The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c5.s5.26

c5.s5.26

Worshippers — on the earth human and of both sexes, in the air divine — press round each of these symbolical representations. Those in the top corners of B 1 and D 1 have a human bust terminating in the stereotyped body of a bird. We are not long in remarking the constant contrast, both in the material objects and in the persons, between the still heavy and clumsy style of Sânchî and that of Amarâvatî, almost too elegant and affected. What here concerns us most is that the fundamental identity of the subjects is not in the slightest degree compromised by these differences of treatment.