Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c23.25

c23.25

A remarkable feature of the Pallava rock-architecture is the fine quality of the figure sculpture which adorns both mandapas and rathas. But in its plastic form it was only part of a movement, which, extending over the whole of southern India, found expression in a school of sculpture of a grand classical order. Most of this is in the rock-cut technique, of which that on the Kailasa at Ellora, and at Elephanta, are rather later examples, but some of the finest and earliest productions were the work of the Pallavas These figure subjects at Mamallapuram are endowed with that same passionate spirit which pulsates in the Christian art of Europe of the corresponding date, but with even a finer feeling for form and more experienced craftsmanship. There is a notable sense of restraint and refined simplicity specially in the bas-reliefs of single figures, yet even more pronounced in several of the larger sculptured dramas, as for instance in the Vishnu panel of the Mahishasura mandapa, which has some of the breadth and rationality shown in the sculpture of the Greeks towards the end of their first period In view therefore of the superb quality of the Pallava plastic art it is not surprising that the schools of scultpure which developed out of this movement in Java and Cambodia displayed also the same high artistic character