LATER ANDHRA School of Amaravati.—The reliefs of Amaravati, dating from the close of the second century A.D., once adorned a great stupa, with the largest and most richly decorated stone railing ever constructed surrounding it. This stupa was one of numerous Buddhist monuments erected or enlarged by the later Andhra kings in the Kistna-Godaveri delta, their seat of government. This later Andhra art is the most intimate and most enchanting of any in India. Just as in literature, epic form is passing into "poetry" (kavya), so here for the first time sculpture is becom ing "art." The subject matter of the reliefs has not changed; the principal compositions represent Jatakas and scenes from the life of Buddha (in accordance with traditions earlier than that of the Lalita Vistara). Vital moments of the Buddha epic are now more dramatically and emotionally conceived ; the gestures, especially those of women, possess a peculiar poignancy, reminding us of such contemporary Buddhist literature as the and the work of Santi Deva. This poignancy, survives indeed at Ajanta, and Gupta art is very closely related to that of the Andhras in the third century; but very soon, in so far as it belongs to life, it passes into the formalities of chivalry, and in so far as it belongs to art, into deliberate emphasis and even exaggeration. The same is true of the decorative motifs; a sense of organisation already long perfected is here applied to traditional motifs, with an inimitable delicacy and firmness. The ornament, in fact, is of precisely the same quality, and has the same value as the reliefs with figures. An art which had been entirely corporeal now acquires a spiritual content, becoming Buddhist in a more than formal sense.
As regards the Buddha figure at Amaravati, and the similar early types found in Ceylon, the use of a cult image is still new, and the figure therefore retains more of the austerity and massive individuality of primitive art than in the reliefs and ornament.