Indian Sculpture c5.s2.t2.7

c5.s2.t2.7

Colossal statues of the Kuṣāṇa kings, that had been set up in the Devakula at Māt, Mathurā, occupy a position of their own. Unfortunately, none of the heads of the figures of Kaniṣka, Vima Kadphises and of the satrap of western India, Caṣṭana, from the end of the first century A.D. have been preserved, but the bodies in themselves are sufficiently characterised to show what type of portrait was aimed at by the artists. The custom of setting up portrait statues, or carving them out of the rock, is substantiated by literature of about the same time as well as by actual remnants.⁶⁶ There was no novelty in the task, but only in the idiom of execution. The novelty is not of the Mathurā school that has produced innumerable images. Stern economy confines the main effect of the first and last named statues to the surface, to harsh angles and to lines incised as if with the stroke of the sword. The balance peculiar to all Indian sculpture is absent. Without the cohesion of ancient Mauryan ponderosity and without the rhythmic consistency of the early classical type, an upright posture weighs on the ground with the firmness of will. The angles of Kaniṣka’s coat, the enormous horizontal bar of his boots, the inscription of his name across the surface of his vestments, indicate that the artist was of the same race as his patron. A Scythian inspiration, that had learned in Mathurā how to model—as can be seen from the treatment of the chest—has commemorated the dignity of the Kuṣāṇa kings and of one of their contemporary rulers. The statue of Vima Kadphises,⁶⁷ however, is the work of a local and inferior craftsman, who endeavoured in vain to reach the arid altitude of the Scythian incident.