The Buddhist Art of Nagarjunakonda, by ELIZABETH ROSEN STONE

Reviewed by Brown, Robert L.

The Journal of the American Oriental Society
Vol.118 No.2 (April-June 1998)
pp.303-305

COPYRIGHT 1998 American Oriental Society


            By ELIZABETH ROSEN STONE. Buddhist Tradition Series, vol. 25. Delhi: 
            MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 1994. 

            The two Buddhist sites from Andhra Pradesh, Amaravati and 
            Nagarjunskonda, have justifiably held the attention of scholars-from 
            the earliest attempts to quantify, judge, and understand Indian art 
            in the eighteenth century up until today. The two books are welcome 
            additions to this research. While neither changes radically our 
            basic views of the art and architecture of the two early Buddhist 
            sites, they contribute many nuanced shifts in, and suggest different 
            approaches to, the extensive stone sculpture from these sites. As 
            always with Indian sculpture, there is a need to set up a 
            chronological schema, and both books spend considerable time doing 
            it. In addition, looking at the two books together helps to clarify 
            the interrelationship between the art of the two sites. 
            Amaravati is the earlier of the two. Knox's book is a catalogue of 
            sculpture from Amaravati in the British Museum, intended, according 
            to Jessica Rawson's brief preface, as a "general introduction" and 
            "descriptive catalogue" to the Museum's magnificent collection, 
            which had been newly installed in the Museum galleries along with 
            publication of the book in 1992. The catalogue illustrates each of 
            the 133 sculptures in excellent photographs, many in color and 
            covering entire pages. 
            There are four chapters of introduction before the catalogue itself. 
            These chapters give a history of the site; tell of how the Museum 
            acquired the collection; describe the great Stupa at the site from 
            which much of the sculpture comes; and, finally, give a system for 
            dating and typology of the sculpture. The typology, which consists 
            of categories of sculpted architectural elements (pillars, 
            crossbars, copings, and so forth), is used to organize the sculpture 
            in the catalogue, which is arranged more or less chronologically 
            within each type. Each object in the catalogue is carefully 
            described, the most helpful feature, I think, of the book. These 
            descriptions force the reader to look carefully at the often very 
            complex sculptures, pointing out details and characteristics that 
            would otherwise most likely be missed. 
            Looking at the introductory chapters, Knox ties the form the Great 
            Stupa finally took to the coming of the Satavahana rulers and the 
            period of prosperity that they brought. The dating of the Satavahana 
            kings, however, has long been debated - and for Amaravati they could 
            have begun ruling either in the first or the second century A.D., 
            probably, Knox feels, later - around A.D. 130. The building more or 
            less ceased with their departure at the end of the third century, 
            with activities shifting to nearby Nagarjunakonda under the Iksvaku 
            rulers (the topic of Stone's book). But there was a Buddhist 
            monument at Amaravati from before the Satavahanas' coming, going 
            back to Mauryan times in the third century B.C. Knox thus rejects 
            Douglas Barrett's short chronology for the Amaravati sculpture, 
            which argued for it beginning only in the first century A.D.(1) 
            I think most scholars today would agree with Knox, but it is not 
            clear what was at the site so early. There are massive polished 
            granite pillars (one is 2.63 m tall) cut to accommodate crossbars 
            (Knox illustrates one in a photograph of ca. 1880), which appear to 
            be part of a large vedika that can apparently be dated to the third 
            century B.C. Some recently excavated fence pieces have, according to 
            I. K. Sarma, Asokan period inscriptions.(2) Knox does not say it, 
            but this would make it the earliest stone stupa fence of any size in 
            all of India, earlier by some 150 years than those of north India, 
            such as at Bharhut and Sanci, which appear to have replaced wooden 
            fences. In addition, that the pieces were polished is of great 
            importance if the polish indicates not only a Mauryan date, but also 
            Mauryan royal patronage. Add to this the find of Brahmi Prakrit 
            inscriptions on potsherds from Amaravati which relate to similar 
            finds from Sri Lanka that date by radiocarbon to 450-350 B.C.,(3) 
            and thus one or two centuries earlier than any previously known 
            South Asian inscriptions (and thus writing), and we are forced to 
            reassess the importance of South India and Sri Lanka to early South 
            Asian civilization and religion. 
            The Great Stupa at Amaravati itself was already largely destroyed 
            when Colonel Mackenzie, an Englishman, visited it in 1797. By then 
            it had been a source for building materials by local builders, and 
            the stone was also being burned to produce lime. The site was 
            cleared completely in 1880; an enormous number of loose sculptures 
            found their way over the years primarily either to England (and 
            eventually to the British Museum) or to the Madras Museum. There is 
            also considerable material today at the site museum. But with the 
            site's destruction we will never have a clear view of what was there 
            and how the sculpture was used, and much of what scholars must do, 
            as Knox attempts, is to reconstruct the monuments from what is left. 
            
            This is essentially what he does in the two chapters (III and IV) on 
            architecture and sculpture. His reconstruction of the form of the 
            Great Stupa basically follows Barrett's of 1954, and he illustrates 
            the reconstruction in drawings that follow those in the earlier 
            study. The stupa was axial, with a massive circular fence whose four 
            entrances brought the worshiper directly to the four projections of 
            the stupa's base on which five pillars were erected. These pillars 
            and projections, called ayaka-pillars and - platforms, are found 
            almost exclusively (something similar has been found in relief on 
            two votive stupas at Ratnagiri in Orissa) in Andhran stupa 
            architecture. The sculpture is on the fence and gates, and on stone 
            relief slabs that were stacked in rows against the body of the stupa 
            itself. 
            This is not the place to go into the details of the complicated 
            arrangement of the sculpture, but Knox's reconfiguration, as those 
            in the past, is largely speculative. Indeed, the organization he 
            suggests does not fit in many ways with the organization of 
            2 I. K. Sarma, "Early Sculptures and Epigraphs from South-East 
            India:3 See F. R. Allchin, The Archaeology of Early Historic South 
            Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. 
            Press, 1995), 176-79. 
            ROBERT L. BROWN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES