Indian Sculpture c5.s3.t1.36

c5.s3.t1.36

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.