Indian Sculpture c6.s9.t1: Fountain Stones of Cambā

c6.s9.t1.1

The earliest and simplest of these fountain stones could be ancestors of the roundels of Bhārhut, although what is preserved of them does not ante-date the eleventh century. Plain lotus discs are set into squares.¹⁶¹ (See also early ceiling paintings, cave ix, Ajaṇṭā.) This non-iconic art, however, harbours variegated devices, amongst which the intertwined band of serpent-origin is of considerable interest. The treatment given to figures, when interwoven with the abstract patterns, is on similar lines to the treatment of the figures in Sāñcī, ground balustrade of stūpa II (p. 27). The predilection for the pattern, with human and other figures—if at all—subservient to it, is preserved in the fountain stones of Cambā even at this late phase, with the conservatism of the hills (Fig. 106).