Maurya and Shunga Art c13.4

c13.4

attitudes, nor would it have been possible to employ oversecting and fore-shortening with ease wherever and whenever desirable. The ease and self-confidence of the figures of Bodhgaya are more illustrative on this point. Indeed, Barhut and Bodhgaya illustrate beyond doubt that they had a vast experience of ancient practice behind them, in low or bold reliefs or in their painted counterparts. This is further noticeable in the somewhat conscious elegance and sophistication of some of the bolder relief figures of both Barhut and Bodhgaya as well as in a number of terracottas usually assigned to the Śuṅga period, an elegance and sophistication expressed not only through their drapery, jewellery and coiffeurs but also through their poses and attitudes. It can safely be assumed that the art of the Śuṅga period reflects a stage when an art of folk and tribal origin and affiliation came to attain for obvious reasons recognition in the hands of a widening religious brotherhood patronised mostly by the landed and commercial middle classes and partly by the nobility and the rich mercantile classes of the Madhyadeśa.