The Buddhist Art of Nagarjunakonda.

• Author: Brown, Robert L.

By ELIZABETH ROSEN STONE. Buddhist Tradition Series, vol. 25. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 1994. Pp. xxvii + 143,282 plates. Rs 600.

The two Buddhist sites from Andhra Pradesh, Amaravati and Nagarjunskonda, have justifiably held the attention of scholars-from the earliest attempts to quantify, judge, and understand Indian art in the eighteenth century up until today. The two books are welcome additions to this research. While neither changes radically our basic views of the art and architecture of the two early Buddhist sites, they contribute many nuanced shifts in, and suggest different approaches to, the extensive stone sculpture from these sites. As always with Indian sculpture, there is a need to set up a chronological schema, and both books spend considerable time doing it. In addition, looking at the two books together helps to clarify the interrelationship between the art of the two sites.

Amaravati is the earlier of the two. Knox's book is a catalogue of sculpture from Amaravati in the British Museum, intended, according to Jessica Rawson's brief preface, as a "general introduction" and "descriptive catalogue" to the Museum's magnificent collection, which had been newly installed in the Museum galleries along with publication of the book in 1992. The catalogue illustrates each of the 133 sculptures in excellent photographs, many in color and covering entire pages.

There are four chapters of introduction before the catalogue itself. These chapters give a history of the site; tell of how the Museum acquired the collection; describe the great Stupa at the site from which much of the sculpture comes; and, finally, give a system for dating and typology of the sculpture. The typology, which consists of categories of sculpted architectural elements (pillars, crossbars, copings, and so forth), is used to organize the sculpture in the catalogue, which is arranged more or less chronologically within each type. Each object in the catalogue is carefully described, the most helpful feature, I think, of the book. These descriptions force the reader to look carefully at the often very complex sculptures, pointing out details and characteristics that would otherwise most likely be missed.

Looking at the introductory chapters, Knox ties the form the Great Stupa finally took to the coming of the Satavahana rulers and the period of prosperity that they brought. The dating of the Satavahana kings, however, has long been debated - and for Amaravati they could have begun ruling either in the first or the second century A.D., probably, Knox feels, later - around A.D. 130. The building more or less ceased with their departure at the end of the third century, with activities shifting to nearby Nagarjunakonda under the Iksvaku rulers (the topic of Stone's book). But there was a Buddhist monument at Amaravati from before the Satavahanas' coming, going back to Mauryan times in the third century B.C. Knox thus rejects Douglas Barrett's short chronology for the Amaravati sculpture, which argued for it beginning only in the first century A.D.(1)

I think most scholars today would agree with Knox, but it is not clear what was at the site so early. There are massive polished granite pillars (one is 2.63 m tall) cut to...