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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[DECEMBER, 1918
pp. 91-97. Above this is a round (or rectangular) piece with a bas-relief of various plants. Fergusson failing to find an analogy in Persia has to rush to Assyria for a prototype. What he calls the honey-suckle is dubbed a palmette by Vincent Smith as has been stated above. At any rate one discerns a lotus on the flat, an ornament which must have been meant to represent a plant of the screw-piece variety, (or even a fading lotus), the last must have been leaves swaying with the wind and curled up in various manners-treated of course as decoration. Figure 5 in Fergusson, page 57, is misleading-it is essentially differ ent from that in the Indian Museum, also from the plates in Vincent Smith-(probably another case of a theory based on an incorrect illustration).
The Sarnath column presents a different type. The four animals alternating with wheels are represented with great fidelity. The modelling is delicate, the bull is typically Indian and the transition from basso to alto (which is the insignia of an extremely advanced art) is very clear; some of the spokes of the wheel appear to be in deeper relief than others. (Wiekoff observes that it was to the credit of Roman art to have discovered "Illusionism" which is utterly absent in Greek art. To explain the term in a crude manner-illusionism is the gradation of a relief-where the artist begins with a few scratches on his medium and gradually intensifies his depth. After attaining his maximum depth he allows it to die down again). The four animals represent the four points of the compass-North, South, East, West. In Persian art, we strive in vain to discover any similarity to any of these features. The lowest point is a decorative bell-without any bulging-without any delineation of any of the veins of the lotus-with the lines pointing strictly downwards.. This is connected with the next element by a pyramidal decoration.
The next is a bulging cylinder supporting egg-shaped ovolo-engraved with a pattern. Above the egg-shaped ovolo, we find a plaque with the same pattern; and lastly, above this and just below the abacus is a unique and typical ornament with five cylinders separated by straight lines and terminating on both sides with brackets ending in rosettes
there being four rosettes on each side, two above and two below separated by blank spaces. I shall not comment on the perspicacity of those who detect any resemblance between an abacus of this type and an Indian abacus.
(N.B.-There is no gradual transition in relief in any of these decorations judging from plates.) The vast majority of Persian capitals conforms to this type, while in one or two the abacus is made to rest on the shaft. See Perrot and Chipiez, pp. 91-95, 326, 328, 336, Dieulafoy, Vol. II.
(5) Abacus.-The Aśokan entablature is zoophorus. In Sârnâth, four lions are placed in close juxta-position. Regarding it from the front we see two lions only with the backs to each other (exactly contrary to the Persian design). In the others single animals are depicted the bull, the elephant and the horse (apparently in Rummindei). They are all extremely realistic (which is antagonistic to Persian sculpture). The curves of the body, of the face, and the hair are executed with extreme precision, the mane falls in ringlets, (congealed ringlets), the protul erance of the cheek muscles and the deep shading beneath; the nostrils, the pucker of the flesh around the curve of the tongue, the sweep of the eye, the straight pose of the leg, with the slightly perceptible muscle-all these differ from the Persian art, which treats the animals as conventionalised designs. These lions indicate a sense of form which, however, has deteriorated immensely. It is the art of an aesthetea sense of form without rhythm.
