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Architecture
The Neolithic and other prehistoric men of Bihar handed
down their art tradition to their progeny in the historic period. Many
structural relics are still in existence to fill up the gap separating
the prehistoric men for their historic descendants.
The early Mauryan buildings and works of art were mostly wooden.
Wood was the basic material of Mauryan architecture. The Pillars and
fortifications of the ancient city of Pataliputra were all of wood and revealed
workmanship of a high order. Literacy sources, Sanskrit and Pali furnish
indubitable evidence of the existence of a highly developed art
other than sculptures in Pre-Ashokan Magadha.
Chandragupta's palace stood in
all its Mauryan splendour when Megasthenes visited the capital. A series of hypostyle halls containing pillars of wood, clasped
around with vines embossed in gold and ornamented with designs of birds and
foliage in gold and silver. The city of Pataliputra situated along the banks of
the Ganges was surrounded by a stupendous
timber palisade with loopholes for archers and protected externally by a wide
and deep moat. At intervals were bastions with towers over five hundred in
number.
It was entered by as many as sixty-four gates. A change in this pattern of
architecture occurred when magnificent monuments executed in stone began to
appear in Bihar during the Mauryan period.
The use of burnt bricks and of 'Sudha'
of lime was known to the
ancient Magadhans. Houses were provided with pillars, windows and stairs. The 'Jatakas' are full of references to towns, palace and pavilions. Fortified cities
and palaces had a wall around them interspersed with gateways and watch-towers
and ditches outside. The cities had well planned streets and different classes
of people occupied special quarters set apart for them. The walls of the
buildings were often decorated with paintings which included figures of human
beings, creepers, flowers, animals and birds, mountains and sea.
The Stupa formed an important part of the architectural
achievement of Mauryan Bihar. The word stupa means 'something
raised', and came to be used as a Buddhist architectural term for a mount
containing the relics of Buddha. Ashoka was the builder of cities,
Stupas and Viharas
excavated in hard rocks, rock-art Chaitya-halls, palaces and pillars of
stone. The pillars are said to be the master pieces of Mauryan Art. The
masons of Magadha delineated the natural forms of animals and plants in
stone and reduced and shaped larger masses of rocks into pillars.
The beginnings of Indian art,
to a class of colossal
stone statues are all Pre Ashokan and Pre-Mauryan. These statues represent
the folk art of the times and were
admittedly inspired by the animistic worship of popular deities known as
Yakshas and Yakshinis, Nagas or Nagis, Gandharvas, Apsaras, earth-spirits, water
spirits etc. The statues made of the buff-coloured sandstone of Chumar quarries and
bearing a distinctive metallic polish, have been kept in the Indian
museum,
Calcutta.
The fairly large size Yakshi statue discovered by accident, at
Didarganj Patna is in the same tradition and represent the
highest watermark of sculptural art in the indigenous tradition. In her right
hand, the female figure holds a 'cowry' and the lower part of her body is
richly covered with ornaments and folded garments.
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