Be this as it may, it will, if I mistake not, become quite clear when we examine the earliest “rock-cut temples” that, whether from ignorance or from choice, the Indians employed wood, and that only in the construction of their ornamental buildings, before Asoka’s time.[44] From this the inference seems inevitable that it was in consequence of India being brought into contact with the western world, first by Alexander’s raid, and then by the establishment of the Bactrian kingdom in its immediate proximity, that led to this change. We do not yet know precisely how early the Bactrian kingdom extended to the Indus, but we feel its influence on the coinage, on the sculpture, and generally on the arts of India, from a very early date, and it seems as if before long we shall be able to fix with precision not only the dates, but the forms in which the arts of the Western world exerted their influence on those of the East. This, however, will be made clearer in the sequel. In the meanwhile it may be sufficient to state here that we know absolutely nothing of the temples or architecture of the various peoples or religions who occupied India before the rise of Buddhism,[45] and it is only by inference that we know anything of that of the Buddhists before the age of Asoka. From that time forward, however, all is clear and intelligible; we have a sufficient number of examples whose dates and forms are known to enable us to write a perfectly consecutive history of the Buddhist style during the 1000 years it was practised in India, and thence to trace its various developments in the extra Indian countries to which it was carried, and where it is still practised at the present day.[46]
If our ethnography is not at fault, it would be in vain to look for any earlier architecture of any importance in India before Asoka’s time. The Aryans, who were the dominant people before the rise of Buddhism, were essentially a non-artistic race. They wrote books and expressed their ideas in words like their congeners all the world over, but they nowhere seem successfully to have cultivated the æsthetic arts, or to have sought for immortality through the splendour or durability of their buildings. That was always the aspiration of the less intellectual Turanian races, and we owe it to this circumstance that we are enabled to write with such certainty the history of their rise and fall as evidenced in their architectural productions.
There is no à priori improbability that the Dravidian races of the south of India, or the indigenous races of the north, may not have erected temples or other buildings at a very early date, but if so, all that can be said is that all trace of them is lost. When we first meet the Buddhist style it is in its infancy—a wooden style painfully struggling into lithic forms—and we have no reason to suppose that the other styles were then more advanced. When, however, we first meet them, some six or seven centuries afterwards, they are so complete in all their details, and so truly lithic in their forms, that they have hitherto baffled all attempts to trace them back to their original types, either in the wood or brick work, from which they may have been derived. So completely, indeed, have all the earlier examples been obliterated, that it is now doubtful whether the missing links can ever be replaced. Still, as one single example of a Hindu temple dating before the Christian Era might solve the difficulty, we ought not to despair of such being found, while the central provinces of India remain so utterly unexplored as they now are. Where, under ordinary circumstances, we ought to look for them, would be among the ruins of the ancient cities which once crowded the valley of the Ganges; but there the ruthless Moslem or the careless Hindu have thoroughly obliterated all traces of any that may ever have existed. In the remote valleys of the Himalaya, or of Central India, there may, however, exist remains which will render the origin and progress of Hindu architecture as clear and as certain as that of the Buddhist; but till these are discovered, it is with the architecture of the Buddhist that our history naturally begins. Besides this, however, from the happy accident of the Buddhists very early adopting the mode of excavating their temples in the living rock, their remains are imperishably preserved to us, while it is only too probable that those of the Hindu, being in less durable forms, may have disappeared. The former, therefore, are easily classified and dated, while the origin of the latter, for the present, seems lost in the mist of the early ages of Indian arts. Meanwhile, the knowledge that the architectural history of India commences B.C. 250, and that all the monuments now known to us are Buddhist for at least five or six centuries after that time, are cardinal facts that cannot be too strongly insisted upon by those who wish to clear away a great deal of what has hitherto tended to render the subject obscure and unintelligible.
Classification.
For convenience of description it will probably be found expedient to classify the various objects of Buddhist art under the five following groups, though of course it is at times impossible to separate them entirely from one another, and sometimes two or more of them must be taken together as parts of one monument.
1st. Stambhas, or Lâts.—These pillars are common to all the styles of Indian architecture. With the Buddhists they were employed to bear inscriptions on their shafts, with emblems or animals on their capitals. With the Jains they were generally Deepdans, or lamp-bearing pillars; with the Vaishnavas they as generally bore statues of Garuda or Hunaman; with the Saiva they were flag-staffs; but, whatever their destination, they were always among the most original, and frequently the most elegant, productions of Indian art.
2nd. Stupas, or Topes.—These, again, may be divided into two classes, according to their destination: first, the true Stupas or towers erected to commemorate some event or mark some sacred spot dear to the followers of the religion of Buddha: secondly, Dagobas, or monuments containing relics of Buddha, or of some Buddhist saint.[47] If it were possible, these two ought always to be kept separate, but no external signs have yet been discovered by which they can be distinguished from one another, and till this is so, they must be considered, architecturally at least, as one.
3rd. Rails.—These have recently been discovered to be one of the most important features of Buddhist architecture. Generally they are found surrounding Topes, but they are also represented as enclosing sacred trees, temples, and pillars, and other objects. It may be objected that treating them separately is like describing the peristyle of a Greek temple apart from the cella. The Buddhist rail, however, in early ages at least, is never attached to the tope, and is used for so many other, and such various purposes, that it will certainly tend to the clearness of what follows if they are treated separately.
4th. Chaityas,[48] or Assembly Halls.—These in Buddhist art correspond in every respect with the churches of the Christian religion. Their plans, the position of the altar or relic casket, the aisles, and other peculiarities are the same in both, and their uses are identical, in so far as the ritual forms of the one religion resemble those of the other.
5th. Viharas, or Monasteries.—Like the Chaityas, these resemble very closely the corresponding institutions among Christians. In the earlier ages they accompanied, but were detached from, the Chaityas or churches. In later times they were furnished with chapels and altars in which the service could be performed independently of the Chaitya halls, which may or may not be found in their proximity.