Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 72

The other statuette represents the nimble figure of a dancer whose gliding curves and emphasized planes are intertwined as if suspended in a space eternally repeating the movement of the long forgotten dance. The volume of the figure is not only evenly distributed round its axis, but also well balanced in the intersection of the planes created within the space of the body movements. It is these external movements which govern the unit of space and volume in which the torso exists. Much like the other statuettes, which are dated to about 2400-2000 B.C.E., the head (or heads), arms and genital organ of the dancing figure were carved separately and socketed into drilled holes in the torso. The nipples were cut separately and are fixed with cement. The navel is cup shaped, and a hole is drilled on the left thigh. Unfortunately, the legs are broken.
The other figure described above, presents a somewhat adipose youth posed in a static, "frontality" position in which the muscular forms are delineated with the careful observation, restraint and breadth of style which has become the hallmark feature of the engraved seals of Mohenjo-Daro. In contrast, the dancing figure is so lively and fresh that it has no affinity to what some have called the dead formalism of the MohenjoDaro statuary. It appears to be ithyphalic, lending force to the suggestion that it may represent a prototype of the later day Nataraja, the dancing form of Siva. In both cases, these statuettes appear to be the prototypes of what was to become the two characteristic modes of Indian sculpture: the one recording the inner unconscious movements of life within the plastic walls of the body; the other, outer movement of the body by an act of will within the space encircled by a transcendent vision of movement.
The stone statuette in the stance of "frontality" also establishes a fundamental truth about (ancient) Indian art, namely, that Indian art is as firmly rooted in nature as well as coupled with its social environment and supramundane origin. It represents, as image-text for the observer, an inner control to
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