Maurya and Shunga Art c15.4

c15.4

Śuṅga art is richer in social content and in the social components of its appeal and patronage. Its direction is more collective than individual, and its motive more narrative and representational than suggestive and symbolical. While Maurya art is conscious, courtly and sophisticated Śuṅga art is naive, popular and perhaps also primitive in a way. These essential differences, it may now be safely argued, reflect two different culture-ideologies; one reared up by the Mauryas and limited within the court and expressive of a mind highly urban, sophisticated and international in outlook, while the other no doubt ethnically conditioned reflect a national outlook and popular character. Maurya art reflects the exhaustion of a tradition born outside of its own people; Śuṅga art reflects the lively unfoldment of a tradition born of the blood and flesh of the people to whom it belongs.