Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c7.36

c7.36

In the Mathurā school, the superfluous attendant figures disappear. Thus the basrelief on the drum of the stūpa from the Dhruva mound contains only the principal figures, viz., Māyādevī, Prajāpati or the female attendant, Brahmā or Indra and the child Buddha⁴. Similarly in another basrelief belonging to the Mathurā Museum, the superfluous attendant figures, which we see in the Gandhāra school, have disappeared⁵. In the Benares school, we find, that additional figures are once more introduced. In the fine stelæ discovered at Sarnath in the earlier excavations and now deposited in the Indian Museum the birth scene is combined with several others. Thus in S.¹ and S.³ only the principal figures are to be found, but we find the additional figures in S.². In this case Indra is kneeling in front of Māyādevī to receive the divine child, which, in itself, is an unusual feature and behind him we find another kneeling male figurine. Among the sculptures discovered during the excavations at Sarnath, started in the present century by Sir John Marshall, the birth scene is to be found on one stele, in which additional figures are not to be found⁶, but in another stele the reproduction is too indistinct to judge of the presence of other additional figures⁷.