Indian Sculpture c8.74

c8.74

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.