The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

THE EARLY ANDHRA PERIOD 97
represent in the allotted space. Students of Far
Eastern art will recall that in the Chinese cavetemples
of Yun Kang and Lung Men we find
innumerable individual dedications of Buddhist
figures and reliefs carved without regard
to any unified iconographical scheme.
Our photograph of the outer face of the east
gateway illustrates the architectural arrangement
usual to these toranas and the distribution
of their iconography. The superstructure
is supported by massive blocks, sculptured with
figures of elephants shown as though processing
round the actual capital. Between the cross-bars
or architraves are square blocks with symbolical
representations of events from the life of the
Buddha. There are two panels of Lakshmi typifying
the Nativity; the Enlightenment is indicated
by the tree and empty throne; and the
Preaching at Sarnath, by the wheel. Further
references to these same themes with the throne
and what appears like a relief of an Asokan
column occur on the vertical props between the
cross-bars. These architraves are built as though
actually passing through the uprights in a manner
suggestive of earlier wooden architecture. It
is possible that these long horizontal panels terminating
in tightly wound spiral volutes are a
transference to stone of popular picture scrolls
partly unrolled for exhibition. 1
In our view of
the gateway we can recognize in the upper crossbar
representations of the Buddhas of the Past,
typified by stupas; in the centre, the Great
Departure; and, in the bottom panel, Asoka's
visit to the Bodhi Tree. To right and left of the
main subject in this lowest bar may be seen
richly carved peacocks, perhaps intended only
as decoration, but very possibly referring to the
heraldic emblem of the Maurya Dynasty. The
top of the gateway at Sanchi was originally
crowned with trisula or trident symbols, one of
which remains in place at the right, and probably
by a central palmette motif, such as may still
be seen on the one surviving gateway from
Bharhut [28]. The complete gateway to be
seen in illustration 42 shows the decoration
of the outer jambs of the torana : at the left,
reading from top to bottom, the Great Enlightenment,
the Conversion of the Kasyapas,
and the Departure of King Bimbisara from
Rajagriha; at the right, representations of the
Heaven ofBrahma and the Paradises of the gods.
Originally there were two figures of yakshis
in the round, supported by a mango bough enclosed
as a spandrel between the uprights and
the lowest architrave. One of these figures to the
north is still in position [43]. It is a drastic and
dramatically effective adaption of the womanand-tree
motif that we have already encountered
at Bharhut. Although the thrust of the
body and limbs is conceived with a wonderful
intuitive sense of the architectural appropriateness
of this particular figure for the space it was
to fill, the form, perhaps by the sculptor's intent,
is not conceived in the full round, but is sculptured
as two high reliefs placed back to back,
with little
or no modelling bestowed upon the
lateral sections. Actually, the figure was meant
to be seen only from directly in front, or in the
rear view afforded the visitor from the upper
processional path on the drum of the stupa.
Although functionally the image plays no part
in the support of the gate, it would be hard to
imagine anything more simple, yet more dramatically
effective both from the iconographical
and aesthetic points of view, than this presentation
of the tree-spirit. Her legs thrust with the
force of a buttress against the trunk of the tree,
and from this magic touch its encircling boughs
flower and receive the caressing grasp of the
yakshi, so that she seems like a living vine, part
of the tree
that she quickens. The figures of
yakshis at Sanchi, like the reliefs at Bharhut, are
here as survivals of earlier nature cults which
had been accepted
by Buddhism and which
nothing would eradicate from the popular mind.
'These figures of fertility spirits are present here
because the people are here. Women, accustomed
to invoke the blessings of a tree spirit,