Indian Sculpture c5.s3: 3. Transubstantiation
Indian Sculpture c5.s3
- Language
- English
Contents
- c5.s3.t1 A. Inflexion — 78 parts
- c5.s3.t2 B. Fulfilment — 46 parts
3. Transubstantiation
A. Inflexion
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A STAGE is now reached of ‘inflexion’ in its literal as well as in its most intense meaning. Whereas vegetative devices, for instance, such as the lotus-creeper (p. 30), have become rare or disappear altogether from the compositions, their movement seems to persist in that of the bodies and attitudes of the human figures, and in the manner in which they are modelled (Figs. 56–58, 62, etc.). This movement now seems to have its origin within the human frame which it moulds and the limbs of which it conducts according to its own sway. Thus it may be said that what hitherto had been shown as extensive (for instance, in the case of the endlessly rambling creeper) has now withdrawn into the within of the human figure, dynamically active there, yet seemingly at rest in the form it has brought about. In flowing, shallow and altogether unbroken curves, this movement glides along the outlines of the figures, and although varied in strength it can be found in any profile or section across the figures.
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The vegetative rhythm of this recurrent and undulating movement has no longer plants for its carrier. While these have disappeared from the compositions they leave their movement in them, freely rhythmical and diffused throughout them, as if it were a strong scent. It clings to and permeates the human figures, now entirely moulded according to this unending rhythm. What had been beheld as extensive is now shown as acting from within, with an irrefutable calmness. This inflexion of vegetative life and of its rendering in expressive signs, reminiscent of their plant-origin, leads to a ‘transubstantiation’ of the body. The naturalism of the modelling is now rarified and is brought about by the flowing movement of life itself (cf. p. 50).
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Transubstantiation comes about in the following manner: The principle of the vegetative movement persists, while vegetation in which it had been beheld originally withdraws. It immigrates into the human body and makes it its vessel. But the shape remains suggestively human and the principle of the movement from its plant-origin reaches a human destination. Within the body this movement belongs to the physical as well as to the inner life. The movement of the inner life as well as that of the vital currents is identical with the vegetative movement. While in this aspect the body becomes plant-like in swaying rhythm and plasticity, it is the vessel of the movement of the physical and of the inner life. The long-prepared miracle of transubstantiation has thus come true. Hindrances have dissolved; the human body, as given form to, does not stand for physical appearance. It is the form of the movement of life. The ‘without’ when transferred into the ‘within’ becomes identical there with the beyond.
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This did not come about suddenly. The means for it had been prepared from the very outset. The movement of vegetative growing was rendered in the art of the Indus valley by the undulating stem and branches of trees and in early classical art a device had been invented for its sake, that of the lotus creeper, for which there is no prototype in nature. At the same time human and animal figures had, together with the compositional rhythm, been subject to this movement. But other aims, such as the framing of devices of the inter-relation of the relief figures, an increasing mastery of foreshortening and various other formal and technical problems demanded solutions (pp. 40, 44). Still, in the ample naturalism of early maturity, transubstantiation of the body drew near.
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The ceaseless movement originally seen and felt in the outer world, and mainly in vegetation, became felt also as belonging to the substance of the inner life. This experience is visualised by showing the human body entirely made up of that movement. Its repercussions have shaken off what is gross in the body and what hinders its circulation. Fluid throughout in plastic treatment, the movement now reverberates freely within its self-created form. But in so far as allusion to human appearance remains, it is always made to youth, with its smoothness of limbs, as an homage of the inner life movement, in whose realm there is no waste. The bodies of the gods always look ‘as if sixteen years old.’
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These bodies of the gods are lent to all the figures, irrespective of their status, whether divine, semi-divine or human. Art form knows no such difference. For the body has now become in every instance an embodiment of the life-movement. It is an aspect of existence itself, in its plenitude of consciousness.
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Three centuries follow, from the fourth to the sixth, where the harvest is reaped with suspended breath, in vibrant silence. Throughout the country a largeness of conception visualises super-personal existence. The compositions now no longer narrate; they are, on the contrary, representational. In them aspects of existence itself are contained and expressed. Whatever action is suggested, this takes place in a dimension where time does not pass, but in which, paradoxically, the inner life movement is unfolded.
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Gestures, for instance, there are of the single figures; and each has its meaning. One of the most frequently repeated gestures of the Buddha, and of other divinities, is the abhaya mudrā (Figs. 41, 45, 55, 59), the gesture of fearlessness. The sculptures in Gandhāra and Mathurā were equally familiar with it. But they rendered it merely as a sign or symbol. With them it did not become artistic form. Iconography refers this gesture to a special incident in the life of the Buddha, when he tamed the raging elephant Nālagiri. But the actuality of the situation has left the mudrā. It is shown when the particular incident is not alluded to and when the figure is not that of the Buddha. The gesture permanently conveys fearlessness. From its intransitive experience it is turned, with open palm, into the transitive reassurance, which the presence of divinity gives to the devotee (Fig. 59). The gesture, in its origin an act, exists now in the timeless state which it establishes itself. It is unchangeable in the duration of its being.
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In this fixed position it is vibrant with life, artistically potent and not a dead symbol. The rhythmical life-movement pulses through its palm and fingers in telling curves and full modelling.
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Whatever action is suggested, this takes place in a dimension where time is at rest and does not pass.
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Whether the object is an image to be worshipped, a myth or a scene to be beheld, the inter-related presence of the entire situation, as well as of each single figure that supports it, is what the artist endeavours to fix according to definite measures. Thus every scene or image becomes a vāhana⁸⁷ and every part of it, subordinated to that aspect, is transformed according to its meaning within, and in relation to, the whole. Now definite canons of proportion and appearance of the figures come to be laid down systematically as well as definite attributes. Where everything has its bearing in a context that results from artistic creation, and is yet meant to indicate an existence unchangeable in the duration of its action, every part of the compositional unity must be unmistakable with regard to its suggested purport, and has to be rationalised.
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The human figure prevails in scenes and images, to the almost complete exclusion of floral and plant motifs, as has been the case already in Mathurā and Veṅgī from the first century A.D. There is scope for trees as accompaniment for Vṛkṣakās (tree-goddesses), etc., but otherwise all vegetation is relegated to the borders,88 where the lotus-scroll, now partly still, with its original meaning mostly, however, as a flowing, curling and flaming device (Bādāmī), is treated in a manner that for the first time has been made use of in Amarāvatī and Mathurā.89 Cut obliquely, its rambling stalk ramifies into scrolls that turn point-like upon themselves.
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Plastic Transformation of the Body
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Endowed with a language of gestures and a canon of poses,90 proportions, etc., the figures now again (see Bhārhut) are sparsely and clearly placed on the flat ground (Figs. 56–58, 64, 65). There is poise in their attitude and balanced tension in their distance. The ground, in its seeming bareness, acts as a significantly dynamic interval to the consistency of the modelled parts. All energies are concentrated in the superhuman figure, superhuman because, on the basis of actual appearance, its aspect is so modified as to suggest qualities and possibilities beyond the range of mortals. Bodily discipline suggests supernatural strength, freed from the encumbrances of earthly well-being (Fig. 54). The figure of woman, on the other hand, with ample hips and full breasts, retains, whatever may be her name, the promise of motherhood (Fig. 60, etc.). Multiplicity of limbs (p. 7), combined with a transformed body, amounts to an incorporation of further, i.e. transcendental, possibilities (Figs. 64, 66, 67). The shape is prepared that will yield what is attainable beyond the purpose of actual limbs. By a generalisation on the basis of the physiological and by substitution of the principle of fluidity for that of innervation, the skin becomes a plastic tegument, under which throbs the pulse of life. Whereas the solid parts of the body make the foundation of Western anatomy, the vital currents and that which allows their circulation demand a peculiarly Indian artistic anatomy. It is not scientific in the sense of observation and description of its structure, but it is suggestive of the vital currents that percolate the entire living frame, which in relation to them is secondary and conditioned (Fig. 62).
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Innervation, the nervous tension of the body, expressive of animal vitality and of emotions, is relaxed. In this soothed condition it lies dormant. Its capacity of being highly strung is kept in ever-present readiness to envelop the continuous circulation of the life sap, i.e. of the vegetative principle, of the vital currents and of the inner life movement. The muscular substance seems to melt away while it is being sustained and transmuted. It supplies cover and conducts and yields reverberations. It is wrapt all round the bones that are not visible, so that all joints appear as passages of a ceaseless and consistent movement. The transubstantiation of the body is made visible by the transformation of the plastic means.
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Just as the notions of bodily appearance are much older than their plastic versions in Gupta and other contemporary sculpture—the feminine ideal, for instance, goes back to the palæolithic age⁹¹—so has the plastic transformation of the body been prepared from the end of the Mauryan period onward. As soon as the swaying linear rhythm had begun to animate the figures, and to bend them according to its demands, their compactness was dissolved and transmuted into an appearance more flowing. This comprises the outline, ever more sinuous and gliding, as well as the surface, with its subtle ups and downs of plastic rhythm. In the early centuries of the Christian era this process had continued, but other problems at that time were paramount. Now the latter having been formulated, the continuity of the movement attains balance between the ever-present foundation of ‘ancient’ volume (mass), and its linear superstructure.
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An art, concentrated on the innermost sources of life and on its own contemplation within them, has but little scope for superfluities such as apparel and jewellery. The burdensome ornaments of the early classical period (Figs. 26, 32, 36), the experiments in wreaths and folds of the age of early maturity (Figs. 28, 41, 44), had already been employed in the school of Veṅgī to a lesser extent (Fig. 50). There, too, a delicate and at the same time abbreviated formulation had set in. Now, the little that is tolerated, of garment, jewellery or garlands (Figs. 56, 58, 60), stands in sensitive relation to the body, of which it is a sheath and foil, accurate in its delineation (robe of the Buddha, Figs. 54, 55, 59, 62), or delicate with flowers (garland of Varāha avatāra, Udayagiri, Fig. 63). Between these two, i.e. the systematically accurate and the blossoming surface (Figs. 56–58, 62, 66), Gupta and contemporary sculpture are unfolded.
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In the empire of the Guptas in Āryāvarta,⁹² craftsmen of high spiritual knowledge worked in Sārnāth, but also in Mathurā, in Garhwā, in Udayagiri (Gwālior), and other places, side by side at times with craftsmen who, while carrying on the old traditions, just succeeded in bringing them up to date. Central India keeps pace with the course taken in Sārnāth, yet, while its measure is the same, the experience is on a different level, altogether nearer to the earth and to the past. The east as well as the west now begin partly to acquire and partly to consolidate features that were destined in the future to turn to a considerable extent into local, i.e. ethnical, characteristics. The Dekkhan, however, makes the body of the rock the cradle of portentous qualities.
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If perchance at this or any other period an artist inscribed his name, he did it as master of his craft, but through no consciousness of his genius. There never was any scope in Indian art for individual problems and their solutions. Individual problems did not exist. Fixed rules guided the man who had learnt the craft according to his inborn gifts. Those works, however, that rise above the average achievement must be attributed to artists who were by immediate experience in touch with the visualized reality itself. The degree of intensity differs and the subtlety of visualisation, but not the kind of vision nor the means of fixing it in form within each locally circumscribed unit.
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In the beginning of the fourth century, one such eminent craftsman from Mathurā carved the large ‘Buddha’ from Bodhgayā (Fig. 54). Much that is of the Mathurā school of the first and second centuries A.D. is still practised, as, for instance, the type of vajra-paryaṅka motif (crossed legs), as well as of the garment (Fig. 41). Sweeping and harsh generalisations now sum up what had been the joyous naturalism of an earlier age. On that they are based, while ignoring it. (Transitional type: Fig. 45.) Ruthlessly a firm outline now clasps a monumentalised body. That it is an isosceles triangle matters more than the curvature of full limbs, which it restrains with premeditated balance. That the structure of the entire figure is geometrical impresses the ancient Indian heritage of ponderosity with the seal of the unavoidable. But no longer is there any absorption in things earthly, no longer any vehement pulsation of life. But at the same time, what they had been once has now become the humus which nourishes a rarified life. The Bodhisattva from Bodhgayā is the first image in India which by its form signifies what its name implies. The makeshift appearance of images is gone. In Mathurā, during the first and second centuries A.D., the discrepancy between ‘Buddha’-hood and ‘Buddha’-image had been unsurmountable.
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Now, however, not only lakṣaṇas (characteristics of supernormal appearance) matter, nor do symbolic gestures, but the entire conduct of lines, planes and of all visual relations itself signify that reality which is hinted at by the very name.93 If in the period of early maturity the figures had grown up physically (p. 40), they have now attained their spiritual size.
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Although the Bodhgayā ‘Buddha’ is the earliest image, in a truly spiritual sense, there must have been others made at the same time. The Buddha from Anurādhapura, Ceylon, near in date, is also not far from it in meaning. The Bodhgayā image is not a precursor. It belongs to the age that produced it to the same extent as the Sāñcī reliefs belonged to the first century B.C.
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What holds good for the body is also valid for the face. No longer are the single features related to each other merely in their mask-like context (Bhārhut), equally distanced from the within as they are from the without, accentless thresholds between being and living, nor is physiognomy explored as indicative of emotions that spring from the body (Sāñcī, etc.), or by their intensity seem to trespass its vitality (Amarāvatī). But the single features simplified from, and partly also enlarged in comparison with, actual appearance show various possibilities of transcendental experience by very slight modifications in their angles or distances. In the early fourth century the conquest of the mind is the theme of the face. The ancient ideal of the Cakravartin, or the world-ruler, so mundanely interpreted in Mathurā in the first and second centuries (Fig. 41), has become transferred into the inner mind. There the conquest is wrought under the most intimate, and therefore most destructive, guidance of life over its denser aspects. Struggle and disdainful relaxation after conquest, in the firmly set, full-lipped mouth, a shelter against the outside world in the heavily-lowered eyelids, a glance that, while physically rivetted to the tip of the nose (yoga attitude, see Mohenjo-Daro), masters the fields of the mind. This inner world-conquerer is the Buddha as conceived by the Gupta artists of the early fourth century.⁹⁴
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From this time onward almost all figures, whether of gods, men or women, assume a similar ‘in-look.’ Behind eyelids lowered as if behind inscrutable walls, they retire into the abyss and the serenity of the inner mind.
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Mathurā and Sārnāth
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Although Gupta sculpture to our present knowledge begins with the work of a craftsman from Mathurā, the leading craftsmen during the fifth century were working in Sārnāth. Nevertheless they had learnt their lessons from Mathurā, for impressive images had been exported from Mathurā to Sārnāth and other places from the first century A.D. onwards. Sārnāth images, which are to be ascribed to the third and fourth centuries, clearly betoken their indebtedness (Fig. 55). Yet then the Sārnāth version of Mathurā prototypes is subtler than the original⁹⁵ (see similarity of mission of Mathurā school in western and southern India, pp. 43, 46). In the fifth century its delicate touch became acknowledged even outside the confines of the school, and Mathurā itself adopted it to its own purposes.⁹⁶ In spite, however, of this mutual interchange, each school in the fifth century retains its well-defined features; that of Mathurā a certain harshness along with some motifs, such as, for instance, the ‘ribbed’ robe of the Buddha image; that of Sārnāth is of a finer grain in its subtlety of surface treatment and its utmost economy of all that is accessory to it.⁹⁷ Mathurā knows the discipline which leads towards (Fig. 54), Sārnāth renders in plastic terms the body itself of bliss (Fig. 62).
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Trend of Fifth and Sixth Century Sculpture
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While the first half of the fifth century still prefers a solidly built body and a stern mien bent upon inner conquest (Fig. 59),⁹⁸ after the middle of the century this conquest is taken for granted. The rounded countenance and fuller limbs contain an appearance of ease, resting for a while on its own perfection. In the second half of this century the limbs and body retain their roundness, but become elongated with an elegance aloof from worldly allurement. The head accordingly becomes relatively small, while the face, with ever more rounded features, is a receptacle of bliss.⁹⁹ This difference, compared with facial cast and expression of preceding images (p. 62), results from the slightest variations in angles and sizes of the features. These again depend upon the spiritual as well as the artistic capacity of the craftsman. At the end of the fifth century a perfection, unbearable almost in its flawlessness, is attained.¹⁰⁰ The sixth century endows the slender body with a highly-strung sensitiveness of modelling and outline, mollifying here, petrifying there, the entirely delicate surface of the image (Fig. 62). These changes in the appearance of the image are accompanied by more momentous changes of its formal qualities.
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In the beginning of the fifth century the modelling had been relatively hard, on the basis of the knowledge gained in the Kuṣāṇa period.¹⁰¹ The chest rigorously adhered to the surface (Fig. 59). This, together with breadth of shoulders, invested the images with an air of command. The outline was accurate and relatively halting. A gradual budding into the roundness of the plastic context, and a serene and uninterrupted flow of lines, are allied features of the later fifth century. An increase of plastic differentiation of the most discriminating economy and of the highest degree of sublimation belongs to the sixth century (Fig. 62).
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After the attempt to transcend the possibilities of the body (Veṅgī, second and third centuries), it is given a new measure beyond them, and within its transubstantiated form, in the fourth century. The speed of existence has slowed down. A sense of joy falls back upon itself, while it experiences what passes with an understanding that leads towards salvation. In self-willed relaxation, that which originally in nature had given the body its shape is released from the physical. Now it cannot but become transubstantiated form.
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At this moment of attainment, whatever the figures may do, play music, distribute alms, be worshipped or sport divinely (Garhwā relief, early fifth century, Figs. 56–58), they are being borne by a proud surrender. The group connections, so closely knit during previous centuries (p. 52), now tend to fall asunder. As there are but slight bonds of interest, activity or emotion between the figures, the unity of the group, with all that it implies in three dimensioned connectedness, gives way to a juxtaposition of the single figures, loosely gathered into fleeting nearness here, or arrested at wider intervals there.
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Nature, as visible parallel and accompaniment of man, had already begun to gradually disappear. Nature as a whole is taken into and expressed by a transfigured body. A garland of supra-personal figures, in cadences not outspoken and therefore the more suggestive, is gathered according to the subdued rhythm of the ever-recurrent though no longer visible lotus creeper. Not the motif but its rhythm is present, and has become further differentiated. If at this stage, in the quiet of life’s everlasting procession, two heads are turned towards each other or two hands are made to touch, such stray movements for ever settle down in its transitoriness. Now that all accompaniments have been eliminated, the flat surface of the relief-ground appears to exhale a fragrance that fatedly binds all form to its rhythmic pattern.
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This distils the toughness of the body, so to speak, to the purest plastic essence. It is caught at a definite stage of in-breathing, and, with breath suspended, the shoulders expand, support and uphold the rest of the seemingly weightless body.
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By the sixth century an attempt is made to free the body from the binding surface of the relief-ground. Hitherto, with breadth of shoulders and a posture parallel to the ground, the figure was its highest exponent (Figs. 54, 55, 59, although the latter is cast ‘in the round’). This is now made into the point of departure for a movement that passes vertically and arch-like from head to toe, with the highest curvature in the middle of the body.¹⁰² Hitherto, all the bhangas had been explored laterally, and, to some extent, together with the stances, in three dimensional aspects. Now altitude gains artistic significance, in the sense of an outward movement that lifts the figure across its own existence, and, though standing makes it appear to soar, while yet feet and head lie in the same vertical plane, closely bound to the ground and inseparably one with it (Fig. 62).
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Such transformation of appearance makes it free from the law of gravitation. What is heavy and yet appears weightless is the charming puzzle, and the sculptors of this age never get tired of repeating it in figures flying without wings (Figs. 60, 68, etc.), soaring pot-bellied Ganas, and urgent heavenly spirits cutting across the air, singly or in couples, on clouds that are the lining to an eternal dalliance. In the second and third centuries, dance had been the element in which the figures appeared at home. Now they are still further freed from all crude gravity, and their bodies are suspended in ‘mid-air’ and permanent bliss.
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The flying motif had been dear to Indian artists from the early classical phase. There, however, at times wings were required in the general ancient Asiatic fashion for showing the motif as one indicative of flight. Wingless, yet impetuously flying figures, display their arts on the walls of Orissān rock-cut caves and in Bhārhut. They cut through the air, propelled by their own power of levitation and direction (Fig. 37). Flight as an ultimate degree of movement the Veṅgī artists rendered with utmost zest (Fig. 51). Now zest and directedness return to their roots like the sap of a plant that has borne fruit. There it rests and supports, contained within the body, its seemingly weightless shape.
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Formation of Eastern and Western Schools
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The influence of Mathurā and Sārnāth made itself felt in eastern and in western India. The school of Sārnāth was appreciated in Bengal,¹⁰³ and reverberations of the Mathurā idiom can be felt as far as Sind.¹⁰⁴
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Irrespective, however, of this, local idioms persist in the east and others are being evolved in the west. The eastern school is even now conspicuous by its warm sensuousness (stucco figures from Maṇiyār Maṭha,¹⁰⁵ Rājgir; Sultāṅgañj-Buddha), with which it endows the sublimations of Sārnāth. With this there goes as far as narrative reliefs are concerned a fondness of embellishments that have their own capricious and curly way.¹⁰⁶ The nervy manner in which pointed finger-tips are bent slightly backwards, deeper shadows shown around the eyes, and lines that are more drawn from the nostrils to the mouth, add one more note, emotional and somewhat irritable (Fig. 59). But essentially the eastern school bases its idiosyncracies on the Sārnāth school. It lifts to its impersonal level the charm and the failings of humanity.
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In the west, however, that is, in the country from Gwālior westward, including Rājputāna, etc., stiffening clasps the legs from thighs downward, and, as if whipped by an alien discipline, they bend in sickle shape (Fig. 61). This strained movement becomes more and more prominent in the following centuries. What is responsible for it ‘mediæval sculpture’ ¹⁴¹ will show.
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Central India
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In central India a homelier and sturdier build had been inherited from the days of Sāñcī (see the figure of Bhūdevī in the Varāha avatāra relief, Udayagiri, the various river goddesses from Besnagar, Tigāwa, etc.).107 This tradition, upon which are bestowed achievements of Mathurā from the second century onward, and later on refinements from Sārnāth, gives the reliefs an antinomy of appeal, where spontaneous existence and wisdom of its transitoriness are blended in a plastic context (Figs. 60, 64). But this is also the case in the output of the workshops of Sārnāth, specially in their lesser productions, such as architectonic reliefs (cf. Kṣantivādin Jātaka lintel).108 Geographical demarcations, indispensable as they are, must not be drawn too rigidly.
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The process from the fifth to the sixth century gone through in Sārnāth has its counterpart in central India.109
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Relatively heavy in a spreading manner in the early fifth century, the rendering of the figures seems to shrink and to become more concentrated in height and roundness in the late fifth and early sixth centuries (Fig. 64). In central India this is done with a reserved kind of elegance.
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This terse plastic diction is soon to relax, and to sink back, by the end of the sixth century (Fig. 60), into a broadly spreading form, still activated and polished in outline and bearing of the figures, until shortly afterwards a heaviness like that of profound sleep lays all the figures at rest in it, while their hardened outlines keep them confined each to its shape (Fig. 65).
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It is in central India, too, that in a rock-cut relief, like that of the Varāha avatāra scene in Udayagiri, forces more vital and at the same time more ancient and deep rise into gigantic appearance (Fig. 63).
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What had mattered in the Indra and specially in the Sūrya relief at Bhājā (p. 36) has now reached its zenith. Cosmic myths are wrested from the stone in a language of pure plastic form. Upheavals of the sun, water and earth coagulate into compositions for which there is no man-made law. Primevally organic in its animal-human appearance, Viṣṇu-Varāha rises from the waters; the latter, however, are but a regularly incised pattern of parallel wavy lines, unruffled by the mythical event. The rising and penetrating of the lingering, heavy, yet commanding mass of Viṣṇu betrays no effort in carrying out its mission of rescuing the earth-goddess. This body, from its elephantine legs and arms, gathers the dignity of cosmic confidence in human shoulders and boar's head.
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The convolutions of the Nāga, worshipping in the security of its swelling hood and curling out of it, make the pedestal of the rising Viṣṇu, who lifts and carries with him goddess, garland and lotus stalk, all serpentine in roundness and movement. The undifferentiated state of formlessness seems just left behind. It still clings to the figure of the Varāha avatāra, and paradoxically completes the power of the composition.
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This early fifth century rock-cut relief, in its peculiar vitality, is just an outpost in central India. That other contemporary reliefs cut into the same rock of Udayagiri, and that the figure of Bhūdevī are of the average type of central Indian scuplture, is beyond the point. The Varāha relief, in its tough and slow plasticity, heaving with the very breath of creative earth, belongs to the same mentality which had been at work in Bhājā, and now marks the rock with the more differentiated impress of a later age. While currents from Sārnāth, etc., touched upon the sculpture of central India, the connectedness with the tradition of the Dekkhan matters more at this phase.
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Dekkhan
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In the Dekkhan the few reliefs of the fifth century (Lāḍ Khān temple, Aihole)¹¹⁰ are neither in quality nor in quantity substantial enough to admit conclusions. In the sixth century, however, temples, images and rock-cut caves afford scope for truly aboriginal sculptures.
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A colossal stele, for instance, of a Śivaitic image (Fig. 66) from Parel, Bombay, makes the god, in his threefold presence, appear with a gesture of manifestation and rise above himself with a gesture of collection, and advance further above himself with a plenitude of arms, while the entire high column—liṅgam of his threefold unity—radiates forth multiples of his likeness, repercussions of his existence, repetitions of his gestures, all the while all of them leaning back against one more and still one more manifestation, supported by, and rising from an inexhaustible supply, all the while all of them steeped in deepest absorption, drowned within themselves and flooded by their strength that moulds their bodies with the deep breath that life draws before it gives birth and before it dies.
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The squat dwarfs at the bottom make the music to the silence of the image.
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What had sustained the bodies of the figures at Kārli (Fig. 44) yields now, rarified, the intensity of the image from Parel. That welling up from the deep has now recourse to its own movement. It is led backwards by it and sinks into the bottom from which it has arisen.
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The reliefs of the four caves of Bādāmi, too, are of essential importance. When calling to mind the suavity of Sārnāth sculpture, grave weight of subterranean forces seems gathered in the looming inertia of their full and heavy forms. In Gupta sculpture of the sixth century absorption and bliss of the mind had transmuted the appearance of face and body to a calm that was unearthly yet tender. In the Dekkhan, however, that absorption is not of the mind only, and there is no bliss. The whole being seems to lean back and to sink deeper and deeper into its origin and destiny, where all is so silent that the pulsing of the blood roars against the limits of the body like breaking sea-waves (see Kārli, p. 43). This sinking back into the un-formed, yet ever-balanced in its tension, is a state of the most condensed energies. They may appear as if seized by drowsiness; though now pent-up in a sort of self-intoxication, they are ready to break out any moment into powerful gestures and divine fury (Fig. 67, also Viṣṇu on Ananta, cave iii, and Trivikrama relief, cave ii).¹¹¹
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Technically of coarse grain, these Trivikrama reliefs place the large-shaped figures into panels not too deeply sunk and just big enough to accommodate the dynamic dimension of the main figure. The panel or recess does not encase the figure in conformity with its actual extension. The main figure, i.e. that of the god, may be placed asymmetrically to one side of the panel, and the space left at the other side, or on top, is filled with minor figures in such a manner that the movement of the divinity in its power has scope to extend beyond its limbs.
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There it encompasses the accompanying figures. These do not carry it any further, nor do they even share in it; on the contrary, whatever be their own actions and movements that while unaffected by it, happen within it, they are wrapt round by it and it is there that they abide.
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The weightiness of the main figures is made conspicuous by heavy and very high and cylindrical crowns. While by their height they seemingly elongate the verticalism of the figures, by their weight, however, they press down upon their actual height, so that they appear burdened with the dignity they have to support. By this counter-movement of the ascending growth of the figure and of the descending crush of the crown, tense and unrelieved energies accumulate within the bodies. Nothing could be less familiar to contemporary sculpture from Sārnāth, where slight heads are lightly carried on plant-like and swaying bodies.
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This dynamism, latent within the heavy mass of the body, is not compatible with Buddhist notions. But Indian sculpture has at all times essentially carried out its own inherent trends, and only secondarily put them into the service of religion. These may coincide, as in the Brāhmanical rock-cut sculptures of the Dekkhan, or in the Buddhist images from Sārnāth (but see p. 62 with regard to the lateness of artistic formulation of Buddhahood). It does not, however, tally in the Buddhist rock-carved reliefs of the sixth century in the Dekkhan.¹¹² Ajaṇṭā, although with a more sensitive treatment of the plastic surface, stands nearest to the work of Bādāmī, where divinities and figures not exclusively Buddhistic are carved (Fig. 70). But numberless reliefs of the Buddha, seated or standing (Fig. 68), and of other divinities, pass through a lost cause, swelled from within by energies that serve no purpose in remaining there. The form that is their outcome, for all its weightiness, is feeble and seems to collapse (Fig. 68) or else to stiffen (Kaṇheri, cave lxvi) under its own burden.
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Later on the rock-cut reliefs of Nāsik, cave xvii, on the other hand, give to Buddhist sculpture in the Dekkhan of the eighth century a subtlety to which only this age dares to aspire (Fig. 69). While the entire appearance of the figures is thinned and stretched, the purity of their outlines is disciplined by its own sway.
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To come back to the sixth century, the carved slabs from Aihoḷe,¹¹³ while in some respects closely related to the Bādāmī reliefs, stand midway between contemporary Gupta sculpture and that—although hitherto scarcely known—of the south; the high attainment at this phase of classical sculpture lifts even the lesser work to its own level. (Ceiling slab of Viṣṇu, flying couples on two slabs, etc.)¹¹⁴
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The achievement of the fifth and sixth centuries lies in the perfection of visualizing transubstantiated form on the basis of a knowledge that during the past centuries had derived its strength and increased its technical facilities by its inherent kinship with, and interpretation of, nature. Within the high level that prevails throughout India, Āryāvarta under the Guptas gives the subtlest expression of yoga and of stages towards the goal attainable through it in plastic terms; whereas the Dekkhan, with its weightier sculptures, conjures into form potentialities and powers that carry with them the knowledge how to withdraw into their origins. Gupta sculpture is an efflorescence in serenity, but in the sculpture of the Dekkhan deeper and darker forces stir. What follows in the seventh century in Āryāvarta are but the remnants of the feast, and these are touched by irradiations from the Dekkhan; whereas the seventh and the eighth centuries in the Dekkhan fulfil the trend of the sixth century.
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Between these geographical and ultimately ethnical definitions in the main provinces of classical sculpture of this phase, it is specially in central India that the past comes up to the high mark of achievement. Connected with either of them, essential characteristics remain the same in Sāñcī (p. 30), in the sculptures of the temples in Nāchnā Kuṭhārā¹¹⁵ and later on in the ‘middle ages.’
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Apart from the many sculptures in stone or metal, the terra-cotta reliefs (Bhītārgāon, Chausa, etc.),¹¹⁶ of which species there must have been numberless examples, deserve a passing remark. An acute sense of frolicsome freedom, and of vigorous action reveals the Indian artist from yet another side. May be that the more perishable material was welcome to him for the rendering of moods that do not claim to be permanent; but there is no essential difference in the plastic treatment.
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Vegetative and Abstract Motifs
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A synthesis of the fabric of classical Indian sculpture would not be complete without a discussion of the part played in it by vegetative motifs and abstract devices. It has already been pointed out (p. 54) that motifs of vegetation have more or less withdrawn from the figured scenes; they are separated from them and relegated to borders or to panels exclusively replete with them. The latter may be seen in the Dhāmek stūpa (sixth century)¹¹⁷ of Sārnāth, endowed with all the rich resoruces of Gupta craftsmanship (Fig. 107). The round modelling of stalk, etc., according to early classical tradition, and the oblique cut of the scroll as it appeared in Mathurā and Amarāvatī combine. But their prolific and vital wealth are set next to other panels, neatly kept apart within their own confines. There is, however, no vegetative exuberance there. Purely geometrical patterns, all based on the svastika motif, in endless repetitions and manifold combinations, fill the given space in patterns of light and darkness, like woven fabrics, cut with flat and angular surfaces into the stone. Such purely abstract motifs had been rare hitherto. Bhārhut contains only one roundel¹¹⁸ filled in similar fashion, and in Gandhāra the ‘chessboard pattern,’ etc., had further opportunities. Apart from these sparse instances, however, the purely geometrical device found but little response within classical Indian art (plinth of monastery, No. II, Nālandā,¹¹⁹ and svastika reliefs from Bādāmī).¹²⁰ The reason for this lies in tendencies that determine Indian art in the centuries to come; the ornamentation of the Dhāmek stūpa is partly a survival of ancient motifs (see Mohenjo-Daro for vegetative rhythm as well as svastika motif)¹²¹ and partly a precursor of a northernisation of Indian art. This inaugurates ‘mediæval sculpture.’
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But before this found expression, states of supra-personal existence, i.e. of the inner life, were given form with the help of the transmuted human body.
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In the transubstantiated body the urge of the un-formed towards form has proceeded one step further. This does not lead beyond the body (p. 53). In its twofold possibilities, as rhythmical and time-born or momentary and all-embracing, it is timelessly at rest within the body, through the fullness of movement which it integrates.
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This is attained through a complete mastery of the functioning of consciousness (Mathurā) and is suggested as bliss (Sārnāth). It is attained by the immersion of consciousness into the nameless sources and balance of life, and is suggested as dormant power (Bādāmī and Parel), ready for manifestation.
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These two alternatives are the same that inhere in plastic form in the early classical phase (p. 37). Only the levels differ and the points from where they are reached. Unconsciously creative, within the plasticity of the former the same experience is now gone through within the consciousness of the inner life.
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Integrally part of nature, and on the way of becoming artistic form, it has to halt before its ultimate goal, which is formless and limitless. There all the means of expression are insufficient, words as well as form. But in order to show that the direction towards the ultimate goal lies within the living body, the craftsman transubstantiates it in art, so that it becomes the visible vāhana, the unmistakable conveyance, towards, and it also may be said as well as of, the form—and limitless.
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This now finds intense utterance in a medium whose diction from that early phase has been equipped for the task, and has refined its means in the process of centuries.
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Summary
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1. Character of form: Transubstantiation of the human body. Rarified plastic and naturalistic modelling.
2. Geography: Most marked contributions from Āryāvarta and Dekkhan. Rise of eastern and western idioms. Continuity of central Indian diction.
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3. Chronology: Form equivalent to movement of the inner life and to modes of universal consciousness; substratum: the human body.
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4. Inner meaning: Plastic form establishes the balance between the urge of the un-formed and the experience of the formless = the limitless.
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3
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TRANSUBSTANTIATION
B. Fulfilment
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So lavish had been the efflorescence of Gupta sculpture that for some time to come a large part of Āryāvarta remained spell-bound by its qualities. During the subsequent century (the seventh)¹²² the artists dwelt on the achievements of the past. A brooding heaviness possesses all form; yet it has none of the latent dynamism of contemporary and earlier Dekkhanī sculpture. What actually was added in Āryāvarta at this period is a coarsening of the plastic texture, and the tendency to formularise the tradition of the Gupta period. All the avenues of classical sculpture seem explored, and the only solace of these generations is to drag their heavy tread across paths that once had been in flower.
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The Sārnāth school, now exhausted from centuries of its highest conception and continuous creation, lingers in reminiscences of the past.¹²³ On broader, and therefore securer, foundations than the exalted refinement of Sārnāth genius, the central Indian artists impart the leavings of Gupta art with the now frequently inevitable Dekkhanī flavour¹²⁴ (Fig. 65).
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In the eastern school at this time the Gupta style of the sixth century is still alive in a provincial manner. Some reliefs from Pahārpur¹²⁵ and other sites in this respect connect Gupta sculpture and the Pāla and Sena school of eastern India (pp. 67, 111). But of deeper artistic significance, though not of greater consequence, are other panels at Pahārpur. They have to be assigned to a genuinely local and popular eastern tradition of immediate power and purposeful rhythms (Fig. 80). This, in the subsequent Pāla and Sena schools, is given but little scope. It survives up to the nineteenth century in Bengal scroll paintings and on painted book covers.
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Another provincial modification of the Gupta tradition, but more in the central Indian than the Sārnāth version, is offered by the wooden reliefs of the temple at Brahmor (Cambā, about A.D. 700).¹²⁶ Of about the same age, yet already ‘mediæval’ formally, are some large metal images from Cambā (p. 117).
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In the eighth century the heaviness is overcome by linear discipline. The outline firmly grips a modelling that has tightened. Its generalisations come near the ‘mediæval’ phase of Indian plastic art. The transitions from the classical to the mediæval are gradual. In Bihār (Nālandā, Fig. 81), in Bengal, in Orissā (Utkala, Fig. 83), in the Central Provinces (Sirpur)¹²⁷ and in south India (Kailāsanātha temple, Kāñcīpuram), this phase is equally conspicuous.
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South India: Māmallapuram
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While Āryāvarta, as far as sculptures go, had been largely seized by torpor, in the south the rocks were carved at Māmallapuram in the middle of the seventh century under the Pallavas. What preceded them in the beginning of that century is of little consequence. It only shows that the slender figures of the Veṅgī school had become aggrandised and simplified, but were at the same time subjected to the heavy impress of the Dekkhanī form (rock-cut reliefs at Bhairavakoṇḍa, etc.).¹²⁸
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Most conspicuous amongst the Māmallapuram reliefs is that of the Gaṅgā (part view, Fig. 71). Here the rock itself becomes material as well as theme. A cosmical event is visualised on a large scale, transcending shape and size of any regular frame. Such a composition is truly inspired by the rock, its quality and secret. The neat rectangles, roundels and other simple frames, such as were suggested by architecture or the necessities of any craft, appear slight and man-made if held against the mass of the rock that allows itself to be organised into relief. The idea is not new. Bhājā furnished the first example; Udayagiri, with its Varāha avatāra, had been the grandest attempt; while the Gaṅgā-relief of Māmallapuram is the completest. The unlimited conception of the relief had been transferred even to the walls of a structural temple, with little success, as can be understood.129
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Most of the other rock-cut reliefs of Māmallapuram are architectonic in their structure.130 Whether they represent Viṣṇuitic myths and Śivaitic divinities or the royalty, the rectangular frame is the keynote of the composition. Where single figures are made to fill sunk panels on the rathas (rock-cut temples), their extraordinary height is one with that of the shafts of the pilasters that flank those panels (Figs. 72, 73). But not only is the remarkable elongation of the figures in keeping with architectonic devices. Their postures, too, whatever bend the body may assume, have none of the swaying softness of Āryāvarta figures. The vertical direction remains predominant, and bases its slimness on the shallow curves which cling to the tall limbs and make them smooth. High and invariably pointed crowns, of many shapes, further enhance the verticalism of the figures. (Contrast Bādāmī, p. 71.) The body in its simplified appearance is but a richer pillar-shape itself. If this is the relation of the single figure, or the pair of figures, to their architectonic frame, the result in this peculiar appearance of the figures is maintained where they belong to a composition, such as that of a myth or of a representative scene, even where it is not part of a supposedly architectonic context (Fig. 74).
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While the full slenderness of the Veṅgī type persists as far as proportion goes, its ripe sensuousness is lost, for its peculiar modelling has dwindled away as if it had been ironed. A simplified appearance results, so that the arms or legs, when stretched, are column-like. Yet these limbs, when bent, have all the pliability a Veṅgī artist could have endowed them with. This simplification, though it reduces the sensuous appeal of appearance, conduces, on the other hand, to such possibilities as are now sought after (see p. 54). There is a keen vigour and resolve in the movement of the limbs that have divine energy for their motif power (Fig. 71). Instead of the languorous relaxation of the Veṅgī figures, those of Māmallapuram, on the other hand, persevere, under all circumstances, in carrying their bodies according to a destined measure.
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With this attitude the physique of the figures is also somewhat different, not so much in the case of the male as of the female figures. The male figure, with elongated torso, is supported by long legs, its broad shoulders are still conspicuous. (See Veṅgī, p. 49.) But otherwise the form has become superhuman, with its slim waist and without any allusion to the nervy modelling of the broad chest of the Veṅgī type (Figs. 71, 73). The shoulders and chest of the female figures, moreover, have become narrow, and the breasts small. When standing, their bodies rest submissively, and in a curve almost concave on firm hips. In keeping with this comparative slightness is a sparing use of jewellery and apparel (Figs. 73, 74). These, in fact, in the case of woman, are reduced to a minimum. Yet the crowns they wear are as variegated and elaborate as of the male figures (Figs. 71, 73). In their case, loin-cloths, girdles and scarves are simplified to narrow and flat bands or pads. When the figures, according to their inscriptions, are intended to be portraits, and even portraits of royalty,¹³¹ nothing shows this except a greater ease of attitudes than in the case of the figures of gods. The long oval of the face remains unaltered in cast and expression. The eyes, as the case may be, look with defiant frankness or modestly at the world. But when suggestive of a meditative mood they are just half-closed or else fully-closed. But they never look inward (Figs. 71–74; see, however, p. 63).
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No subtleties of inner experience are reflected in any of them. Gods and mortals, men, women and animals, young and old are of a disciplined strength and cultured aloofness. All of them are exclusively aristocratic. While the figures themselves are not shown as going through any spiritual experience, the manner in which they are shaped as well as related comes from a spiritual experience of the artist.
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Although the figures are carved on a flat ground, its surface is not intended to act as such. Some of them seem to pierce through it as if it were a thin membrane, and to emerge from behind the surface into the light of day (Fig. 74). So brimful is the mass of the un-formed rock with life and figures that it cannot contain them. They burst its surface, and the scene of the relief appears pushed forth by the un-bounded mass, ceaselessly productive, of which the body of mother earth is built. Out of and in front of it myths are formed, avatāras appear, and human figures are meant to be portraits.
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