Maurya and Shunga Art c8.8

c8.8

These life size, plastically round statues belong thus to different aspects and phases of Indian art. The are all Indian in form and appearance, in style and treatment, and they have hardly any relation with the court art of the Mauryas. The third dimension was already mastered by the courtly Indian tradition, in the Dhauli elephant and the Rampurva bull, for example, so that the conception and execution of either the Didarganj Yakshiṇī or perhaps those of the Patna Yakshas to an extent presented them with no new problem. Indeed, they belong to the same line of evolution, but at later stages, reflecting on themselves the currents of the flowing tradition and fashions of contemporary practice. The Baroda and Parkham statues along with a seated Yakshiṇī (now in worship as Manasādevī) from Mathura⁵² on the other hand belong to a different conception and tradition altogether, perhaps to a folk tradition, much older and born of the seeds of the soil, that was current and co-existent with the Maurya court art but of which the latter knew nothing. The fixation of that art in permanent materials is first to be seen at Barhut and later in various others places where it slowly and steadily grappled, stage by stage and with varying measure of success, with the problem of the third dimension that connotes fuller visualisation and comprehension of cubic values and also figuration of round and independent volumes. The Baroda and Parkham statues along with others of still later date represent the different stages in that direction.