Maurya and Shunga Art c5.21

c5.21

Two important facts emerge. First, that whatever extant remains we can lay our hands on as definitely belonging to the Maurya period are products of the Maurya court, i.e. they were worked out by orders of the Maurya monarchs and perhaps also under their direct supervision. Secondly, that this court and its presiding lords were all ardent Hellenophiles and was largely under the influence of Achaemenian art and culture at the same time. It is to this second factor that we can ascribe the fixation of Indian art in permanent materials during this period for the first time and the handling of stone for sculptural and architectural purposes with perfect ease and efficiency. At the same time it has to be recognised that there existed in India a pre-Mauryan art mainly practised in wood and partly in sundried brick, clay, ivory, metal and mineral stone. Admittedly this art could hardly conceive life and things in huge proportions and large dimensions. Tribal and primitive outlook circumscribed the vision of the artists and craftsmen who must also have been handicapped by the very nature of the materials they used. But this art happened to be the repository of certain patterns, designs and motifs that India shared in common with the rest of the early Asiatic world.