Indian Sculpture c6.s7.t2: (B) Haihaya Sculpture
Indian Sculpture c6.s7.t2
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(B) Haihaya Sculpture
c6.s7.t2.1
The Haihaya school¹⁵⁴ gives to all its products a familiar stamp. At the very outset, i.e. in the tenth century (Fig. 95), in its heavily crowded composition it shows itself to be an up-to-date issue of one more immortal trend of Indian sculpture that had reached a climax in the early classical age in Sāñcī. What had been exuberant has now become cumbersome. Yet it applies what is left with zest, in the crowding of details of form roundly—yet by no means richly—modelled in very high relief, and appears in the tenth century in advance of what was the twelfth century phase elsewhere, with its crowded detail, and nothing but detail. While in the Candela school the fundamental forces of Indian plasticity are still active, and overcome new obstacles by approved methods, the Haihaya craftsmen allow novel problems to sink into old forms. Creativeness and absorbing receptiveness are the twofold aspects of mediæval sculpture in central India.
c6.s7.t2.2
To enter in detail into the structure and psychology of each artistic province is a task beyond the limits of a general outline. Yet salient features of each have to be pointed out, so that the living and connected expression of the mediæval artistic physiognomy may be understood.