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Amarāvatī: Buddhist Sculpture from the Great Stūpa by Robert KnoxReview by: Daniel EhnbomArs Orientalis, Vol. 24 (1994), pp. 156-158Published by: Freer Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian Institution and Department of the Historyof Art, University of MichiganStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4629470 .

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156 BOOK REVIEWS

used in the service of the many Hindu gods and god- desses" (p. 11). Though I suspect the title is the result of an editorial decision (the volume follows in series the fine IslamicArt [ 1991 ] by Barbara Brend), especial- ly in the world's present religiously charged political climate the intended reader would benefit from more detailed analysis of the categories "Hindu" and "Hin- duism" than is offered (pp. 12-13). In modern sectar- ian usage, they are historically recent terms, but the careless reader might come away with the erroneous impression that some concept of a "unified " Hinduism (which most, including the author, would argue does not exist even today) is an ancient one. The connec- tions of Hindu religious practice with Buddhism and Jainism are discussed (pp. 29-32), and the artistic implications of these relationships are raised where appropriate, but the interdependence of Hindu and Indo-Muslim artistic production in later periods is not sufficiently described (pp. 193 and 201; Iwould further argue that the term Indo-Persian is here misleadingly applied). The author does include miniatures illustrat- ing Hindu subjects painted by Muslims in both Mughal- derived and highly conservative styles (figs. 3 and 82, for example) but does not discuss the religion of the artists. It is certainly essential to an understanding of "HIindu" painting that some of its most important practitioners were Muslims. And if "Hindu" is indeed the defining category, why not include material from outside the Indian subcontinent? There is not only a rich ancient tradition still living in Southeast Asia; there are also contemporary arts (particularly architec- ture) that serve the Hindu diaspora all over the world.

Having described some problemswith the firstword in the title, I move to the second. The illustrations are verywell chosen and generallywell reproduced, though sometimes small in size (distressingly typical in recent British Museum publications). Still, the reader is left with the impression that the arts both high and low merely illustrate practices, texts, and concepts while lacking their own formal language and history. Chap- ter 6, a "Regional and Chronological Survey of Hindu Art," looks and reads like an appendix added less as a conclusion than as an obligation; it does little to ame- liorate the problem. The laudable desire to "approach Hindu art from a point of view that is not merely aesthetic" (p. 11) should not blind us to the signifi- cance of visual language. Objects are not incidental to the history of Indian art; they are the primary evidence (indeed, most often the only evidence) and should be allowed to speak. In this regard the student of Indian art might turn to Coomaraswamy (absententirely from the bibliography) for guidance. These criticisms are perhaps unfair, for the book clearly and successfully intends to be primarily about art in a utilitarian sense, but the title is misleading and sits uneasily with the contents. Mostofwhatis here isverygood, but the book should have a different title.

As we approach the end of the second Christian millennium, we are simultaneously in the last of the Hindu cycles and the Earth Cow lows piteously, unable

to support herself on her one remaining leg. A symp- tom of this is certainly the increasing decline of edito- rial standards even at august institutions. For example, Aurangzeb died inA.D. 1707, not 1717 (p. 201), and the bibliographic citation for IslamicArt, a book in the same series as this one, refers to Brend as "Biend." Minor points, yet they are especially unfortunate in a book that carries the moral and intellectual authority of the British Museum to a general audience. But neither such minor faults nor areas of theoretical disagree- ment should keep the interested reader from obtain- ing this highly intelligent and instructive volume.

DANIEL EHNBOM

Amaar&vati: Buddhist Sculpture from the Great Stutpa. By RobertKnox. 247 pp., 100 color and 100+ black-and- white illustrations, bibliography, index. London: The Trustees of The British Museum, 1992. $50.00.

Of late, lovers of early Indian sculpture have cause to rejoice. Remains of another stuipa near Bharhut have reportedly been discovered, and the splendidAmaravati reliefs in the British Museum since 1880 can now be rediscovered by the public. Like their companions in the Madras Museum, the London sculptures are among the most important bodies of surviving early sculpture and the most significant outside India. Long the vic- tims of abuse and neglect in both India and England before theyentered the museum collections, theywere installed under glass on the Great Staircase in 1880, remaining on view until 1940 when they were stored away for protection in wartime. Reinstalled in the Front Hall in the early 1950s, they were removed only a decade later when insalubrious London air proved to be eroding the stone surfaces. To forestall further deterioration, they were placed in a climate-controlled basement storage area, "visited only now and then by a few rare visitors or the small number of scholars who study this material" (p. 22). The few rare visitors and small numberof scholars may feel pangs of elitist regret at losing the privilege of entering that cramped room to be overwhelmed by the physical presence of those superb and densely packed sculptures, but they must take pleasure in knowing that in the present equally protected and much more spacious installation in the newly refurbished main gallery of the Edward VII Build- ing the Amaravati reliefs can once again impress upon all visitors to the British Museum the profound mes- sage of the Buddha and the unmatched skills of the ancient sculptors of Andhradesa. To mark this happy event, the museum has published a detailed and essen- tial catalogue by the archaeologist Robert Knox, Keep- er in the Departmentof Oriental Antiquities, the first complete "record of the Amaravati collection in Brit- ain" (p. 18) sinceJamesFergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship (1868; 2nd ed., 1873).

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BOOK REVIEWS 157

Knox owes strong and frequently acknowledged debts to the many scholars whose distinguished works on Amaravati precede his catalogue, particularly to C. Sivaramamurti, author of Amaravari Sculptures in the Madras Museum (1942), and to Douglas Barrett, whose 1954 SculpturesftomAmaravari in theBritishMuseumhas until now been the principal published access to the London material and who continued to write on the subject until 1990. Nevertheless, Knox clearly demar- cates his own territory, most notably in the highly contentious areas of political history and chronology, throughout combining ambiguous early excavational evidence (some of it recently rediscovered) with more recent researches to illuminate manyvexing questions.

He begins with a useful overview of the history of the monument (pp. 9-16), an account glorious in ancient times, deeply depressing in modern. On the basis of both nineteenth-century evidence and the excavations of the 1950s and 1970s, Knox accepts the reasonable assumption that construction of the stupa began in the third century B.C. (pp. 11-12). However, one might wish to question his quick assumption that the later phases of adornment necessarily resulted from direct royal patronage and carry a deliberate political mes- sage. It may have been so, but as the author would agree, the men tion of a dynasty in an inscription prima- rily indicates date, not necessarily patronage. The com- parative rarity of unquestioned royal patronage for early Indian monuments after the Maurya period, the frequent mention of lay donors, our pitifully scanty knowledge of the mechanisms of artistic production in all of premodern India (including recent periods), and lingering uncertainties over the exact dates of the AmaravatI stulpa combine to argue for extreme caution. While in a general way one can only agree that "the fortunesof the GreatStulpawere related to the rise and fall of the ruling dynasties of the region" (p. 9), the force with which Knox implicitly attributes a specific political agenda to its refurbishment in what he later describes as the "High Period ... coinciding with the rule of the Satavahanas in the Andhrade'a (second to third centuiies A.D.) " (p. 34) makes this reader uncom- fortable.

Knox is on surer ground in his acceptance of a long chronology for the monument (p. 11). It is not appro- priate here to attempt summarizing the extremely complex issues in dating the various phases of the construction and decoration of the monument, but in general some (including Barrettin his 1954 catalogue) see the development of the site compressed into a short span of time, and others (including Knox) spread itout over centuries. In both frameworks, relative chronolo- gies of the sculpture more or less agree, though of course absolute chronologies do not, and the waters are further muddied by continuing debate on dynastic dates associated with Amaravati inscriptions. I admire the speedwith which Knox dispatches the tiresome and overemphasized question of Nahapana's supposed mention in the Peiiplus, and his quite sensible ap- proach to the perhaps insoluble problems of Satavahana

chronology allows the reader to move with him to the monument itself (p. 14).

The arguments concerning sculptural style are less authoritative (pp. 32-33 and passim), and in some respects frankly confusing. The problems startwith his suggestion that some "crude engravings" on stone date from the Maurya period, largely on architectural and inscriptional evidence. The presumed third-century B.C. material is "in the lowest relief and is stiff and unsophisticated; it is only vaguely representative and entirely lacking in naturalism" (p. 32). Now, as Ludwig Bachhofer brilliantly stated over sixty years ago (Early Indian Sculpture [ 1929], cited in the excellent bibliogra- phy), the primary characteristic of the sculpture of the Maurya period is "refined naturalism." Assuming the crossbars are indeed of third-century B.C. date, the engravings are later than the crossbars on which they are found, or are atypical of their period, or are unsym- pathetically described. Whatever the case, the reader is left with an erroneous impression of third-century B.C.

sculptural style. If, as argued a few lines later, other sculpture from Amaravatl can be dated with reference to similarities with sculpture from monuments else- where in India, why should this early phase bear so little resemblance in its relief style to the coherent, well- documented, and widely distributed style of the third century B.C. as we understand it from numerous exam- ples? The "crude engravings" may be of the date sug- gested, but if they are, it is in spite of rather than because of their lack of sophistication and naturalism.

Implicit here is a presumed Darwinian evolution of style from early and simple ("crude") to later and complex ("sophisticated") forms, a presumption that also mars the treatment of the style "that antedates the greatreconstruction of the stuipaunder the Satavahanas but is clearly later than the crude engravings of the third century" (p. 32) . This style is parallel in its flatness and abstraction to the great achievements of Bharhut, now mostly in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and the Allahabad Museum and almost universally dated to the second century B.C. The similarity is rightly noted in Knox's analysis, but the sculptures are somewhat con- fusingly described as bearing "comparison with Bharhut and early Safici and may not be far from those styles in a first-century B.C. date or earlier" (p. 33) . What is "early Safici"? Does the author mean the railing of Sttopa II, also known as the Stolpa of the Saints, likewise flat in its conception of form and probably of the same date as Bharhut? If so,why not date the comparable Amaravati phase to ca. second century B.C. and be done with it? Or does he mean the gates of Stfpa I, the well-known Great Sttlpa, which some (including myself) date to the first century B.C., others to the first century A.D.? Stylistic development is a far more sensitive indicator of date than this volume would have us believe, and there is a great deal of difference between second- and first- centUIy B.C. sculpture, as anyone who has compared the Bharhut railing and gate with the gates at Safici will agree. The lack of precision here is misleading. This is important because at least some of the sculptures in

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158 BOOK REVIEWS

Knox's "first phase of the High Period," dated here to the second century A.D., have very close affinities with the sculpture of the gates of Safici I (see especially cat. nos. 10, 15, and 100; pp. 57,67, and 178-79), character- istics shared by sculpture from other monuments in the region (the splendid assault of Mara slab in the Musee Guimet in Paris comes readily to mind). These close relationshipsweaken Knox's proposed absolute dating in favor of earlier placement, though his relative dat- ing, generally similar to Barrett's, holds up well.

Another difficulty with his consideration of style is his value-laden descriptions of the characteristics of differing phases. Thus, in the phase parallel to Bharhut, figures are "broad and unnatural [ly stiffl,"lacking "any inner or natural movement" (pp. 32-33). First of all, the subtle and extremely active line and surface mod- eling of these reliefs is not only remarkable; it is chro- nologically and regionally diagnostic. Next, though there is no disputing taste, some of us, while in no way denying the sublime achievements of later periods, actually prefer the deliberate antinaturalism of this early phase, seeing its very remoteness and hieratic coolness as theologically most appropriate to early Buddhism. But these very specific criticisms do not diminish in any way the importance and quality of the catalogue, a required addition to any serious col- lection on Indian art.

The plates are generally good, though there is an irritating (and headache-inducing) tendency to com- bine color and black-and-white views of different parts of the same object, sometimes apparently intended to indicate date differences between obverse and reverse of reused stones and sometimes not. The primary arrangement of sculptures by type rather than by date is also annoying, but even these drawbacks do notcloud the considerable achievement of publishing every bit of stone from Amaravati in the collection, whatever its date and however minor.

DANIEL EHNBOM

Lahore: Illustrated Views of the 19th Century. By F. S. Aijazuddin. 176 pp., 110 illustrations, 43 in color, map, bibliography, index. Ahmedabad: Mapin Pub- lishing, 1991. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1992. $39.50.

The city of Lahore in the Pakistani Panjab has served as the capital and royal residence of numerous kingdoms over the course of the past two and a half millennia. According to tradition, itwas founded in ancient times by Lava, the son of Prince Rama of the celebrated Hindu epic, the R&iimayana. Early historical accounts by foreign writers, including the third-century B.C. Megas- thenes, second-century Ptolemy, and seventh-century Xuanzang (Hsuan Tsang), describe a city of great commerce and culture in the region that can

presumably be identified with the early Lahore. With the adventof the Muslim military incursions into South Asia during the seventh century and the Mongol raids in the thirteenth century, Lahore became a favorite target of periodic conquest and pillage. Under the Mughals (sixteenth-eighteenth centuries) itdeveloped into a magnificent city graced with elegant forts, palac- es, mosques, and gardens. At the end of the eighteenth century Lahore was taken over by the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh (r. 1801-39) to serve as his capital. In 1849 Lahore and the Panjab were annexed by the British, under whose control they remained until indepen- dence in 1947.

This volume is essentially a pictorial tribute to the Mughal and Sikh periods of the city's history by one of its preeminent native sons. The introduction is a well- written historical discussion divided into three parts: the "Early History of Lahore" traces the complex polit- ical development of the city; "19th Century Lahore Observed" describes the city's political climate and monuments in the period under focus; and "Lahore Illustrated" briefly surveys the mainly foreign artists and photographerswho captured the city in theirwork. Numerous historical and geographical accounts, both Asian and Western, effectively enhance the detailed text of the first two sections. Surprisingly, the last topic is cursorily treated through limited biographical anno- tations and views the works of art primarily as descrip- tive temporal documentswithout presenting art-histor- ical or stylistic analyses.

The introduction is followed by a useful map of sites and a catalogue of 107 illustrations of Lahore, themat- ically grouped by specific monument, city view, or event. The tomb of the Mughal emperorJahangir (r. 1605-27) begins the tour and has the greatest number of depictions devoted to it. The BadshahI Mosque (completed in 1673/74), the tomb of Ranjit Singh (completed in 1852), and the mosque of Wazir Khan (completed in 1634) are the royal edifices receiving the next most attention. Interspersed with these well-known landmarks are representations of various street scenes and miscellaneous structures. The arrangement of the monuments and views seems regrettably arbitrary; the serious reader's use of the volume would have been greatly facilitated by a more logical sequence, prefera- bly chronological. The index and list of illustrations after the catalogue section help alleviate the chaotic ordering, but a more detailed page of contents would have been immensely beneficial in this regard.

The catalogue entries vary in length and depth of analysis. Contemporary literary passages supplement the descriptions of the illuminated subjects and bring many of the monuments and scenes delightfully to life through appropriate quotes and anecdotes. Art histo- rians may lament the general lack of aesthetic interpre- tation, but the scope of the volume was obviously not intended to be comprehensive. Technically, the repro- ductions are virtually all excellent in quality and epito- mize the handsome productions of Mapin Publica- tions. A scant few illustrations are less than ideal in

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