Indian Sculpture c5.s3.t1.49

c5.s3.t1.49

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.