Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s18.3

c12.s18.3

The two Patna Yakshas almost identical in form and appearance, conception and treatment, dress and ornament, and now in the Indian Museum come first in the list of alleged Mauryan sculptures. It deserves consideration that both the statues have on the scarf of their shoulder a line of Brāhmī inscription that has paleographically been dated round about the beginning of the Christian era, and that helps to identify the statues as those of Yakshas. No reason is adduced why the statues should not be considered as belonging to the same period as that of the inscriptions. The so-called Mauryan polish on which the main argument for a Mauryan date rests is conspicuous only on the upper half of the bodies, which may be taken to point to the fact that the practice of Maurya court art was already on the wane. While there is nothing peculiarly Mauryan about this couple there are elements that seem to connect them with some of the sculptures on the eastern gate of the Great Stūpa at Sāñchī on the one hand and the Kushāṇa school of Mathurā on the other. The heaviness, the almost archaic stolidity and weighty volume, the conflict between fully rounded and modelled volume as seen in the arms, breast and abdomen on the one hand and flat surface at the back on the other seem to suggest a close parallel with the huge heavy and ‘primitive’ Boddhisattvas of the Mathurā school. The treatment of the garment when it does not cling to the body as volumes separate from the body is a particular characteristic of the Kushāṇa school of Mathurā. The same remark applies to the treatment of ornaments. Where the garment clings to the body it is treated as a wet cloth and is almost invisible except for the parallel ridges that indicate the folds. A similar treatment of the garment characterises the Didarganj Yakshi also, to be considered later. On the other hand so far as general shape and appearance of the upper part of the body and the quality and character of the modelling are concerned, a kinship with the art of the bigger reliefs on the eastern gate of the Great Stūpa at Sāñchī seems to be admissible.