Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c7.4

c7.4

The artists of the eastern school of mediæval sculpture continued the initial efforts made in this direction by the artists of the early Gupta period in Buddhist Benares. They finished the evolution of the more elaborate stelæ representing either all the eight or most of the principal incidents of the Master's life; as well as the special image representing one particular incident. The first group corresponds to some extent to the stelæ, with which one is so familiar in the Benares school of sculpture; whether it consists of superimposed panels or of separate panels. The artists of the eastern school of sculpture simply enlarged the main figure of one of these basreliefs and reduced the size of the others. In this respect therefore the first group of images or basreliefs of the Bengal School can be called stelæ. These stelæ of the Bengal school, as has been stated above, can be further subdivided into two different parts :—(a) The more elaborate and (b) the less elaborate.