The greatest innovation, however, that took place, was the substitution of figure-sculpture for the lotus or water leaves of the discs, if that can be called an innovation, which certainly took place in the wooden age of architecture, before it was thought of translating these things into stone. The earliest rails we know, those at Buddh Gaya and Bharhut, show these changes already completed in the manner above described. The plainness of the rail, or the absence of figure-sculpture, is consequently no test of its greater or less antiquity, though the extreme multiplication of discs, as shown in the last example, seems only to have taken place just before their discontinuance.
To return, however, from this digression. The rail that surrounds the great tope at Sanchi was probably commenced immediately after its erection, which, as explained above, was probably in Asoka’s time, B.C. 250; but as each rail, as shown by the inscription on it, was the gift of a different individual,[124] it may have taken 100 or 150 years to erect. The age of the torans is more easily ascertained. There is an inscription on the south gateway, which is certainly integral, which states that the gateway was erected during the reign of a Sat Karni king, and it is nearly certain that this applies to a king of that name who reigned A.D. 10 to 28. As this gateway is certainly the oldest of the four, it gives us a starting-point from which to determine the age of the others. The next that was erected was the northern. That was followed by the eastern—the one of which there is a cast at South Kensington—and the last erected was the western. The style and details of all those show a succession and a progress that could hardly have taken place in less than a century, and, with other reasons, enable us to assert without much hesitation, that the four gateways were added to the rail of the great tope during the first century of the Christian Era, and their execution spread pretty evenly over that period.[125] The northern gateway is shown in the general view of the building ([Woodcut No. 10]), but more in detail in the cut (No. [33]) on the following page.
In design and dimensions these four gateways are all very similar to one another. The northern is the finest,[126] as well as somewhat larger than the others. Its pillars, to the underside of the lower beam, measure 18 ft., including the elephant capitals, and the total height to the top of the emblem is 35 ft. The extreme width across the lower beam is 20 ft. The other gateways are somewhat less in dimensions, the eastern being only 33 ft. in height. The other two having fallen, it is not easy to be sure what their exact dimensions may have been while standing.
All these four gateways, or torans as they are properly called, were covered with the most elaborate sculptures both in front and rear—wherever, in fact, their surface was not hidden by being attached to the rail behind them. Generally the sculptures represent scenes from the life of Buddha when he was the Prince Siddharta, rarely, if ever, after he became an ascetic, and nowhere is he represented in the conventional forms either standing or seated cross-legged, which afterwards became universal. In addition to these are scenes from the jatakas or legends, narrating events or actions that took place during the five hundred births through which Sakya Muni had passed before he became so purified as to reach perfect Buddhahood. One of
33. Northern Gateway of Tope at Sanchi.
(From a Photograph.)
these, the Wessantara, or “alms-giving Jataka,” occupies the whole of the lower beam of the northern gateway, and reproduces all the events of that wonderful tale exactly as it is narrated in Ceylonese books at the present day. Besides these historical scenes, the worship of trees is represented at least seventy-six times; of dagobas or relic shrines, thirty-eight times; of the chakra, or wheel, the emblem of Dharma—the law—ten times; and of Devi or Sri, the goddess, who afterwards, in the Hindu Pantheon, became the consort of Vishnu, ten times. The trisul or trident emblem which crowns the gateways may be, and I am inclined to believe does, represent Buddha himself. On the left-hand pillar of the north gateway it crowns a pillar, hung with wreaths and emblems, at the bottom of which are the sacred feet ([Woodcut No. 34]). The whole looking like a mystic emblem of a divinity, it was forbidden to represent it under a human form. The corresponding face of the opposite pillar is adorned with architectural scrolls, wholly without any esoteric meaning so far as can be detected, but of great beauty of design ([Woodcut No. 35]).