Indian Sculpture c5.s1.t7.5

c5.s1.t7.5

With a similarly careful awareness, the artists in Bhārhut (second half of second century B.C.), too, approach their themes. But there is relatively more ease in their attitude and a more leisurely expansiveness. The lotus scroll moves with homely assurance through its self-created jungle, which, in its turn, and with all the exuberance of vegetation, of which jewellery and apparel are also part, obeys a rhythm of slow but ceaseless measure⁴⁶ (Figs. 15, 24). Its movement is felt even where it is not itself shown and in some of the roundels the beginning and end are joined in an elastic balance (Fig. 16). By it are supported the actors of the story, loosely dispersed over the ground of the relief. Their distances, i.e. the tension between the single figures, their positions and gestures recline, and are carried by that swaying free rhythmical movement. No attempt is made to group the figures; each abides in the place assigned to it with a generous sense of well-being, in which quietly breathes the life of Bhārhut.