THE MAHARAJAH PLACES HIS CARRIAGE AT OUR DISPOSAL
The road to Sarnath lay through avenues of fine trees a great part of the way, chiefly mangoes, banyans, acacias, and tamarinds. The young trees planted to fill the gaps were protected by circular fences, sometimes topped by prickly pears. Sometimes the circular fence was made of bricks, an aperture being left between every alternate brick.
At Sarnath we saw the results of recent excavations. There was a wonderful pillar made out of a single piece of marble, but fractured in digging it out. One part stood upright in the earth, the other lay horizontally. The top or cap was placed under an awning near by. It was formed of four lions facing outwards, their heads, chests, and fore limbs being alone visible, their claws resting on the rim of a circular fillet, on which was sculptured in low relief a horse, an elephant, a lion, and a bull, each animal being placed between a wheel of a solar character, each wheel having twenty-four spokes. Below this fillet was a curved drooping fringe of leaves such as are characteristic in Persian columns as well as Hindu. The marble of which the column and the sculptures were made was of a peculiar greyish almost of a flesh colour, with small spots. Both the column and the sculptures were very highly polished, and the treatment of the lions was remarkably Greek in character with perhaps a touch of Persian or even Assyrian formalism in the treatment of the heads and manes of the lions. The animals in relief, between the wheels, too, were remarkably free, spirited, and well modelled.
There were the remains of an ancient Buddhist temple near. In what was probably the inner shrine was a sculptured standing figure of Buddha, about two-thirds life size, in alto relievo. The figure was represented in a long robe, the limbs being boldly expressed through the drapery, which hung broadly and smoothly over them, without folds, except at the sides, which were treated in the rather formal spiral manner of early Greek work.
The American lady remarked on seeing this figure that “The gentleman seems to have put his legs through his clothes.”
The figure was framed in a border of astralagus, cut in low relief, having a running escalloped border outside it and stepped mouldings. The doorway to this shrine, too, had a richly carved bordering.
There were many most interesting fragments collected together in and around a building near. In the court was a large circular carved stone. This was called Buddha’s umbrella, and its original position was over the head of a large figure of the saint, sculptured in the round, close by. The design of the umbrella, a lotus flower, the flower of life, the petals radiating from the centre, and enclosing this were a series of concentric rings of pattern; the first consisted of rosettes, or smaller lotus flowers, alternating with grotesque lions, winged horses, elephants, camels, and bulls; the next showed the anthemion, doubled or reversed, alternating with the fylfot or gammadion 卍, and another form frequent in early Greek pattern (as well as Chinese) the geometric four-petalled flower. There were numerous small figures of Buddha here, treated in a similar way to the one first mentioned, as well as other sculptures of a Hindu type, resembling those at Ellora.
There we saw the great Tope (called the Dhamek). This stood on rather higher ground, and was apparently built of rubble, which was exposed at the top, but the sides were covered with fine bands of carved ornament in stone, carried to a considerable height, and consisting of a frieze of bold scroll work of a Greek character, alternating with bands of a kind of Chinese-like diagonal diaper, divided by plain belts of stone. At intervals these bands were intersected by flat dome-shaped forms slightly projecting beyond the bands, and in these were recesses intended, no doubt, originally to contain seated figures of Buddha. These flat dome-shaped forms, connected by bands, suggested a palisade, which may have been the original way of enclosing and protecting these topes or tombs; and they may also have been the early form or prototype of the curious clustered dome-shaped pinnacles which are multiplied to form the spires of Jain temples so often seen in India.
Sarnath is the place where Buddha began to preach, and the great tope is supposed to mark the spot where his first sermon was delivered. The excavations of General Cunningham here disclose the fragments of a great city which probably stood here about 2000 years ago.