Maurya and Shunga Art c16.35

c16.35

Fig. 33. Barhut (Nagod State, Baghelkhand ) Inner view of a quadrant coping. From left : hanging jack (?) fruits ; hermit laments over the death of his pet deer and the Bodhisattva remonstrates with him—a representation presumably of the ‘Miga-potaka-jātaka’ (Fasüsboll, 372 ; Hultzsch and Barua) ; griffin running. A most characteristic formal quality of Śunga art is its flowing linear rhythm that binds all isolated objects in one continuous stream of life as it were. Look at any coping stone and you will find a huge stout lotus-stalk flowing in rhythmical waves from form to form, not only binding each isolated item in one whole but permeating each isolated object itself, including the limbs of human beings, the animals and the trees with the same flowing linear rhythm C. 150 B. C. Photo : A. S. I. (See Page 111)