Studies in Indian Art c12.s1.2

c12.s1.2

The sculptors of Mathura were confronted with one supreme task, viz., that of amalgamating the two divergent currents of differing religious traditions, i.e., worship of Kubera with all its attendant Yakshas and Yakshīs, Vṛikshakas and Pushpa-Bhañjikās on the one hand, and the worship of the Bodhisattva or Buddha on the other. It must be said to the credit of these Mahāyānist art-workers that they acquitted themselves remarkably well. They realised that the people were anxious to bow to the Buddha, but not at the cost of the traditional Yaksha. They were ready to welcome the serene Yogi Buddha but did not like to be deprived of the cherished female motifs to which they had been used since the days of the Mauryas and the Sungas. The Buddha figure offered to be integrated on the broad canvas of religious life as one contributing to the refinement of the life inside the home and not to its unsettlement. The Buddha incarnating in stone for the first time was not to play the role of an iconoclast with regard to other deities of the existing pantheon. In art, and in religion, everywhere the prevailing note was harmony and amity, not dissension or discord. The genius of the Kushāṇa art-makers comprehended the problem rightly and rendered a good account of themselves by producing most splendid and beautiful specimens of the Bodhisattva, the Buddha, Viṣṇu, Sūrya, Śiva, Jina, Kubera, Yakṣas, Nāgas and their female counterparts.