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Title: Female figure
Work Type: Sculpture and Installations
Work Type: figurines
Date: 322 - 185 BCE
Location: Bihar, Patna district, Bulandibagh
Material: Terracotta
Period: Maurya period (322 - 185 BCE)
earthenware (fig 110)
• Frontal pose
• Treatment of the skirt, the face, the elaborate headdress contributes a mood to freedom and gaiety
• Softness of clay
• 3 different styles during the Maurya period
o Official one – associated with the court
o Indigenous
o Forest-cult style
• Extremely knowing young woman
• Panniered skirts
• Earthenware is important to Indian culture
• Clay (from river)
• Wearing a skirt of cloth held by a big belt
• A lot of necklaces, earrings
• Image of someone of a high status
• Rivers associated
• Images referred to images of Yakshi
• Personification of goddesses with fertility and river
• Female goddess associated with nature and fertility |
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Title: Cauri Bearer
Date: c.200 B.C
Material: Chunar sandstone
Period: Mauraya Period
• Carefully polished, voluptuous image found at Didarganj,Bihar
• Holds ceremonial whisk (chauri) that identifies her as an attendant to some eminent personage
• Most sophisticated and courtly expression of Maurya – figural style
• Something made of stone is a lot harder to work with and is more costly
• Must have been sponsored by a patron (someone wealthy)
• How do you go from portable cheap art to monumental stone?
• Found by peasants along banks of a river
• Polished in stone the same way as pillars that are from the Mauryan period
• Signed by Ashoka
• Big breasts = fertility
• Fancier version of original Female figure
• Is holding something that looks like a mop, unlike the one that is in clay
• Woman is holding a flywhisk |
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Title: pillar capital with four lions
Title: lion capital
Date: ca. mid 3rd century BCE
Location: India
Location: Uttar Pradesh
Location: Benares Dt.
Location: Sarnath
Material: sandstone
Period: Maurya
• polished sandstone (fig 105)
• Lion associated with the king
• Pillars are meant to represent the ruler
• Pillars can be seen in markets
• Places pillars that are important to Budhist followers
• Connections between monuments from Sarnath and Contemporary Iraq period
• Exchange between Mauryan emperor and emperor of Iraq
• Ashoka wrote many edicts
• Ashoka launched a campaign
• Ashoka admits that he is a murder
• Ashoka is from the warrior caste
• Ashoka is publicly denying his identity within the system
• Ashoka might have been embracing the new religion of Buddhism
• Ashoka must have been Buddhist king because he felt bad for killing so many people
• Ashoka places this the place where the Buddha preached
• The Buddha turned the wheel of his own doctrine
• The wheel symbolizes the chakravartin
• He is celebrating himself and the Buddga at the same time
• Earliest Buddhist monuments produced in the Muarya period, notably works ordered by the emperor Ashoka, who was himself converted and adopted the Buddhist Law of Piety as the law of his lands
• Ashoka ordered stone memorial columns to be set up at points associatd with important events of the Buddha’s life
• Bell-shaped and surmounted by a frieze with four animals and four wheels in relief, which is surmounted by four lions back to back
• Similar to representation of lions at Persepolis
• Horse is less decorative than the lions above
• Lion is symbol of royalty
• Buddha described in the texts as the lion of the Shakya clan, was himself of royal blood
• Wheels on the frieze are symbols of Buddha’s Law, and later representations of the Buddha show his hands in the motion of teaching, or turning the Wheel, symbolic of his preaching the Sermon at Sarnath, where he set the Wheel of the Law in motion
• Horse, associated with Surya, the sun god who travels across the sky in a chaiot, as Apollo, the Greek sun god did
• Brhaminy bull, associated with great god Shiva
• Symbolizes lions overlooking the world
• Symbolizes “universal ruler”
• Chakra vatar??? = wheel turner |
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Culture: Indian
Title: Stupa 1 (The Great Stupa)
Title: Exterior
Title: from east
Work Type: Architecture and City Planning
Work Type: stupas
Date: 3rd century BCE - 1st century CE
Creation/Discovery Site: Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal District, Sanchi
Creation/Discovery Site: India
Material: Structural, sandstone
Period: Maurya period (321-184 BCE)
Description: Photographer: Suresh Vasant
Description: Set 30, Stupas at Sanchi
• Powerful monumental burial grounds for Buddha
• Stupa = a solid circular mound used to house relics of the Buddha. Essential Buddhist monument. The stupa itself represents the body of the buddha
• Circular shape representative of the buddha wheel
• Center of stupa is small container of ashes of the buddha “center of the universe”
• Fence around stupa.
• Torana = door in Sanskirt. 4 gates of building.
• Patha = path in Sanskirt
• We know dated to first century because of inscription on gate. Fence in scripted by jewelers who paid for building of fence. (Cannot in script on actual stupa)
• Constructed of brick and rubble faced with gilded white stucco
• Massive Muaryan rail around the base, and a path above that level, on the stupa proper, with the railing of the Shunga period
• Four gateways, masterworks of early Adhra sculptors
• Stone of Andhra gates is ivory white
Stupa
• Know stupa is made by a shuka (???) by inscription or by pillars
• First stupas made by bricks
• Doors very decorated
• Give money to rebuild the stupa or build tiny stupa placed next to it
• Every stupa topped with 3 disks. Like servants covering a king with umbrella etc. |
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Culture: Indian Yakshi (or Shalabanjika), East gate of Sanchi stupa ca. 1st c. BCE (fig 119). Period: Maurya period (321-184 BCE)
• Buddha never represented as an image • Aniconic = symbolic or suggestive rather than literally representational • Uses elephant (symbol of buddha) lion, wheel • Woman used as bracket, holding up shelves • Yakshi = Goddess of fertility • Appear on Buddhist monuments quite a lot • Shalabhanjika brackets on the gates are of particular importance for their sculptural quality • Fertility goddess is posed rather like the Chulakoka Devata of Bharhut, one hand grasping the bough of a tree and the other arm entwined between two branches • Left heel is against the base of the tree trunk, giving the ritual blow in the tradional marriage rite of the maiden and the tree • Sanchi shalabhanjika, is of a different case from her sister at Bharhut • Progressed considerable in technical and compositional development • No longer a relief on the face of a pillar • Body pivots in space, though the figure is still archaic in being largely confined to a frontal plane • Pose is more complex • Sculptor is beginning to cut away the stone to silhouette the figure against open air • Heavy shape of the tree is squared off at the top and developed as a right angle, and the thrust of the body appears to support the architrave above |
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Culture: Indian
Gate (torana) and enclousre (vedika)
Bharhut Stupa
1st c. BCE, Shunga period
• First example of aniconic symbolism, since it does not represent the figure of the Buddha; the symbols, in a sense, invoke his presence
• Incporation of male and female fertility deities
• Form was simple, a burial mound surrounded by a railing of great height
• Railing was divided vertically and horizontally, and at each junction between the vertical and horizontal members was a lotus wheel or a medallion in relief representing busts of donors
• Lions and a Wheel, symbolic of Buddha’s Law
Only have half of it left
British shipment issue?
Inscription from Shunga kings
Copy of Ashokan wooden gate but made out of stone (why it survived)
Covered with Yakshi
Entire fence is carved
Every randal (??) represents scenes of his life
One includes birth
Also scenes after his life |
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| Culture: Indian Title: Seated Bodhisattva/Buddha Work (Mathura) Type: Sculpture and Installations Work Type: reliefs Date: 1st - 5th century Creation/Discovery Site: Katra Mound Creation/Discovery Site: India Material: red sandstone Period: Kushan period (1st - 5th century) • Standard Buddha image was the seated one • Usually shown either in meditation or preaching The First Sermon • Dressed in the austere garb of a monk and seated in meditation in the traditional posture of a yogi • Halo, symbolizing the sun, carved into the rock behind his head • Physical attributes of the Buddha o The urna, or tugt of hair between the eyes o the lotus outline on the soles of the feet o earlobes permanently lengthened from the weight of the earrings he once wore as a prince o flanking the are two attendants bearing ceremonial whisks … chauri o on the base of the throne, are two winged lions, symbolic of the Buddha’s royalty, and two adorants flanking an edge view of a wheel symbolizes the turning of the Wheel of Law o geometric treatment of the drapery o unIndian look when compared to other Indian sculpture o Buddha’s hand forms one of the mudras – hand gestures with specific meanings in a prescribed and organized system o Mudras are important in the language of the dance and of images • First representation of buddha • Circle behind buddha shows ‘halo of light’ • Wheel on his hand • Seated in meditation on a throne supported by lions • Shows body to showoff the • Special marks on body of Chakravarti (= universal ruler) show when someone is born of a universal ruler • 32 marks • Wheel on hands • Webbed hands • Long ears (heavy from wearing gold earrings that are eventually given away, leaving long weighed down lobes) • Bump on top of head, like an extra brain • Eyebrow • Full lips, as full as the mango fruit • 3 lines on neck • Dreads • Ascetic = absence of pleasures • Even absence of brushing teeth, eating etc. • Often followers of Shiva • Extreme renouncer |
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Culture: Indian
Title: Kanishka
Work Type: Sculpture and Installations
Work Type: figures
Date: 1st - 5th century
Creation/Discovery Site: Mathura
Creation/Discovery Site: India
Period: Kushan period (1st - 5th century)
-Headless because neck breaks easily (thinnest part of statue)
-Know it’s king by two swords and by dress (warriors were kings)
-Shoes and pants show he is a foreigner
-heavy and hot for Indian weather
-Pants invented by nomadic communities of central Asia for riding horses
-Inscription identifies as foreign warrior. In fancy version of sanskirt says “i am ____ king of the ____” |
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Seated Buddha, Buddhist Triad
Title: Buddha Sakyamuni and companions 83 AD
Date: 2nd-6th C. A.D. (Kushan)
Location: Gandhara (Pakistan and Afghanistan)
Material: gray schist
Measurements: 24.5"
Subject: Gandhara (Pakistan and Afghanistan)
Subject: Buddha
Subject: Sculpture--India: Kushan Dynasty--2nd-6th C. A.D
• From Gandhara of the Kushan period
• Central figure is Shakyamuni preaching, setting in motion the Wheel of the Law, as symbolized by the gesture of his hands (mudra)
• To his right and left, respectively, stand the bodhisattvas Maitreya (who will become Buddha in the future) and Avalokiteshvara
• In the background, witnesses to the preaching, are the Hindu deities Brahma and Indra
• Complex and beautiful sculpture, important inscription with a date most likely equivalent to 182 C.E.
• Buddha’s head is Apollo-like and his eyes are half closed, presaging the lowered glance customary in later images
• In the flowering tree we see an exuberant display of virtuoso undercut stonework
• Flanking Bodhisattvas are small-scale examples of the classic standing type
• Their faces are those of Mediterranean god or heroes, apart from their mustaches
• They wear classical jewelry boldy organized
• From Gandhara
• More detailed and in dialogue with western art
• Expansion of Greek culture influenced image
• Didn’t care about accurately representing Buddha
• Clothes look more like toga
• Made at same time as Mathura buddha
• Bodisattva = People next to buddha are assistants of buddha
• Reached enlightenment, future buddhas
• Have power to postpone nirvana in order to help all of us reach enlightenment
• Bridge between buddha and us
• Covered in jewels
• Mahayana = the great vehicle, the school of Buddhism. Embraces bodisattva
• Started making statues of bodisattvas to put outside supta |
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Culture: Indian
Title: Reliquary with Arcades Containing Buddha Figures, called the Bimaran Reliquary
Work Type: box
Date: 1st century CE
Material: gold and garnets
Period: Gandharan
-images of buddha carved on outside
-held relics |
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Title: sculpture of a Buddha
Title: Buddha
Date: 320-647
Location: India
Location: Uttar Pradesh
Location: Benares Dt.
Location: Sarnath
Material: sandstone
Period: Gupta
• Most famous and most copied of all the Buddha images of the period is the fifth century Chunar sandstone image
• Represents the Buddha setting in motion the Wheel of the Law with his First Semon in the Deer Park at Sarnath, a suburb of Varanasi, which was to become a great Buddhist center
• Image presents the Buddha seated in the pose of the yogi ascetic, the soles of his feet up, his hands in dharmachakra mudra, the symbolic gesture of turning the Wheel of the Law, or teaching
• Frontally oriented, seated on a cushion, with drapery carefully fluted to suggest a lotus medallion
• Beneath the cushion on the plinth of the throne is a representation of the Wheel of the Law seen from the front
• The Deek Park is indicated by two deer, flanked by six disciples in attitudes of adoration
• Buddha’s throne is decorated with lions of a fantastic wing type, called leogryphs, who serve to indicate the lion throne of royalty
• Behind his head and centered on the urna, the tuft between the eyes, is the halo, the sun wheel, indicating the universal nature of the deity clothed in the sun
• Halo is decorated with a borer of aquatic motifs, principally lotuses, recalling the ancient fetility and vegetative symnbols associated with yakshas and yakshis
• On either sider, two flying angels who rush joyfully in to praise the Buddha
• Not as architectonic as the image from Mathura
• Treatment of the hands with elegant but limp fingers, narrow chest, all combine to give a more organic style
• Frontal symmetry and its precision of gesture tend to add an architectonic frame to the organic detail
• Flying and gesturing angel at the upper right is much freer than the main image
• Respect the stela resembles Italian altarpieces, large panels follow rigid iconic modes of earlier years
• Secondary figures, either tucked in the sides of main panels, more often, show more advanced styles, with an adventurous handling of space, posture, and gesture
Comparison between Buddhas:
In the Gupta period (5th - 7th century) the ideal buddha is created at Mathura and Sarnath
• Sarnath where the Buddha first preached (?)
• On pedestal gives clues:
• Wheels back to back
• Deers
• Mudra = hand gesture
• Hand gesture of preaching: two hands together like wheels
• Very smoothed out body
• Eyes closed in meditation
• Long earlobes
• Three lines on the neck
• More removed from viewer, idealized version of Buddha\
Can recognize Mathura budhas by red stone |
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| Title: stupa at Borobudur (Shailendra Dynasty) Title: stupa at Borobudur Date: late 8th century Location: Indonesia Location: Jawa Tengah Location: Borobodur Location: Jawa Material: stone Period: Central Java -One can see Borobudur as a Mountain, a Stupa, or a Mandala -Buddhist monument -Created by someone of power, perhaps king -All measurements are symmetrical and geometrically aligned -Walking up monument symbolizes journey to enlightenment -Base decorated with idea that it is our world -Ugly/unhappy people carved out -Makras = alligator/crocodile. Guarding the passage -Can’t see the top from the base -Jagged parts make it look difficult to get to the top -As going up you begin to see stupa at top -Eventually at top, everything is circular -Dome at top, symbol of buddha -“world of perfection” -72 mini stupas -Buddhas hidden inside mini stupas -Large solid stupa at top -Chamber inside -Purposefully unfinished buddha -Enlightenment is beyond the image of buddha form -Buddha touching ground = calling earth goddess as a witness of about to reach enlightenment -Structure of Borobudur Reliefs on hidden foot depicting scenes of hell -1st gallery has reliefs recounting the Jatakas (past lives of Shakyamuni) 120 panels and another set that tell his life story the Lalitavistara (a Mahayana text) 120 panels -2nd to 4th galleries illustrate Gandavyuha or Sudhana’s -pilgrimage 488 panels -5th level probably shows us samantabhadra bodhisattva -6th- 8th galleries are circular and support 72 perforated stupas with Buddha images (Vairocana Buddha) -The top stupa probably had an unfinished Buddha image • Example of Buddhist art in Southeast Asia and Indonesia • Situated on the central Dieng plateau of Java • Monument, carefully preserved and restored by Dutch archaeologists and being restored, fantastic microcosm, reproducing the universe as it was known and imagined in Mahayana Buddhist theology • Above a high plinth are five terraces of identical stepped-square plan, each smaller than the one below • From the topmost square rise three concentric circular terraces, likewise diminishing in size, holding among the 72 openwork stupas, each of which contains an image of Buddha in preaching mudra • Crowning the gigantic whole is a gigantic closed stupa, also containing a Buddha image, which Benjamin Rowland equates with the god-king himself • Lowest terrace is approx. 408 feet on a side, and the whole monument is some 105 feet high • A staircase bisects each face from bottom to top • All 5 terraces are walled and the entire length of the walls is carved with Buddhist scenes in relief, each of which contains a large image of the Buddha appropriate to the direction in which he is facing • More than 10 miles of relief in sculpture • Borobudur is a stupa, its profile that of a hemisphere crowned by a smaller stupa • Buddhist monument • Created by someone of power, perhaps king • All measurements are symmetrical and geometrically aligned • Walking up monument symbolizes journey to enlightenment • Base decorated with idea that it is our world • Ugly/unhappy people carved out • Makras = alligator/crocodile. Guarding the passage • Can’t see the top from the base • Jagged parts make it look difficult to get to the top • As going up you begin to see stupa at top • Eventually at top, everything is circular • Dome at top, symbol of buddha • “world of perfection” • 72 mini stupas • Buddhas hidden inside mini stupas • Large solid stupa at top • Chamber inside • Purposefully unfinished buddha • Enlightenment is beyond the image of buddha form • Buddha touching ground = calling earth goddess as a witness of about to reach enlightenment |
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Vishnu Anantashayana, Mamallapuram, 7th c., India (fig.248)
Title: Visnu Anantasayana
Date: 2d half 7th c. CE
Location: India
Location: Tamil Nadu
Location: Chingleput Dt.
Location: Mamallapuram
Material: grey granite
Period: Pallava
Description: view from south, looking north
• Vishnu keeps the universe together
• Continuity of life
• Resting
• Sleeping on a snake that is coiled
• Cosmic snake Ananta which means endless
• Vishnu resting on the universe
• Represents the potentiality of creation
• When you sleep you keep things hibernating
• Vishnu is the glue of the universe
• Energy is static
• Vishnu has a wife that massages his feet while he sleeps
• Vishnu can take many forms
• Every form Vishnu takes is called Avatar
• Vishnu took 9 different forms to rescue the earth from danger
• The 10th avatar hasn’t come yet
• 10 avatars associated with Vishnu
• We are in the final cosmic circle
• The last avatar is a white horse
• Everything starts all over again after the last avatar
• Avatar in Sanskrit means descent (coming down) |
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Linga
• You don’t need an image of god
• Aniconic form of the god Shiva
• Myths about pillars and gods
• Shiva, the god of energy and creation
• God of energy and creation
• Captions the formlessness of the divine
No form is better then form
• The more you define the more you lose your powers
• Can put in a temple
• Seeing is worshipping
• Lingas in nature?
o No one makes a linga
o Naturally occurring
o Linga in Himalayas
o People make pilgrimage to this spot
o Nature is higher because it’s a god choosing to manifest itself |
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Culture: Indian
Title: Nataraja, Shiva as the King of Dance
Work Type: Sculpture and Installations
Work Type: sculpture in the round
Date: 11th century
Location: South India
Material: bronze
Period: Chola
• Made of bronze
• Bronze is a mix of copper and tin
• Shiva is an acetic
• looks like a dancer
• Shiva is the god of energy
• Shiva is energy action
• The aspect of the divine
• Energy is moving
• Dancing is a good way to represent energy in motion
• Every step of Shiva has the luring of dancers
• Creating light & life as he moves
• His dance is a visual way to translate this way of creation and destruction
• If you don’t destroy, then how can you create
• Dance represents the pace of rhythm and destruction
• Cosmic dance dancing in circle of fire and light
• We know Shiva is a god because …
o Multiple arms
o He has a cobra in his arm
o Shiva has the power of the aesthetics
o Hair is floating
o He is wearing dreads
(Buddha from Mathura has plain dreads)
o Dreads are dancing
• Shiva carries a drum which is the rhythm
• In the dreads is a female figure (a yakshi)
• Female is stuck in the dreads of Shiva
• Shiva did so many ascetic exercises
o Took Ganges river out of cosmic place to bring to earth
o (Ganges was a female goddess)
o Shiva offers his dreads so that the Ganges river can flow gently through
o Represents the female goddess Ganga on his dreads
• Images of the Shiva become so popular in the 10th century
• Cholla Kings were great devotees of Shiva
o Started worship and creation of this particular image
• Big tradition of dance in South India
• Dance practiced in temples devoted to Shiva
• Shiva energy and destruction |
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Durga killing the Bull-Demon, Mamallapuram, 7th c (fig.250)
Title: Mahishasuramardini
Title: Exterior, raking view
Title: Mandapa, right wall, panel: Durga
Work Type: Architecture and City Planning
Work Type: Sculpture and Installations
Work Type: rock-cut temples
Date: 7th century
Creation/Discovery Site: Tamil Nadu, Chengalpattu M.G.R. District, Mahabalipuram
Creation/Discovery Site: India
Material: Rock-cut, monolithic, stone
Period: Pallava Dynasty, Dravidian
• Parvati is the goddess (Shiva’s wife)
• Has many arms
• Every arm has a weapon
• She was sent on a mission to kill the buffalo demon
• Good representation
• Creator and destroyer of evil
• Durgan sent on a mission to kill bull-demon
• A bull means that the god next to it is Shiva
• Goddess destroys evil
• Compared with Vishnu |
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Khajuraho Temple, Kandarya Mahadeva Temple, 1000 CE (figs, 286, 296, 297)
Title: Khajuraho: Kandariya Mahadeva Temple general view
Date: 11th C
Location: Khajuraho (India)
Location: India
Subject: Khajuraho (India)--Kandariya Mahadeva Temple
Subject: Architecture:Site--India--11th C. A.D
Subject: Temples--India
• Northern Style of Hindu temple
• Bhakti is the measure of your devotion
• Later develop in Hinduism
• Built by Candela Dynasty in North India
• Made of stone
• Detail
• Outside
• Metaphor of going from light to darkness
• Tallest roof is the image of the god
• Cosmic mountain at the center of the universe
• God Shiva lives on mountains
• Temple plan is a mandala geometric diagram of the cosmos
• Hindu temples are always open to the East
• Idea of the mountain, mountain peak
• Temple sits on a platform
• Temple is heavily decorated
• Images are layered on the temple
• Layers to cosmology
• Layers of existence
• Layers of action of the gods
• All the images are layered according to their degree of purity
• If you’re reborn as a dog which isn’t great
• Animals are considered to be a lower level of existence
• As you go up you find better levels of existence
• Gods appear on the roof
• Relationship between forms on outside and forms on inside
• Shiva temple
• Shiva dancing, Dhurga his wife
• Gods and humans mixed together on the sides of the temple
• Sense of a crowd of figures
• Scenes of sex
o Movement & energy of creation
• Tantric practices
• Sex can be an acetic exercise
o Overcome pleasure
o Retention of sperm
o Controlling the pleasure
o Became a yoga exercise
• Shiva is the lord of dance and the lord of acetic (tantric practice)
• When you enter the temple it is darkness
• Where life begins
• Linga (formless version) of the god Shiva is inside of the temple |
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-Monkey jataka, West gate of Sanchi stupa, 1st c. BCE
-Jataka: stories relating to buddha and india.
-Jataka: Dreams of the Buddha
-The ways the very first people related to the buddha
-trees are symbols of enlightenment
• Wealth of detail in the many panels with their narrative content
• Example of the jataka scene; its treatment of the subjects illustrates the stage reached by narrative art in the early Andhra period
• Single panel is framed below by a railing and at the sides by scrolling grapevines that give lush ruch movement to the edges, expressive of the vegetative forces of life
• Picture plane crowded with figures in effect a map of an enclosure packed with people
• River runs diagonally from top center to bottom right, thus preserving a maplike view of a landscape whose details we see in side view
• The trees of the landscape are shown in their most characteristic shape, the silhouette, hills and rocks are presented in profile
• Human and animal figures are shown more or less frontally but on a ground line, almost as if they were a separate composition within the landscape
• Representations of monkeys and their movements are highly convincing, even groups of figures seen from the same point are credibly rendered
• Story told is that the Buddha when he was king of the monkeys. In this incarnation the Buddha to be had as enemy and rival his wicked cousin, Devadatta
• Story is typical as showing the Buddha as a royal figure
• Composition has much in common with some Early ivories |
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-Yakshi (or Shalabanjika), East gate of Sanchi stupa, ca. 1st c. BCE
-Pillar carving on stupa railing from Bharhut, Shunga Period, 1stc
-Title: Stupa 1 (The Great Stupa), East Torana, north pillar
-Material: Structural, sandstone
Period: Maurya period (321-184 BCE)
Culture: Indian
-• Buddha never represented as an image
• Aniconic = symbolic or suggestive rather than literally representational
• Uses elephant (symbol of buddha) lion, wheel
• Woman used as bracket, holding up shelves
• Yakshi = Goddess of fertility
• Appear on Buddhist monuments quite a lot
• Shalabhanjika brackets on the gates are of particular importance for their sculptural quality
• Fertility goddess is posed rather like the Chulakoka Devata of Bharhut, one hand grasping the bough of a tree and the other arm entwined between two branches
• Left heel is against the base of the tree trunk, giving the ritual blow in the tradional marriage rite of the maiden and the tree
• Sanchi shalabhanjika, is of a different case from her sister at Bharhut
• Progressed considerable in technical and compositional development
• No longer a relief on the face of a pillar
• Body pivots in space, though the figure is still archaic in being largely confined to a frontal plane
• Pose is more complex
• Sculptor is beginning to cut away the stone to silhouette the figure against open air
• Heavy shape of the tree is squared off at the top and developed as a right angle, and the thrust of the body appears to support the architrave above |
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