The Development of Hindu Iconography c13.71.4

c13.71.4

The reputed art centres of ancient India, such as Mathura, Gandhāra, Sarnath, Amaravati, etc., were the homelands of the master artists whose works served as standards on which these canons appear to have been based. The images fashioned by their chisel were in great demand in various other parts of India; this is proved by early epigraphic and monumental evidence. It is unfortunate that we know so little about them, as they generally hid themselves behind the names of such mythical artists as Viśvakarmā, Maya and others. We have no means of identifying an Indian Phidias, a Polyclitus or a Lysippas. It is quite accidentally that we light upon the names of a few individual artists from some inscribed sculptural and architectural fragments of early period. The ivory-carvers of Vidiśā might or might not have been responsible for the actual carving of a section of the railing of the Great Sanchi Stupa, which was their gift;