Maurya and Shunga Art c6.9.4

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.