“The days whengorapeople came here to buy Buddhist carvings and sculptures are long gone, and where we earned well from selling these sculptures, we are now carving tombs and other decorative items so we can feed our families,” 53-year-old Ilyas Khan says, sitting idle at his workplace.

Mr Khan is a craftsman who inherited the centuries-old practice of sculpting and carving Buddhist art into stone.

But today, he and artists like him lack work, earn miserably low wages and suffer social isolation due to pressure from religious extremists.

With the number of local and international buyers of Buddhist art in decline, they have now moved on to making mortar and pestles, gravestones, flowerpots and other items.

Once the capital of the Gandhara civilisation, Taxila was known as a ‘city of artisans’, because of the craftspeople who produced masterpieces of distinct Gandhara art - Buddhist statues in particular.

Even today, their skill at hewing black stone sets them apart, although there are now very few artisans left who can carve Buddhist art in black stone to replicate original Gandhara artefacts.

History experts have said that this 2,500 year old practice is now facing extinction due to a number of factors, particularly the law and order situation,

the decline in foreign tourism, legal impediments and pressure from religious groups.

Gandhara art has a rich history, influenced by the rise and fall of the Achaemenid, Greek, Mauryan, Indo-Greek, Scynthian, Parthian, Khushan, Han and Hindu dynasties in ancient Taxila.

Buddhist art retains the influence of the Greeks, following Alexander the Great’s invasion in 326 BC, while the more than 1,000 year Mauryan dynasty created its unique style of sculpture.

One of the legacies of Buddhism on local art were black stone carvings of religious beliefs and cultural practices using simple tools like a chisel, a hammer and a divider.

Taxila’s sculptures are known across the world for this legacy, but according to the artists themselves this art is now on the verge of extinction.

According to Taxila Museum curator Abdul Nasir Khan, Taxila was also known as Taka Shaila (cut stone), or the ‘city of cut stones’.

He explained that present day artisans in Taxila inherited their craft from their forefathers.

“They use black stone and centuries-old techniques,” he said, adding that the artists today follow the same patterns in Buddhist carvings and artefacts that were used in ancient sculptures, such as the lotus or the banyan tree.

Shafeeq Ahmed, 57, has been a craftsman for 35 years.

He told Dawn that many artisans have produced masterpieces with stone, bringing laurels in the international arena, but at the same time have criticised the fate of thousands of unemployed young people who have been deprived of proper training in stone carving due to official negligence.

“The art of stone carving is handed down from one generation to another, but due to the lack of interest on the part of the government, the skill is on the verge of extinction,” he said.

Rashid Mehmood, another craftsman, said: “Stone carving is has been a centuries-old occupation for scores of families in the Taxila Valley, but with the course of time younger generations are not keen on taking it up due to the persistent economic condition, lack of patronage from the state, the lack of tourists and the law – which forbids replicas under the 1975 antiquities act. Anyone who produces replicas is sentenced to imprisonment and subject to fines.

There are few artists left in the city to keep this craft alive, artisan Ameen Khan added.

“We are producing statues of Buddha entirely from memory; our small hammers do not falter at any angle or curve, and we produce perfect replicas of centuries-old creations,” he said.

“We sculptors are trying our best to keep this alive, but the future seems bleak in the face of the decline in tourism, the persistent law and order situation, legal impediments and fleecing by national and international smugglers.”

Dr Abdul Ghafoor Lone from the federal department of archaeology, said that in his book on Taxila the renowned archaeologist Anis Hasan Dani wrote:

“The art presents a heterogeneous social picture of the time – a medley of foreign immigrants, Greek, Scythian, Parthian, Kushan, Huns and Turk, all intermixed with the local populace in the mundane affairs of the world.

“Above all the primary aim of the art is not to extol the kings or their ministers but to adore the Buddha, his whole life from birth to death and the preaching that he delivered to mankind for the observation of moral ways of life and for salvation.” “

Gandhara art was born in the Taxila Valley civilization in the 1st century BC and strengthened in the 1st century

AD, Dr Lone said. It flourished until the 5th century and lingered until the 8th century.

It was introduced to the world by antiquarians and art dealers in the 19th and 20th century, and almost all major museums possess Gandharan masterpieces, he added.

Legal impediments to the production of stone Buddha sculptures – under the Antiquity Act of 1975, the Antiquities Export Control Act of 1947 and the Customs Act of 1969 – also hinder the promotion and open marketing of these works, both locally and internationally, Prof Dr Mohammad Ashraf Khan, a former director of the Taxila Institute of Asian Civilisation, said.

He added that smugglers exploit craftspeople through these rules.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2019