Indian Sculpture c8.24

c8.24

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.)