by John Keay
The coins, many of which were gold, had important consequences for the reconstruction of Indian history. Ventura’s initiative was accounted a considerable success and brought him, besides some saleable treasure, renown as an archaeologist. Other European officers in Ranjit Singh’s service joined the fray and, in the Punjab and neighbouring Afghanistan, there followed a period of intense stupa raiding. As yet there was little conclusive evidence, but it was beginning to look as if the stupas and their relics were Buddhist. Moreover the success of these new archaeological ventures provided a powerful stimulus to would-be archaeologists across the frontier in British India.
In 1834, Lieutenant Alexander Cunningham, only twenty years old and just arrived in India, began to take an interest in the well-known stupa at Sarnath just outside the city of Benares. Forty years earlier, in the days of Sir William Jones, an Indian contractor had used the site as a hardcore quarry for a new market place in Benares. He had dug up a stone urn ‘of the size and shape of the Barberini vase’, and a statue. The urn contained another of marble which, with its contents of a few bones, some gold leaf and pearls, was presented to the Asiatic Society as a curiosity. The statue was a seated Buddha. Here was incentive enough to explore further, and Cunningham, himself an engineer, enlisted the financial support of James Prinsep for his dig.
Of several ruinous mounds at Sarnath, the Dhamek stupa, with its superb bands of sculptural ornament, was much the best preserved and most inviting. Learning from Ventura’s experience, Cunningham decided to start from the top and drive a shaft right down the middle. But the first problem was to get up there; the stupa was 143 feet high.
On the 18th January 1835 my scaffolding was completed and I stood on the top of the great tower. On cutting the long grass [there were also several trees on the top] I found two iron spikes each eight inches long and shaped like the head of a lance. On the following day I removed the ruined brick pinnacle and began sinking a shaft or well, about five feet in diameter; at three feet from the top I found a rough stone; and on the 25th January, at a depth of ten and a half feet, I found an inscribed slab.
After Ventura’s discoveries, these were nothing to get excited about; Cunningham pressed on. At first he made good progress, but seventy feet down he struck solid stone. Was this the casing of some chamber? In spite of the cost it looked too promising to give up now.
The labour of sinking the shaft through the solid stone-work was very great as the stones, which were large (from two to three feet in length, eighteen inches broad and twelve inches thick), were all secured to each other with iron cramps. Each stone had usually eight cramps, four above and as many below, all of which had to be cut through before it could be moved. I therefore sent for regular quarrymen to quarry out the stones, and the work occupied them for several months.
And still there was no find. Only a man who was gradually discovering his true vocation in life could have kept at it.
At length, at a depth of 110 feet from the top of the monument, the stone gave way to brickwork made of very large bricks. Through this the shaft was continued for a further depth of twenty-eight feet, when I reached the plain soil beneath the foundation. Lastly a gallery was run right through the brickwork of the foundation & but without yielding any result. Thus ended my opening of the great tower, after fourteen months labour and at a cost of more than five hundred rupees.
Cunningham was bitterly disappointed. All he had to show was a stone with an unknown inscription on it. But this was better than nothing and he sent a copy of the inscription to Prinsep. The letters were of the Gupta Brahmi script and the whole was identical to one recently found on a broken pedestal in northern Bihar. Prinsep thought he could read it; but it did not make much sense, some sort of invocation apparently. By chance, Alexander Czoma de Koros happened to be down from the mountains at the time, and, in view of a possible Buddhist connection, was asked for his opinion. Instantly he recognized it as the standard Buddhist formula or confession of faith. There was therefore no question that the Dhamek stupa was a Buddhist monument of the Gupta period and that the key to understanding the purpose and sculptures of all the stupas lay in Buddhism. Not only had the Buddha been an Indian, but his religion had evidently been widespread in India and had flourished there for several centuries.
Further dramatic evidence of this would soon be provided by the translation of the Ashoka edicts, and by 1838 it was even being asked whether perhaps Buddhism antedated Hinduism or, as Prinsep put it, ‘whether the Buddhists or the Brahmins may claim precedence in the history of Indian civilization’. The Sanskrit of the ancient Hindus appeared to be much earlier than the Prakrit used for Buddhist texts. Yet in terms of architecture – rock-cut temples, pillars, or structural stupas — and inscriptions, the evidence seemed to favour Buddhism.
The same also seemed to be true of sculpture. Whilst excavating the Dhamek stupa, Cunningham met an old man who had taken part in that quarrying operation, forty years earlier, in an adjacent mound. He not only remembered where the stone urn had been discovered, but also directed Cunningham to a spot where he recalled seeing a whole subterranean room full of statues.
I at once commenced an excavation on the spot pointed out by Sangkar & At a depth of two feet below the surface I found about sixty statues and bas-reliefs in an upright position, all packed closely together within a small space of less than ten feet square.
Superstition had evidently prevented the previous diggers from disturbing this collection and Cunningham was thus able to exploit the first major discovery of Sarnath scupture. He singled out those figures that bore inscriptions or that were best preserved, including a magnificent Buddha, and sent them off to the Asiatic Society.
The remaining statues, upwards of forty in number, together with most of the other carved stones that I had collected, and which I left lying on the ground, were afterwards carted away by the late Mr Davidson and thrown into the Barna river under the bridge to check the cutting away of the bed between the arches.
Though himself an engineer, Cunningham could not condone such behaviour. It was his first brush with the iconoclasts – but by no means his last.
Fortunately it was not the end of Sarnath’s riches either. Scarcely any site in India has yielded so much in the way of archaeological data and sculpture. Cunningham himself made further finds, and excavations continued to be richly rewarded well into the twentieth century. In 1904 the remains of yet another Ashoka pillar were found, together with its miraculously preserved capital, the lion capital of Sarnath – the most celebrated piece of Indian sculpture and now the symbol of the Republic of India.
But what was so special about Sarnath? Why had the Buddha’s followers lavished so much skill and money on the adornment of this particular spot just outside the Hindus’ most sacred city? Since the stupa contained neither relics nor ashes it was clearly not the burial place of some Buddhist saint. What then was it? Cunningham was at first mystified. But in 1836, the year he ended operations at Sarnath, two eye-witness accounts of Buddhist India were published. All was made clear.
Until this time the only first-hand account of ancient India was that of Megasthenes by way of later Greek and Latin authors. Unfortunately for students of Buddhist history, Megasthenes had stumbled onto the Indian scene in the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka’s grandfather; he was thus just two generations too soon to witness the rise of Buddhism under royal patronage. Now, by an equally circuitous route, a Buddhist account of India at the beginning of the fifth century AD was brought to light; and it was soon followed by another from the mid-seventh century. These were the travelogues of Fa Hsien and Hsuan Tsang, Chinese Buddhists who journeyed through India in search of sacred manuscripts and to visit the scenes of the Buddha’s life. The travelogues were acquired by French orientalists, translated in Paris and expounded by Prinsep’s old boss, Horace Hayman Wilson, who was now the first professor of Sanskrit at Oxford.
As befitted monks on pilgrimage, the two Chinese were reticent abou
t temporal affairs. But it was significant that Fa Hsien’s visit had coincided with the Gupta period to which so much in the way of sculpture and architecture (including Cunningham’s Dhamek stupa) was being ascribed. Evidently Buddhism was still very much in the ascendant under the Guptas, 700 years after Ashoka, although Hindu beliefs were also widespread. Most impressive, too, was the fact that the whole of north India was then at peace. Crime and repression were equally unknown, and Fa Hsien could travel from one end of the country to the other without let or hindrance. Compared with the state of the Roman Empire at that time, it looked as if India under the Guptas was the most congenial place in the world.
By the time of Hsuan Tsang’s visit things had changed. In the seventh century Buddhism appeared to be on the retreat; many of the shrines were in ruins and Buddhists were actually being persecuted in Kashmir and Bengal. The roads were no longer safe and though Hsuan Tsang had great respect for King Harsha, who was trying to restore some of the lost glory of the Guptas, there had clearly been a social and cultural decline.
All this was of the utmost interest to historians; but to Alexander Cunningham the main point was that Buddhist India had been brought to life. ‘It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of these travels’; he wrote, ‘before, all attempts to fathom the mysteries of Buddhist antiquities were but mere conjecture.’ The purpose of the stupas was unknown, as was their significance, and even the names of the shrines and cities they had adorned. Now all was made clear. These eye-witness accounts explained the nature of the sites and described their locations and lay-outs so clearly that they amounted to a map of Buddhist India and site plans of all the main shrines.
Sarnath, for instance, was indeed a notable spot. It was none other than the deer park where the Buddha had preached his first sermon. Fa Hsien found four stupas there and two monasteries. By Hsuan Tsang’s time it had grown considerably. There was a vast monastery, 1500 monks, lakes and gardens and, amongst the stupas, one 300 feet high. Hsuan Tsang also noted the sculptures and recorded that the oldest stupa and the pillar had been set up by Ashoka.
Cunningham could only fantasize, but what might he have achieved if he had had all this information a couple of years earlier? More important, what of all the other Buddhist sites mentioned by the Chinese travellers? ‘With what joy would not one trace Fa Hsien’s route from Mathura to his embarkation for Ceylon?’ There was now the possibility of identifying so many of the mounds and ruins that littered India. Indian archaeology had a chance to begin at the beginning, and the idea filled Cunningham with exhilaration.
CHAPTER SIX
The Old Campaigner
Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the last British director of India’s Archaeological Department, singled out three men as pioneers in the study of India’s history and civilization – Jones, Prinsep and Cunningham. Of the three, Cunningham alone really knew India. Sir William Jones was the founding genius and figure-head, Mr Secretary Prinsep the organizer and scientist, and Alexander Cunningham the explorer and field-worker. During more than fifty years in India he travelled from the steaming jungles of Burma to the arid hills bordering Afghanistan, and from the remotest tracts of Central India to the Tibetan lands beyond the Great Himalaya. He probably marched more miles on Indian soil than any of his contemporaries. Not only was he ‘the father of Indian archaeology’ but, for a quarter of a century, he was Indian archaeology. And all this at a time when the British seemed to have turned their backs on Indian civilization.
Cunningham had arrived, as a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, in 1833. His father, the Scots poet Allan Cunningham, had enlisted the help of his old friend Sir Walter Scott in procuring commissions in India for both his boys. For a man who wrote ‘It’s hame, and it’s hame, hame fain wad I be’, India was an odd choice for his sons. But the Cunninghams were not wealthy, and a career in India, if no longer a short cut to fortune and fame, offered many possibilities and had now become highly respectable.
After three years in Benares, and the excavation at Sarnath, Cunningham was called to Calcutta to serve as an ADC to Lord Auckland. In the Governor-General’s party he made the annual pilgrimage up to Simla and paid his first visit to Ranjit Singh’s Punjab. Emily Eden, Auckland’s caustic sister, found the young ‘AC’ attentive and agreeable. With an eye for the picturesque, she sketched such antiquities as fell along their route; the studious ADC, meanwhile, ferreted about for coins and inscriptions and offered quaint explanations of their history.
To Emily Eden this was just a mild eccentricity, although to others such behaviour now appeared distinctly unsound. A cold wind of intolerance and distaste for India and its civilization was sweeping through the British ranks. That deep sense of wonder experienced by Jones, shared by the men like Fell who first discovered India’s monuments, and still cherished by the likes of Prinsep and Cunningham, was no longer in fashion. All that remained was the passing fancy for the picturesque shown by Emily Eden; and this was too insubstantial to conceal deeper feelings of outrage and disgust. The Orientalists, who not long before had been hailed as equals of the Renaissance humanists, were in disgrace. Warren Hastings’s ideal of a partially Indianized civil service had been rejected and the Indian raj was slowly making way for the British Empire.
Three new influences were at work. On the one hand there were the Evangelicals, horrified by the idea that Christians could take the idolatry and improprieties of a pagan culture seriously, seeing in India an unlimited field for missionary activity, and insisting that it was part of a Christian government’s duty to promote this. Then there were the Utilitarians, pouncing on India as prime territory for putting into effect their cherished reforms aimed at ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. This was what civilization was all about and, since progress and utility did not appear to feature in India’s so-called civilizations, they were hardly worthy of serious attention. James Mill, father of John Stuart, had published his history of India in 1818. Though Mill spoke no Indian languages, indeed had never been to India, his damning indictment of Indian society and religion had become the standard work – required reading for all who would serve in India.
Finally, unifying these two opposing themes, there was the rising crescendo of national superiority. No longer did the British feel any sneaking sense of surprise at their success in India. Clearly it was ordained, either by the Almighty as the Evangelicals would have it, or by history as the Utilitarians preferred. Even the Moghul emperor need no longer be treated with respect. He was a joke, and so too was Ranjit Singh. Fifty years before, Tipu Sultan had been accorded a certain respect, but Ranjit Singh, the only native prince who could still deal the British a serious blow, was the subject of drawing room titters. Hadn’t he urinated in the presence of the Governor-General? The word nigger was slowly coming into fashion; ‘no – ten thousand pardons, not niggers, I mean natives – sons of the soil – Orientals – Asiatics’, wrote Atkinson in the 1850s. He was caricaturing an up-country judge whose interest in such people amounted to a weird and old-fashioned eccentricity. British society was growing more exclusive; the memsahibs had arrived in force, the club was about to make its appearance. ‘Brahminized’ old-timers were just an embarrassment to the service.
The inevitable collision between the Orientalists and their new opponents was signalled in 1835. Thomas Babington Macaulay, during his brief spell in India, won the support of Auckland’s predecessor for withholding government finance from all institutions that used languages other than English. In support of a move that amounted to outlawing all Sanskrit and vernacular studies, as well as imposing English as the only language of education, Macaulay delivered his celebrated Minute.
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information that has been collected to form all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy the relative position of the two n
ations is nearly the same &
The question before us is simply whether & we shall teach languages [Sanskrit and Arabic] in which, by universal confession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to be compared to our own; whether, when we can teach European science, we shall teach systems which, by universal confession, whenever they differ from those of Europe, differ for the worse; and whether, when we can patronize true philosophy and sound history, we shall countenance, at the public expense, medical doctrines which would disgrace an English farrier – astronomy, which would move laughter in girls at an English public school – history, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long – and geography, made up of seas of treacle and butter.
Later, in the House of Commons, he directed his attack towards Hinduism.
In no part of the world has a religion ever existed more unfavourable to the moral and intellectual health of our race. The Brahminical mythology is so absurd that it necessarily debases every mind which receives it as truth; and with this absurd mythology is bound up an absurd system of physics, an absurd geography, an absurd astronomy & All is hideous and grotesque and ignoble. As this superstition is of all superstitions the most irrational, and of all superstitions the most inelegant, so it is of all superstitions the most immoral.