The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.24.3

v1.c33.24.3

Besides these and many other miscellaneous scenes there are a multitude of single images carved in high relief upon the pillars of the rail—Yakshas and Yakshīs, Devatās or Nāgarājas (Pl. XVII, 46, 47). The style of the carvings on the ground rail is by no means uniform. Some show little advance on the indigenous work of the previous century, the defects of rudimentary technique being almost as striking in these reliefs as they were in indigenous sculpture in the round. In such cases the figures are portrayed as silhouettes sharply detached from their background, an effort towards modelling being made merely by grading the planes of the relief in severe and distinctive layers, and then rounding off the contours of the silhouette or interior details. At the same time the forms are splayed out to the verge of distortion, and the influence of mental abstraction on the part of the artist is still manifest in the treatment of the feet or of hands in the attitude of prayer, which, irrespective of anatomical accuracy, are turned sideways and presented in their broadest aspect. In other carvings, the treatment of the relief is more mature.