The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c15.33

c15.33

Among the many miscellaneous reliefs of this period, which it is difficult to link up with any particular group, two of the most noteworthy are figs. 106 and 107. The former, a narrow frieze of phyllite from the Dharmarājikā at Taxila, has been sadly damaged, but enough remains to give a fair idea of its character. The story it recounts is the same Śyāma Jātaka that we met with in fig. 104. Here, the method of narration is in the Greek, not in the Indian, tradition. That is to say, the actors in the successive scenes are strung out in single file, as they habitually were in the friezes of Greek temples, though not strictly in chronological sequence. The right end of the frieze is missing, and the first act that we see is the king in hunting dress drawing his bow and an attendant behind him holding a quiver full of arrows. The wildness of the country is shown by the usual conventional rocks and vegetation, with a lion's head peering out from a cave. Then, beyond the rocks to the left, we see the boy Śyāma sinking to the ground with an arrow in his breast. In the next act, which shows the god Indra restoring the boy to life, Indra appears haloed and floating in the air with a flask of ambrosia in his hand, while the reviving Śyāma raises his hands above his head and the king looks on impassively. On the left of the frieze the figure of the king is twice more repeated; first, visiting the boy's blind and aged parents in their leafy hut and informing them, with appropriate gesture of the fingers, of what has happened to their son, and then leading them painfully to the scene of the miracle. The figures of the blind old couple are quite realistic and convincing, but the sculptor has clearly, in this case, been more concerned about the telling of the story, act by act, than about the modelling of the form or the delicate refinement of details. Indian influence, be it added, is somewhat more marked in the individual figures of this frieze than in most of the contemporary sculpture.