Indian Sculpture c5.s3.t2.18

c5.s3.t2.18

An emaciated human body or the figure of a mimicking animal is employed amidst hosts of joyous beings in the Gaṅgā-composition (figures of Bhagīratha; cat and mice).134 In these reliefs and to an aristocratic simplicity, everything appears obvious and light. Although cut out of the rock, the reliefs are either on the surface of the rock or in caves not deep, and therefore not dark enough to give them the effect of the sculptures of the contemporary caves at Ellora, Dekkhan, for instance (p. 83). Here rules a paradox of high tension: everything is clear and definite in front, and comes out of the boundlessness of mass, itself formless, yet containing and brimful with the possibilities of form.