Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c15.s2.t5.16

c15.s2.t5.16

11. Amongst other scenes the slabs show the Buddha holding two relic-caskets with spouted vases before a group of Nāgas,—such reliquaries really being found inside the Stūpas (Longhurst, pl. XXIV (b)); Converston of king Kappina (Longhurst, pl. XXV (a)), a Chakravartin surrounded by Seven Jewels (Longhurst, pl. XXX (b)), Conversion of Yaksha Ālavaka (Longhurst, pl. XXXI (b)), Siddhartha stringing the mighty bow, subjugation of the elephant Nālagiri (Longhurst, p. XXXII (b)); Dīpaṅkara paying homage to the Buddha (Longhurst, XXXIV (a)), admission of the six Śākya princes and the barber Upāli to the order (Long. XXXIV (b)); Buddha and Nanda on a visit to heaven (XXXV (a)), the gift of earth, in the left side panel of which occurs the most beautiful standing femal figure on a *siṃha-makara* base ever rendered in Andhra art; the novice Suvana and the Nāga king Paṇṇaka (pl. XXXVII (a)), Lady Amarā and the four wise men, Chāmpeyya Jātaka (XXXVIII (b)), Māndhātā Jātaka (IXL (a b)), Nāga king Apalāla subdued by the Buddha (XL (a b)), Śibi Jātaka XLII (a), Buddha visited by Indra and Pañchaśikha Gandharva XLIV (a-b); Daśaratha Jātaka (XLV (a)) Mahāpaduma Jātaka (XLV (b)), Ghaṭa Jātaka (XLVI (a)), Dighitikosala Jātaka (XLVII (a)). The sculptures from the Nāgārjunikoṇḍa Stūpas illustrate a quality of plastic art in which the perfect chiselling done by the great masters has left behind permanent records of beauty seldom attained elsewhere. The smaller panels specially dividing the slabs from each other or their wider panels and consisting of pairs of male and famale figures in different poses (*Naṭaka strī*) are examples of perfect beauty dwelling out from the hearts of great masters with long experience behind them. A detailed study of the scenes on both kinds of slabs demonstrates that the decorative motifs of preceding Śuṅga and Kuṣāṇa art on the one hand and coming Gupta art on the other are represented in the transitional style of the Kṛṣṇā Valley. Many of the Buddhist scenes depicting the Jātaka and the life details of Buddha were now reorganised by the Andhra artisans with such elaboration as holds good in Gupta art, e. g. the Chāmpeyya Jātaka and the Assault of Māra. The pictorial quality obtained by these sculptors creates the foremost impression in which the detailed execution, the clear composition and the ornate nature of the human figures with definite iconographic details and the integrated accomplishment of the decorative scheme of the drum and the dome and the Āyaka platforms, were conceived in great detail but with superb mastery and skill. The sweet delicacy of carving (*mādhurya*), life-like expressing, rippling movement in the limbs of the figure, the dancing poses on the two sides of the vertical line (*lasatīva cha bhūlambaḥ*), the rendering of all kinds of difficult poses, the metal-like details of carving,¹ the fondness for numerous figures to crowd the composition in a peripheral frame round the conspicuous central figure of the scene, such charming qualities make Andhra art its high rank in the story of Indian aesthetic endeavours.