Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c11.s2.7

c11.s2.7

As regards the Yaksha images we find two equally strong traditions, viz. aniconic forms continuing up to now and the dominant sized images described above as a group of the wide geographical distribution from Kurukshetra to Orissa and Naḷiā Sopārā on the western coast near Bombay. The Atharvaveda had set a norm for these big images calling them Yaksham ātmanvat, the big-bodied one (AV. 10.2.32). The epic described the Yaksha as colossal in size (mahā-kāya), lofty like the palm (tāla samuchchhrita), towering high like a mountain (parvatopama), radiant like the sun and fire, death-conquering (adhṛishya, Araṇyaka Parva, 297. 20 21), and of great physical strength (mahā-bala). The available Yaksha statues literally confirm this definition, and as every art critic has observed, they are most impressive by their size and ponderous volume magnificently conceived as free-standing deities, commanding the whole countryside and worshipped as Yakshas (Hindi, जाख, जखैया) for about 2500 years. From the point of view of art, these statues appear as grand ancestors of the subsequent Bodhisattva, Buddha, Tīrthaṅkara and Viṣṇu images; not only the size and plastic effect but the various elements of drapery and ornamentation were adopted by later artists called upon to evolve an iconographic formula for new divine figures. This is a point which cannot be over emphasised in a history of Indian art, an appraisal of which helps us to understand clearly the origins of the Kuṣāṇa and Gupta statuary. It is certain that the tradition of folk art had an independent style of greater vitality than even the court art of the Mauryan times. Also, the stone images of Yakshas may belong to the fourth-third centuaries but the iconographic idiom was of much greater antiquity, and rendered through the medium of clay, a feature suriving to our own times.