Maurya and Shunga Art c12.6.3

c12.6.3

This trend is best illustrated in several panels of the so-called Ajātaśatru pillar representing the Great Miracle of Śrāvastī, the preaching of ‘Abhidharma’ in the Tushita heaven and Buddha’s descent from the Tushita heaven by a ladder. It can be seen at once that these scenes are all completely devoid of any free and flowing linear rhythm; the figures are hard and isolated and the compositions are regulated in a schematic manner by vertical and horizontal lines. It is only an agitated display of light and darkness that disturb the otherwise static character of the scences. The trend is equally marked in several frameless figures standing on upright posts; such are the figures of Virudhaka Yaksha, Gāṅgeya Yaksha, Sūchiloma Yaksha, Chakravāka Nāgarāja, Mihira, the Sun god of Uttarapatha and Sirima Devatā, for example. No linear rhythm enlivens these figures; features isolated, compact and conglomerated are flattened in terms of surface, and give them an appearance of static and mechanical rigidity. In direct contrast to the flat treatment of the chest and abdomen of the male figures is the compact roundity of the breast-volume of Sirima Devatā which illustrates the conflict between the flatness of the surface and the third dimensional extensiveness.