A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c17.19

c17.19

The earliest Indian example known to me is the Bharhut draped figure of the Yakshī Chandā, who is represented in what I call the normal manner. That may be dated about 200 b. c.² The lady also appears on the Sānchī gateways, and in Gandhāran art over and over again with many variations (see Chap. IV). Slightly modified she becomes Māyā, the mother of Buddha, in the Nativity scene (Plate XXIX). I cannot find her at Amarāvatī, but at Mathurā she is specially characteristic of the local art, both Jain and Buddhist, and is often represented with lascivious suggestiveness in a manner to which the Mathurā school was too much inclined (*ante*, pp. 139, 140). The erotic tendency of that school assimilates it to Copto-Alexandrian art. The latest example that I can quote is a Brahmanical sculpture of the Vijayanagar school at Tārpatrī in the Anantapur District, dating from the sixteenth century (*ante*, Fig. 166). Thus, it is established that in Indian sculpture the motive had an history of more than 1,700 years.