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

THE LATER ANDHRA PERIOD 209
Buddha, as the etimasia of Early Christian and
Byzantine art symbolizes Christ. These details
are again a repetition of the type of aniconic
symbol found in Early Andhra sculpture at
Sanchi. In connexion with the analysis of the
Amaravati relief style in this chapter, attention
should be called to the dense crowding of the
composition and the nervous activity and
attenuation of the forms.
Although great numbers of these beautiful
limestone carvings at Amaravati had been burnt
for lime by the owner of the site in the nineteenth
century, large collections of the surviving
fragments remain and are preserved in
the Government Museum at Madras and in
the British Museum. They are datable from the
time of the renovation in the second century
a.d. The subjects comprise purely decorative
fragments, like the lotus medallions of the crossbars,
Jataka stories, scenes from the life of
Buddha, and, on the coping, a procession of
yakshas bearing a garland-like purse. In addition
to the reliefs a number of free-standing
Buddha images were found in the stupa
precinct; probably, like similar statues at the
Greco-Roman art. The lines of the drapery,
unlike the folds of Gandhara statues, no longer
have the rather dry, inert character due to the
mechanical copying of Late Antique formulae,
but are organized in an ordered rhythm of lines
undulating obliquely across the body and
imparting a feeling of movement as well as
reinforcing the swelling expansiveness of the
form beneath. Peculiarly characteristic of the
Buddha images of the Amaravati region is the
heavily billowing fold at the bottom of the outer
mantle where it falls above the ankles. This
may be derived from the heavy roll-like mantle
edge of Kushan Bodhisattva statues [97].
6
Owing to its commercial and religious affiliations,
the influence of the art of the Andhra
145. Standing Buddha from Nagarjunakonda.
New Delhi, National Museum
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Singhalese site of Anuradhapura, they were
originally placed round the base of the monument
[291].
A single one of these statues will serve as a
useful point of departure for an analysis of the
Amaravati style [145]. The Buddha, excavated
at Nagarjunakonda, is represented standing
directly frontal, wearing the Buddhist robe or
sanghdti with the right shoulder bare. The
heavy, massive conception ofthe figure, together
with the definition of the drapery by a combination
of incised lines and overlapping ridges
indicating the course of the folds and seams, is
distinctly reminiscent of the Buddha images of
the Kushan school. Iconographically, the conception
is related to Gandhara in the representation
of the Buddha wearing the monastic
robe, but beyond this there is no indication of
any direct stylistic influence from this centre of