Maurya and Shunga Art c6.9
Maurya and Śuṅga Art c6.9
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c6.9.1
The surface of the shaft as of the other elements is cut and executed with remarkable precision and accuracy, and except in the case of the Basarh-Bakhira pillar which is heavy and massive, the shafts, to judge by the Lauriya-Nandangarh example as well as by the fragments of other columns, seem to have maintained a graceful and elegant proportion throughout. They are maintained in position by simply being buried in the earth and by plain slabs of stone or plain brickwork at the bottom. This gives them an appearance of stability, as if they stand by their own weight. The shaft is super-imposed by the bell-shaped capital. In some cases, as in the Rummindei column, the transition from the shaft to the capital is abrupt, while in other instances it is made easy and gradual by the introduction of intermediate mouldings of variable stages and designs. On the Basarh-Bakhira column there are three retreating mouldings decorated with rope-bead-reel designs. Similar mouldings are to be seen in the Lauriya-Nandangarh example as well; elsewhere the mouldings are plain. The surface of gently arched bell-shaped capital is decorated with highly stylised longitidunal lotus petals with sharp and thin ridges in the middle and wide and roundish border mouldings, the spaces between the ends of the petals being filled up with short mouldings. In the earliest Mauryan example, i. e.
c6.9.2
in the Basarh-Bakhira specimen, the transition from the capital to the square abacus is marked by a cable-moulding of West-Asiatic twisted rope design which is repeated in later examples also, except in the lion-topped Rampurva and Sarnath examples. In other Mauryan examples the formal appearance of the capital is the same, but there is a progressive attempt towards a clearer and sharper definition of the middle ridge and of the border mouldings, and increasing stylisation; both are fully in evidence in the Sarnath specimen. The real aesthetic significance of the beautifully arched and elegantly ribbed floral bell of the Mauryan capital lies in its gentle curve, its chaste and rhythmic proportion and in its very effective contrast with the chaste and elegant, plain and smooth, tall and tapering shaft that it crowns. The capital like the abacus and the shaft also shows different stages of a process of artistic evolution, though the chronological sequence cannot be definitely established; but the steady growth of the feeling for form and more and more linear rhythm is unmistakable. The abacus is indeed the pedestal for the crowning animal;
c6.9.3
in the change of its form from square to round, of its appearance from plain to decorated surface beginning with low and culminating in bold and high relief work in various motifs and designs, and in the attempt for increasing harmonisation of the abacus with the bell-shaped capital below and the crowning animal above, a discerning eye can clearly trace the stages of the progressive evolution of an architectonic form existing by itself. This becomes further evident when one compares the entire ensemble formed by the crowning animal, the abacus and the capital as we see it in various stages from the Basarh-Bakhira example through Sāṅkāśya and Rampurva to Sarnath. Beginning from disjointed and ununified parts of unequal proportions and a broken linear rhythm at Basarh-Bakhira it steadily marches towards integration of the component parts into one whole until it reaches its perfection at Sarnath where the parts are clear, distinct and well-defined, well-proportioned and singularly evenly balanced and yet forming one integrated whole and maintaining a linear rhythm through out, so much so that the crowning elements on the shaft contribute the most positive character that gives the Maurya columns the independent effect of complete monumental works.
c6.9.4
From primitive animal standards to such monumental works it must have been a long journey, but royal will and state resources, individual taste and ideology of a benevolent autocrat and perhaps also foreign hand and inspiration so potently at work at the Mauryan court achieved the end of this long and arduous journey within a very short space of time. The total aesthetic effect of Mauryan columns has never been surpassed in later Indian art, and in the whole realm of independent monumental columns of the world Mauryan columns occupy a proud position by reason of their very free and significant artistic form in space, the rhythmic and balanced proportion of their constituent elements, the unitary and integrated effect of the whole, their chaste and elegant shaft and capital and no less by the conscious, proud and dignified attitude of the crowning ornaments.