Maurya and Shunga Art c10.2

c10.2

With all its urban, conscious and civilised quality, its advanced power of visualisation and full comprehension of the third dimension, Maurya court art constitutes but an episode in the history of Indian art. Kramrisch rightly states the position when she says that “in the organism of Indian art Mauryan sculpture has only marginal importance.” 55 It was indeed a hot house plant reared up by the will, care and patronage of a court heavily under the influence of the contemporary international culture and ideology of the Asiatic West and Mediterranean East. In course of time the glass walls fell to pieces and the plant withered. Maurya court art failed to make any notable permanent contribution to the growth of Indian art except that it directly helped the fixation of the latter in permanent material.