THE GANDHARA SCULPTURES. 9Q 



III. By HY. COLLEY MARCH, M.D., F.S.A. 



The Gandhara sculptures, inasmuch as they are represented 

 for us by those examples now in the possession of our associate 

 Col. IMainwaring, assuredly pertain to Dorset quite as much as 

 the migratory cuckoo, the wandered whale, or the planet Jupiter. 



The mere fact that the sculptures illustrate legendary 

 Buddhism gives them a profound interest, since they belong to a 

 cult that shows, before the Christian era, a miraculous birth, a 

 moment of divine enlightenment, a primal preaching when the 

 first converts washed their master's feet, a sore temptation by 

 the evil one succeeded by exhaustion and angelic support, a 

 walking upon the water when a wondering disciple followed in a 

 boat, a mystical incident like that of the Veil of Veronica, and 

 at the last that utter passing away that leaves nothing whatever 

 behind. 



But we are now concerned with the artistic problem that the 

 sculptures present. They are found in the North-West of India, 

 in Gandhara, a region visited in the fourth century before Christ 

 by Alexander the Great, whose route is shown by a diagram. 

 At that time, and in that district, Swat, Peshawar, and Bannu 

 were occupied by Hindus, whose neighbours to the north- 

 west were the Skythians, and to the south-west the Parthians 

 under Persian influence ; and the Indian language continued in 

 use on the coins of the Baktrian-Greeks and the Indo-Skythians, 

 down to A.D. 100. 



The very beginning of the first century marks the culmination 

 of the glyptic art of Gandhara, since towards its close the 

 Indian coinage quickly deteriorated, a sign of artistic decadence. 

 The sculptures have no inscriptions, but to similar carvings 

 elsewhere dynastic dates are added, which probably relate to 



A.D. 45, A.D. 21, A.D. 6i. 



Persons capable of forming a true judgment, who have studied 

 these works, are of opinion that they were preceded by the art 

 of painting, and were based upon scenes drawn by the pencil. 

 The grouping is too lively, too picturesque, to have been evolved 



