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

1 62 ROMANO-INDIAN ART
sculpture at Mathura may be illustrated by a
comparison of a female attendant from one of
the larger plaques from Begram [106] with a
yakshi from a railing pillar at Mathura [101].
The pose and accessories are nearly identical,
and only the fuller roundness of the relief in the
sandstone maiden makes her appear heavier
than the light and elegant figure of the ivory
plaque. Both are representative of an art that
had reached the apogee of perfection both
technically and in the evocation of a gently
erotic mood and provocative sensuality unmatched
anywhere in the art of the world. All
these figures are almost literal translations into
sculptural form of the descriptions of auspicious
signs characterizing the forms of beautiful
women in the Brihatsamhitd, by the sixthcentury
writer, Varahamihira. 'Broad, plump
and heavy hips to support the girdle, and navel
deep, large and turned to the right, a middle
with three folds and not hairy; breasts round,
close to each other, equal and hard . . . and neck
marked with three lines, bring wealth and joy.'
The trtbhanga pose of the two figures is one
found repeated over and over again in countless
examples of Indian sculpture and painting. In
both the ivory panels illustrated the whole conception
of the figures has something of the
exquisite artificiality of the ballet. The gesture
of the hand of the standing figure epitomizes the
studied interpretative beauty of the gestures of
the Indian dance. All these panels have a flavour
of intimate erotic charm without the least vulgarity,
which prophesies the romantic genre
scenes of the Rajput miniatures. They illustrate
how, when occasion demanded, the Indian
sculptor, in his great versatility, could suggest
form through effective moving contour by relief
executed almost entirely in terms of line
drawing.
A fragment of an ivory comb in the Victoria
and Albert Museum from Mathura or Uttar
Pradesh and datable in the early Kushan period
107. Ivory comb from Mathura or Uttar Pradesh.
London, Victoria and Albert Museum
[107] affords an interesting counterpart for the
representation of court scenes in the relief from
Pitalkhora [40] and the terracotta plaque from
Kausambi [58]. The technique is a combination
of the carving in depth with some foreshortening
and surface engraving to be seen in many of
the Begram ivories [56], and the railing motif of
the cornice of the pavilion is popular in Mathura
reliefs [104]. 6
It is only in the accounts of Chinese visitors
like Fa Hsien and Hsiian-tsang that we can get
any idea of the sumptuous splendour of
Buddhist architecture in the days of Kanishka
and his successors. As has been already noted,
the temples and monasteries of Mathura were
reduced to such a jumble of destruction by the
Islamic invaders that not a single structure
remains standing or even sufficiently intact to
provide a reconstruction beyond a ground plan.
We have already discussed the famous tower
of Kanishka at Peshawar in the previous
chapter. Another Buddhist skyscraper, the
foundations of which are linked to the Kushan
Dynasty, is the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh
Gaya that replaced a simple hypaethral shrine
erected by Asoka to enclose the bodhi tree. It
was built to house an image of the Buddha at his