Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s18.10

c12.s18.10

These life size, plastically round statues belong thus to different aspects and phases of Indian art. They are all Indian in form and appearance; and in style and treatment 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 the Patna Yakshas 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 Mathurā¹ on the other hand belong perhaps to a different conception and tradition altogether, a primitive folk tradition much older and more rooted to 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 Bhārhut and later in various other places where it slowly and steadily grappled stage by stage and with varying measure of success with the problem of the third dimension. The Baroda and Parkham statues along with others of still later date represent the different stages in that direction.