Studies in Indian Art c12.s8.31

c12.s8.31

Scene 6.—Coiffure of the lady (वेणीप्रसाधन, Fig. 94). Sundarī is standing in profile looking sideways. She is holding a mirror in right hand and is looking her face in it. With her left hand she seems to be painting her face, most probably the scene of painting tattoo marks (विशेषक रचना) to which reference is found in Aśvaghosha (Saund., IV. 13, 20). Nanda is standing on the right side and is in the act of dressing her hair. He is holding her long braid (veṇī) in his left hand, and with the right he is lifting a garland from a basket supported on the head of a dwarf servant. On a railing pillar in the Mathura Museum (186) a similar scene is represented (A Handbook of Sculptures in the Mathura Museum, p. 40), and there also it appears to be a scene depicting the love sports of Nanda and Sundarī. Aśvaghosha gives a detailed description of the facial decoration of Sundarī, but with this difference that in the poem Sundri is said to have transferred the mirror to her husband whereas in the carved scene she is holding it herself. (Cf. Saund. IV. 13, 20).