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 back 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 back 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.