Mathura
Mathura was one of the pre-eminent cities of north India. It was still a thriving city on the yamuna where in the early period producing work in quantities rivaled only by gandhara. It was the southern capital of the kushanas and an important centre of craft and trade, religious activity and artistic production. Early excavations were unsystematic many of the most important sculptures have come to light in the course of modern road building. As a result, unlike other important sites not a single early building or monument has survived even in excavated form. The sculptors of this area used red sandstone quarried at sikri. Sculptures share iconographic similarities with those of the North West, but their style is very different. The themes were varied including yakshas, yakshis, nagas , nagis, Buddhas and bodhisattvas. There are separate images of bodhisattvas especially maitreya, vajrapani and avalokiteshvara. The Mathura artists also carved relief scenes of the Buddha’s life.
The stambhas bearing the voluptuous pillar figures of women are perhaps the best known examples of Mathura sculptures. The great Mathura standing Buddhas are usually well over life-size. The largest installed at sravasti by Bhiksu Bala, is 8ft 3 inches high. The right hand usually missing was raised in the same characteristics gesture as that of the seated Buddhas. The famous Buddha from Mathura installed at sarnath by the ubiquitous Bhiksu Bala had in addition a tall shaft standing behind it supporting a beautiful carved stone parasol, which has survived. Other great standing Buddhas from Mathura were installed at famous religious sites such as kausmbi. Seated buddhas were transported over long distances and it would be interesting to know how they were transported over such vast distance in a land where, until fairly recently, sculptor-stonemasons were more apt to migrate than sculpture to travel even if the junna provided a means of transport to many of the most scared Buddhist sites and their monasteries. A large number of Jaina images were found at kankali tila in Mathura. Jain inscriptions of the kushsana period at Mathura are more numerous than Buddhist ones. These included a pillar fragment with 4 standing tirthankaras with long arms carved on 4 sides. Like the Buddha they have long earlobes. Their differences lie in their nudity and the emblems on their chest.
Large standing bodhisattvas in the round also figure among the Buddhist images at Mathura. In contrast to the Buddhas, they wear jewellery and usually a rolled scarf over a shoulder and looping down below the knee, but the robust and well fleshed bodies are the same. Naga images usually show much the same plastic treatment: some stand in the usual samapada position, some display a marked torsion. Images of hariti abound as in gandhara, the goddess often squatting on a peculiar cross barred stool, with her feet in the framework.
It was at Mathura during the kushana period that the first Hindu icons were made. Usually small in size, fairly insignificant numbers have survived compared to those of Buddhist and Jain images. The stone sculptures discovered in the Mathura area include images of Shiva, Vishnu, surya, durga and lakshmi. The early Shiva images from the area already show a diverse though formative iconographic base. Shiva is shown alone or accompanied by parvati or the nandi bull or different forms of Shiva.
It would be false to think of Mathura as culturally isolated. Its position on the important trade routes from konkan to the lower Doab and pataliputra on the one hand and gandhara on the other would make it unlikely even were it not for its eminent position in the Kushana Empire. Direct artistic influence from gandhara there certainly was. A number of Mathura seated Buddhas show signs of having been influenced by gandhara models. There are also signs of direct contacts with the west. One famous statue, the Herculean and the nemean lion is indisputably based on a famous greek or Hellenistic statue extant in dozens of roman copies.
A number of statues represent kushana kings and princes in their native costumes. What makes the larger free standing sculptures exceptional is that they portraits which are rare in Indian art.
The early centuries a.d marked an explosion in the no. and variety of Vaishnava images in the Mathura region. Doris .M. Srinivasan points out that during this period, Mathura became the premier centre of the dissemination of the Vaishnava sculptural art.
Among the goddesses at Mathura, apart from anonymous female deities, matrikas and yakshis , it is laksmi and durga who stand out. Images made in this area were exported to other cities such as kausambi, sarnath etc.
Colossal figure of yaksha Manibhadra found at parkham near Mathura. Literary and epigraphic evidence indicate that Manibhadra was a tutelary deity of merchants and travelers, especially worshipped in important trading centers. In the Mathura area, colossal images of yakshas and yakshis disappeared around the turn of the millennium, but the small statues are still fond in large numbers. Evidence of the importance the naga cult comes from remains of an elaborate brick and stone naga temple at sonkh near Mathura.
Gandhara
The North West was an area of cultural confluence and the inter-mixture of sculptural styles. Located at the crossroads between the subcontinent and the regions lying to the east and west it has yielded a great deal of important archaeological evidence. These include a hoard of treasure. The objects include Hellenistic plaster casts of metal-work designs, glassware, roman and Alexandrian sculptures. The begram ivories reflect different styles and can be dated between late 1 century b.c and early 1st century a.d. The swat valley of Pakistan had yielded a number of Buddhist sculptures stylistically linked to the Parthian art of Iran, rather than with the graeco-roman influences so typical of the contemporary art of gandhara. One of the important objects is the relief carving of a seated haloed Buddha fig flanked by a standing Brahma and Indra. Huntington points out that such images indicate that the earliest Buddha images pre-dates the kushana period.
During the kushana period the Afghanistan gandhara region and Mathura emerged as 2 major centers of artistic activity. The stone sculptures have royal portraits and religious themes. While some art historians hold that the Gandhara School shows very little evidence of change over time, it is possible that such changed did exist but have not yet been properly studied. The Gandhara School flourished between 1st and 5th centuries. It continued still 7th in parts of Kashmir and Afghanistan. The peak of its activity was in the first 2 centuries. Most of the gandhara sculptures are made of stone. The themes were Indian but the styles graeco-roman. Images of Buddha and bodhisattvas were favorite theme. Standing Buddha images are very common. There are also seated images of the Buddha. Gandhara artists also carved bodhisattva images. Maitreya seems to have been portrayed most often. Gandhara artists carved many of the scenes that had engaged artists of early Buddhist sites of central India and Andhra; they tackled them in a different way. The few metal sculptures include a metal reliquary found in a large destroyed stupa at shsh-ji-ki-dheri
Amravati
Monumental stupas decorated with leaves, seems to have been built from the 2nd century b.c., culminating in the sculptural treasure house of the amravati reliefs of the 2nd and 3rd centuries a.d. it is upon the great stupa of amravati, the largest of the Andhra stupas, that interests has been principally focused for nearly 2 centuries. On accord both of the abundance and surpassing quality of its surviving sculptures. Nothing remains of the stupa now but a large pit part of the vedika and cladding of drum and anda (dome) now almost equally divided between the government museum madras and the British museum. The stupa in its final form was surrounded by a vedika with a diameter of 192ft. it extended outwards to form gates at the cardinal points. Railing pillars and cross bars were richly carved with full and half lotus medal lines often accompanied by figures and superb decorative detail or else interspersed with scenes. Sometimes the central medal lines were crowded scenes from Buddhist storied. The stupa stood on a low ground with projecting platforms bearing ayaka pillars at its cardinal points. The dome rose vertically at first clad with sculpture slabs depicting the stupa itself. The changes in style of the Amravati sculptures have been traced in some detail. In reliefs prior to the 2nd century a.d. the Buddha is represented by a symbol, compositions are simpler, decorative detail less luxuriant in the mature phase (2nd half of the 2nd century to the 1st quarter of the 3rd). Decorative elements reach a suave riches never surpassed even by the finest gupta work. In the narrative scenes the deep cutting permits overlapping figures on 2 and even 3 planes. The latest sculptures (2nd quarter pf the 3rd century) are all but indistinguishable in style from those of nagarjunakonda.
Terracotta art
A profusion of exquisite terracotta’s of this period(200b.c.-300.a.d.)have been found at sites such as Mathura, chandraketugarh, kausambi. They reflect the existence of a no. of regional styles and techniques and a great variety of decorative motifs. In some areas the use of moulds became popular and facilitated mass production. Terracotta is known from the early period more than artefacts in stone, metal, silver, or ivory. This abundance is due to the cheapness and wide availability of clay, to close association with the work of the potter and later the brick-maker and to the impossibility of reusing terracotta. The figures known as panchachuda have 5 hairpins in the form of weapons. These seem to represent a goddess who name is not known. Female figurines associated with plants, flowers, fish, etc. may have been goddesses associated with fertility and prosperity. Yakshas, yakshis, nagas, nagis occur in profusion. Lakshmi is prominent and another important deity is vasdhara.
Sites such as Mathura, kausambi and tamluk give evidence of further refinement of terracotta art. The reliefs became deeper than before. Many terracotta heads found in the ganga valley and the gandhara area show great skill in detailed human portraiture with varying facial expressions. In the later kushana period, monumental hollow terracotta started being made in moulds.
The Deccan terracotta’s are different stylistically from those of the northern and eastern in their distinctively delicate portrayal of the human figureThe great majority represent women. Moulded figures usually females were used to decorate the handles of vessels.