The first figures of the ancient Egyptians, and even of the Greeks, had their hands straight, and attached to the body, and the legs were not divided; the Hindûs had attained to an imitation of attitude and action; and though their forms wanted that exquisite grace which even now enraptures us, when we behold the wonders of the Grecian chissel, I have seen some which are not without elegance, particularly a dancing figure at the entrance to the cave of Carli, which possesses considerable ease and gracefulness and there is no little skill displayed in the grouping of some of the sculptures at the Seven Pagodas, particularly one representing Crishna protecting his followers from the wrath of Indra. Perhaps one great reason of the arrestation of the farther progress of sculpture, after it had advanced so far, was the attempt to represent, by gigantic bulk, the greatness of the heroes and the gods, which necessarily, as it rendered the work less manageable, made it coarse: whereas the Greeks, though, in a few instances, they formed colossal statues, commonly confined themselves to the beautiful proportions of nature, and sought to place greatness in expression. The bending of the brow of Jupiter, conveyed at once all that is sublime and majestic in the Father of gods and men; but the giant Siva must frown, and gnash his teeth, and raise his numerous terribly armed hands, ere the Hindû sees his awful divinity, or recognises the powerful father and destroyer of all. Besides, it is probable that, as the religion of the Egyptians forbade the alteration, even for the sake of improvement, of any figure intended for the service of the temples, so the same cause might have prevented the Hindû sculptor from departing from the figure and attitude which his ancestors had bestowed on his gods. In the lower parts of sculpture, applicable to architectural ornaments, the Hindû chissel has perhaps seldom been surpassed; its light and airy foliage, its elegant volutes, and the variety of its subjects, vie at once with Italian art and Gothic fancy, to which last style it has, indeed, occasionally a remarkable likeness. The most ancient remains of Indian architec. ture are most probably those wonderful excavations and sculptured rocks, in Elephanta and Salsette, at Ellora, the Seven Pagodas, and among the Mahratta mountains. In the first of these, the effect is produced by the massiness of the pillars, as much as by the great extent of the cavern and its sculptured sides, where the gigantic deities and saints give it an air of the palace of some enchanter, so unlike are they in size and form to any thing in common nature. The caves of Salsette are interesting, as I think they present us with the civil architecture of India at a very early period. Most of these small caves appear evidently to have been private dwellings: each of them has a little portico, and a cell within, at one end of which there is a raised part, which, on my visiting them, I imagined was designed for a bed place; but since that time, a passage in Sacontala* has made me conjecture that it was the consecrated hearth where the sacred fire was kept, and this appears to me to be confirmed by the circumstance that there is near the largest and first cavern, one to which I was obliged to be lifted up, when I found a considerable platform, and a figure of the deity in the back ground. Now, the height to which this platform is raised, corresponds with the description of Dushmanta's hearth, and might have belonged to the superior of that society, which, from the number of caverns, their contiguity, and the conve * Dushmanta.-Wardour, point the way to the hearth of the consecrated fire. Wardour. This, oh king, is the way (he walks before). Here is the entrance of the hallowed enclosure; and there stands the venerable cow to be milked for the sacrifice, looking bright from the recent sprinkling of mystic water.-Let the king ascend. (Dushmanta is raised to the place of sacrifice on the shoulders of his wardours.) Sacontala, Act 5th. |