Indian Sculpture c4.s2: 2. Mauryan Sculpture
Indian Sculpture c4.s2
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Contents
- c4.s2.t1 Summary — 1 part
2. Mauryan Sculpture
c4.s2.1
THE trend persists, while the quality has weakened, in the next chapter of Indian sculpture (Figs. 2, 10, 25). It is the Gangetic aftermath of the art of the Indus valley. Its large-sized and highly polished sculptures have a somewhat ‘colonial’ accent, although they are to a considerable extent (Fig. 10) imperially patronised by Aśoka Maurya (272–232 B.C.). An interval of two thousand years or more, between the last days of the Indus civilisation and its expansion¹⁷ from the west to the east of the country, did not sever this connection.
c4.s2.2
Most conspicuous amongst the scanty relics of the plastic art of that age are the colossal statues of Yakṣas and Yakṣīs and monumental animal figures. The latter, as a rule, form part of capitals of gigantic pillars; an elephant is carved out of the rock at Dhauli in Orissā,¹⁸ whereas a pair of griffins from Patna¹⁹ and a hooded serpent canopy²⁰ from Rājgir complete what is left of animal sculpture in stone of the Mauryan age.
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Whatever form of cult the colossal Yakṣa and Yakṣī figures assisted (Figs. 2, 25)—and they are not images—they carry the fly-whisk that marks them as attendants; they belong to the earth; obvious burliness is one of their essential qualities. The majestic portliness of the two headless figures from Patna (Fig. 2) is directly derived from the tenser bodily vigour of the Harappa statuette (see p. 4). But if naturalism lies at the root of either, it is living in the case of the Indus figurine, while in the statuary of the Mauryan period it takes a conventionalised turn. Meticulous attention is given in parts to anatomy. The way in which the elbows, for instance, are fashioned tells of much knowledge. On the whole, however, what originally had been justified as innervated and three-dimensional extension of the living body now contains a weight of congested flesh, with little sap and no vigour. Parts and limbs of the body are joined in a conglomerating manner; the head, for example, to the bulk of the torso almost without any neck, so as not to interfere with the juxtaposition of weighty volumes.²¹ Needless to mention, such garments or jewellery as are placed on those bodies share that quality to the exclusion of linear movement.
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Chronological sequence can be observed in the modifications of treatment of about half a dozen of Yakṣa and Yakṣī statues. The Yakṣī from Dīdargañj (Patna) stands out in artistic achievement (Fig. 25). The two Yakṣa figures from Patna are conscientious in the rendering of earthbound weight (Fig. 2). Last of them the Yakṣī from Besnagar, and the Pārkham Yakṣa (Mathurā), with their inane burliness, carry on the Mauryan tradition of colossal statuary into the subsequent century.²²
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These statues have impersonal yet physiognomically manifold heads; curvatures of lips, varieties of noses, shapes of cheeks and eyes are as carefully marked as the folds of turbans, the smartness and elaboration of headgear and the way of wearing moustaches.²³ An inquisitiveness into the plastic connection, though not at all into the psychology of facial types, records these as well as the fashionable vagaries of whatever surrounds them (Figs. 13, 25).
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No magic is known to these artists, who render the comfortable earthliness of things. For this reason, the colossal animal sculpture on the capitals of free standing columns, into the shafts of many of which were inscribed the edicts of Aśoka, is heavy with their physical bulk only. The ‘sacredness’ of the animals of the Indus civilisation altogether escapes the urbane Mauryan artist. For the rest, their degree of relationship with the animals on the Indus seals is the same as that of the colossal Mauryan Yakṣas with the Harappa statuette, i.e. an inverse proportion between size and motive power (Figs. 1, 2 and 6, 10).
c4.s2.7
To allude to the much-discussed question of Persian or Hellenistic influence, it suffices to state that Hellenism has left its undeniable traces in Mauryan India (finds at Basāṛh, the ancient Vaiśālī).²⁴ Equally obvious is the impression that Persian achievements had made on Aśoka.²⁵ But neither altered the trend of Indian sculpture. Considering the sculpture of Harappa (p. 4), it is impossible to deny that Mauryan sculpture is of the same stock as that of the Indus valley and that the artistic attitude of this ramification in the Ganges valley, as well as those of Persia and of Greece, as far as their affinities go, have probably the same root, and that as far as the palæolithic age.
c4.s2.8
The civilised quality of Mauryan plastic art is further attested by contemporary terra-cotta figures from Patna;²⁶ they are slight and graceful contributions, in which the charm of the faces of a child, of dancers and musicians quaintly contrasts with a barbarically exuberant apparel (Fig. 13). What a distance is there from the forbidding and solemn ‘mother-goddess,’²⁷ uncouth and primeval, as conceived by the Indus craftsmen, as well as from the serene far-sightedness of the grey earthenware heads from Mathurā²⁸ (Fig. 12). The latter group is plastically closely related to the terra-cotta figurines from Patna. But the affinity of the modelling betrays only a nearness in age and not in outlook. Their summary handling is based on the more detailed treatment of Mauryan plastic art.
c4.s2.9
In the organism of Indian art Mauryan sculpture has only marginal importance. Absence of emphasis lends dignity to it. It is borne by volume, the specific medium of Indian art. The quality of its treatment proves Mauryan art, on the whole, to belong to ‘ancient’ culture, firmly founded on this earth, as far as its artistic outlook goes.
c4.s2.10
With all its sated comfort, Mauryan art nevertheless is not homogeneous. Towards its end some reliefs²⁹ (Fig. 11), all too scanty in number yet of profound importance, have a lyricism of flowing linear composition and modulation of the surface and although dynamic in context are but remotely related to the bulk of Mauryan sculpture. It is here that qualities of ‘classical’ Indian art are shown (p. 17).
c4.s2.11
From now onward, such features of the ancient art of India as had been peculiar to the Indus valley civilisation and had survived right into the Mauryan empire, act at a subterranean level, stirred into creation by many fertilisations. The blood of many people is the active factor that works on the soil of India (cf. p. 128); into the latter had become integrated, as a tangible instance, the art of the Indus valley, with its after-crop in the Ganges valley, at the time of the Mauryas.
c4.s2.12
Mauryan sculpture, for all its impressive size, is one of the slightest contributions within Indian art. The supernatural appears familiar and even domesticated, whereas nature supplies the dignity and grace which a civilised bearing exacts.
Summary
c4.s2.t1.1
1. Character of form: Impersonal record of the seen and stagnant compactness in rendering it.
2. Geography: Eastern Indian idiom of art of Indus valley.
3. Chronology: Late sequel to art of Indus valley.
4. Inner meaning: Sated and civilised approval of an earth-bound sense of being alive.