Indian Sculpture c5.s1.t7.6

c5.s1.t7.6

Few of the difficulties of ‘primitive’ art, such as a limited range of attitudes, are to be found here. For although this is an early stage of classical art, yet it has the vast experience of ancient practice behind it. But the use it makes of it is circumscribed by an orientation that realises life as a ceaseless flow and has lost interest in the compactness of detached objects. (See Chapter I.) How the latter was gradually abandoned is tangibly shown by some of the large pillar figures; for instance, that of Sirimā Devatā and that of Sudarśanā Yakṣī (Figs. 26, 27). While the one consists of an inane superposition of massive forms, the other, mellifluous in gliding lines, balances her body like the languid stalk of a full-blown flower. Monumental stiffness, with knees stretched and arms pressed to the body, has melted into a lyricism of vegetative grace.