Indian Sculpture c5.s3.t1.20

c5.s3.t1.20

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.