The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.32

v1.c33.32

The steady growth of plastic art which we have traced in the foregoing pages derives additional light from the pre-Kushāṇa sculptures of Mathurā, which are the more instructive, because they all emanate from one and the same school. These sculptures divide themselves into three main classes, the earliest belonging approximately to the middle of the second century B.C.; the second to the following century; and the last associated with the rule of the local Satraps. Of these, the first two are so closely akin in style to the reliefs of the Bhārhut rail and Sāñchī *toraṇas*, respectively, that it is unnecessary to dwell further upon them. The sculptures of the third class are more exceptional. Their style is that of the Early School in a late and decadent phase, when its art was becoming conventionalised and lifeless. Typical examples are the plaques reproduced in Pl. XXIV, 65, 66, the former a Jain *āyāgapaṭa* or votive tablet dedicated, as the inscription on it informs us, by a courtesan named Loṇaçobhikā; the latter, which is decorated on both sides, from a small *toraṇa* arch. In all works of the Mathurā school of this period the same tendency towards schematic treatment is apparent, but it appears to have affected the Jain sculpture more than the Buddhist. The dramatic vigour and warmth of feeling which characterised the reliefs of the Sāñchī gateways is now vanishing; the composition is becoming weak and mechanical, the postures formal and stilted. The cause of this sudden decadence is not difficult to discover. A little before the beginning of the Christian era Mathurā had become the capital of a Satrapy either subordinate to or closely connected with the Scytho-Parthian kingdom of Taxila¹, and, as a result, there was an influx there of semi-Hellenistic art, too weak in its new environment to maintain its own individuality, yet still strong enough to interrupt and enervate the older traditions of Hindustān. It was no longer a case of Indian art being vitalised by the inspiration of the West, but of its being deadened by its embrace. As an illustration of the close relations that existed between Mathurā and the North-West, the votive tablet of Loṇaçobhikā is particularly significant, the *stūpa* depicted on it being identical in form with *stūpas* of the Scytho-Parthian epoch at Taxila, but unlike any monument of the class in Hindustān. Another interesting votive tablet of the same class is one dedicated by a lady named Āmohinī in the reign of the Great Satrap Çoḍāsa, which, to judge by the style of its carving, dates from about the beginning of the Christian era.