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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. VIII.
borders of India the quaint paintings which cover the walls of the dgon-pas are executed up to the present day so I was told in Lahul- by those of the lamas who possess the most accurate knowledge of their stupendous pantheon.
This much, at any rate, is certain, that the Sârnâth and the Śrâvasti image were made by the same master, if not by the same workmen. The style is that of the Mathurà school; the material is the red sandstone of the Agra quarries. All this points to the conclusion, already referred to above, that the donors of these images had their home at Mathura where, as early as the reign of the satraps Rajula (or Rañjubula) and Soḍâsa, a school of sculpture flourished, which was strongly influenced by the Graeco-Buddhist art of Gandhara. Seemingly this Mathura school created a Bodhisattva type, specimens of which found their way to other famous centres of Buddhism. And all evidence now available points to the fact that these were the very first images of the kind set up at those places. For where else but at these sacred spots, hallowed by the presence of the Buddha himself, should we expect to find such images? And yet not a fragment of anything earlier than these has been found there. On the other hand, would Friar Bala and his companions have carried those gigantic statues from Mathura to Srâvasti and far-off Benares, if there had been local artists capable of converting a block of stone into a sacred image? Would he have thought it necessary to mention expressly that the image represented a Bodhisattva, if such images had been familiar to the pious? Let us bear in mind the numberless images of Medieval India, all evidently made locally, those of Sârnath in Chunâr sandstone, those of Gaya in basalt,- among which we hardly ever find one marked with the name of the deity which it represents. Among the numerous inscribed Buddhist images of the early Gupta period Dr. Bloch can quote only three examples in which the subject is mentioned.
Then, if Friar Bala was a monk of Mathurâ, who were his patrons, the great satrap Kharapallâna and the satrap Vanaspara? That they were Buddhists is evident; and it may be inferred from their titles that the former was the latter's father, and from their names that they were of foreign extraction. As to the latter point, it is impossible at present to arrive at a definite conclusion. For though these two names have a distinct Iranian sound, I need only refer to the instance of the Mughal rulers of later days, to demonstrate the unsoundness of inferring anything therefrom as to their ethnographic origin. Perhaps from their connection with Friar Bala we may hazard the conjecture that their seat of government was at Mathura, where a line of foreign rulers is known to have existed only about a century before. It is true that on the Kshatrapa coins found in and round that city the names of Kharapallâna and Vanaspara do not occur. But this fact can easily be accounted for on the assumption that Kharapallâna, though possibly a descendant of the independent satraps of the 1st century B.C., now owed allegiance to Maharaja Kanishka, in whose reign the inscriptions are dated, and consequently used the Kushana coinage. May we go a step further and assume that his son Vanaspara, who in the umbrella inscription is mentioned before Kharapallâna, resided at Benares and ruled the eastern portion of the province governed by his father?
The Sarnath inscriptions partly confirm and partly modify Dr. Bloch's conclusions regarding the Śravasti epigraph. They show that he is undoubtedly correct in his interpretation of
1 That statues already existed in India at an earlier period is proved by the Parkham image (4. S. R. Vol. XX. p. 40 and Plate vi.) with its inscription in Maurya Brâhmi. But apparently it has no connection with Buddhism.
2 A. Foucher, Étude sur l'Iconographie Ronddhique de l'Inde (Paris, 1900), pp. 4 ff. and 7 ff. Regarding the Mathura sculptures the author remarks: "Elles sont tout de suite reconnaissables à la belle couleur rouge tachetée de jaune du grès des Vindhyas."
The ending dna is also found in Hagana (Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, p. 87) and in Nahapana (4. S. R. Western India, Vol. IV. p. 99). For the first member of the name Kharapallana we may compare Kharamosta and Kharaosta (Bühler, J. R. A. S. for 1894, p. 532, and Rapson, Indian Coins, p. 9).
