Indian Sculpture c8.84

c8.84

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.