Indian Sculpture c5.s2.t6.1

c5.s2.t6.1

The south expressed itself in ardent form. Amarāvatī was the centre of the school of Veṅgī (second century B.C. to third century A.D.). With the work of Jaggayapeṭa as precursor, with the work on, and connected with, the stūpas of Nāgārjunikoṇḍa, Alluru and Gumadidurru⁷⁴ as contemporaries, albeit of chiefly the later phase and with the reliefs of the stūpa at Goli among the last contributions, the school of Veṅgī, condensed within a circumscribed locality, has contributed a vast amount of sculptures. In the last two centuries B.C. (p. 34) the delicacy of the modelling, the slimness of the over-elongated limbs, the powerful character of the bodies, and with it all a sensibility and keenness of movement, were distinctly of local origin. Later, by about the first century A.D., a heavy and spreading plastic form in some reliefs⁷⁵ precludes linear fineness. This trend is fully unfolded in Nāgārjunikoṇḍa, in the second century A.D. and later, whereas in Amarāvatī it is disciplined in future and swayed by linear rhythms. From about A.D. 100 onward, influences from Mathurā had their chance. This can be seen in some of the Veṅgī reliefs, with stately figures of relatively round and heavy form and dispassionately postured (Fig. 42). But a tremor now seems to pass all through the most luxuriant bhaṅgas, when the artists of Veṅgī, their age of receptiveness being over, re-ascertain their own genius. By the middle of the second century A.D. another external factor was to leave its impress. Hellenism⁷⁶ reached southern India by way of trade. As also in the school of Mathurā, it was neither dully accepted nor was it misunderstood by the south Indian artists. It is significant that their interest was captivated, as a few reliefs show, not by Hellenistic anatomy and modelling but by the contrapost, the Hellenic tradition of carrying the weight of one's body. A novel sense of equilibrium was appreciated as affording further possibilities of movement, with their not wholly unrelated contrast to the tribhaṅga posture.