Andhra Sculpture

 

THE earliest literature of the Andhras had its centre along the banks of the Godavari towards the eastern sea-coast, and their earliest painting at Ajanta in the Deccan. But the sculpture of the race found its earliest and most enduring expression along the Krishna-Veni. The empire of the Satavahanas extended along the Deccan table-land, from the eastern to the western sea, and the ancestors of the present day Andhras, Maharashtrians, and Kannadigas were partners in the cultural glory of that far-flung empire. Sanchi, Karli, and Dhanyakataka were the spots where sculpture attained perfection. But with the rapid spread of Buddhism along the eastern provinces and the establishment of the imperial capital at Dhanyakataka or Amaravati on the banks of the Krishna, a number of Buddhist stupas and viharas were constructed on either bank of the river for a distance of about fifty miles before it joins the sea. If Andhra was the most powerful of Indian empires after that of the Mauryas, so also was Andhra the seat of Buddhism and Buddhistic art, next in importance only to the Holy Land of Buddhism where the Blessed One lived and taught the Truth he glimpsed.

The period of five centuries from 200 B.C. to 300 A.D. was approximately the period when Andhra Buddhist sculpture flourished. This was a creative age when the devotion and munificence of the members of royal households, and more especially of the queens, gave a great impetus to the artistic talent of indigenous craftsmen. While Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta represent the high-water mark of Andhra sculpture during the rule of the Satavahanas, Nagarjunakonda under the Ikshvakus marks a further development in the matter of artistic efflorescence, variety of theme, and attention to detail. A step further might have meant the beginning of decadence, but that step was not taken at Nagarjunakonda. Fresh energy and grace came to Buddhism through Nagarjunacharya, Head of the Monastery and founder of the Mahayana school. The same energy and grace are reflected in the sculptures of the valley surrounded by high hills and washed by the dark waters of the Krishna.

When we speak of the Buddhistic sculptures of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda and expatiate on the marvelous skill of the master craftsmen who fashioned the legends of the Buddha’s many births into lyrics of imperishable marble, are we not moved by the thought that the same river flows and the same marble is abundant, and the descendants of the same craftsmen go about the hills and the valleys? In an age of new-found freedom, will not new artists with fresh themes and a disciplined skill create the great art of modern Andhra?

Perfection of form and skill in picturesque narration through the medium of marble are the distinguishing traits of this art. To these must be added purity; there is no trace of Grecian influence as in the Gandhara school, though a few Scythian figures are sculptured. The art is pre-eminently ecclesiastical, centering round the personality of the Buddha, but a secular element is introduced through the panels of Man and Woman at intervals and of birds and beasts. A study of household utensils, musical instruments and the dress and ornaments of a by-gone age is rendered possible by an examination of these sculptures. The art of Borobodur in Java is largely a replica of the art of Andhra.

With the decadence of Buddhism in Andhra, the sculpture of the Pallavas and Chalukyas–with puranic Hinduism as the dominant motif–comes into prominence. Ellora is to Hindu sculpture what Amaravati was to Buddhist sculpture, and in the Kailasa temple at Ellora, hewn out of the living rock, the gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon are sculptured with such consummate skill that the lover of art wonders if the denizens of Heaven had graciously chosen to turn themselves into stone for the benefit of mere mortals. Ellora like Ajanta is claimed with equal ardour by the three peoples of Dakshinapatha.

The Pallavas were feudatories of the Satavahanas. After gaining independence, they spread their dominion from Vengi or Andhranagari, the present village of Peda-Vegi near Elluru, to the Chola country. Under the later Chalukyas of Vengi who transferred the capital from Vengipura to Rajamahendravaram, the medium of sculpture, as in the Chola empire, becomes predominantly bronze. While the principal objects of worship in temples, and the decorative friezes on the walls, continued to be fashioned of black stone, the deities taken out for processions were usually of bronze. In the Andhra country, the figures, whether of stone or bronze, which were sculptured with the greatest frequency were those of Venu-Gopala–Krishna as the cowherd with the flute–and Kodanda-Rama–Rama, the warrior with the bow. Statues of individual kings or chieftains were set up in attitudes of devotion and submission when they happened to be the builders of the temple or donors of gifts to the Deity. The rules of the Silpa-Sastra were strictly applied to the architecture of the temples as well as to the carving and modelling of the deities in stone and bronze. The proportions of the figure, the poses, and the decorative scheme were all in strict accordance with the Sastra. But, within the limits thus set the craftsman had freedom to lavish his skill on the facial expression of the god or goddess, and to bring out the full implications of the Dhyana Sloka which enabled him to visualise the particular deity.

The sculpture of the Kakatiya period was mainly in stone, and at Warangal the thousand pillared Mantapa with its friezes bore witness to the magnificence of artistic achievement of the architects and sculptors of the age. Saivism was the dominant cult and the great temples of Daksharama and Srisailam the centres of pilgrimage. But the temples of the Kakatiya period are not, architecturally, on the scale of the Chola temples. The Cholas, like the Pharoahs of Egypt, built in the grand manner and gave more attention to the temples than even to their palaces.

After the fall of Warangal to the hordes of Islam under the Tughlaks, a local chieftain of the coastal country, Kapayanayaka, gathered the erstwhile feudatories of the Kakatiya empire and won for a time the freedom of the land. This was prior to the much greater effort of Harihara and Bukka on the banks of the Tungabhadra. There are scholars who hold that these founders of Vijayanagara were officers of Warangal and therefore, in a sense, the torch of freedom was passed from Warangal to Vijayanagara. For full three centuries, Vijayanagara was the centre of art and literature; it marked the crowning glory of the many-sided achievement of the twin-peoples of Andhra and Karnataka. Poetry, music, dance, painting, and sculpture were cultivated with the utmost devotion under the Rayas of Vijayanagara. The land was studded with temples mounted by Gopuras, aptly called Raya- Gopuras. In the temples, palaces, and hill forts of the empire, from Kalinga to Kanyakumari, there was a continuous effort to maintain a high level of culture. Apart from carving deities out of stone, the sculptors portrayed the life of the period, more particularly the figures of the musicians with their instruments and the danseuses in the different poses mentioned in the treatise on Dance by the sage, Bharata. At Lepakshi in Anantapur district, can be seen the huge bull, and one has to see it before one can believe that a figure of such massive proportions and singular majesty could be carved out of stone. But more significant than the bull is the close juxtaposition of painting and sculpture at Lepakshi. The ceiling of the temple is covered with paintings depicting puranic themes, and, in point of delicacy of line and harmony of colour, these paintings are of rare excellence. One must be thankful that these have been fairly well preserved.

But Lepakshi is not an isolated example of the close association of the painter’s brush and the sculptor’s chisel. It is indeed characteristic of all great Hindu shrines. Only, sculpture has withstood the ravages of time better than painting. The rage for ‘renovation’ has often led to the plastering of the walls or ceiling of many temples, so that new painters, and often-inferior ones, might try their skill. At Macherla, a few miles from Nagarjunakonda, in the celebrated medieval temple of Chennakesava where Bramha Naidu and his heroes worshipped before they went forth to battle, the ceiling contains a few remnants of medieval painting fit to match the grace of the sculptures on the same spot. In many more temples, these old frescoes must be brought to light, to enable us to trace the history of Indian painting during different periods.

Of the great unfinished temples of the Vijayanagara period the one at Tadpatri is the most famous. Here is sculpture at its loftiest–infinite in theme and unmatched for figure composition. This is Vijayanagara sculpture before decadence set in. Later sculptors, deprived of the guidance of the master-artists of the capital, mechanically repeated the themes and the decorations, kept with the limits set by the Silpa-Sastra, and plied their craft under the patronage of local chieftains. The creative urge almost disappeared. But, from father to son, the tradition was handed down, so that the student of Indian sculpture came across these devotees of the ancient arts, and dreamed of a possible future. It was something that the lamps were kept burning, though they burnt very low. The art of Mathura and Tanjore under the Telugu Nayaks is not strictly within the scope of this talk, though Telugu sculptors may have been employed by the Nayaks.

In recent years, painting has made some headway in Andhra, and schools of painting have sprung up to prepare the way for a renaissance. But sculpture has yet to come into its own. In centres of sculpture like Hampi, Lepakshi, and Nagarjunakonda, we have to make a beginning, of schools of sculpture, seek out the hereditary craftsman, and also train young artists with adequate cultural equipment to chisel in stone, cast in bronze, carve in wood and, generally, bring the glory that was Andhra. But this cannot be a mere revivalist movement. The world is wide, and light streams in from everywhere. The sculptors of our day must not only study the remnants of ancient and medieval Indian sculpture, but, keeping to the idealism and the vision of the great masters, strive after perfection through new ways of expression. The names of Deviprasad Narayana Rao and Gurram Mallaiah suggest themselves as the possible harbingers of a new era in Andhra sculpture.

More than music or painting, sculpture has the quality of permanence, because of the nature of the medium it employs. Ages pass and the memory of civilisations is obscured, but somehow the excavator rescues from the bowels of the earth the monuments of a distant past. The archaeologist is thus a conscious benefactor of humanity, linking the past with the present. But for him, Mahenjadaro and Harappa, Pataliputra and Nagarjunakonda must have remained in oblivion. When great excavations are carried out, it is the sculpture of the past which puts us in intimate touch with those that were kin to us and anticipated so many of our dreams.

Even apart from this unique function of sculpture, it is the most perfect of the visual arts, and a true symbol of any nation’s growth into maturity of artistic creation. In Andhra, as everywhere, sculpture must therefore win its proper place in all schemes of cultural re-orientation. Schools of sculpture must spread the message of beauty, making art not a mere preserve of curators of museums and of art-minded dilettantes, but the inspirer of a people in the living present!

By courtesy of All India Radio, Vijayawada.