INDUS CIVILIZATION, ca. 2600–1500 BCE
❚One of the world’s earliest civilizations arose in the Indus Valley in the third millennium BCE. Indus
cities had streets oriented to the compass points and sophisticated water-supply and sewage systems.
❚Little Indus art survives, mainly seals with incised designs and small-scale sculptures like the statue
of a “priest-king” from Mohenjo-daro.
MAURYA DYNASTY, 323–185 BCE
❚The first Maurya king repelled the Greeks from India in 305 BCE. The greatest Maurya ruler was
Ashoka (r. 272–231 BCE), who converted to Buddhism and spread the Buddha’s teaching throughout
South Asia.
❚Ashoka’s pillars are the first monumental stone artworks in India. Ashoka was also the builder of
the original Great Stupa at Sanchi.
SHUNGA, ANDHRA, AND KUSHAN DYNASTIES, ca. 185 BCE–320 CE
❚The unifying characteristic of this age of regional dynasties in South Asia was the patronage of
Buddhism. In addition to the stupa, the chief early type of Buddhist sacred architecture was the
pillared rock-cut chaitya hall.
❚The first representations of the Buddha in human form probably date to the first century CE.
Gandharan Buddha statues owe a strong stylistic debt to Greco-Roman art.
❚By the second century CE, the iconography of the life of the Buddha from his birth at Lumbini to
his death at Kushinagara was well established.
GUPTA AND POST-GUPTA PERIODS, ca. 320–647
❚Gupta sculptors established the canonical Buddha image in the fifth century, combining Gandharan
iconography with a soft, full-bodied figure in clinging garments.
❚The Gupta-period Buddhist caves of Ajanta are the best surviving examples of early mural painting
in India.
❚The oldest Hindu monumental stone temples and sculptures date to the fifth and sixth centuries,
including the rock-cut reliefs of Udayagiri, Badami, and Elephanta, and the Vishnu Temple at Deogarh.
MEDIEVAL PERIOD, 7th to 12th Centuries
❚As various dynasties ruled South Asia for several hundred years, distinctive regional styles emerged
in Hindu religious architecture. Northern temples, such as the Vishvanatha Temple at Khajuraho,
have a series of small towers leading to a tall beehive-shaped tower, or shikhara, over the garbha
griha. Southern temples have flat-roofed pillared halls (mandapas) leading to a pyramidal tower
(vimana).
❚Medieval Southeast Asian art and architecture reflect Indian prototypes, but many local styles
developed. The most distinctive monuments of the period are Borobudur on Java and the Buddhist
temple complexes of the Khmer kings at Angkor in Cambodia.
THE BIG PICTURE
SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST
ASIA BEFORE 1200
Robed male figure, Mohenjo-daro,
ca. 2000–1900 BCELion capital of Ashoka, Sarnath,
ca. 250 BCEThe Buddha’s first sermon at Sarnath,
Gandhara, second century CEBodhisattva Padmapani, Ajanta,
second half of fifth centuryVishvanatha Temple, Khajuraho,
ca. 1000