was bitterly disappointed. All he had to show was a stone with an unknown inscription on it. But this was better than nothing and he sent a copy of the inscription to Prinsep. The letters were of the Gupta Brahmi script and the whole was identical toone recently found on a broken pedestal in northern Bihar. Prinsep thought he could read it; but it did not make much sense, some sort of invocation apparently. By chance, Alexander Czoma de Koros happened to be down from the mountains at the time, and, in view of a possible Buddhist connection, was asked for his opinion. Instantly he recognized it as the standard Buddhist formula or confession offaith. There was therefore no question that the Dhamek stupa was a Buddhist monument of the Gupta period and that the key to understanding the purpose and sculptures of all the stupas lay in Buddhism. Not only had the Buddha been an Indian, but his religion had evidently been widespread in India and had flourished there for several centuries.
Further dramatic evidence of this would soon be providedby the translation of the Ashoka edicts, and by 1838 it was even being asked whether perhaps Buddhism antedated Hinduism or, as Prinsep put it, ‘whether the Buddhists or the Brahmins may claim precedence in the history of Indian civilization’. The Sanskrit of the ancient Hindus appeared to be much earlier than the Prakrit used for Buddhist texts. Yet in terms of architecture – rock-cut temples,pillars, or structural stupas — and inscriptions, the evidence seemed to favour Buddhism.
The same also seemed to be true of sculpture. Whilst excavating the Dhamek stupa, Cunningham met an old man who had taken part in that quarrying operation, forty years earlier, in an adjacent mound. He not only remembered where the stone urn had been discovered, but also directed Cunningham to a spot wherehe recalled seeing a whole subterranean room full of statues.
I at once commenced an excavation on the spot pointed out by Sangkar & At a depth of two feet below the surface I found about sixty statues and bas-reliefs in an upright position, all packed closely together within a small space of less than ten feet square.
Superstition had evidently prevented the previous diggers from disturbingthis collection and Cunningham was thus able to exploit the first major discovery of Sarnath scupture. He singled out those figures that bore inscriptions or that were best preserved, including a magnificent Buddha, and sent them off to the Asiatic Society.
The remaining statues, upwards of forty in number, together with most of the other carved stones that I had collected, and which I left lying on the ground, were afterwards carted away by the late Mr Davidson and thrown into the Barna river under the bridge to check the cutting away of the bed between the arches.
Though himself an engineer, Cunningham could not condone such behaviour. It was his first brush with the iconoclasts – but by no means his last.
Fortunately it was not the end of Sarnath’s riches either. Scarcelyany site in India has yielded so much in the way of archaeological data and sculpture. Cunningham himself made further finds, and excavations continued to be richly rewarded well into the twentieth century. In 1904 the remains of yet another Ashoka pillar were found, together with its miraculously preserved capital, the lion capital of Sarnath – the most celebrated piece of Indian sculpture and nowthe symbol of the Republic of India.
But what was so special about Sarnath? Why had the Buddha’s followers lavished so much skill and money on the adornment of this particular spot just outside the Hindus’ most sacred city? Since the stupa contained neither relics nor ashes it was clearly not the burial place of some Buddhist saint. What then was it? Cunningham was at first mystified. But in1836, the year he ended operations at Sarnath, two eye-witness accounts of Buddhist India were published. All was made clear.
Until this time the only
Further dramatic evidence of this would soon be providedby the translation of the Ashoka edicts, and by 1838 it was even being asked whether perhaps Buddhism antedated Hinduism or, as Prinsep put it, ‘whether the Buddhists or the Brahmins may claim precedence in the history of Indian civilization’. The Sanskrit of the ancient Hindus appeared to be much earlier than the Prakrit used for Buddhist texts. Yet in terms of architecture – rock-cut temples,pillars, or structural stupas — and inscriptions, the evidence seemed to favour Buddhism.
The same also seemed to be true of sculpture. Whilst excavating the Dhamek stupa, Cunningham met an old man who had taken part in that quarrying operation, forty years earlier, in an adjacent mound. He not only remembered where the stone urn had been discovered, but also directed Cunningham to a spot wherehe recalled seeing a whole subterranean room full of statues.
I at once commenced an excavation on the spot pointed out by Sangkar & At a depth of two feet below the surface I found about sixty statues and bas-reliefs in an upright position, all packed closely together within a small space of less than ten feet square.
Superstition had evidently prevented the previous diggers from disturbingthis collection and Cunningham was thus able to exploit the first major discovery of Sarnath scupture. He singled out those figures that bore inscriptions or that were best preserved, including a magnificent Buddha, and sent them off to the Asiatic Society.
The remaining statues, upwards of forty in number, together with most of the other carved stones that I had collected, and which I left lying on the ground, were afterwards carted away by the late Mr Davidson and thrown into the Barna river under the bridge to check the cutting away of the bed between the arches.
Though himself an engineer, Cunningham could not condone such behaviour. It was his first brush with the iconoclasts – but by no means his last.
Fortunately it was not the end of Sarnath’s riches either. Scarcelyany site in India has yielded so much in the way of archaeological data and sculpture. Cunningham himself made further finds, and excavations continued to be richly rewarded well into the twentieth century. In 1904 the remains of yet another Ashoka pillar were found, together with its miraculously preserved capital, the lion capital of Sarnath – the most celebrated piece of Indian sculpture and nowthe symbol of the Republic of India.
But what was so special about Sarnath? Why had the Buddha’s followers lavished so much skill and money on the adornment of this particular spot just outside the Hindus’ most sacred city? Since the stupa contained neither relics nor ashes it was clearly not the burial place of some Buddhist saint. What then was it? Cunningham was at first mystified. But in1836, the year he ended operations at Sarnath, two eye-witness accounts of Buddhist India were published. All was made clear.
Until this time the only
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