The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.57

v1.c9.57

The lion among animals, is however, invariably ill-carved. It has everywhere a conventional, unnatural half-dog half-wolf look about it that is as unlike a real lion as it well can be. Its claws, mane and position, either erect or rampant, are also altogether unnatural. It is generally represented as trampling on an elephant about one-half to one-sixth of its size, crouching under its forelegs. Looking at groups like these, and the marked disparity in the size of the two animals, I am disposed to think that the lion had become extinct in Orissa when the sculptures were made, and the artists had to depend upon tradition and their imagination to produce its likeness. This inference receives some support from the fact of the lions in the Udayagiri bas-reliefs being much better shaped, and they, it is to be presumed, were delineated when the animal was common in the country. In central and western India lions are still met with ;²⁰ but in Bengal they have long since become extinct, and the tradition is that, with the exception of a single animal sacred to Bhagavatī now living in the wilderness near Kāmākhyā, in Assam, there is no lion in existence in India. The Egyptians, as also the Assyrians, were superior to the Uriyās in this respect : their lions were not unoften carefully carved, displaying the muscles, of their limbs to great advantage, and showing that when uncontrolled by religion the artists could imitate nature as successfully as their contemporaries. Some of their winged lions, however, are quite as bad as those of the Uriyās. Winged bulls and lions are unknown in Orissa.