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His plans and undertakings are widespread, and his beneficent actions are felt over a great distance. His subjects obey him with perfect submission. At the present time Siladitya Mah&raja (of Kanouj) has conquered the na- tions from east to west, and carried his arms to remote districts, but the people of this country alone have not submitted to him. He has gathered troops from the five Indies, and summoned the best leaders from all Digitized by Google CHAP. VII.] HOUEN TSANG'S ACCOUNT. 113 countries, and himself gone at the head of his army to punish and subdue these people, but he has not yet conquered their troops." Nor was Siladitya destined to conquer Pulakesi who defeated him in battle, and maintained the independence of the proud Maharattas ; even as a successor of Pulakesi, a thousand years later, defied Aurungzebe, Emperor of Northern India, and res- tored to the Maharattas their lost independence and greatness. And when Mogul and Rajput had alike de- clined in power, it was the countrymen of Pulakesi who struggled with the English for the mastery of India. On the eastern frontier of the Maharashtra country was a great mountain with towering crags and a continuous stretch of piled up and scarped preci- pice. " In this there is a Sangharama constructed in a dark valley. Its lofty halls and deep side-aisles stretch through the face of the rocks. Storey above storey they are backed by the crag and face the valley." This is the famous Ajunta system of caves, cut in the lofty and almost perpendicular rocks that hem in a wild se- cluded glen. Modern readers have been made familiar with this most wonderful work of architecture through the plates and descriptions of Fergusson and Burgess. Houen Tsang says further on that the great Vihara was about 100 ft. high, and in the middle was a stone figure of Buddha 70 ft. high. Above was a stone canopy of seven stages towering upwards apparently without support R. C. D., A. I.— III. 8 Digitized by Google 114 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. To the west or north-west from Maharashtra was the country of Bharukachha or Broach, 500 miles in circuit. The soil was impregnated with salt, trees were scattered and scarce, and the people boiled sea water to manufac- ture salt, and had all their gain from the sea. Thence Houen Tsang went to the classic land of Malava. " Two countries," he says, " are remarkable for the great learning of the people — Malava on the south-west and Magadha on the north-east." Further on Houen Tsang says, "The records of the country state : sixty-years before this flourished Siladitya, a man of eminent wisdom and great learning ; his skill in literature was profound." This was Siladitya I who reigned probably from 550 A. D. to 600 A. D., and was probably the immediate successor of Vikramaditya the Great. The prince whom Houen Tsang saw in Kanouj, and who was trying to humiliate and subjugate Pulakesi and the Maharattas, was Siladitya II who reigned from about 610 to 650 A. D. In Malava both the religions prevailed in Houen Tsang's time, and there were about a hundred Sanghar- amas and a hundred Deva temples. Houen Tsang then visited Atali and Kachha or CUTCH, and then came to VaLABHI, the seat of the great Valabhi dynasty. "The character of the soil, the cli- mate and the manners of the people are like those of the kingdom of Malava. The population is dense ; the establishments rich. There are some hundred families Digitized by Google CHAP. VII.] HOUEN TSANG'S ACCOUNT. 115 or so who possess a hundred lakhs. The rare and valu- able products of distant regions are here stored in great quantities." Buddhism and Hinduism flourished alike. The kingdom of Anandapura was subject to Mal- ava, and that of SauRaSHTRA with its dense popula- tion was subject to the powerful Valabhis. Gurjara, or Gujrat, was 1000 miles in circuit, and the country of UjJAYlNi,— which is described separately from Malava spoken of above, — was 1200 miles round. Passing through Chikito and Mahesvarapura, our traveller came to SlNDH, 1400 miles in circuit. It abounded in gold, silver and native copper. The coun- try was suitable for breeding oxen, sheep, camels, mules, and other cattle, and the people were hard of disposition but honest, and lived under a low-caste king. Along the Indus river there lived numerous families, cruel and hasty in temper, and given to fighting and bloodshed. They lived entirely by tending cattle, owned no masters, and had neither rich nor poor among them. They form- ed in fact a sort of rude primitive clan, living by pasture. After visiting the thickly populated country of Mu- lasthanapura (Multan) and some other places, our traveller left India. The historian of India cannot but feel grateful to this enthusiastic and pious Chinese traveller for the bird's-eye-view he has given us of the various tribes and nations of India in the seventh century, — their arts, learning and civilization. Digitized by Google CHAPTER VIII. BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. The Hindus first came in contact with a nation as civilized as themselves in the fourth and third centuries B. C, and a great deal has been written as to the indebtedness of the Hindus to the Bactrian Greeks in the cultivation of their arts and sciences. As usual, the first writers on the subject have rushed to hasty conclusions, and it has been asserted that in archi- tecture and sculpture, and even in the art of writing and in their alphabet, the Hindus received their first lessons from the Greeks. A cultured nation cannot come in contact with a great and civilized nation without deriving immense advant- ages in arts and civilization. The gifted Greeks were certainly the most civilized nation in the earth in the fourth and third centuries before Christ, and what is more, they had spread their wonderful civilization over all the regions conquered by Alexander, until the whole of Western Asia from Antioch to Bactria pre- sented the Greek type of civilization, arts and manners. That the Hindus were greatly indebted to the Greeks not only in the development of many arts, but also in Digitized by Google CHAP. VIII.] BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE, &C. 117 the cultivation of some of the abstrusest sciences like astronomy, will be conceded by all historians of India ; and it will be our pleasing duty to acknowledge such friendly services rendered by one cultured nation to another, wherever we find facts justifying us in acknowledging such indebtedness, or even in presum- ing it But it is necessary to warn our readers against hasty assumptions where facts are absolutely wanting, or where facts go directly against such assumptions. In architecture the Hindus are not indebted to the Greeks. Buddhist Hindus developed their school of architecture themselves from the very commencement ; they created their own style, which is purely Indian ; they borrowed from no foreign school of architecture or building. In Gandhara and in Western Punjab columns have been found distinctly belonging to the Ionic order, and the general architecture, too, bears a Greek character. But in the vast continent of India itself, from Bombay to Cuttack, the architecture imme- diately before and immediately after the Christian Era is purely Indian in character. This would not have been the case if the Hindus had learnt their first lessons in architecture from the Greeks. In sculpture too, the Hindus are not indebted to the Greeks. Dr. Fergusson, speaking of the rail of Bharut (200 B. C.) says, " It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the art here displayed is purely indigenous. Digitized by Google Il8 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. There is absolutely no trace of Egyptian influence. It is in every detail antagonistic to that art. Nor is there any trace of classical art ; nor can it be affirmed that anything here established could have been borrowed directly from Babylonia or Assyria. The capitals of the pillars do resemble somewhat those at Persepolis, and the honeysuckle ornaments point in the same direction ; but barring that the art, specially the figure sculpture belonging to the rail, seems an art elaborated on the spot, by Indians, and by Indians only/'* Having thus cleared our ground, we will now proceed to give a very brief account of some of the most striking specimens which still exist of the architecture and sculpture of the Hindus of the centuries immediately before and after the Christian Era, and Dr. Fergusson will be our guide on this sub- ject. Such specimens are nearly all the work of Bud- dhists. Architecture in stone previous to the Buddhist movement, was confined mostly to engineering works, such as city walls, gates, bridges, and embankments ; and if palaces and religious and civil edifices were also sometimes built of stone, no specimens of such have come down to us. On the other hand, the Hindu and Jaina edifices of stone which abound in all parts of India belong to the period subsequent to the fifth century * Indian and Eastern Architecture, London, 1876, p. 8c> Digitized by Google CHAP. VIII.] BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE, &C. 1 19 of the Christian Era, and will therefore be treated of when we come to the Pauraink Period. In the present chapter, therefore, we will speak of works constructed in the Buddhist Period, and such works are all Bud- dhist. Dr. Fergusson classifies the works under five heads, vis. : — (1) Ldls, or stone pillars, generally bearing inscrip- tions ; (2) Stfipas, or topes, erected to mark some sacred event or site, or to preserve some supposed relic of Buddha ; (3) Rails y often of elaborate workmanship ; often erected to surround topes ; (4) Chaityas, or churches ; and (5) Viharas, or monasteries.