Maurya and Shunga Art c13.5.5

c13.5.5

but from the fact that acting, dancing and music were listed among the despised callings, it is not unreasonable to think that some of the above crafts were considered low in social estimation because of tribal aboriginal folks whose hereditary professions generally they were. In any case, these artists and craftsmen seem to have combined in them the social ideology of the upper classes and of civic life on the one hand and that of the lower and despised castes and classes and their folk and aboriginal life on the other. In the sort of civic sophistication and delicate tastefulness that are unmistakable in the Śuṅga terracottas or in the consciously langourous attitudes, sensuous ‘bhaṅgas’ and luxurious ornamentation of the Yakṣiṇīs of Barhut and Bodhgaya, one can easily see the social ideology of the upper and middle class patrons and donors, while in a number of folded-palm and kneeling or standing figures on the reliefs it is easy to imagine the self-same patrons and donors represented with all their naive personal vanity. As in early Buddhism and in the formal qualities of early Buddhist art of Barhut and Bodhgaya, so in the social components of this art as well one can thus easily see a fusion of the different grades of the people, right from the royalty and the nobility down to the aboriginal folks, and the ideas and ideologies of the respective castes and classes.