Indian Sculpture c5.s1.t10: Dekkhan
Indian Sculpture c5.s1.t10
- Language
- English
Dekkhan
c5.s1.t10.1
Coming as if from the unsounded depths of the earth, in comparison with other contemporary sculpture, are the large rock-cut reliefs of Bhājā, in the Western Ghāts (Fig. 39). They are the relatively purest examples of plastic art, heaving with a modelling in unheard of proportions, akin to the settling down of the surface of the earth when the inner fire was receding further and further inward from the crust that cooled into shape. The demon over whom passes the chariot of Sūrya and the elephant of Indra⁵⁷ have the brooding weightiness of the earth. These reliefs, even if they decorate a Buddhist monastery, as in fact they did, are free from measure and restraint. They contain those possibilities of Indian sculpture that brought about the Varāha relief cut in the rock at Udayagiri (Gwālior, early fifth century) and those of Ellora and Elephanta (Dekkhan, seventh and eighth centuries). The reliefs are not contained in any frame, but they extend as far as their inherent expansiveness carries them and the rock allows. The reliefs in Sāñcī show this characteristic, transferred, as it were, from the scope of the rock to the limitations of framed compositions (p. 32). The rock-cut reliefs, moreover, are not confined to one surface only of the rock, but are conveyed over the side-wings at right angles, in an untamed, plastic exuberance. They appear to be truly aboriginal, even more striking in their Indian peculiarity than other contemporary reliefs.
c5.s1.t10.2
There are thus immanent in the early phase of classical sculpture those foundations which, through the coming centuries, were to uphold the structure of the subsequent phases of classical Indian art. Āryan, but to a greater extent non-Āryan, forces have met and united. Rhythmical design redeems a measureless vitality from its plastic exuberance. Exuberant plastic vitality in its turn graces their corresponding patterns, with the cognisance of an ever-productive soil.
c5.s1.t10.3
With all the convincing spontaneousness of an early expression, integral motifs, which were to persist under one or the other aspect, were formulated at this period. The most prolific is that of the lotus creeper. The reiteration of its ample curves, fertile with the wealth of life—floral, animal, human and of man-made things—is more than a favourite motif. Where its generous vegetation is not explicitly shown, implicitly it underlies and is reborn ever afresh, an eternal melody of many compositions and attitudes.
c5.s1.t10.4
The texture of the plastic language is tantamount to a twofold outlook: everlasting because ever recurring, and steadily rhythmical in one version (for instance, Bhārhut), the other condenses the display of all inherent potentialities into one moment of outburst or manifestation (for instance, Sāñcī). Being as an ever-becoming, being concentrated in its plenitude yet not spent in the explosiveness of one moment—these are the twofold expressions of this plastically dynamic diction.
c5.s1.t10.5
1. Character of form: (a) Fluid and plastic, (b) dynamic and compact.
2. Geography: Three marked but connected provinces; Madhyadeśa, Veṅgī and Dekkhan, on the basis of different factors and degrees of ethnical mixture.
3. Chronology: An early art, while the three main provinces contribute their own aboriginally or otherwise ethnically conditioned heritage.
4. Inner meaning: Abandon to the unending and vegetative rhythm or to the intensity of the moment.