Jignasa Journal Of History Of Ideas And Culture Part 02

Author(s): Vibha Upadhyaya and Others
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 80

296 / jijñāsā
are the outer or main surfaces of any offset. Niches are sunk in the main buttresses having the chief images. The carved figures on the surface of the temples are thus at different distances from the centre, but appear projected from the centre, and the entire volume of buttresses and interspaces, and thus the whole monument "is dynamically in a state of movement," a movement more powerful than that of any single figure propels, where this "closely enmeshed dynamic mass" meets the gaze and movement of the devotees as they circumambulate, meeting a profile after profile." The importance of the images is brought by her qualitative suggestion that "For each is complete in its particular meaning and at its particular place."
The images of the gods are to be made always as of sixteen years old, while the garment, jewellery and coiffure of the images are reflective of those worn in the respective region, of where the temple is built. It is noted that the preference of the sculptor, however, is for the bare body and with sparing use, the lower garments, generally found clinging to the body, "Thus all forms of apparel accentuate and accompany the smooth roundness of the figures and their movement."3 The 'schemata of these images is noticed soon enough, along with the iconographical physiognomy of the face which is that of the body-between the peaceful (santa), the terrific (ugra), etc., the typological iconography which is seen as a highly specified science, different physiognomical types etc.
The Samarāngana-Sutradhara either composed by King Bhoja of Dhara (reigned A.D. 10181060), or written under his patronage dwells at length on architecture. But the scope of the subjects is broadened in this text, as it deals with the subjects like town-planning, house-architecture, temple architecture, and pratima lakṣaṇa, including iconometry and iconoplastic art together with the mudrās or the different hand gestures/poses; along with the above mentioned, it also deals with the canon of painting and the construction of mechanincal yantras, thereby introducing the yantras and the citras to the body of silpaśasira." The very opening lines of its forty-fourth chapter give one an insight to the entrenched linkages of the previous canonical import by stating that, the qualification of an architect are four-fold namely: the sastra or the canon/traditional lore, karma or the practical experience, prajñā or the intuitive insight, and the sila or the righteous character. Therefore, the obviousness of the patriarchal structure leaving its deep impress upon the emerging sculptural practices by the canonical lore, was a natural fallout for the making of sculptural conventions and processes. While the seventysecondth chapter deals with iconographic details of the representative selection of gods and goddesses along with their forms and mudras, among which the famous goddesses like Lakṣmi and Kausiki etc., received attention; the subsequent chapter concerning the pratima lakṣaṇa or the iconography, delineates the general seven materials used in the making of the various images, and further describe in detail the proportion of the images of a male beginning from eyes, ears, nose, chin, lips, forehead, cheeks, neck, chest, navel, phallus, thighs, knees, toes, nails and ending into the hands, their fingers, with their other component members, and it is only towards the end that the similar proportions of the limbs of the different parts of the female figures are given. 16 The seventy-fifth chapter Pañcapuruṣastrilakṣaṇa or The Standard Models of Proportions of the Fivefold-men and Fivefold-women, follows the dictum of Varāhamihira, which states that the dresses and the ornamentation are to be provided for or employed in the images of the gods and goddesses are to be in the fashion of the local characteristic styles and standards, and the author not only maintains the tradition but also established the importance of the practice in this particular chapter." While the five male types are described as Hamsa, Śaśa, Rucaka, Bhadra and Malavya and their manas being eighty-eight, ninety, ninety-two, ninety-four