Sculpture: stories, symbols, popular traditions

In this note

Detail

A panel at Sanchi looks like an ordinary village scene: huts, trees, people in a forest.
It is not a village. It is the Vessantara Jataka — the story of the generous prince who gave away everything he owned, even his chariot and children, and went to live in the forest.
Method used by historians: match the image with a text. Find a written story that fits the carving. Without the text, the panel stays a "rural scene".
Jatakas = stories of the Buddha's earlier births. They were the main story-bank for sculptors.
The four toranas (carved gateways) of the Great Stupa stand in the four cardinal directions and show scenes from the Buddha's life plus Jataka stories [2].
ASI records that the gateways were built under the Satavahana rulers, who employed the ivory workers of Vidisha — craftsmen used to carving small, fine detail [2].

"Aniconic" = not showing the main figure in human shape. Early sculptors at Sanchi and Bharhut usually did not carve the Buddha as a man.
They used symbols instead. Each symbol stands for one event:
Empty seat (vajrasana) = the Buddha meditating.
Stupa = his mahaparinibbana (final death, freedom from rebirth).
Wheel (chakra) = his first sermon at Sarnath.
Bodhi tree = his enlightenment.
Key warning: these symbols cannot be read literally. An empty seat is not a picture of furniture; a tree is not a picture of a tree.
To read them you must know the traditions of the people who made them — mainly hagiographies (life-stories of the Buddha written by his followers, praising him).
Later carvers did show the Buddha in human form; a Sanchi east-gate panel is catalogued by the national culture portal as "the Buddha inside" [3].

Shalabhanjika — the woman who holds a branch of the shala tree [3]. Belief: her touch made the tree flower. She is an auspicious figure (brings good luck).
She swings from the brackets of Sanchi's gateways, carved near the elephants [2].
Why this matters: she is not a Buddhist idea. People who became Buddhists carried their older beliefs in with them. Buddhism absorbed them rather than erasing them.
Animals fill the panels — elephants, horses, monkeys, cattle.
Some are simply lively and lifelike.
Some carry meaning: the elephant stands for strength and wisdom.
One image, two readings — a woman being bathed by elephants pouring water:
Buddhists could see Maya, the Buddha's mother, at the moment of his birth-dream.
Others could see Gajalakshmi — the popular goddess of good fortune, bathed by elephants.
Devotees may have seen both at once. The same stone served two audiences.
Serpents (nagas) appear on many pillars. These come from local popular traditions that were never written down, so no text explains them.

James Fergusson, a nineteenth-century art historian, studied Sanchi.
Problem: Buddhist literature was not yet translated into European languages. He could not match image to text.
He judged the images on their own and concluded Sanchi was a centre of "tree and serpent worship".
Lesson for the exam: reading art without the makers' texts and beliefs produces confident but wrong history.

The same story-telling shifts from stone to wall.
Ajanta murals show: Jataka stories, courtly life, royal processions, people at work, festivals.
Technique: shading — light and dark tones to make figures look rounded, three-dimensional, not flat. Often strikingly naturalistic (true to life).
The caves are cut into a vertical cliff above the left bank of the river Waghora [3].
Thirty caves including unfinished ones. Five are chaityagrihas (prayer halls — caves 9, 10, 19, 26, 29); the rest are viharas / sangharamas (monasteries) [3].
Two phases: the first Buddhist caves date to the 2nd–1st centuries BCE; many richly decorated caves were added in the Gupta period (5th–6th centuries CE) [3].
The murals were done in tempera technique (pigment mixed with a binder, painted on a prepared plaster surface). Pillars, brackets, door jambs and facades were also carved [3].
Mahayana followers enriched the later caves with both sculpture and the Jataka murals [3].

Vessantara Jataka = the prince who gave everything away; the Sanchi panel that looks like a plain forest/village scene.
Symbol key: empty seat = meditation; wheel = first sermon at Sarnath; stupa = mahaparinibbana; Bodhi tree = enlightenment.
Shalabhanjika = woman holding a branch of the shala tree; her touch made it flower; carved on Sanchi gateway brackets [2][3].
Elephant in Buddhist sculpture = strength and wisdom.
Woman lustrated (bathed) by elephants = Maya or Gajalakshmi — two readings of one image.
James Fergusson wrongly called Sanchi a centre of "tree and serpent worship" because Buddhist texts were untranslated.
Sanchi's four toranas face the four cardinal directions; built under the Satavahanas using ivory workers of Vidisha [2].
Ajanta: 30 caves on the Waghora river cliff; 5 chaityagrihas (9, 10, 19, 26, 29), rest viharas; murals in tempera [3].
Ajanta's two phases: 2nd–1st century BCE start; major expansion in the Gupta period, 5th–6th century CE [3].
Jatakas = stories of the Buddha's previous births — the main source for both Sanchi panels and Ajanta murals.

Art is a source, but only with its text. Sculpture cannot be read on its own — Fergusson's "tree and serpent worship" error shows what happens when images are read without hagiographies and Jataka texts. Good history matches image with text, and admits gaps where no text exists (the naga motifs).
Religion spread by absorbing, not by replacing. Shalabhanjika, Gajalakshmi and serpent motifs on a Buddhist stupa show new converts brought their older beliefs with them. Popular Buddhism at Sanchi was a mix of monastic doctrine and everyday village belief.
Symbols suit a doctrine. The aniconic phase fits a teaching about escape from rebirth — mahaparinibbana is shown by a stupa, not a body. The later shift to human images of the Buddha (Mathura, Gandhara, and at Sanchi itself) tracks the rise of devotional worship and Mahayana.
Patrons and craftsmen shaped style. Satavahana-era gateways carved by Vidisha ivory workers explain Sanchi's fine, miniature-like detail — art history must ask who paid and who carved, not just what is shown. Ajanta's Gupta-phase expansion shows the same link between royal patronage and artistic peak [2][3].