Indian Sculpture c5.s3.t1.32

c5.s3.t1.32

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.