Indian Sculpture c5.s2.t6.12

c5.s2.t6.12

In unison with the bodily movement, the outline in Bhārhut had been reticent in its flow (Figs. 26, 27), but it gathered momentum as well as sinuous continuity in the subsequent century (Fig. 32), and in the first century A.D. it reached an amplitude that seemed to distend the movement now to the right, now to the left, except for a diagonal composition, which held together the exuberant outline. In the second century A.D. the turn and bend of the neck matter much and the threefold flexion (tribhaṅga) of the figures becomes the favourite pose (Fig. 42). This may be seen in the Mathurā and in the Veṅgī school. But the latter, being more subtle and expressive, gives it a different scope.