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Indian Sculpture c8: Chapter V. Explanation of Plates

Indian Sculpture c8

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Chapter V. Explanation of Plates

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The *Siddhānta-śiromaṇi* of Bhāskarācārya, which is the most famous of all Indian astronomical works, was written in the year 1150 A.D. It is divided into four parts: (1) *Līlāvatī* (Arithmetic), (2) *Bījagaṇita* (Algebra), (3) *Grahagaṇitādhyāya* (Mathematics of the Planets), and (4) *Golādhyāya* (Spherics). The *Līlāvatī* and *Bījagaṇita* are often treated as separate works. The *Grahagaṇitādhyāya* and *Golādhyāya* together constitute the *Siddhānta-śiromaṇi* proper.

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The *Siddhānta-śiromaṇi* is a work of great merit. It is written in a clear and concise style, and it contains a wealth of information on Indian astronomy and mathematics. Bhāskarācārya was a master of his subject, and his work has had a profound influence on the development of Indian astronomy.

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The *Siddhānta-śiromaṇi* is not only a work of great scientific value, but it is also a work of great literary beauty. Bhāskarācārya's verses are often elegant and poetic, and he frequently uses metaphors and similes to explain complex astronomical concepts.

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The *Siddhānta-śiromaṇi* has been translated into many languages, and it continues to be studied by scholars all over the world. It is a testament to the genius of Bhāskarācārya and to the rich tradition of Indian astronomy.

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PLATE I

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1. TORSO of a statuette of red stone, Harappa. Third or fourth stratum. Back view. The obvious naturalism of the statuette, specially in this view, has a tough quality : it comprises the entire volume of the figure and makes it appear as if consistently kneaded. The vivacity of the plastic touch nowhere subsides, and the outline with its rich curves shows how the body is understood as a volume modelled throughout, in every tangible dimension of its surface, without the least constraint. Back, front and side view appear as if welded into one another dynamically through the pent up vigour in the surging of each curve. Although the body does not appear to be engaged in any activity, its force is rendered by the craftsman through the innervation of the surging flesh.

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The latter has a tendency towards obesity, specially in front and side views. It seems to anticipate the notion of the ‘Eater’¹⁶⁷ who embodies plenty and power; the Yakṣas and Yakṣīs of later date (Fig. 2) carry on this notion.

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The type persisted, not only in Mauryan art but as a physique compulsory for such divinities, where the power of producing and creative activity had to be shown, as in the images of Brahmā, Agni and in narrower aspects in such figures as those of Pāñcika, Jambhala and Gaṇeśa, definitely connected with plenty and physical welfare.¹⁶⁸

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Vigorous heaviness makes this statuette appear as if of large size. The smooth finish of the surface adds ripeness. The front view is treated more conventionally. Long standing practice masters with ease a knowledge of form which it takes for granted.

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No Hellenistic feature is to be seen in this. The detailed descriptiveness, without innervation, of a physique with over-developed muscles in Hellenistic art, and also in its provincial version in Gandhāra, is of a different order. The affinities of the torso from Harappa with Greek sculpture are more tangible in early Greek art.

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Both the traditions proceeded from one root.

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2. Yakṣa statue from Patna. Late third century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta. Part of side view. The heaviness of this statue is but little innervated. The scarf on the back accentuates its rigidity. While it emphasises by contrast the surging roundness of arm, breast and abdomen, it detracts from, and at the back it actually stops, the tendency to model in the round. The colossal and round forms of arm, breast, etc., moreover, are smooth and lifeless in their polished inertia. The conflict of rounded volume and flat surface, the complex relation of garment and ornaments to the body, are now of greater interest to the craftsman than the treatment of the body itself.

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Attempts at adjusting the treatment of the garment to that of the body are twofold. Where the latter does not cling to the body it is given a volume of its own; otherwise it is invisible, but for the parallel ridges of ‘folds.’ These occur again in the treatment of the robe of the Buddha, in the Kuṣāṇa period, Mathurā.¹⁶⁹ Prototypes from Gandhāra or Bāmiyān need not be sought for this. In eastern India, a related treatment of the garment is valid in Pāla and Sena sculptures.¹⁷⁰

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To gather up the garment into a volume of its own was an experiment specially adopted by the Kuṣāṇa school of Mathurā. Its possibilities were explored as volume in counter-play to that of the body. But after the second century A.D. no further use is made of this treatment.

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3. Torso of a statuette of grey slate, Harappa; fourth or fifth stratum.¹⁷¹ This is more summary in treatment than the red stone statuette. The slender body, with a rounded and screwing suppleness of the three-dimensional movement around the vertical axis, is suggestive of images of the dancing Śiva. The male-female ambiguity, moreover, of the entire physique has an equivalent in the tāntric knowledge of the female element within the male, and anticipates such visualisation as Ardhanārīśvara—Śiva, half male, half female along the vertical axis—and Umāliṅganamūrti, a hypostasis of the female principle. Umā and Maheśvara, i.e. Śiva, constitute the latter and unfolded type of the image of Śiva. The thick neck, with holes screwed in (but such a hole is also in the raised leg), makes it probable that the figure had two or more heads. The red torso has a certain sleekness of treatment; the slate torso is decadent in its purposeful contortion.

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4. Bronze figurine of a dancing girl, Mohenjo-Daro.¹⁷² The pleasure of drawing out the metal into long or winding wires gives their peculiar shape to arms, bangles and head-dress. With this technical imagination is combined a naturalism of modelling, as in the case of the stone figures. It is conspicuous in the treatment of back and legs by an alertness of force and refinement. The heavy bangles all along the left arm and the spiral of the coils of hair weigh upon the figure and seem to drag it forward. They make the more provocative the tilt in the hip joint. With such an attitude the Yakṣī from Dīdargañj¹⁷³ (Fig. 25) is also acquainted, and in metal images from south India the conventional posture of Lakṣmī, Pārvatī and other consorts of gods is based on the same suggestiveness (Fig. 116).

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A three-dimensional perception attempts to fill space, i.e.

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to produce volume by the impetus of movement. It amounts to the same whether this volume is replenished with mass (of the stone in the red torso, Fig. 1, for instance) or whether dynamic directions energise it and make it concrete.

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PLATE II

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5. A sealing from Harappa. Sacred tree with enclosure round bottom.¹⁷⁴ The sinuosity of the stem is peculiar to all the trees on sealings, irrespective of the species they represent.¹⁷⁵

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6. Seal with figure of bull, from Mohenjo-Daro. Palæolithic naturalism is sublimated into a modelling where concave and convex surfaces are of equal value, and where an edge-sharp line acts not only as highest plastic accent (parallels across back) or precise contour, but itself is endowed with sensitiveness (see the horns and the fan-like treatment of the dewlap).

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7. Sacred tree-arch, Mohenjo-Daro. Surrounds a figure of uncertain sex, in combined profile and front view. Leaf device on skull of figure. The vegetation-arch, with sides doubly curved, rests on a horizontal ground line. Ornamentalised leaves, marked by a raised outline, start directly from the arch, in a manner in which later flame devices spring from the prabhāmaṇḍala that surrounds the images of gods.¹⁷⁶ One component of the prabhāmaṇḍala, it thus appears, is the arch of vegetative origin and meaning. (See pp. 167, 170.)

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8. An ‘epiphany of a tree divinity.’ Mohenjo-Daro. Major scene in upper, minor scene in lower row.¹⁷⁷ Prominent are the combined figure of the animal, and the tree with its figure. The tree-arch in this case is closed at the bottom, where it issues from an elliptical shape. The leaves are set on long and centrifugal stalks. The figure inside the tree is crowned with a horn triśūla, and combines the animalic and the vegetative by its position in between them. It is faced by the combined animal and by another superhuman figure, the latter in an attitude of invocation and crowned with horns and by a leafy twig in the centre. The row of smaller figures below, of indistinct sex—as are also the main figures—officiate in the scene, clad in garments with slanting hem line, each with a twig on the head and with a sameness of posture. Their hollow-eyed faces appear to be masks, similar to the physiognomy of the mother-goddess.178 In this seal, as in others, though partly defaced in this case, pictographs have no mean share.

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). Fragment of a seal from Mohenjo-Daro. Tree, female divinity and combined animal.179 No fight and no hero are shown on this seal, but a tree with feathery twigs, a female figure, powerfully modelled (abdomen and thighs), with horns, hoofed legs and a long tail, and a combined animal with feathery horns. The tree bends towards the superhuman figure; the latter repeats and accentuates its movement, while with one arm she takes hold of the animal, which in its turn—furthermost outpost and strongest flexion of the same movement—by rising on the hind legs and turning back its head, concludes the composition. The powerful naturalism of the female figure is akin to that of the red statuette from Harappa (Fig. 1).

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10. Bull; crowning figure, in the round, on capital of pillar from Rāmpurvā (Tirhūt). 244 B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta.

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A smooth treatment, polished not only in the technical respect, models summarily the fleshy bulk, which has a temperate and almost vegetative animalism. The tendency to sum up the modelled volume, accompanied by a relatively flowing contour, matter more than vestiges of innervation, in the rendering of the hind-quarters.

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PLATE III

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11. Sorrowing woman. About 200 B.C. Sārnāth Museum. Fragment of an arch, with lotus, woman and portion of a funeral pyre. These are treated as plastic units by the side of each other. The summary modelling, however, gives way to delicate modulations in the profile of the nude body. In its plastic and linear expressiveness, the work stands between the treatment of the Mauryan Yakṣas and that of Śuṅga sculpture in Bhārhut, sharing characteristics of both. Qualitatively it is above either, a lingering caress of tactile subtlety, that apprehends the surging and receding of the modelled stone, as youth that buds forth into the self-created limit of an emotion, which knows of no outside and comprises the whole existence like sleep itself. In this way intense emotion leads into pure intensity, which has absorbed the particular emotion. No face need be shown, where the breathing body and the large and smooth lotus bud co-exist as plastic values, but with a different degree of animation.

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12. Male head of burnt grey clay from Mathurā. Early second century B.C. Private collection.

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13. Head of female figurine from Bulandhi Bagh, Patna.¹⁸⁰ Third century B.C. Patna Museum.

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14. Griffin, half roundel on post of railing of stūpa II, Sāñcī. Second century B.C.

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The flat relief with a minimum of modelling lays stress on a sharp and energetical linear movement. Its impulse produces the peculiar shape of the animal; the circular turn of the neck, for instance, conditions the curve of the beak in order to fulfil itself; this again provokes corresponding counter movements, such as those of the lower jaw, mane and horns, and their balance in the line of tail and hind leg. This intent linearism has its roots elsewhere than those of ancient Indian sculpture. It is of northern, i.e. Āryan, lineage. The sorrowing woman (Fig. 11), however, is an amalgam of the two heterogeneous trends.

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PLATE IV

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15. ‘The woman, Āsāḍhā, the jackals in a funeral ground (her) kinsman.’181 Part of inside frieze of coping stone, railing of stūpa of Bhārhut. Second half, second century A.D. Indian Museum, Calcutta. Framed by battlement and lotus border on the top, and by a bead chain with bells at the bottom, an undulating lotus stalk carries jewellery and supports the scene. Its movement is freely repeated by the branches of the tree into which the female figure is fitted. Oversecting and foreshortening are employed, but are kept in check by a clear disposition of the surface and its linear connectedness.

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16. Roundel from railing post with Jetavana Jātaka, Bhārhut. Second half, second century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta. In this exhaustive and continuous narration, the main figure, the Buddha, is not shown at all.

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17. The Nāga king Erāpata worships the Buddha. Panel of Prasenajit pillar, Bhārhut. Second half, second century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta. The Nāga king, accompanied by his queens and retinue, is shown in the water, which extends on either side of the road, and again kneeling before the altar of the Buddha, underneath the tree. Fettered gestures, elaborate narration.

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18. Sacred tree. On railing post at Bodhgayā. First half, first century B.C. Garlands are suspended on bars on either side, and also hang from sunshades. This relief may be considered a paradigm of devices of interrelation of the objects, as used in early classical art (p. 20).

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19. Jetavana Jātaka, on railing post, Bodhgayā. First half, first century B.C. No continuous narration; only one phase is represented, i.e. a man brings a basket with golden coins, and the ground is being paved with them. But even this scene is not shown distinctly, the square golden coins (niṣka), clearly marked in Bhārhut (Fig. 16), appear here as irregular paving stones. Neither an inscription (Bhārhut) nor the way the story is shown aim at intelligibility of the subject matter. Its knowledge is taken for granted, and the artistic interest is concentrated on a well-balanced composition, of which the expansive and elegant movements of the figures are part.

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20. Same scene as in Fig. 17, on railing pillar, Bodhgayā. First half, first century B.C. The explicitly elaborated scene has dwindled down, and is substituted by a battlemented wall. Its arch-like recess, a compositional factor only, encompasses the easy flow of the kneeling and bowing attitude of Erāpata; no Nāga hood is shown to characterise him as their king; but a flying Kinnara with garland is added, a figure which is not specially connected with the scene. The subject matter is a pretext for experiments in linear and surface composition, just as Fig. 18 demonstrates systematically the manner of showing the reference of objects to each other.

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PLATE V

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21. Roundel from stūpa of Bhārhut. Second half, second century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta. Dream of Māyā Devī. The queen dreams of the Buddha to be born, who, flying through the air as a white elephant, is to enter her body. The relief shows the sleeping queen on her bed, three female attendants, the flying Buddha elephant, a lamp and a water-kettle. Conspicuous is the relative approximation of sizes of the various figures and objects. The situation furthermore is clearly indicated; that it is night is shown by the burning lamp, that the whole happens in a dream, by the drowsy maiden in front. The bed tilted, with its surface into that of the relief, the substitution of above for behind (sitting girls in back view and bed, etc.), the linear rhythm, which so closely connects the Buddha to be born with his future mother, the parallel and continuous rhythm of his legs and her arms, the neat distribution on the flat ground of sparsely modelled figures which are well fitted into the frame, all these are characteristic features of the major part of the work Bhārhut.

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22. The descent of Buddha from the heaven of the thirty-three gods. Panel from Ajātaśatru pillar, Bhārhut. Second half, second century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta.

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The triple ladder is marked with a footprint of the Buddha on its topmost and its lowermost rung. Flying celestial spirits hurl themselves or hover parallel to the ground. Worshipping figures stand closely packed in superimposed rows. The symbolic integrity of the combined device of altar or seat, strewn with flowers, of the umbrella and the sacred tree (see also Fig. 17),¹⁸² oversects the ladder and indicates that the footprints, paradoxically torn asunder in action, are meant to symbolise the descent itself as a whole. It is given lasting importance.

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The densely packed composition is devoid of the flowing and free linear rhythm of the other reliefs (Figs. 15–17, 21, 24). Hard and contiguous, like buttons stitched on a pasteboard, the single figures are disciplined by the horizontal and vertical schematism of the frame. While they submit to it, they are loaded with an energy, which in this particular panel is focussed on the right side, from where it urges upward as well as downward, along the upper and lowermost rows of heads, threatening to disrupt the seemingly static quiet of the scene.

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The same scene is represented in Sāñcī, on the right pillar of the North gate.¹⁸³ There tree and throne appear at the top as well as on the bottom of the ladder.

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23. The Dream of Māyā Devī, portion of pillar relief, East gate, Sāñcī. Second half, first century B.C. Māyā sleeps in the open and on the second floor of the palace. The surface of the bed is less tilted than in Fig. 21, and the body of the queen, with oversecting limbs, is given a full volume. She is surrounded by a railing in front, a fortified turret on the left, and a rooflet above, treated as a small house, with a railing.184 On its left corner a parrot is perched, on top to the right the elephant sallies forth out of the ground of the relief (cf. Fig. 74).

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The main figures of queen and elephant are wedged into various types of architecture; miracle and silent hour of the night, consistent in every part of the setting in Bhārhut, are here treated as a casual filling along with architectonic devices indicative of the situation, i.e. of the palace of king Śuddhodana.

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There is no linear connection between the two main figures. An outburst of three-dimensioned form disrupts the ground of the relief and halts at its upper level. Striking contrasts of light and darkness keep the single figures apart. The subject matter has become negligible; nor are definite artistic solutions striven for; as, for instance, in Bodhgayā. But in a diction sure in its spontaneity are contained as much volume and outbusting vigour of the stone itself as the relief—if at all it is to remain one—will allow. The architectonic devices, on the other hand, lend themselves to a schematisation of the composition, peculiar to this phase of the work at Sāñcī.

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24. Gahapati and Kaṇha (?) Jātakas.185

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Part of inside frieze of coping stone, Bhārhut. Second half, second century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta.

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The Gahapati Jātaka tells of the intrigue of a woman with the village headman, and how, when her husband unexpectedly came home, she climbed up to the granary and sat in its door, crying that there was no rice with which to pay in kind for the ox which the village headman had given the villagers during the time of famine. But as this payment was due only two months after the transaction had been made, and actually not half a month had elapsed by then, the villager saw through their game, and treated the two lovers as they deserved. The granary, out of which the figure of the woman emerges, has the shape of a cone, its rooflet is taken off, so that the granary can be entered from above. Granaries of similar shape may be seen in villages even now. The granary stands in the courtyard, between two houses with gable roofs. The threatening gesture (tarjanī hasta) of the two men—the one pretending to insist on the payment, and the other warning the two of the consequences of their intrigue—tell their tale.

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The next scene illustrating the Kaṇha Jātaka (?) is not shown fully in this reproduction, but only up to the break in the coping stone. Three more male figures, with their hands in añjali mudrā, are placed in the missing part behind the figure of Sakka, who, after having tested the ‘dark’ (kaṇha) ascetic, salutes him, who lived at the root of a tree in the open air, never made a hut of leaves, sat upon the ground as if he were one with the four elements, in the highest contentment, eating only things uncooked by fire.

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The uncooked fruits in the basket, and the water vessel next to it, illustrate the way in which this ascetic, with matted hair, lived at the foot of a tree.

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PLATE VI

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25. A colossal statue of a Yakṣī from Dīdargañj. Third century B.C. Patna Museum.

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The massive body is solidly modelled in the round. Hips and breasts are prominent, but kept within the compactness of the whole. A short neck separates, as little as possible, the roundness of the single forms. Their static quality is relieved, though not disturbed, by such muscles as are indicated on the abdomen or surround unseeing eyes, and a mouth that does not betray anything further than a bounteousness which is not human. The rendering of ‘folds’ corresponds with that of Fig. 2.

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26. Sirimā Devatā, on a pillar from the railing of Bhārhut. Middle second century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta.

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An attempt is made of relating three-dimensional extensiveness to the flatness of the ground. The splayed out hips and legs, the feet placed at an angle of almost 180°, the broad and angular shoulders, and the large face with flattened features, result from this endeavour. The three-dimensional element is substituted by the linear also in details; folds are indicated by incised and not by raised lines, and the volume of drapery, etc., is flattened into a stiff surface, with geometrical vestiges of fold-patterns.

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The emphasis on the female character of the figure is stressed by a compactness of the breast-volume, which outdoes that of the Dīdargañj figure, and is wholly unrelated to the flat treatment of chest and abdomen of the Bhārhut figure. The hips, although they have no volume of their own, bulge out sidewards. Such conflicting elements show that compactness of the volume is still adhered to and even exaggerated, while another tendency gropes to translate it into terms of surface.

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27. Sudarśanā Yakṣī, on a pillar from Bhārhut. Second half, second century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta. The swaying figure on her Makara-vāhana, and the petals and buds of the lotus devices on top (contrast those of the previous figure) altogether consist of gliding curves, melodious in their somewhat languid capriciousness, while frontality is abandoned and one leg of the figure is set behind the other. Yet the entire relief now is related to the surface. How this swaying grace is imparted to the modelling of the body is clearly to be seen in the supple chest and smooth abdomen; it goes beyond what is bodily possible, and bends the right arm in the elbow as if it were a tube and not a joint; similarly, too, the fingers of the left hand sway along the movement of the belt, irrespective of their meaning, i.e. to suggest fingers. The apron-like ‘drapery,’ too, still more linearised in its pattern, sways vertically. Although these two figures from Bhārhut have physiognomical affinities, and in their generalised outline are related to one another, the discrepancy between the conglomerating treatment of the figure of Sirimā and the flowing plastic consistency of Sudarśanā keeps them apart. The difference lies entirely in the plastic conception, and the outline shares in it.

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28. Pillar figure from Bhūteśvar. Second century A.D. Curzon Museum, Mathurā.

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Yakṣī on Nara-vāhana; the female figure and the Maithuna couple above are connected as motif as well as composition. The figure of the Yakṣī rests the weight of her body on her left leg, and keeps it balanced by a strong bent to the right. The round amplitude of the modelling of her limbs, the volume of scarf and anklets, are reminiscent of the massive-ness of the Dīdargañj Yakṣī. The liveliness (face of figures, arm of man on balcony) of the modelling, too, is inherited from that side. Its melting quality, however, and the flowing curve of compositional movement have their antecedents in the type of the Sudarśanā relief. The Yakṣī holds a spray of mangoes in her right hand, and raises a bowl into which the man lowers a tumbler. All the figures appear given up to the pleasure of the moment of their contact.

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It is noteworthy that in all these figures (Figs. 25–28), and in almost all figures ever carved in Indian sculptures, the navel is marked distinctly (by a cross mark in Bhārhut).¹⁸⁶

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²⁹ Relief panel of railing post of stūpa II, Sāñcī. Second century B.C. A lotus scroll is upheld by an elephant, which stands on a fish; jewellery, a racing bull and Yakṣas form part of the lotus landscape. The latter support a slab, the seat of the Buddha. ‘Behind’ this the railing, which ‘surrounds’—front

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PLATE VII

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fully shown and three sides of the coping stone—the Bodhi-tree. Small sunshades with garlands on base of railing, flying spirits with garlands, etc., above.

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30. Relief panel of railing post of stūpa II, Sāñcī. Second century B.C.

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The lotus-landscape, with the flowers of various varieties in various aspects of growth, makes the rich and restful pattern of bands and roundels; the bunch in the centre issues from a tortoise.187 The centrifugal energy that makes buds open into flowers and petals, which seem to rotate around and droop away from their centre and their radiating and continuous movement, with an incisiveness of line, result in a composition fulfilled in the plenitude of form-relations. The human figure, inserted disconnectedly into the fierce restfulness of the ‘landscape,’ is assimilated to it by the centrifugal net of lines, cast over its fitting and long sleeved coat and across the dhoti too.

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³¹ Another panel of a railing post of stūpa II, Sāñcī. Second century B.C. Of less vigour and consistency. The life-tree-like combination of lotuses, deer and lions, is based on a tortoise (cf. Fig. 30), besides it contains a Yakṣa couple standing on boulsters, and Lakṣmī, bathed by elephants and in a lotus composition. All the figures, irrespective of action and status, are equal parts of a design that ascends in freely flowing curves to either side of a vertical axis, and rests for a while in the verticals, which are clad with a human appearance.

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³² Panel of upright of toraṇa, West gate, stūpa I, Sāñcī. Late first century B.C. Figure of a Yakṣa, garlands are suspended to either side on top. The mollified modelling, relatively relaxed and smoothly gliding outline, the ease of posture and movement belong to the late phase of early classical sculpture. A sense of physical well-being hovers in the face and keeps the eyes swimming in a blissfulness which the yielding mouth tastes with a smile that foreshadows its own transiency.

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PLATE VIII

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33. Cortège of the gods to do homage to the hair of the Bodhisattva.¹⁸⁸ Lowest panel, front face of left pillar, South gate, Sāñcī. Middle first century B.C. Indra is shown with female attendants on elephants and exultantly stampeding Gaṇas in front; a rider on horseback in the left corner indicates the upper surface of the relief. For the rest the entire composition throngs out of the narrow gate in the left corner, out of the depth of the stone, increasing in size and liveliness the further it is remote from it. This diagonally dynamic mass-movement, which issues out of the depth of the relief, is kept balanced by a diagonal in the surface, ascending from the figure of the rider on horseback across the heads of the elephants to the damaged figure in the right upper corner.

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Spontaneousness of composition, a blossoming quality of the modelling, specially noticeable in the faces, the bursting forth of the stone into living, variegated form and figure, are surpassed nowhere in the work of Sāñcī. The physiognomy of the Yakṣī from Didargañj and of contemporary terra-cottas reappears in the faces of Indra, etc., as if modelled over with the most delicate touch. (See also the Mauryan head from Pāṭaliputra (Patna) in Coomaraswamy, *History of Indian and Indonesian Art*, Fig. 22, where the relationship of the work from Patna of the third century B.C. with the work of the first century from central India is even more obvious.)

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34. Rejoicing on the enlightenment of the Buddha. Panel on inner face of right pillar. West gate, Sāñcī. Second part, first century B.C. ‘The Nāgas, Gandharvas, etc., each urging his comrades on, went up to the Great Being at the Bo-tree’s foot, and as they came they shouted for joy that the sage had won, that the tempter was overthrown.’¹⁸⁹

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In spite of the apparent tumultuousness of this panel, with the strainedly exultant gestures of the two Nāgis with raised arms to either side of the altar, in spite of some other figures emerging from the ground into the light of day, with the darkness in between them and caught in the hoods of the cobras, etc., the uproar exhausts itself within the two surfaces of the relief and is organised symmetrically.

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35. Mahākapi Jātaka, top panel, right pillar, front face. West gate, Sāñcī. Second part, first century B.C. The Bodhisattva, born as leader of a troop of monkeys who lived near the Ganges, and at the front of a great mango tree, saved them when king Brahmadatta of Benares had the tree beleaguered by his soldiers, in order to kill the monkeys and to get the mangoes. The Bodhisattva with his own body made a bridge across the river, and over it the monkeys escaped to the other shore. But the wicked Devadatta, who then was one of the monkeys, jumped on the Bodhisattva’s back and injured him to death. The king, seeing the monkey chief’s goodness, repented, and the dying Mahākapi (great monkey) gave the king advice about the duties of a ruler.190

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The relief is lower than in Figs. 33 and 34, the attempt at ordering the crowded composition is obvious, specially in the landscape to the right, with the horizontals of the rocks and the verticals of the trees, also in the row at the bottom to the left, where the retinue of the king, with their somewhat lifeless but lyrical configuration, underline the meaning of the converse between the great monkey and the king under the tree. The dilemma of fitting in the many figures into one rigorously maintained plane can be seen in the awkwardness of shoving in the figure between the archer and the river, and in the attitude of the archer itself. The linearisation of the composition, however, does not result in a more concentrated expressiveness. Contrast the elegant but otherwise insipid curves of the Mahākapi, when forming the bridge, with the figures of the monkeys in the same Jātaka carved in Bhārhut.191 36. Part view of liṅgam from Guḍimallam, North Arcot District. About 100 B.C. Figure of a Yakṣa on Nara-vāhana in front of liṅgam. The objects held by the figure are: Some object which is certainly not a battle-axe (paraśu), but looks like a fan or whisk, and a water vessel in the left, and a ram in the right.¹⁹² The upper part of the object in the left hand appears to suggest a soft material and not metal. This is indicated by its curved outline and by the manner in which it is modelled; it consists of, or is held together by, rows of beads and leaves, which are gathered into a point and fixed on the staff.

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37. Elephant and flying Gandharva carrying a bowl. Part of frieze. Mañcapurī cave, Udayagiri, Orissā. Late second century B.C. (The entire frieze is reproduced in *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I, Fig. 74.) Arch above a door which leads into the cave to the right. The figures appear as if emerging or flying forth from the rock. The flying motif is made more convincing with the help of the garland. Without this device it loses much of its force and directedness. The coming forth from the stone with a relatively high relief, the movement and foreshortening appear relatively fettered in treatment if held against Fig. 33. The other part of the frieze (not shown here), with its isolated and compact figures and the motif of the mural crown, contains survivals of Mauryan sculpture.

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Trends, as given ripe form in Sāñcī on the South gate (Fig. 33), must have been active also prior to the work on that gate. Bhārhut showed indications of this, and the present relief supplies one more instance.

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38. Cakravartin, with the seven jewels. Fragment of the marble casing of the stūpa of Jaggaypeṭa. Second century B.C. Madras Museum. Characteristic is the manner in which scarves, etc., dart off the body at a sharp angle, the manner in which the dhoti curls around the legs (figures of the minister and general). The latter convention also occurs on some of the early fragments from Amarāvatī.

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Proportion of the figures and intensity of outline forestall the unfoldment of this school, four centuries later.

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39. Sūrya, rock-cut relief, Bhājā. Second century B.C. The Sun god with his consorts in a chariot is escorted by riders on either of the two surfaces, at a right angle of the rock. Animals and birds’ heads disentangle themselves from the heaving mass of the but faintly differentiated relief on the left surface. But even where the shape becomes articulate the modelling retains its heaving quality, and the figure of the demon, with its bulging body, is entirely borne of a plastic imagination.

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PLATE XI

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40. Fragment of a rendering of the Vaṇṇupatha Jātaka.¹⁹³ From Mathurā. First half, first century B.C. Provincial Museum, Lucknow. Red mottled sandstone.

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A man takes the reins of the two humped bullocks, which had taken rest. One animal turns its head towards him; he points to the cart, of which the front part only is preserved in this relief. Below, i.e. in front, another man with a round object.

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The rendering of this Jātaka is fully preserved in Bhārhut. The Bodhisattva, then born as a trader, while crossing a desert with 500 carts, fell asleep at night and the oxen turned round, so that in the morning the caravan was at the same spot as on the previous day. But as all their water was exhausted the men in despair unyoked their oxen, flung themselves down, etc. The Bodhisattva, determined to save the situation, explored the surroundings and came across a clump of Kuṣa-grass. This could not have grown without water. He has a well dug, water rises, the caravan drinks, feeds, and at sunset they hoist a flag by the side of the well and travel on to their destination. The well, etc., are shown in the Bhārhut relief; the preparations for starting after their rescue are indicated in this fragment from Mathurā.

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Broadly spread on the flat ground, the figures are rhythmically distributed. The modelling has a melting quality. (See also Bachhofer, op. cit., Pl. 71, also of the first century B.C.) This, together with an obtusely curved outline, produces an impression of heaviness, and these features remain peculiar to the school of Mathurā till the middle of the second century A.D.

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41. Bodhisattva, from Katra mound, Mathurā. Late first century A.D. Curzon Museum, Mathurā. Red mottled sandstone. The graded relief with superimposed planes has volume and weight. Stereometricized limbs add monumentality, which is no excuse for the clumsiness of joints and hands. The right hand, in abhaya mudrā at this stage, is just above the level of the shoulders. In the course of time it is lowered gradually, until in the fifth century it is held about level with the waist (Fig. 59).

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PLATE XII

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42. Couple on a railing post, from Amarāvatī. Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum. A similar degree of maturity of form and similar motifs in Kārli (Fig. 44), due to the school of Mathurā, cannot dissimulate the specific idiom of each respective art-province. Crisp contour and energised limbs and modelling in Amarāvatī, a spreading and altogether plastic version in Kārli.

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43. Couples riding on elephants on one of the capitals, inside the Caitya-hall at Kārli. About A.D. 100. Fully carved in the round, free in movement and expression, the two groups of riders are set back to back, so as to form a triangle in space against the wall of the rock. Animals and couples, joyous in the pride of existence, yield their variegated appearance, to be differentiated by a modelling that has amplitude. The striving forward of the modelled form from the wall of the rock, to be received and wrapt round by light and by darkness, shows this sculpture in the interior of the cave endowed with qualities to which wider scope was to be given later (Figs. 75–79).

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44. Couple of donors, on outside wall of Caitya-hall at Kārli. About A.D. 100. While a connection with the Mathurā school is obvious with regard to postures, and the general appearance of body and apparel, the weightier and broader sculptures from Kārli have a latent power. In Kārli truly the figures are shown ‘as if breathing.’¹⁹⁴

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PLATE XIII

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45. Bilateral figure of a Bodhisattva from a capital from Pawāyā (Padmāvatī). Early third century A.D. Gwālior Museum. The halo is wheel-shaped and has spokes. The modelling has become flattened, in keeping with that of Mathurā sculpture of the same phases.¹⁹⁵

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The arms of the figure, set back to back with that of the Bodhisattva illustrated here, are visible.

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Another such double-faced sculpture, of earlier date (late Śuṅga), has also been preserved in Gwālior.¹⁹⁶ Part of halo and lower part of the figure are broken.

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46. Head of a Bodhisattva, from Dharmarājikā stūpa,¹⁹⁷ Taxilā. About A.D. 300. Stucco.

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PLATE XIV

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47. Part of coping stone of railing, outside, Amarāvatī. Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum. The main motif of the twisted flower, leaf- and bead-garland is accompanied by two runners; they pass through nodules transformed into heads of Makaras. Across the main garland lesser garlands are thrown at intervals. These and the tassels of the plaques appear swept by the movement of the main garland, and swing with wide curves. The round knob on the back of the throne to the right has lotus shape, and suggests the presence of the Buddha.

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PLATE XV

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48. Another part of the coping stone, outside, Amarāvatī. Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum.

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The rambling creeper device occurs here as elsewhere three times: on the upper border, purely floral; on the lower border, floral and animalic; and in the middle panel the human element is given a large share. The combination of these and of more specialised devices, such as the Garuḍa motif, the Gaṇa devices, etc., throw light on the working of the mythical imagination and its alliance with form. The issue is a composition in which the figures, as part of the entire plastic conception, have mythical suggestiveness which is sanctioned by their names, for instance, that of Garuḍa, etc.

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49. Roundel from Amarāvatī, referring to the Mūga Pakkha Jātaka.¹⁹⁸ Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum. Prince Temiya pretends to be insensate, because from his birth he has renounced the world. His distressed parents try in vain to make him interested in the world. They summon women, full of all graces, to make the prince laugh or to entangle him in sinful thoughts. The women surround him and try to delight him with dancing and singing, but in vain. His parents try him again and again, for sixteen years, sometimes his father, sometimes his mother implores him. Finally, after many sleepless nights of sorrow, the king decides to have him killed in the charnel ground. The mother beseeches Temiya the whole night, but he is glad in his heart, for his desire has attained its end. He does not utter a word, and when in the morning Sunanda, the charioteer, comes to take him to the charnel ground, he lifts him up like a bundle of flowers.

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In the charnel ground Temiya unfolds his power, becomes an ascetic, and makes his father, the citizens, etc., become ascetics too.

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The roundel shows as the main scene one of song and dance. The youthful prince sits next to his father, who observes him attentively, but the prince shows no sign of interest, and the lotus which he holds in his hand acts as a barrier between his impassive attitude and the crowd of women around him. The second scene is divided from the main scene by a vertical wall on one side (the vertical to the left) and by hangings attached to posts in front (below). A woman, the queen, with distressed looks, smites her head, while in the other hand she holds a lamp—it is night. The prince stands by impassively, the third figure behind them may be Temiya once more, after having become an ascetic. But possibly this is the figure of Sunanda.

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The figures fill the roundel as far as they are volumes. Foreshortening and oversecting are subordinated to the scheme of interrelation of the figures. (See p. 19.) As far as the linear composition goes, it is not concentrical with the roundel. It falls into two main parabolic movements. One parabola leads along the sitting figures on the lower border and leaves the roundel on the left, at the back of the topmost seated figure in profile, and on the right, along the thighs of the kneeling woman, just behind the one on the armchair.

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On this wide and open arch is tilted the movement of the upper part of the relief. It goes along the head of the women on top and falls down on either side between the queen and the prince on the left, and along the woman seated on a stool, and closest to the royal couch, on the right. These two movements intersect, but the one gives no continuation of the other. The centre is free from figures. These are distributed ascendingly and with a free rhythm.

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Fans of various shapes, couch, chair and wicker-work stools, musical instruments, of which the harp-vīṇā,¹⁹⁹ is the most frequent, and the instrument blown by one figure and ending in something like a conch shell, the most peculiar, complete the luxuriousness of the scene.

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PLATE XVI

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50. Part of coping stone, Amarāvatī. Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum. On the left a stūpa is approached worshipfully by three men, on the right three monkish-looking figures and a woman holding a cloth, in front of them; below her, i.e. next to her, a smaller figure of a woman. In front of the stūpa three seated and worshipping women, a child behind the one on the left, a cattle herd in front and two shepherds, one playing on a long flute. This scene is divided from the next by a gate and a wall. Within this, and in front of a building supported by pillars, the following are shown: in the centre a couch with a lady and a prince, another couch with two ladies on the left, and behind this a tree. Opposite a monkish male figure and a woman, ladies in waiting behind the couch in the pillared hall, musician, etc., on the right. On the left, and next to the couch, a childlike figure with locks, carrying a bowl and some object.

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This part of the relief may refer to the story of Sudhana Kinnara.²⁰⁰ Prince Sudhana was the son of King Dhana of Hastināpura. The prince went out for hunting into the forest. A hunter, named Halaka, came to know from a Ṛṣi that there was a wonderful tank, called Brahmasabhā, which was used as a bathing place by Manoharā, the beautiful daughter of the Kinnara king, Druma, and her maids. The hunter obtained a charmed noose from a Nāga, which he aimed at the Kinnarī princess, when she came to take her daily bath. In vain she tried to escape. All her maids fled away in panic, leaving her to the mercy of the hunter. Prince Sudhana happened to be in that very region, and the hunter handed over Manoharā to him. The prince and princess became enamoured of each other at the first sight, and came to Hastināpura together with the hunter, whom the prince amply rewarded. Sudhana and Manoharā were passing their days happily in the interior of the royal palace. The royal chaplain became, however, jealous of the prince, and wanted to get rid of him by some device.

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The prince was away on some business when the chaplain persuaded the king to arrange for a Kinnara sacrifice, intending thereby to make an end of the life of Manoharā. The Kinnarī princess, coming to know about this, consulted the prince’s mother, who advised her to escape. The sacrificial tank was dug out and all the preliminaries were finished, and the only thing left was to have Manoharā brought over to the place for immolation, when she made her escape and flew through the air, and got down at the hermitage of the Ṛṣi. On her way back to her father’s capital she left an instruction with the Ṛṣi, requesting him to give the prince a proper direction if by chance he came that way in search of her. On his return to Hastināpura Sudhana was deeply grieved to know all that had happened, and lost time in seeing the hunter, Halaka, about the hermitage of the Ṛṣi, from whom the latter got his first information about the tank and the Kinnarī Manoharā. The prince started for the hermitage, and, following the direction left by the Kinnarī, went to the tank, Brahmasabhā, when the maids of Manoharā came to fetch water in pitchers to bathe the princess, as a means of removing the contamination of human contact. The prince put a ring, given him by Manoharā, into one of the pitchers, and asked the maid who was carrying that particular pitcher to pour water over her head first out of that pitcher. She did what the prince had asked her to do, with the result that the ring fell into Manoharā’s lap. She particularly enquired of the maid if she had come across a human being, and receiving an answer in the affirmative, she asked her to bring him into the palace with caution. In the meanwhile Manoharā wanted to sound her father, King Druma, to find out if he would agree to welcome the prince and make him his son-in-law. Her father pretended at first to show a hostile attitude, but, knowing for certain that the prince would be welcome, she presented him to the king, who duly gave her in marriage to the prince. Thus Sudhana and Manoharā returned at last to Hastināpura, where they were received with a great ovation by King Dhana and other people.

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The figure to the left is the hunter. (A stunted and child-like figure with loose hair, a hunter is also shown in Bhārhut, Cunningham, The Stūpa of Bhārhut, Pl. XXXIV₃.) The scenes that play at Hastināpura are united in the relief; on the couch to the left is Manoharā and the prince’s mother, the male figure opposite may be the chaplain. Manoharā and Sudhana are seated on the main couch. I cannot account for the object in the left hand of the prince. The disc behind the head of the princess seems to be a fan held by the attendant behind her.

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The linear composition combines the two main scenes. The curve, starting from the woman with the cloth, outside the gate, is conducted along the back of the woman in front of her, glides along the city wall and the reclining figure on the couch, and then from the female figure in front of the footstool it ascends along the figure of the chaplain and the female figures above.

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Another parabola passes along the back of Manoharā on the main couch, across the hunter and the three women kneeling in front of the stūpa. The two scenes are compositionally connected, while each when taken by itself is left open.

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51. Fragment of post from Amarāvatī. Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum.

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The segment of the roundel shows part of a seat and male worshippers, one of them wears the crown usually associated with Indra. A tree and flying figures on top.

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The two panels below indicate a rocky landscape. In the one on the right a flying Pacceka Buddha, two male figures walking in friendly embrace, and another figure peeping out from behind a conical object are set between boulders and trees. In the next panel, a standing figure, i.e. that of a Pacceka Buddha, is shown just before flying off, and another figure stands behind him. The story referred to may be the Darīmukha Jātaka (Cowell, Jātaka, Vol. III, No. 378).

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Tense gestures in the roundel contrast with attitudes of ease in the panels. The bending lowermost figure in the roundel, with the acute precision of its outline, and the sinuous contour of the two walking figures, offer the corresponding contrasts.

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52. Part of post from Amarāvatī. Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum. Cf. Divyāvadāna, pp. 495–98, the story of an aged brāhmin, his twelve daughters-in-law and a snake-catcher.²⁰¹

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A man with an attitude similar to that of an archer holds a huge serpent, a small woman, lying on her back, has taken hold of the serpent’s head, one more has thrown herself down imploringly, and three other women at the back. In the left panel, not reproduced here, the serpent in small size is in a sort of bag on an armchair.

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53. Nāgarāja, part of a frieze from Goli. Third century A.D. Madras Museum.

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PLATE XVIII

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54. Bodhisattva (so called in the inscription) from Bodhgayā. Dated in the year 64 of Mahārāja Trikamala. Early fourth century A.D.²⁰² Indian Museum, Calcutta.

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This image of the school of Mathurā is its greatest contribution to Indian plastic art. The massiveness peculiar to sculpture from Mathurā of the Kuṣāṇa period is still there. It gives to all its works a character of their own. In the first century B.C. it lent an amplitude of form to reliefs otherwise at one with the art-language of Madhyadeśa at that age (Fig. 40). With it went an animation of physiognomies which in the subsequent centuries, i.e. during the Kuṣāṇa period, was full of physical satisfaction. At that phase, specially in the first century A.D., ancient Indian ponderosity was conspicuous. This was interpreted in terms of sensualism and with a differentiating modelling, by the end of the first, and first half of the second century A.D. This phase was widely approved by other schools (Dekkhan and Veṅgī). During the second half of the second century, and subsequently, sensualism and modelling recede for the sake of a sterner discipline of surface and outline. This, however, at that phase was done in a hesitating and thoughtful manner, whereas in the fourth century this measure forms the basis for an inner vision, which piles up mass against mass, restrained and clearly defined, but welded together by a sweeping movement.

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