Studies in Indian Art c12.s1.8

c12.s1.8

It is not necessary to dwell more on the achievements of Mathura sculptors during the Mauryan age in the absence of any definite site which could be demonstrated as sheltering a Mauryan monument. The reason of such an absence may probably be that all that was excavated at Mathura during the last seventy-five years was not adequately surveyed at the time of proper operations, or it is also just likely that there are yet some mounds which may one day bring to light genuinely Mauryan relics both in the field of sculpture and architecture. This should be so specially with a thorough exploration of the sites which have yielded Sunga relics, like the Parkham statue, and the Mora and Ganesha inscribed bricks or the fine cross-bar of the Gāyatrī-Ṭilā. The paucity of sculptural specimens of the Aśokan art of the Maurya period may be said to be more than compensated by an abundance of the pre-Maurya and Maurya terracottas discovered at Mathura in surprisingly large numbers and deposited in all the big Museums in India and outside. The study of these terracottas is a vast subject in itself and it is much to be regretted that a systematic treatment of the problems disclosed after such study is a desideratum in our study of the ancient Indian art.