Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T23:14:30.132Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Common Classical Sources of Buddhist and Christian Narrative Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

H. Buchthal
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Greco-Buddhist sculpture of Gandhara has for a long time been of singular attraction for students of Indian art. These sculptures of greyish-blue schist found in such quantities in the inaccessible valleys of the Indo-Afghan frontier, have from the outset been noted for their classical affinities, and many were brought to Europe by art-loving dilettanti. The particular qualities distinguishing them from all other Indian sculpture were duly extolled; they came to be recognized as the earliest examples of new ideas which changed the whole development of Indian art and propagated Western influence throughout the Buddhist world. But the rôle so enthusiastically assigned to them has not remained unchallenged. A younger generation, more eager to discover the truly national qualities of the arts of Asia, maintained that the only reason for this admiration was that on account of their Greek affinities the Gandhara sculptures were less strange to Europeans than Asiatic art proper. They considered Greco-Buddhist sculpture a weak and provincial offshoot of Western art, without much influence in the East, and for the most part of a quality which could not compete with the broad current of the Indian tradition. Even those iconographical innovations with which the sculptors of Gandhara had generally been credited, such as the creation of the Buddha image, were attributed by these scholars to other and more “national” schools. To this day no satisfactory solution of the problem has come forward.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 75 , Issue 3-4 , July 1943 , pp. 137 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1943

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 137 note 1 Cf. Gruenwedel-Waldsehmidt, , Buddhistische Kunst in Indien, Berlin, 1932, p. 68, fig. 77Google Scholar; SirMarshall, John and Foucher, A., The Monuments of Sanchi, Calcutta, 1940, p. 203, pl. 40Google Scholar.

page 138 note 1 Cohn, W., Indische Plastik, Berlin, 1921, fig. 1Google Scholar; Majumdar, N. G., A Guide to the Sculptures in the Indian Museum, ii, Delhi, 1937, pi. 8aGoogle Scholar.

page 138 note 2 Ch. Morey, R., Early Christian Art, Princeton, 1942, fig. 139Google Scholar.

page 138 note 1 Cf. Stevenson-Smith-Madden, , Dictionary of Roman Coins, 1889Google Scholar, s.v. Adventus and Profectio Augusti; on the history of the type, cf. Haynes, D. E. L., Mora in Victoria, in Papers of the British School at Rome, 15, 1939, pp. 27 ff., pis. 1, 2Google Scholar.

page 138 note 2 Cf. W. Cohn, op. cit., pi. 17; Bachhofer, L., Early Indian Sculpture, 1929, pl. 128Google Scholar.

page 138 note 3 “The Foundations for a Chronology of Gandhara Sculpture,” in Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, 19, in the press 1943.

page 138 note 4 Warmington, E. H., The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, Cambridge, 1928, pp. 85 ff.Google Scholar

page 140 note 1 Kitzinger, E., Early Medieval Art in the British Museum, London, 1940, pp. 2 ff.Google Scholar

page 140 note 2 Grabar, A., L'Empereur dans l'Art byzantin, Paris, 1936, p. 31 ff.Google Scholar

page 140 note 3 Weisbach, W., Geschichtliche Vorraussetzungen der Entstehung einer christlichen Kunst, Basel, 1937, p. 9 f.Google Scholar

page 141 note 1 Cf. Peiroe, H. and Tyler, R., L'Art byzantin, ii, 1934, pl. 148, 149.Google Scholar

page 141 note 2 Cf. Alfoeldi, A., “Die Ausgestaltung des monarchischen Zeremoniells am roemischen Kaiserhofe,” in Roem. Mitteilungen, 49, 1934, pp. 46 ff.Google Scholar

page 141 note 3 This frieze makes now part of the decoration of the Arch of Constantine. Cf. L'Orange, H. P. and Gerkan, A. v., Der spaetantike Bildschmuck des Konstantinsbogens, Berlin, 1939, pl. 49Google Scholar.

page 142 note 1 Cf. Morey, op. cit., fig. 58.

page 142 note 2 Wickhoff, F., Roemische Kunst, Berlin, 1912, pp. 123 ff.Google Scholar; cf. also Koch, H.Roemische Kunst, Breslau, 1925, p. 71 f.Google Scholar

page 142 note 3 Cf. Longhurst, M. H., Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory (in the Victoria and Albert Museum), Part i, London, 1927, pl. 8Google Scholar.

page 142 note 4 Cf. Germania Romana, 2nd ed., part 4, 1928, pl. 9, 2.

page 143 note 1 Cf. Voucher, A., L'Art Gréco-bouddhique du Gandhara, i, 1905, fig. 225Google Scholar.

page 143 note 2 Saxl, F., Mithras, Berlin, 1931, fig. 83Google Scholar.

page 143 note 3 Saxl, op. cit., pp. 37

page 144 note 1 Sardis, vol. 5, part 1 ; Ch. Morey, R., The Sarcophagus of Claudia Antonia Sabina and the Asiatic Sarcophagi, Princeton, 1924, fig. 90Google Scholar.

page 144 note 2 Peirce, and Tyler, , L'Art Byzantin, i, 1932, pl. 94 aGoogle Scholar.

page 144 note 3 Rodenwaldt, G., “Sarkophag-Miszellen,” in Archçologischer Anzeiger, 1938, col. 400 f.Google Scholar; Lehmaim-Hartleben, K. and Olsen, E. C., Dionysiac Sarcophagi in Baltimore, 1942, p. 47Google Scholar.

page 145 note 1 Cf. Elliger, W., Die Stellung der alten Christen zu den Bildern in den ersten vier Jahrkunderten, nach den Angaben der zeitgenössischen kirchlichen Schriftsteller, Leipzig, 1930.Google Scholar

page 146 note 1 Cf. Foucher, A. in Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 6, s.v. Gandhara.Google Scholar

page 146 note 2 Trans. by F. Max Mueller in vol. 49 of the Sacred Books of the East, Oxford, 1894.

page 147 note 1 Cf. “Buddha und Jesus in ihren Paralleltexten,” zusammengestellt Aufhauser, von J. B., Bonn, 1926 (Kleine Texte für Vorlesungen u. Uebungen. 157), pp. 11–12Google Scholar.

page 147 note 2 Cf. “Buddha und Jesus,” op. cit., passim.

page 147 note 3 Cf. Haas, H., Das “Scherflein der Witwe” und seine Entsprechung im Tripitaka, Leipzig, 1922Google Scholar.