Features of Mauryan Sculpture, Mauryan palaces Arts & Stupa

Sculpture & Architecture

It is in this age, (Mauryan) that we first come across architecture and Sculpture in stone and that too one of the finest.

Some of the sculpture associated with the Mauryan court are 

 A polished fragment of a monolithic railing at Sarnath.

The vajrasana( throne of meditation) at the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya  is a large stone slab  under the Bodhi Tree. The 16.5 cm thick Vajrasana is made of Chunar  sandstone. Its top surface is decorated with a carved  geometric pattern that looks like intersecting circles. On the side are carved  floral palmette designs and geese(hamsas) in a styles similar to that of the carving  on the Ashokan capitals.

Dhauli (Bhubaneshwar district, orissa), there is a rock sculpture of the front part of  an elephant. His  heavy trunk  curls gracefully  inwards. His right front leg is slightly tilted and the left one slightly bent, suggesting forward movements.


The Mauryan period saw the beginning of rock-cut architecture (Barabar and Nagarjuni hills).

 

Three caves in the  Barabar hills have dedicative inscriptions of Ashoka and three in the Nagarjuni hills have inscriptions of his son Dashratha.

The only Sculptural ornamentation s a relief carving on the doorway of a cave  known as the Lomash Rishi cave. over the entrance, framed within  the earliest example of what art historians call the "Chaitya" or gavaksha arch are 2 bands of relief carving. The upper one has a lattice-work design; the lower one has a finely carved frieze showing elephants approaching stupas.

The tradition of making stupas- originally funerary mounds may be pre-Buddhist & stupas did not have an exclusively Buddhist significance. The stupa  swifty became an emblem of the Buddha's Dhamma &  an important part of  Buddhist  monasteries. There is quite a bit of evidence to show that Ashoka played an important role in popularising the stupa cult.

An important stupa site dating to Ashoka's time is Sanchi (in Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh) situated on the outskirts of Vidisha, the birth place of his wife, Devi. The remains of the Sanchi hillside include many stupas, shrines & monasteries.

Large stone Sculptures several large stone Sculptures of what look like human figures have been found at various sites in & around Patna, Mathura & other places. Many of them represent Yakshis, deities, whose worship was part of a popular religionin many parts of the subcontinent. other important examples of stone sculptures include the torso of a nude male figure found at Lohanipur in Patna. It is carved out of Chunar    Sandstone & has a polished surface.



A  large number carved ring stones & disc stones found at various sites in North India have been dated to the 3rd/2nd century BCE. They occur at sites in Patna, Taxila, Mathura,  the Purana Quila in Delhi, Kaushambi, Rajghat  & Vaishali. These rings have a  diameter of  5-6 cm with different sorts of carvings animals such as lion, horse deer, birds & the crocodile(makara) female figures that may represent Goddesses; trees & floral designs & geometric patterns. These ring stones may have had a religious or ritualistic significance.



Terracotta art flourished with the expansion of urban centers-male & female figurines; animal & craft toys, etc have been found.