Indian Sculpture c8.62

c8.62

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.