io8 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
The conception of Narayana was taken up by
the Guptas to be made into the basis of a national
faith. This took shape as Krishna, and its epic was
written in the Mahabharata. But the image associated with it was still that of Narayana. This was
the form that was carried to the south by the
missionary travellers who were the outcome of the
educational and propagandist zeal of the Guptas,
and there it is worshipped to this day. It was an
image of this type that was placed by Skanda Gupta
on the top of the Bhitari Lat when he erected it in
A.D. 455 for the purpose of recording on his father's
sradh pillar his own victory over the Huns.
There is therefore a continuous history of sculpture in Behar, beginning with the earliest period of Buddhism, and passing gradually, and by easily distinguished phases, into various forms of modern Hinduism. In this continuous development we can distinguish local schools, and this is the best answer to those who would talk of foreign influence.
The comparatively coarse, artisan-like work of Bodh-Gaya can never be mistaken for the soft, exquisitely curved and moulded forms of Baragaon, the ancient Nalanda. The Hindu carvings of Rajgir, again, are distinct from both. It is almost impossible therefore to speak of a single Magadhan school of sculpture. Much of the Rajgir work is Saivite in subject, being earlier than the Narayana types of Baragaon.
Early Buddhism has thus had two products : the portrait-statue and the iconic stupa. The stupa in
