. Her inhabitants from the most remote ages have always been exposed to the action of foreign ideas conveyed by one or all of three ways by sea, through the passes of the northeastern frontier, or through the more open passes of the northwest. The only foreign art which could influence India from the northeast being that of China, which certainly produced no considerable effect on Indian art prior to the Islamic conquest, the ingress of foreign artistic ideas through the northeastern passes may be left out of account.

Long before the dawn of history, traders from distant lands had brought their wares to the ports of India, and in all probability introduced the alphabet and art of writing. But in those ancient days the sea, although open to the passage of adventurous merchants, was not the bond of union between distant lands which it has become in these latter times for a great naval power, and the influence exercised upon the art of the interior by small bodies of traders at the ports must have been comparatively trifling. The constant invasions and immigrations from the continent of Asia through the northwestern passes had more effect; and one prehistoric immigration, or series of immigrations, which brought the Vedic Aryans, ultimately settled the future of all India for all time by laying the foundations of the complex, exclusive, religious, and social system known as Hinduism. When history opens in the sixth century B.C.E., Northern India, at all events, was already largely Hinduized, and in the third century, when the earliest extant monuments came into existence, the Hindu system stood firmly established. In attempting to estimate the nature and extent of foreign influence on Indian art, as conveyed by sea and through the northwestern passes, we must assume the existence of Hinduism as an accomplished fact, and acknowledge that nothing positive is known about Hindu art before the age of Ashoka.

Early in his days the dominant foreign influence may be designated Persian, traceable clearly in his monolithic columns, in the pillars of structural buildings, and in architectural decoration. Capitals, crowned by recumbent bulls or other animals, are found at Bharhut, Sanchi and elsewhere, in the Gandhara reliefs, and at Eran in Central India, even as late as the fifth century of the Common era, but these do not very exactly correspond with the true Achaemenian type. The capitals of the monolithic columns, likewise with their seated and standing animals, although distinctly reminiscent of Persia, differ widely from Persian models, and are artistically far superior to anything produced in Achaemenian times. Sir John Marshall, as already observed, can hardly be right in ascribing the beautiful design and execution of the Sarnath capital and its fellows to Asiatic Greeks in the service of Ashoka.

We are thus led to consider the second foreign element in the most ancient schools of Indian art, that is to say, the Greek element, expressed in Asiatic Hellenistic forms. In Ashoka’s age the chief schools of Greek sculpture were in Asia Minor at Pergamum, Ephesus, and other places, not in Greece, and the Hellenistic forms of Greek art had become largely modified by Asiatic and African traditions, reaching back to the ancient days of Assyria and Egypt. It is consequently difficult to disentangle the distinctively Greek element in early Indian art. The acanthus leaves, palmettos, centaurs, tritons, and the rest, all common factors in Hellenistic art, are as much Asiatic as Greek. The art of the Ashokan monoliths is essentially foreign, with nothing Indian except details, and the fundamentally alien character of its style is proved by the feebleness of later attempts to copy it. I think that the brilliant work typified by the Sarnath capital may have been designed in its main lines by foreign artists acting under the orders of Ashoka, while all the details were left to the taste of the Indian workmen, much in the same way as long afterwards the Qutb Minar was designed by a Islamic architect and built by Hindu masons, under the orders of the Sultan Altamsh.

Our knowledge of the fine art of Ashoka’s reign (273-232 B.C.E.) is restricted to the monolithic columns almost exclusively. The other sculptures of the Early Period probably are all, or nearly all, of later date. They present a great contrast, being essentially Indian, with nothing foreign except details, and they presuppose the existence of a long previous evolution of native art probably embodied in impermanent materials, and consequently not represented by actual remains.

Are we to regard these sculptures, and especially the reliefs of Bharhut, Sanchi, and Bodh Gaya, as purely Indian in origin and inspiration, or as clever adaptations of foreign models? The sudden apparition simultaneously of stone architecture, stone sculpture, and stone inscriptions during the reign of Ashoka, when considered in connexion with the intimate relations known to have existed between the Maurya empire and the Hellenistic kingdoms of Asia, Africa, and Europe, raises a reasonable presumption that the novelties thus introduced into the ancient framework of Indian civilization must have been suggested from outside. That presumption is strengthened by the foreign style of the monolithic columns, which undoubtedly were a novelty brought into being by the command of an enlightened despot in close touch with the outer world. It must be remembered, however, that Early Indian architecture was essentially wooden. No sudden transition can be traced dating from Ashoka’s age. The small, square Gupta shrines are the earliest stone structures in India proper.

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