Indian Sculpture c5.s1.t1: Ethnical Factors
Indian Sculpture c5.s1.t1
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Ethnical Factors
c5.s1.t1.1
THE persistence of an artistic attitude, irrespective of passing ages and the shifting of scenery, had not allowed for a long time any disturbance to alter its course. Even the new blood in the ethnical structure of the country did not affect it for many centuries. When finally it did, classical³⁰ art was born. Ancient sculpture is seen to be un-Aryan, so far as the Indus civilisation goes; yet not in point of time only, for even in the third century B.C., about two thousand years after the Aryan immigration, it remained essentially un-Aryan. The tardiness of Aryan utterance in Indian art is not only due to the tenacity of the pre-Aryan idiom. The explanation for it must also be sought for in the attitude of the Aryan invaders towards art³¹ and in their reaction to what they found in the country. One component of the heritage of the palæolithic period, that is, the naturalism or innervation of ancient Indian sculpture, originally repelled them. After they had settled in the country, however, they could not but succumb to it. Neither during the classical period, from the second century B.C. to the eighth century A.D., nor even in the middle ages, did the ancient trend ever become extinct. We call it ancient not only for its priority in time, but also because it survives in spite of all vicissitudes, like the soil of India itself, of which it is a spontaneous and ever-recurring creative product. The Aryan invaders, on the other hand, were reluctant to give shape to their work in the likeness of things.
c5.s1.t1.2
It must be borne in mind that the ethnical problem is not confined to the Āryan factor on the one hand and the non-Āryan on the other. The later includes various civilisations and correspondingly various traditions of art. Plastic art of the Indus and Ganges valleys, in its Indian peculiarity directly grown out of palæolithic art, is a tangible whole, irrespective of trends within it. As such it has to be considered as one factor only in the non-Āryan complex. It has become known but lately. The other factors, with their monuments, as yet have not emerged from the soil that may still cover some of them. Their fusion has been accomplished and is apparent in the early phase of classically Indian sculpture.
c5.s1.t1.3
Still, there are signs of friction and uneasiness in the early phase of classical plastic art as well as compromises and tentative solutions. Where, however, naturalism and rhythm are one, classical Indian plastic art has come into existence.