Notes on the Introduction of Square Podium to the Taxilan Stupa

NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION OF SQUARE PODIUM TO THE TAXILAN STUPA

SHOSHIN KUWAYAMA Kyoto University

As the earliest known stupa at Sanchi shows, the stupa first appeared with a hemispherical anda supportedby a low circular plinth. This type was introduced to the Taxila-Gandhararegions like Dharmarajikaand Manikyala. Such stupas are believed to have successively been enlarged by covering the originalcore structure, whichis round in plan, dated back to the Ashokantime. Insofaras the core was made round, the enlargedstupa also had the round plan. But in contrast the square podium, on which a hemispherical body was laid, was adopted in Taxila side by side with the traditionalform of stupas in early 1st century AD and became a fashion of the Buddhist stupas thereafter, or widelyaccepted both in time and space. More exactly speaking,this type of podium was never a simple box-likestructure but architecturallydecorated on four sidesfrom the very beginning,with a certain number of pilastersflanked by the cornice and bracket on the upper margin and by the torus-and-scotia mouldings on the lower. It should be noted that the podiumdecorated in this way seems to have been influencedby the Greco-Romanarchitecture, but against the historicalbackground of Taxila it is supposed by the author to have been adopted without influencefrom the Bactrian Hellenismand, more likely,as a unit of combinationof both square plan and architectural ornament. The firstintroduction of the stupa with a square podiumwas during Period II of Sirkap, or the Second City of Taxila. All of the stupas excavated by Marshall at Sirkap have the square podium except the stupa probably enshrined in the apsidal temple in Block 1D. The stupas excavated by Marshall are in Blocks1A, 3A, 1D, 1F, 1G, 1C', and 1E' as well as in the palace. A large stupa found near the northern city gate is situatedin Block 1A. All that is left of this stupa is the podium measuringabout 10m square at the base, round which runs a torus-and-scotia moulding surmounted by a series of Vol.XIV 1978 23 square pilasters, seven on each side, above which is a frieze-and-dentil cornice. The core of the structure is of rubble and the facing of squared kanjur stone is masoned without joint. Three subsiduary stupas, one on the back side and two smaller on the north-west corner, are built of rubble masonry faced with plaster. The largest stupa on the back side is adorned with the torus-and-scotia mouldings along the foot of the base surmounted by three Corinthian pilasters on each side. In the small stupas, blocks of the kanjur stone are let into the rubble walls for mouldings, pilasters, etc., which are blocked out of the soft stone and finished off with plaster (Taxila I, pp. 142-46). The stupa in Block 3A, about 1.5m square at the foot of the base, is built of limestone rubble without any kanjur blocks and finished off with plaster directly on the face of the rubble masonry (Taxila I, p. 146). The stupa standing in the court of Block 1F, measuring about 6.5m north and south by about 8m east and west, is faced with the squared kanjur stone and its core is made of rubble. Round the base runs a well-cut moulding consisting of a torus and scotia divided by a fillet, above which is a row of pilasters surmounted by brackets with a frieze and dentil cornice at the top. The pilasters on the two and back sides have the square shaft surmounted by flat capital except for the central one on the two sides which has a round shaft with Corinthian capital. On the western or frontal side all the pilasters are Corinthian with square shafts, but two pilasters have round shafts. The interspaces between the pilasters on this face are relieved by niches of three different patterns. The two nearest to the steps resemble the pedimental Greco-Roman buildings; those in the center are surmounted by ogival arches; those at the corners resemble the form of early Indian toranas. Except for the central niches, the tops of the four niches are surmounted by birds. The double-headed eagle on the southern ogival arch makes this stupa so unique (Taxila I, pp. 163-64). The stupa enshrined in the small court of Block 1G and facing west to the main street is rather small in size, measuring about 4m square with a projection of about 2m on the facade. The pilasters, five on three of its sides, are square, with capitals made up of horizontal mouldings. The moulding round the foot of the base is the usual torus and scotia, on which the bases of the pilasters rest directly, without the intervening course which is present in other stupas. The cornice is relieved by a bead-and-reel moulding, but is devoid of dentils. The core of this stupa podium is of limestone rubble, faced 24 ORIENT NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION OF SQUARE PODIUM TO THE TAXILAN STUPA

with squared kanjur stone (Taxila I, p. 167.) At the south-east corner of Block 1C' is a small stupa surrounded by walls and facing east or to the main street. Of this stupa the high podium only remains. It is constructed of diaper masonry with corners of dressed kanjur. The presence of the fragments of kanjur pilasters duly makes us suppose that the four sides were protected by them (Taxila I, pp. 191-92). At the south-east corner of Block 1E' remains a stupa podium constructed partly by rubble and partly of diaper masonry, protected on the outside by a thick coating of lime stucco, and the core of which is strengthened internally by thickf oundation walls arranged both crosswise and diagonally, interspaces between them being filled with stone debris. Marshall asserted without hesitation that this somewhat unusual plan for the foundation walls was designed to have provided for the weight of a circular stupa drum, the outer edge of which would be supported by the four diagonal walls (Taxila I, pp. 173-74). On the main street there is another Buddhist chapel of rectangular plan, measuring 68m east and west by 40m north and south, in the center of which is the apsidal temple called by Marshall consisting of a round apse and a square nave. On both sides of the facade of the apsidal temple were two small stupas of square plan at that time, but the southern counterpart remains. All that is left of this stupa is a lowest course of podium faced with squared limestone which is jointed by small pebbles (Taxila I, p. 154). In the palace there was a small stupa-shrine erected for the purpose of a private use, but nothing is left except for its square podium (Taxila I, p. 173). As observed above, the stupas in Sirkap city, or actually the stupa podium, are divided into two types from the architectural points of view. One is built of rubble and faced with squared kanjur stone. The other is constructed either by diaper maonry or by both diaper and rubble masonries. Especially the former can be seen at other Buddhist chapels in Taxila, among which Dhar- marajika is a subject of discussion. The main stupa of Dharmarajika consists of hemispherical anda and round medhi which is supported by the round podium. The core of anda is strengthened internally by thick walls, sixteen in number, radiating irregularly from the central circular core. The central core and the interspaces between the radiating walls are built and filled with rough rubble of limestone. Important is the fact that the radiating walls stop short above the berm of stupa instead of being taken down to its foundation (Taxila I, p. 236f). This implies that these walls Vol. XIV 1978 25 were erected after the original anda had been reduced to ruin. Moreover the rebuilt anda was faced with diaper masonry, a small patch of which is seen on the west side of the drum immediately above the berm. From these facts it is natural to presume that the diaper masonry and the principle of radiating walls are parallel to the foundation walls of the small stupa in Block 1E', however the latter may be arranged crosswise and diagonally. Around the main stupa remain a lot of constructions which were assigned by Marshall to stupas and shrines, some of which are built of rough rubble limestone faced with squared kanjur stone. The technique of such architecture is anterior to that of diaper, because the diaper-masoned wall partly covers the construction of kanjur stone, as seen between stupa D1 and Chapel D6. Though the original substance of the Dharmarajika main stupa cannot be sought, the diaper-masoned structure superimposing the kanjur-faced constructions are rightly assigned to the same horizon with a small patch of remains on the west side of the stupa drum above the berm. The kanjur construction is admitted to be the earliest among the buildings at Dharmarajika and Sirkap, so far as the stupa and its connected architectures are conserned. At Dhar- marajika we can thus reconstruct an earlier plan of the stupa court; the main stupa was surrounded by nine stambhas, arranged at almost equal intervals, such as D1, D3, S8, S9, B20, D10, and three stambhas between S9 and B20, two of which being lost and one of which being not designated by Marshall. As for the stupas built in the same technique with the stambhas, it is inferred that they were built after the stambhas, because they are observed to disturb the regularity which the arrangement of stambhas shows (Taxila III, P1. 45). Accordingly the stupa podium, the core of which is built of rubble and faced by the kanjur stone, seen in Sirkap is recognized to be the same building ac- tivity with the earlier phase of Dhamarajika; the square podium, when introduced in this city, was masoned by dressed kanjur stone. The pilasters decorating the sides of podium are exclusively carved out from a block of kanjur stone and surmounted by flat capitals in most cases, or rarely by the degenerated Corinthian type which is supported by round shaft. The Corinthian capitals can only be seen at the stupa 1F. The earlier capitals and pilasters as well as mouldings in Taxila were supposed by Marshall to have been adopted there as an easternmost offshoot of Hellenistic cultures which have overcome the Indian tradition. As the main stem of the eastern offshoot of Hellenistic cultures, Bactria or the Amu-darya valleys emerges in the 26 ORIENT NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION OF SQUARE PODIUM TO THE TAXILAN STUPA connection that Bactria is the motherland of the Indo-Greeks who took hegemony over the Taxila-Gandhara regions just before the time of building activities now in question.

Archaeological informations on Balkh-Bactra, the Bactrian phase of Balkh, have remained limited, though Foucher and, later, Schlumberger insistantly endeavoured to shed light on it. Against all expectations of those who are concerned with the Bactrian problems, a vast Hellenistic city suddenly appeared some 300km east of Balkh and has become the object of annual diggings since 1965 of DAFA headed by Bernard. This is Ai Khanum. In the Amu-darya valleys two types of the pillar bases, made of limestone, had been known before the discovery of Ai Khanum, but curious was the fact that the pillar bases had never been found together with any stone columns. The columns, made of the same material with capitals and bases, found at Ai Khanum, therefore, enlarged the scope of architectural aspects in the Amu- darya valleys, as for not only the Bactrian peirod but also the later times. At Ai Khanum the central importance lay in the palace or the administra- tive quarter comprising the building complex interrelated by corridors in the north and the extensive rectangular courtyared in the south. The latter is surrounded on four sides by the porticoes which one enters from the north through a propylaeum consisting of a narrow passage between two esplanades. The inner esplanade boasted two Corinthian columns. On the south this peristyle opens to a hypostyle court or the eighteen-pillared hall surrounded on three sides by massive walls built of mud bricks. In this peristyle all columns, made of white limestone, are supported by the pillar bases which are roughly divided into two types, the Attic base and the Persian or Achaemenian base, and surmounted by the two kinds of capitals, one being more properly Corinthian and the other being pseudo-Corinthian (Syria XLV, pp. 111-51). At the south side or inner front of the propylaeum the Persian bases were found in situ and they are supposed to have supported the pseudo-Corinthian capitals which were excaveted as what have fallen down. The colonnades of the peristyle were found plundered and remain heaped up with huge piles of bases, drums, and capitals. The east and the west colonnades were originally arranged twenty-four in number respecitvely and the north and the south thirty-four Vol. XIV 1978 27 respectively. Thirty-one pillar bases on the south portico found almost in situ are of the type called the Attic base which has the high and shallow scotia, while those of the east portico have the higher one. The capitals of these columns are the same type with those of the propylaeum. The pillar bases of the hypostyle court show more close relation to the Attic base and the capitals found there are also nearer to the proper Corinthian, representing some common character- istics with those of the propylaeum of Breuterion at Miletus, of Olympieion at Athens, and found at Nisa. In adition, the Attic base and the Persian bases were found in the temple with redans. The inner cella of this sanctuary used two Attic bases when it was reconstructed at the last but one stage. The capital of this stage is supposed to have been of the wooden Ionian type, as found there, but any stone drums were not excavated. The colonnade of the south portico of this sanctuary, which limits the sanctuary in the south, was supported by the Persian bases (CRAI; 1969, pp. 327-53; 1970, pp. 317-39; 1971, pp. 414-431). In the later stages of Ai Khnum no capitals and drums seem to have been made of stone, but stone pillar bases were produced. This trend was succeeded to Surkh Kotal, dated to the time of Kanishka and later. The fortified sacred precinct of Surkh Kotal has the central 'Temple A' on the hilltop, rectangular in plan, consisting of a square cella surrounded by the corridor on three sides and supported by the plinth measuring 27m by 34m. At the center of the cella was found a square podium surrounded at each corner by the huge pillar base of the Attic trend, about 90cm in diameter and 60cm high, but any stone capitals and drums were found in this cella. The pilasters' bases of the torus-and-scotia mouldings carved out of the same material, limestone, with the pillar bases were let into the mud brick walls of the cella, but without any capitals and shafts blocked out of limestone. The outer face of the podium, however, was faced with the limestone blocks inter- vened by the square pilasters of limestone supported by the Attic type bases and surmounted by the rectangular capitals which are carved with shallow relief depicting the acanthus leaves which tell that they are the descendant of the Corinthian ancester. On this podium were the colonnades which surrounded the thickly walled cella, but they were of wood except for the bases. So is the case with the colonnades which were standing along the inner sides of fortification of the hilltop parts, sixteen bases of the degenerated Attic type now being left (PBA XLVII, pp. 77-95). After the conflagration the cella 28 ORIENT NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION OF SQUARE PODIUM TO THE TAXILAN STUPA was filled up with mud and on the new floor, 2m higher than the original floor, were settled four smaller Attic bases. Dalberjin, a fortified square city in the desolate plain about 40km north- west of Balkh and about 20km north-east of Aq-chah, has been a main aim of excavations of the Soviet Russian archaeologists headed by Kruglikova since 1970. Along the inside of the city wall was excavated a temple, which had essentially and at the first stage the same plan with Surkh Kotal. A pillar base found in situ by the deep sounding implies that the temple was surrounded by colonnades at the first stage. Later the building was changed in character to the Buddhist sanctuary by attaching the walls, surrounding the earlier building and forming both rooms at each front corner and the corridors on three sides. At this stage some stone pillar bases of the Attic type were settled at the facade, connecting both rooms of the corners. After the de- truction of the inner corridor built in the city wall, many small rooms were constructed instead of the corridor, along the north wall. Seven rooms, designated NOS.9-15 and situating in the easternmost of a series of rooms, had a portico in front of them. From here neither capital nor drum was found, but thirteen bases were excavated intact and in situ, five of which being of the Attic type and the others being fragments of limestone blocks and of baked bricks (Delberjin 1, p. 16 f and p. 49 f). In Kunduz the Kyoto University Mission headed by the late Prof. Mizuno excavated two characteristic sites representing two types of the mounds in this region. The flatter mound named Durman Tepe dug between 1963 and 1965 unearthed eight pillar bases of limestone. All of them were found settled on the floors of the rooms, but some of them were observed to have been accompanied with a rotary quern. Three big bases were excavated in one room as if they had been used as base, but the torus-and-scotia mouldings differ each other among them and show no uniformity unlike those at Ai Khanum and Surkh Kotal. Moreover four of the eight bases have the degenerated mouldings; the torus and the scotia have no carveture in their section, the deep horizontal incisions substituting for the scotia. The other mound called Chaqalaq Tepe is a fortified habitation, oval in plan, some 2km south of Durman Tepe. There were found two bases seated on the floor of Room i which had been made by filling the burnt original floor with charcoal and soft mud. Though they were found in situ along the central long axis of the room, their types are different each other; one is the Attic type and the other belongs to the Persian Vol. XIV 1978 29 type (Durman, pp. 45-47; Chaqalaq, pp. 97-101). North of the Amu-darya, Khalchayan and the Termez Kara Tepe unearthed also the pillar bases without capitals and drums. Those of Khalchayan are mainly of the Persian type accompanied with the Attic bases, while those of Kara Tepe are analogous to the degenerated types of Durman Tepe (Kara Tepe, P1. I; Khalchayan, p. 132). Ai Khanum employed the pillars comprising capital, drums, and base, and carved out from limestone from top to bottom, though the details of capitals had already changed to some extent, and presumably such pillars were confined to the main building of magnificent view and even to the earlier stage. Tech- nique of stone architecture already ceased to be employed even at Ai Khanum after the construction of the peristyle courtyard and its dependencies. But, as seen above, in the Amu-darya valleys the Western architectural trends persistently continued from the time of Bactria until the Kushan periods or more later, at the point that only pillar bases in Western style are carved of limestone. The Western trends in this area are supposed, to the author's mind, not to have commenced in the Bactrian Hellenism, but possibly to be traced back to the Achaemenian period as a bell-shaped pillar base, found in the foundation of the southern colonnade of the peristyle courtyard at Ai Khanum, and many Achaemenide-type bases eloquently claim.

III

The Amu-darya valleys during the Bactrian and the Kushan times inherited the tradition of the Western architecture, as two types of the practical pillar bases show. But in contrast such tradition cannot be detected in any time and region of Taxila-Gandhara. Two buildings at Taxila, Jandial C and Mohra Marialan, are characterized by their Western aspects of architecture, but there is no evidence that such aspects were succeeded to the later architecture. Especially the pillar bases which are prevalent in both time and space in the Amu-darya valleys cannot be found in the Taxila-Gandhara regions except for the above two temples. The recent excavations at the Gandharan Buddhist temple named Thareli amply inform us of the fact that the pillar bases were, even if they were used, made of schist slab, not of limestone to form the Western types (Thareli, p. 152). It is thus admitted that the Taxila- Gandhara regions are completely different from the atmosphere north of the 30 ORIENT NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION OF SQUARE PODIUM TO THE TAXILAN STUPA

Hindu-Kush. That is, the Western trends of architecture could not plant the roots in the soil of this regions in the case of practical building technique, in spite of the Greek advance to this regions and its hegemony. Hence Jandial C and Mohra Marialan were the only intruders, or most heterogeneous to the architectural history of the Taxila-Gandhara regions; the capitals employed in both temples are of the Ionic type. The temple unearthed by Cunningham and named Mora Marialan has an oblong plan consisting of naos and pronaos opening to the longer side. Two pillars were found in the pronaos and four in the naos, the bases being of the Attic type made of sandstone, and the drums supporting the Ionic capital being made of the kanjur stone (ASIR V, p. 70 f). Jandial C, oblong in plan and opening to the shorter side, consists of four parts such as pronaos, naos, and opisthodomos, as well as a solid structure between naos and opisthodomos, all of which are surrounded by the wall. At the facade of pronaos two round pillars were standing free between the square pilasters which limited the side walls (Taxila I, p. 222f). Most of the capitals at Ai Khanum is Corinthian, but already transformed its elements in details and the whole structure looks weakened. Then those of the Kushan period, though the capitals of the pillars have never been known, might be designated Corinthian insofar as the acanthus leaves are used as the main decorative element. On the contrary, the capitals of pilasters let into the sides of the square podium at Taxila cannot be admitted to be Corinthian even in the case that the flat trapezoidal form of the kanjur stone might be thickly coated with plaster. In the later times when the Buddhist stupa employed exclusively Corinthian capitals as the decoration, the acanthus leaves were usually and roughly carved so that plaster was easily applied. From the above discussions we know that the Bactrian Hellenism has never contributed to the formation of the trapezoidal capital of pilasters at Taxila, and that, in spite of the historical background, there was no tradition of the Western architecture in the Taxila- Gandhara region.

The core of anda of the Dharmarajika stupa is strengthened internally by thick walls radiating from the central round core, as noted above. This device principally corresponds to that of the podium of stupa in Block 1E'. This is not only confined to the Taxila stupas, but employed in the core of Shah-ji-ki-Dheri large stupa (ARASI 1908-9, p. 48) and in the anda of the Vol. XIV 1978 31 stupa on the hilltop of Fil-khana cave temple at Jalalabad, where. eight radiating walls are observed (Fil-Khana, p. 76). In each case the interspaces between the radiating walls are built up by filling with rubble. Generally the stupas in this regions are built with rubble in its core with or without mud joint. In this connection the structure of the Butkara main stupa is exceptional, being constructed exclusively by smashed slate schist. Accordingly the radiating walls are not always necessary for the massive construction, and not prevalent among countless Buddhist stupas, On the other hand the technique of building the radiating walls was indispensable for large-scale tombs or mausoleum in the Roman world. There the monumental tombs, the idea of which was inherited from the common graves of Etruski, were built of stone or baked bricks and the cylindrical drum was supported internally by the radiating walls. The typical example is one of the graves on the Via Appia, the walls of which radiating from the central circular cella had a role preventing the collapse of rooms from the pressure of soil. The imposing kind of this series is the mausoleum of August, built in BC 28, measuring 84m in diameter and consisting of the many concentric walls divided into many rooms by twelve radiating walls. In adition the Hadrian mausoleum is also of the same type, and much complicated with much more concentric walls and cellas (Robertson, pp. 265-66). This style of monumental tombs was exported westwards to Britania, as the Roman empire expanded; the tomb at West Marsea in Essex, 20m in diameter, was built of the thin baked bricks joined by mortar on the paved basement of the chipped stone and was internally strengthened by six radiating walls from the central hexagonal cella, the outer circular wall being supported by the twelve projections (Collingwood, pp. 170-71). The stupa drum strengthened by the radiating walls in North-West Indian subcontinent should be supposed to have been the eastern offshoot of what is mentioned above. The same technique at Nagarjunakonda Buddhist sanctuary is to the author's mind more close to that of the homeland in that there was made a cella in the center of construction, but the North-West architects did seem to have called no attention to the primary meaning of this structure. The date of this structure in Taxila is supposed to be just after the earthquake happened in about AD 30, because the stupa in Block 1E' was masoned in diaper pattern and the outer face of drum of the Dharmarajika main stupa was applied with diaper masonry. This facts tell that the square podiums decorated 32 ORIENT NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION OF SQUARE PODIUM TO THE TAXILAN STUPA with pilasters were introduced to Taxila before AD 30. Technique of constructing the radiating walls was accepted after the earthquake, but presumably the architectural ideas had already extended to North-West India from the Roman world before the earthquake. The suare podium of stupa is characterized by the aforesaid ornaments, not a simple square plinth, and moreover there was no tradition in Taxila of brewing the Western decorative ideas and no clue of assigning the birth of pilasters to the responsibility of Bactrian Hellenism. So we cannot suppose that the idea of square podium and that of pilaster were seperately introduced to Taxila and that they were then combined together, but that a certain original type of the square monuments decorated with pilasters was the proto-type of the square stupa podium. This proto-type, square in plan and decorated with pilasters, might have been supposed at that time to be justifiable even if it were joined together with stupa. In conclusion the Amu-darya culture does not give any clue to the emer- gence of the square podium of stupa at Taxila and the historical background of the region did not promote the idea. This kind of architecture was suddenly adopted and there is no absurdity to propose that the origin should be traced in the Roman world like the expansion of technique of building the radiating walls in the circular monument.

Abbreviations in the text

ARASI……Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report. ASIR……A. Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of India, Report for the Year 1872-73, Vol. V, Calcutta, 1875. Collingwood…R. G. Collingwood and I. Richmond, The Archaeology of Roman Britain, London,

1969. Chaqalaq……S. Mizuno (ed.), Chaqalaq Tepe, Fortified Village in North Afghanistan excavated in 1964-1967, Publication of the Kyoto University Scientific Mission to Iranian Plateau and Hindukush, Vol. V, Kyoto, 1970. CRAI……Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Comptes rendus. Delbarjin…I. T. Kruglikova, Dilberdjin, Moskva, 1974. Durman……S. Mizuno (ed.), Durman Tepe and Lalma, Publication of the kyoto University Scientific Mission to Iranian Plateau and Hindukush, Vol. III, Kyoto, 1968.

Fil-Khana…S. Mizuno (ed.), Hazar-sum and Fil-khana, Cave-sites in Afghanistan surveyed in 1962, Publication of the Kyoto University Scientific Mission to Iranian Plateau and Hindukush,

Vol. II, Kyoto, 1967. Kara Tepe…B. Stavisky, Buddysky Kultoby tsentr Kara-Tepe v Starom Termeze 1965-1971, Moskva 1972.

Khalchayan…G. A. Pugachenkova, Khalchayan, Tashkent, 1966. PBA……The Proceedings of the British Academy.

Vol. XIV 1978 33 Robertson…D. S. Roberston, Greek and Roman Architecture, Cambridge, 1943. Syria……P. Bernard, Chapiteaux corinthiens hellenistiques d'Asie central decouverts a Ai Khanoum, Syria, Tome XLV, 1968. Taxila……Sir J. Marshall, Taxila, An Illustrated Account of Archaeological Excavations carried

out at Taxila under the Orders of the Government of India between the Years 1913-1934, 3 Vols., Cambridge, 1951. Thareli……S. Mizuno and T. Higuchi (ed.), Thareli, Buddhist site in Pakistan surveyed in 1963- 1967, Publication of the Kyoto University Scientific Mission to Iranian Plateau and Hindu-

kush, Vol. VII, Kyoto,1978. (240 October, 1978)

34 ORIENT