Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c13.s5.12

c13.s5.12

Buddha images may be divided into two principal types, viz. standing and seated. These types are distinctly different in artistic conception from each other. Whatever be the source of these two main types from the point of view of art, when we take into account the elements of the Buddhist iconography we find that both are outcome of the single iconographic formula which was basically conceived as combining the ideal of a Chakravartī and the ideal of a Yogī. Buddha as well as Mahāpurusha was endowed with the thirty-two marks of the great man. These lent themselves easily to the iconographic conception of the Buddha figure. For example, the hump of wisdom on the top of the head called Uṣṇīsha, spiral hair between the two eyebrows called ūrṇā, elongated ear-lobes (pralamba-karṇa-pāsha), long arms up to the knees (Ajānubāhu), broad chest (viśālavaksha), palms of the hands and soles of feet marked with the Dharma-chakra (chakrāṅka-hastapādau), webbed fingers of the hands (jālāṅguli-kara) etc.¹ All these features are present in the human image of the Buddha and directly based on Indian tradition of an Ideal Great Man. Then there are certain features contributed by the Yogī ideal of the Buddha figure, e.g. the gaze fixed on the tip of the nose resulting in the half-closed eyes (nāsāgra-dṛiṣṭi), cross-legged posture (padmāsana or dhyānamudrā) with hands either placed in the lap or the right-hand raised to shoulder (abhayamudrā) etc. The conception of a Chakravartī also was responsible for some of the elements in the making of the Buddhist iconography, e.g. the two chaurie-bearer attendants who were invariably associated with royalty. The chhatra also was an indispensable symbol for royalty as seen in the Sarnath image of Bhikshu Bala and in the case of the Maholī Bodhisattva. They accepted halo round the head as the suitable sign of the glory of the Buddha. The conception of the halo was borrowed from Zoroastrian deities on coins, round whose head it depicted the divine glory hvarr (Skt. svara-maṇḍala) of Ahura Mazda. The Kushāṇa artists who were also called upon to represent the figures of the Iranian Yazatas (deities) on the coins of Kanishka obviously drew upon the original figures of Ahura Majda for the halo. The idea fitted very well with Indian conception of the divine figures being surrounded by a radiant orb (prabhāmaṇḍala); although no earlier representation of this feature can be traced at Sanchi or Bharhut. Gradually the halo became Indianised. Its Iranian origin was forgotten and during the Gupta period it was believed that the halo represented the shadow of the chhatra held on the head of the king. Kālidāsa mentions this conception in case of Raghu and Pārvatī. It suited very well the form