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Maurya and Shunga Art c7: IV. Mauryan Animal Figures

Maurya and Śuṅga Art c7

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IV. Mauryan Animal Figures

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The almost life-size animal sculptures that crown the Mauryan columns along with the elephant at Dhauli in Orissa may conveniently be studied separately. Here too, as in the case of the columns, a rough chronological sequence of the stages of striving after the desired effect can well be traced. The Basarh-Bakhira lion evidently marks one of the earliest stages. The next definite stage is reached at Dhauli where the elephant but half emerges from live rock and which is dateable in the twelfth or thirteenth year of Aśoka's reign. To this stage must also be ascribed the elephant of Sāṅkāśya. The Rampurva bull marks the next stage in the ascending scale closely followed by the Lauriya-Nandangarh lion, while the Rampurva lion leads us to the final stage represented by the quadripartite semi-lions of Sarnath and Sanchi; in both instances there is an unmistakable evidence of clever accumulation that usually comes at a later stage of the evolution of form.

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The Basarh-Bakhira lion is clumsy in form and appearance and crude in execution. The feeling for linear rhythm is evident in the flowing line gliding downwards from the top of the head, but ends abruptly at the hard line of the slab where the tail turns inwards. The manes are already highly stylised and locks are treated in separate volumes clumsily arranged. The facial expression is quaint and primitive and the entire attitude lacks dignity. The volume of the lion’s body has undoubtedly been fully visualised and reproduced, but the essential plastic sense has not yet matured. The living body is hardly moved by any energy or vigour that is within; it exists only by the weight of its volume.

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Compared to this the Dhauli elephant shows a much more developed sense of form and is artistically far superior than its Sāṅkāśya cousin. Indeed such plastic presentation of bulky volume, such feeling for living flesh rendered with remarkable realism, such knowledge of the physiognomical form of the subject treated, such sense of dignified movement and linear rhythm has no parallel in Mauryan animal sculptures. Compared to this even the Rampurva lion or the Sārnāth quadripartite with their tight and coagulated treatment of the veins and muscles shown in meaningless tension and inspite of full reproduction of volume and advanced proof of visualisation, appear lifeless. The loud exhibitionism of pomp and power of the Rampurva or Sarnath specimens has nothing to compare with the quiet dignity of the Dhauli elephant. With its right front leg slightly tilted and the left bent straight in short angle exhibiting a slight forward motion, and with its heavy trunk flowing rhythmically in a delightful curve it walks majestically out of a deep ravine as it were. It indeed symbolises His Imperial Majesty King Aśoka presenting himself with quiet dignity before the people of Kaliṅga. The Sarnath quadripartite is on the other hand an exhibition of imperial pomp, power and authority before the Buddhist monks of Sarnath who had chosen the site of the “First Turning of the Wheel” as their place for quiet pursuit of the religion of Śākyamuni. Compared to the Dhauli elephant the Sarnath quadripartite and its Sanchi counterpart are bombastic in style and motive.

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The Sāṅkāśya elephant is on a lower level of artistic conception. Inspite of an appearance of movement the huge and plumpy animal is, plastically speaking, comparatively static, though there is some evidence of movement in the modelling of the muscles and of the volume of live flesh of the hind portion and the legs. The front legs are however treated pillar-like though the intended effect was presumably one of tension, since the animal appears to shrink backwards with the body-weight pressed in that direction. This attitude of the body, by the way, fails to harmonise with the abacus and the capital below. From Dhauli to Sāṅkāśya there is a steady direction, it seems, towards a stylised treatment of the plastic volume, of muscles and body-flesh. This is evident in the treatment of the upper but more in the lower portion of the chest and abdomen of the Sāṅkāśya elephant, but nowhere increasingly more and more than in the lion figures.

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Compared to the Basarh-Bakhira lion, the Lauriya-Nandangarh example is more tense and tight without doubt; the surface treatment is also more clear and precise. On the whole the stylisation of the treatment of the veins, muscles and the flesh is on the increase; both form and treatment tend to be more conventional. In visualisation and realistic presentation of volume there is however hardly any advance, nor is there any attempt to harmonise the animal form with the component parts of the column below.

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From the Lauriya-Nandangarh specimen to the Rampurva lion there is a decided advance in the clear and precise cutting of the stone, in general finish, in the feeling for form and in linear rhythm. There is also an evident advance in modelling which is powerful and vigorous, specially in the muscles and thews, but the entire artistic conception is conventional and treatment stylised which is nowhere more evident than in the schematic treatment of the manes and the almost lifeless and conventional presentation of the legs and paws. Yet, compared to the Sarnath quadripartite the Rampurva lion as a piece of independent sculpture may be considered artistically superior, though the former, architectonically speaking, is more advanced, since nowhere else in the Mauryan columns a better and more efficient harmony with the abacus and the capital has been achieved.

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The Rampurva bull is architectonically less advanced than the lion from the same place since "it fails to harmonise with the capital on which it stands."¹³ Marshall argues that it is not "so well-executed as the (Rampurva) lion", if he means that it is not as tense and tight in formal appearance or does not show as conventionally powerful and modelled treatment or stylisation of form he is undoubtedly correct. But at the same time it has to be recognised that the artist responsible for this piece of sculpture had a remarkable sense of form as well as of plastic volume and of the quality of the flesh. Here is indeed realistic vision and close observation of nature and full understanding of the character of the object; nothing stylised or conventional or abstract has blurred the mental image of the artist or stood in the way of his execution. The animal is supposed to stand with its full weight on earth in quiet and restrained dignity, and the artist has rendered that idea with remarkable clarity and perfect realism. Here too the modelling is vigorous but not conventional, plastic and linear sense fully mature but not schematised; the energy and vitality that are within express themselves in restrained but powerful dignity; a dynamic naturalism gives it potency and strength, which I consider to be a certain legacy of the art of the bulls of the pre-historic Indus Valley.

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¹³ [Note text not present on page]

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A comparison with the vigorously striding bull on the abacus of the Sarnath column is at once suggested. Here the bull is rendered with all the tension and accentuation of muscles, of veins and bones that a vigorous movement brings into play; the sense of linear rhythm and plasticity of volume are also fully in evidence; the execution is also clear and precise. But it is at the same time hard to deny that the entire treatment is conventional inasmuch as the muscles are unduly exaggerated, the tension in movement ever-emphasised and the modelling coagulated. A different aesthetic vision and tradition are indeed at work here.

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The Sarnath quadripartite is architectonically on a most superior level and must be admitted to be a very successful solution of a problem the Maurya artists grappled with from the very beginning. Of all Maurya sculptures it is the most well-known, most highly spoken of and reproduced on most occasions. Marshall is justified in saying that "the Sarnath capital, though by no means a masterpiece, is the product of the most developed art of which the world was cognisant in the third century B. C.—the handiwork of one who had generations of artistic effort and experience behind him. In the masterful strength of the crowning lions, with their swelling veins and tense muscular development, and in the spirited realism of the reliefs below, there is no trace of primitive art. So far as naturalism was in, the sculptor modelled his figures direct from nature, and has delineated their forms with bold, faithful touch...Equally mature is the technique of his relief work." ⁴⁴ But at the same time it must not be lost sight of that the entire conception and execution are conventional from beginning to end. Compositionally the accumulation of form of the four semi-lions is schematic, though from consideration of technique clever and efficient. The veins and muscles are over emphasised, and with all their seeming tenseness and bold delineation appear lifeless and conventional. The heads with gaping mouths and curved moustaches treated conventionally are more decorative and ornamental than endowed with life; the same is true of the manes treated conventionally and arranged schematically. The extravagance of form saps the life out of the object that it represents, though from the point of view of technique the art is fully developed and civilised and its appearance conscious and sophisticated.

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The animal reliefs on the abacus are all worked almost in the round showing deep contrast of light and shade. Technically therefore they are far in advance to that row of pecking geese that decorates the Rampurva lion abacus though the latter is very realistically treated and imparts a sense a movement that comes from life itself. One of the four animals of the Sarnath abacus is that of a galloping horse very spirited in movement; its modelling and treatment of plastic volume partake of the same conventional attitude and execution as those of the lions discussed above. This is equally applicable to the two other animals on the abacus, namely, the vigorously striding lion and the humped Indian bull, the forms and types in each case having been already fixed by convention. The only animal on the abacus that is treated in a different manner and viewed from a different attitude is the elephant slowly striding forward. It is much less conventional and the modelling shows a more realistic feeling for plasticity of volume, though the form has been but inadequately realised. Compared to the Dhauli elephant the elephant of the Sarnath abacus looks like an wooden toy.

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The Sanchi counterpart of Sarnath belongs to the same style and is equally conventional and stylised. The manes of the lions are rendered with increasing schematisation which is perhaps an indication of a date later than that of Sarnath. Architectonically it conforms to the solution already achieved at the latter place, but the Sanchi abacus which is decorated like the Rampurva lion capital with a row of pecking geese done in higher and bolder relief is narrower than the Sarnath one, and is aesthetically more in harmony with the capital below and the crowning lions above.

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It is somewhat curious that the lions in Mauryan art are always and invariably done in a manner that seems already to have been fixed by convention. Their formal pose and appearance, the rendering of their volume, bold and vigorous but stylised treatment, their plastic conception and the sense of form as revealed in them are on the whole the same and pre-determined. The trend of the style is already evident in the Basarh-Bakhira lion and it is within the limit of the given trend that the style evolves, and advances in treatment and execution. The aesthetic vision and imagination, the attitude and outlook of the artist do not show any definite change. This is partly true as well of the lion, the horse and the bull on the Sarnath abacus. It raises the presumption that this style and convention came from outside where they had been already fixed and well-established. The horse on the Sarnath abacus in its movement and modelling recalls the two horses in the relief on the Sacrophagus of the Amazons;⁴⁵ the vigorously striding lion and the bull both recall well-known Achaemenian prototypes of the same style and convention.⁴⁶ Even the elephant on the abacus has a distant kinship with the horned elephants on the early coins of the Seleucids, though the Sarnath elephant is much less conventional and shows somewhat a different sense of form and treatment.

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The aesthetic vision and imagination and the conventional style and fixed expression just spoken of are most evident in the crowning lions. Compared with later figural sculptures in the round, of Yakshas and their female counterparts or the reliefs of Barhut; Sanchi and Bodhgaya, the art represented by the crowning lions belongs to an altogether different world of conception and execution, of style and technique, altogether much more complex, urban and civilised. They have nothing archaic or primitive about them, and the presumption is irresistible that the impetus and inspiration of this art must have come from outside. Did it come from the Achaemenian West? This seems to be very doubtful, for the modelling of these sculptures have nothing in common with Medo-Achaemenian sculptures, nor the powerful feeling for volume and preference for stagnant compact forms have anything in common with Medo-Achaemenian Iran. Moreover West-Asiatic art, especially Iranian art during the Achaemenian period came heavily under the influence of Hellenistic art; further, "the few attempts made in Iran in the domain of free plastic art bear an entirely different stamp in their preference for angular forms."⁴⁷ Marshall therefore argued for Hellenistic plastic tradition as practised by Graeco-Bactrian artists. From what we know of the Hellenistic colonies in West-Asia and the part they played in Mauryan India, it is possible, nay highly probable, that Hellenistic art and culture played also a very dominant role in Mauryan art. The Mauryan lions, indeed, in their aesthetic conception and plastic vision, in their conventional modelling and advanced visualisation, in their feeling for volume and sense of form invariably recall conventional and decadent colonial Greek works of the same art-form and design. Here then we can trace the source of the impetus and inspiration of the conventional art of the crowning lions of Mauryan columns. Here then, in a tradition familiar with lions and bulls and horses was the convention fixed and determined.

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It may be argued that the art-form and tradition as revealed in the Mauryan lions represent the stage of exhaustion of the art of the Indus Valley in the natural process of dissipation of the art-form that we have evidence of in the seals of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. I am not altogether certain about it, not because the art of the Indus Valley remains chronologically unrelated and unexplained, but because the two arts belong to different aesthetic visions and imaginations. The dynamic naturalism that interprets the pent up energy of the Indus Valley animals has nothing to connect itself with the stagnant compactness of treatment of the Asokan lions. While life flows in sinuous rhythm in one, it stands still in meaningless tension in another; indeed, the two seem to belong to two different worlds of vision and imagination.

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The Dhauli elephant and perhaps the Rampurva bull seem to belong to a somewhat different aesthetic vision and outlook, perhaps to a different art tradition other than that of the lions. True, indeed, so far as feeling for volume and its reproduction are concerned they belong to the same fully developed stage of art as that of the crowning lions discussed above, and that there is nothing archaic and primitive about them; but it is equally true there is nothing conventional about them as well, and the plastic sense and method of treatment are altogether different. The fluidity of the modelling betrays a full knowledge of the softness of the flesh and of the flowing current of life that is within; it is also restrained and is not contaminated by any conventional exaggeration or localised emphasis. Nor is there any evidence of schematisation of form. Indeed, these two examples (with perhaps the Sānkāsya elephant as a close third) represent a different aesthetic outlook and a different art tradition than those of the crowning lions and the lion, horse and bull reliefs on the Sarnath abacus. This difference in outlook and tradition is clearly brought to the fore when the Rampurva bull is compared with the relief of the same animal in the Sarnath column; the two bulls belong to two different worlds as it were.

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It is, I think, permissible to assume that it is Indian aesthetic vision and imagination and Indian art tradition that are here largely at work, so far as art style at least is concerned. The same plastic conception and quality of modelling constitute the pivot round which early Indian art moves, and the same restraint and quiet dignity are the qualities that Indian art ever sought to achieve in higher art from the very beginning. Moreover, if the Dhauli and Sāṅkāśya elephants, particularly the former, are compared with the figures of elepants in bold and high relief in the frieze of the facade of the Lomaśa Ṛiṣi cave, it will at once be seen that they belong to the same style and tradition of art. This cave, even if not of Mauryan date, can not be very much later; all scholars recognise that the entire facade of this cave is the exact and literal translation in stone of a wooden prototype. It may be assumed therefore that figures of elephants in the same style and tradition as we see them on the stone facade were already being rendered in wood for generations when they came to be transferred on stone.

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It is not unlikely that in the Dhauli elephant, the Rampurva bull and partly in the Sāṅkāśya elephant, all of which are decidedly Indian in appearance and spirit, we but witness the traditional Indian conception of these objects and the older or contemporary Indian art style and tradition transferred into stone in terms of the requirements of that particular material and according to the dictates of bolder designs and bigger dimensions. Indeed, the Dhauli elephant and the Rampurva bull are both characterised by a lively naturalism and a plastic treatment of volume that are unlike those of the Mauryan lions or of the animals on the abacus of the Sarnath capital. But they cannot, I am afraid, be said to represent the stage of exhaustion of the art of the Indus Valley; rather their fresh energy and dignified bearing bespeak a new and fresh consciousness of life. I am, therefore, disposed to hold that the conventional art-form as represented by the lions is of foreign extraction, and from what we know of the phil-Hellinism of the Maurya court on the one hand and the art-form of the Hellenistic Orient on the other, there cannot be any reasonable doubt that it was imported from West-Asia which happened to be the play ground of Medo-Achaemenian and Hellenistic culture-complex. The art-form represented by the Dhauli elephant and the Rampurva bull stand on a different footing altogether;

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it is perhaps the indigenous art tradition practised in wood, presumably through centuries, an art tradition to which the art of the Indus Valley may have bequeathed but distant memories. To such plastic practices in wood and other materials we have references in the ‘Arthaśāstra’, the ‘Manusamhitā’, the ‘Ashtādhyāyī’ of Pāṇini, and in certain early Buddhist texts (Barua, JISOA, XI, pp. 65-68). Thus, there must have existed in pre-Mauryan India an art of wood-carving and clay-modelling that carved and modelled free and round figures of men and animals out of wood and clay, and perhaps also of big dimensions.

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It is difficult to say anything about the nationality of the artists of the Maurya court; there is no evidence on the point. But from what has been said above, it is permissible to assume that the Dhauli elephant, the Rampurva bull and perhaps also the Sānkāśya elephant are works of Indian artists working in contemporary Indian style and tradition, and having a thorough mastery of the third dimension and a full consciousness of the Indian outlook. The crowning lions of the early phases, namely, the Basarh-Bakhira and Lauriya-Nandangarh examples, are also works of Indian artists but tutored in the style and tradition of contemporary western art; this is marked in the grappling with the problem of form and its precise execution so evident in these sculptures. There is decided advance in the Rampurva, Sarnath and Sanchi specimens; this may have been achieved by the same Indian artists working increasingly in the direction of contemporary West-Asiatic art, or by colonial artists of the Hellenistic Orient imported by the Maurya court. In any case, there are in these specimens a strong and undeniable Perso-Hellenistic stamp that may not have been imprinted by traditional Indian hands.

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This is not surprising in the least, since the whole of the North-West of India during the centuries of Śaiśunāga-Nanda-Maurya domination formed really a part of the Asiatic West and of the international world extending from the coasts of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Indus. It was the art and culture of this world with which the Maurya kings and court had affiliated themselves. The Yonas or Yavanas (evidently derived from Greek Ionian), the Kāmbojas, and the Gandhāras were the typical peoples of this region of India on this side of and beyond the Hindukush, mentioned along with the Kirātas and the Barbaras in the ‘Mahābhārata’, and with still some more tribes in the ‘Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa’. It is significant that Manu describes the Yavanas and the Kāmbojas as Kshatriya tribes who occupied the position of fallen castes of the ‘Vrātyas’. Still more significant is that the Pāli ‘Assalāyana Sutta’ mentions Yona and Kāmboja as peoples who had altogether a different social-organisation “admitting of nothing but a general distinction between the status of a master (ayya, ārya) and that of a slave or servant (dāsa), creating no impassable barrier between the two, and thereby making it possible for men to pass from one class into another according to opportunities and vicissitudes of life." This kind of social organisation along with the tradition recorded by Buddhaghosha in his 'Papañcha-sūdanī', that the Aparānta janapada was peopled by men who originally came from Aparagoyāna or the Western Continent which was the division of the earth lying to the west of Sumeru and Jambudvīpa and extending as far west as the Western Seas, seems to suggest that these regions of India lay within the orbit of the international world which was during all those centuries dominated by Perso-Hellenistic culture and politics. This is further supported by Buddhaghosha when he says that the Yaunas, Kāmbojas and other allied frontier peoples, all belonged to the Pārasaka-vaṇṇa. The 'Mahābhārata' too brands them all as 'dāruṇa Mlechchhajātayaḥ' or dreaded barbarians, while in the 'Bhūridatta Jātaka' the majority of the people of Kāmboja are credited only with barbarous habits and false creed. Nor there can be any doubt, from the combined testimony of Pāṇini, Kātyāyana and Patañjali, that there had existed somewhere on the Kabul river a Persianised Greek settlement even prior to Alexander's invasion of India. The one fact that emerges from all these literary references (Barua, Inscriptions of Aśoka, II, pp. 257-61) is that these regions west of the Indus shared in a common social organisation and a common culture that extended upto the shores of the Mediterranean. Aśoka's role in contemporary Indian history was to bring India into the orbit of this international culture, to raise her from Middle and Eastern Indian tribalism to the internationalism of the contemporary world.

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