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

THE GUPTA PERIOD 239
the Gupta style at centres like Mathura, so that
the object should probably be dated no earlier
than the fourth or fifth century. Characteristic
of the Gandhara metal figures is the rayed nimbus
and aureole or body halo.
A typical example of a statuette of the Gupta
Period is the bronze figure of Buddha from
Dhanesar Khera, now in the museum at Kansas
figures, and their metaphorical composition are
all
parts of the unified Gupta tradition. Sanchi
continued as a Buddhist centre well through the
reign of Harsha of Kanauj, and some of the later
dedications include Buddha images of considerable
dignity and plastic significance. We have
already studied the later cave-temples at Ajanta
City and dated c. 400 [177]. The head is a
reduction to a small scale of the heads of fourthand
fifth-century Buddha statues from Mathura.
The proportions of the body beneath the
drapery likewise correspond to the Gupta type,
but the robe itself is still modelled more in conformity
with the semi-realistic style of
Gandhara. Again, the halo, with its projecting
rays, is typical of these small metal images both
in Gandhara and later Indian examples. 8
Sculpture in the Gupta Period is of course not
limited to the production of the ateliers at
Mathura and Sarnath; there was, on the
contrary,
an enormous amount of carving of
Hindu and Buddhist images all over India, and
many of these can vie in quality with the masterpieces
of the famous centres in the north. A
great many images and reliefs, Hindu, Buddhist,
and Jain, have been collected in the Museum at
Gwalior. Among these the mother goddesses
and a Xarasirhha from Besnagar, several
reliefs of flying apsaras, and a Nativity relief,
either Hindu or Jain, are worthy of special
mention. Also from a temple at Besnagar is a
relief of the goddess Gariga, now in the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts. The figure reveals the
attenuated sensuous grace of the Sarnath style,
and the foliage and water patterns are carved
with that combination of convention and inventive
fancy that characterizes all Gupta
Udayagiri, Bhopal, boar avatar of Vishnu
r
ornament. Among the most monumental of
Gupta carvings is the colossal relief of the boar
avatar of Vishnu at Udayagiri, Bhopal [178]. All
these examples from western India are in the
same style as the work at Sarnath; that is, the
sculptural conception, the proportions of