Bharhut Sculpture Art

The stupa railings and gateway at Bharhut (2nd century BCE, central India) carry some of the earliest surviving narrative Buddhist relief carving: flatter and more linear than the later, more sculptural Amaravati style, with figures labelled by inscription and, like Sanchi, representing the Buddha through symbols rather than his human form.

Being the earliest of the major Indian Buddhist sites covered in this unit, Bharhut is the natural starting point for a chronological answer about the development of Indian Buddhist art - from flat, linear, symbol-based carving at Bharhut, through to the more naturalistic, image-based art of the Gupta period.