Bharhut: Early Indian Art & Sculpture

You may never have visited Bharhut or even heard of it. Where is Bharhut and why am I writing about it?

Bharhut is a small village about 20 kilometres from Satna, Madhya Pradesh, where I had worked and lived for two years long ago during which I had once gone up the little hillock to find a signage which said it was a protected monument under the ASI. An ancient Buddhist stupa in ruins with a few stone fragments and broken bricks scattered around. There was no security guard since no tourists ever went there.

Then, I knew little about the significance of Bharhut in Indian and Buddhist art and sculpture. Browsing the Indian Museum, Kolkata’s portal the other day, I spotted the virtual Bharhut Gallery  and took a fascinating tour.

Bharhut: Significance

The Bharhut Stupa, built around the time of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE and later expanded during the Shunga period, holds a seminal place in the history of Buddhist art and sculpture in India; and its relics—particularly the railing panels and gateways—offer one of the earliest and most detailed visual records of Buddhist themes.

Bharhut is especially notable for its extensive use of narrative reliefs that illustrate Jataka tales, episodes from the Buddha’s life, and scenes from Buddhist cosmology. These panels depict stories in a continuous narrative style, helping even illiterate devotees visually engage with Buddhist teachings.

The art of Bharhut follows the aniconic tradition, where the Buddha is not shown in human form but symbolically—through a footprint (Buddha pada), empty throne, or Bodhi tree. This reflects the early doctrinal hesitance to anthropomorphize the Buddha.

Bharhut set the foundation for later Buddhist art centres like Sanchi, Amaravati, and Gandhara. Its themes, iconography, and storytelling techniques continued to inspire Buddhist sculpture across Asia, from Sri Lanka to Southeast Asia.

‘Early Indian classical art passes slowly, but surely, from Bharhut through Bodh Gaya to Sanchi.’ (Remains of Bharhut Stupa In The Indian Museum, 2006-Arabinda Ghosh)

Bharhut Gallery: Indian Museum, Kolkata

Bharhut Gallery displays the red sandstone remnants of the stupa which were transported to Calcutta and re-created there by Alexander Cunningham , who excavated the site in 1874.

Considered the ‘Father of Indian archaeology,’ Cunningham was the 1st Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, established in 1861. He had begun excavation at Sanchi in 1851. His book The Stupa of Bharhut (1879) is available at archive.org.

The architectural remains comprise railings and the only surviving Eastern Gateway or Torana, sculptures of Jataka tales, stories of Lord Buddha’s life, numerous animal and geometric motifs, and several demigods – Yaksha and Yakshi figurines.

Bharhut rail East Gateway, on the spot of excavation. 

Source: Ideals of Indian Art (1912) by E.B. Havell

Recovered carvings at Bharhut before removal from the site,

Photographs taken Cunningham’s assistant David Joseph Beglar in 1874

Mriga Jataka: Source: Indian Museum, Kolkata; reproduced in The Art of India by Stella Kramrisch

Link for Bharhut Gallery: https://indianmuseumkolkata.org/gallery/bharhut-gallery/

Mahakapi Jataka Medallion

The Mahakapi Jataka medallion in sandstone relief, a relic from the Bharhut Stupa, is a significant example of early Buddhist narrative art.

In the Mahakapi Jataka tale (Jataka No. 407), Bodhisatta, in a previous life as a great monkey king, leads a troop of eighty thousand monkeys residing near the Ganga who feast upon the delicious fruits of a mango tree as huge as a mountain. One day, a mango falls into the river and reaches the king of Varanasi, who, upon tasting it, craves for more. He discovers the tree and orders his archers to kill the monkeys. To save his troop, the monkey king forms a bridge with his own body across the river, allowing the monkeys to escape. However, a treacherous monkey (an earlier incarnation of the wicked Devadatta) climbs onto a high branch and jumps on his back, fatally injuring him. Witnessing this act of self-sacrifice, the king is moved, puts the monkey king on his own bed and tends to his injuries.

"Noble monkey, you made yourself a bridge for all the other monkeys to pass over to safety. What are you to them, and what are they to you?" the king asked.

The monkey explained, "Great king, I guard the herd. I am their lord and chief….

Because I could save them, I have no fear of death. Like a righteous king, I could guarantee the happiness of those over whom I used to reign. Sire, understand this truth! If you wish to be a righteous ruler, the happiness of your kingdom, your cities, and your people must be dear to you. It must be dearer than life itself."

("Jataka Tales of the Buddha: Part III", retold by Ken & Visakha Kawasaki.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/kawasaki/bl142.html)

Mahakapi Jataka Medallion: 

By Biswarup Ganguly - Detail of, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62327589

After teaching the king in this way, the monkey king died. He was given a royal funeral. The king built a shrine at the monkey's burial place, and made offerings of incense and flowers. He had the skull inlaid with gold..

For the rest of his life the king revered the skull as a relic, offering incense and garlands.

Bharhut Relics

Relics are the body parts (tooth, nail, hair, etc.) of Buddha or his chief disciples interred in stupas across India and the world, and held by the Buddhists as most sacred objects of worship. Sanchi stupa contains the relics of two prominent disciples of the Buddha – Sāriputta and Mahā-Moggallāna.

Temple of Tooth at Kandy, Sri Lanka, where the relic is believed to be the left canine of the Buddha has been temporarily opened for the first time since 2009, drawing a large number of devotees.  

Some Buddhists speculate that the Jagannath Temple, Puri was built upon the ruins of an ancient Buddhist stupa, and the ‘brahma padartha (object)’ inside the daru vigraha (wooden idol) is a Buddha relic. Hindus believe the ‘brahma’ to be Lord Krishna’s navel which fire could not burn.

Cunningham’s excavations did not reveal any such relic at Bharhut. If there was one, it might have been pilfered or lost during the centuries after abandonment of the stupa.

Where are the architectural pieces - the only Bharhut relics that remain? A quick search revealed that most of these relics are in the Indian Museum, Kolkata; a more detailed search produced fascinating results.

Out of 374 parts which have been located, most are in India - in Indian Museum, Kolkata, Allahabad Museum, Tulsi Sangrahalaya (Ramvan, Satna), and in 8 villages of Satna; and 19 parts are in 10 museums around the world at Berkley, Boston, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Virginia, Washington DC, Berlin, Pasadena, and London.

(Bharhut: A Reassessment by Jason D Hawkes, source: academia.edu)

A vindication of the significance of Bharhut stupa in Buddhist art and sculpture!

A Sanskrit Subhashita thus laments the ruthlessness of Time, the great destroyer, who does not spare even avatars of Vishnu:

रघुपते क्व गतोत्तरकोशलः?
यदुपते क्व गता मथुरापुरि?

Transliteration:
Raghupate kva gata uttarakośalaḥ?
Yadupate kva gatā Mathurā-purī?

Translation:
“O Lord of the Raghus, where is now the kingdom of Uttarakoshala?
O Lord of the Yadus, where is now the city of Mathura?”

 

We may possibly wonder:

O Shakyamuni, where is now the great Bharhut stupa?

And where is the magnificent stupa of Amaravati?

Or, say in Sanskrit:

शाक्यमुनि कुत्र इदानीं महाभारहुत स्तूपः।

अमरावतीं च भव्यं स्तूपं कुत्र अस्ति ?

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A few excerpts

The Stupa of Bharhut

A few excerpts from Alexander Cunningham’s book “The Stupa of Bharhut: A Buddhist Monument Ornamented with Numerous Sculptures Illustrative of Buddhist Legend and History in the Third Century B.C.”

Link for the book:

https://archive.org/details/stupaofbharhutbu00cunn/page/n4/mode/1up

Relic casket?

“The present village of Bharhut, which contains upwards of 200 houses, is built entirely of the bricks taken from the Stupa. The removal of bricks continued down to a late date, and I was told that a small box (dibiya) was found in the middle of the brick mound, and made over to the Raja of Nagod. This must have been a Relic casket ; but my further inquiries were met by persistent ignorance, both as to its contents and as to whether it was still in the possession of the Raja….”

Sculptures gifted by Raja of Nagod

“At my request the whole of the sculptures were liberally presented to Government by the Raja of Nagod, in whose territory Bharhut stands, and I am happy to say that they have arrived safely in Calcutta,…”

Cunningham's No to British Museum

“In his letter already quoted Professor Childers (London) expressed a “ hope that the “ sculptures may find their way to the India Office [in London] instead of being “ consigned to the peaceful oblivion of an Indian Museum.” In this hope I should most cordially agree were I not afraid that they might be consigned to the still more oblivious vaults of the British Museum, where some 10 years ago I discovered no less than seven Indian inscriptions in the full enjoyment of undisturbed repose, unseen, uncared for, and unknown.”

A washerman’s plank!

“…all the neighbouring villages within a circuit of 10 miles were carefully explored for portions of the missing sculptures. This search was rewarded with the discovery of two pillars of a second or outer railing of which portions had already been found in situ at Bharhut.   The bas-relief of the Indra Shala-guha, or “ Indra’s Cave Hall,” was then discovered at Batanmara, and the missing half of the famous Chhadanta Jataka at Pataora, 7 miles distant, degraded to the ignoble position of a washerman’s plank.”

Note: Para Headings by this blogger.

The Art of India Through the Ages by Stella Kramrisch

"In the five hundred years beginning with the second century B.C., narrative reliefs carved in stone are one of Buddhism's contributions to Indian sculpture. Although never shown before the late first century A.D., the Buddha inspired legends, symbols, actions and stories. In Barhut these have the simplicity of factual statements, in Sanchi, the exuberance of pageants and the form of idylls. But it was in the ... teeming compositions in Amaravati... (T)he limbs of the figures are those of dancers who reach out into the void. They bend over their mortal youth. At no other moment has Indian sculpture been so acutely sensitive."

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