It was in 1988, during my trip to attend a job interview that I first saw these sculptures. As guards of RBI in Delhi, these two tall and strong sculpture of yaksha and yakshi. It can intimidate anyone who walks past it with its stunning looks. Although during those early days in Delhi, the place was still strange to me, on my way back to home, I could not stop getting down from the bus near RBI to have a second look of these sculptures.
Later on, I learned from Lalit Kala academe library that these sculpture of yaksha and yakshi were drawn its inspiration from "Parkham yaksha" and "Besnagar yakshi". During those pre internet eras, there was no other way a computer professional like me could have accessed that information. Years later, in my study of Indian sculptural traditions and sculptors, I revisited the aesthetic constructions of Ram Kinker Baij's artworks and found a new narrative for these two wonderful works: Yaksha -Yakshini, the journey of Sujata and an artist's love.
Besnagar yakshi Parkham yaksha Manibadhra
3rd - 1st century BC 3rd- 1st century BC
Besnagar Yakshi and Parkham Yaksha represents the early sculptural traditions of Indian art. One will certainly find the influences of early Greek/ Hellenistic sculptural traditions in these two sculpture from Mauryan empire times. It is said that Carl Khandalawalla, an eminent art critic appointed by the RBI at the instance of JRD Tata, considered these two sculptures in particular as inspirations for the yaksha and yakshi for RBI gate. He thought, the Hindu mythical characters Kubera, the guardian of wealth and his female counterpart, Yakshi the deity of fertility as the most appropriate symbols to represent and guard RBI of the newly emerging nation.
If one looks at these possible Mauryan sculptures, one would not miss the similarity exist in the style, posture, structure and their dress. Its Hellenistic influence also can be identified from its resemblance to the Bharhut yavana relief sculpture dated circa 100 BCE. This sculpture of dwarapala is assumed to be of that of Menander, an Indo- Greek king.
Bharhut Yavana
The story of Ram Kinker Baij, the artist with a political leaning begins here. Although in principle he got the approval of his design in accordance to the curatorial vision of Carl, but later on he decided to drop the Besnagar yakshi and Parkham yaksha as his inspiration for the sculptures. In his quest for a form in the context of RBI as the controller of money, that will also be informed by the vision of progress, he thought they do not represent the idea of guarding and its politics.
In the process, he went back to his sculpture on Sujata, an important lady in Buddhist tradition . In jataka tales, she is the one who gave milk to Buddha after his enlightenment. He did a concrete sculpture of her in Shanti Niketan's woods. In this sculpture, Ram Kinker gave a complete twist to her form. In his interpretation, she became a tall and beautiful lady, who almost looks as if she is turning into a bodhi tree herself with wonderful grace and elegance, something one would not see in his sculptures.
Although in his sculpture, the graceful Sujata walks with a pot on her head like the ladies we often encounter in Indian villages, Ram kinker changed her physical features to that of a tall lady, whom a viewer always have to look up to and not look at. The sculpture seems like Ram kinker was paying a rich tribute of reverence to the rural women's labour while making equal respect to Sujata for her contribution to Buddha's life.
One may also read it as his tribute to the Shanti Niketan's trees that give the imputes for many creative activities. It is also important to note his placement of a Buddhist icon among Shantiniketan's other Hindu iconographies.
Sujata- 1935
After dropping Besnagar Yakshi, one of the rare Mauryan period yakshi sculptures that also has a cloth-covered torso and the Parkham Yaksha with the Greek Hellenistic sensibilities from his consideration for the inspiration, in search of his inspirational forms, he travelled down to Sanchi with Sujata.
Probably he has rejectect Besnagar yakshi and Parkham yaksha for two reasons.
One, they have the western iconography that he would not prefer for an iconic sculpture in free India,
Two the capitalistic undercurrent in the story of Yaksha and the reductionist patriarchal nature of male gaze in Besnagar Yakshi that considers her only as an operant of fertility and the associated sensuality.
Yakshi from Burhut, the expressions of sensuality
Coming back to our story, the tall slender Sujata camouflaged among the tall trees of Shanti Niketan, took Ram Kinker to the Mauryan times Sanchi stupa to discover his yeksha and yakshi. We are talking about the second thorana in Sanchi - Temptations of Mara, that tells the story of a wicked king called mara. In this jataka tale, Mara tries to seduce Buddha with his beautiful daughters along with his army and gets deated.
Temptations of Mara
Saanchi, 3rd to 1st bc
In this panel of Jataka tale, one will find at the extreme right corner, the Sujata standing with her milk pot and fruit bowl. She is standing next to Buddha represented by the bodhi tree. Interestingly, in this panel, she is depicted as nude while Mara and his seductive daughters remain body covered up to the waistline. The right side of the panel is where the army of Mara stands. The army stands there engaged in their own games, while Mara and his daughters are busy trying to seduce Buddha.
This is where Sujata introduced Ram Kinker to his Yaksha and Yakshi. Look at the second sitting soldier from the centre and one will discover Ram kinker's final Yaksha sculpture there. Unlike Parkham yaksha, Ram kinker's yaksha is a stout, powerful and aboriginal figure in its form. Although he is dutybound and loyal, he is there at the site only as a guard protecting Mara and daughter's wickedness, but in the company of his fellow army men, he remain aloof and non-participant. In him, Ram kinker found his Yaksha, the loyal and aloof guard of the RBI. Most notable in this panel is the physical features of Mara and his daughters - the classic Aryan idealisation of beauty: slender, curved, tall and cunning. whereas the demon army is sculpted as "fat" aboriginals or Dravidas, a representation one often finds used in mainstream visual culture as a representation of villains.
For strange reasons, in this panel, Sujata was shown with the same features of Mara's seductive daughters! Although Ramkinker found his Yakshi in Sujata for her selfless service and compassion, the virtues that were missing in Mara's daughters, he could not accept that his Sujata having any resemblance to cunning Mara's daughter's Aryan features to her. He adapted mara's army's aboriginal physical features to her. (Perhaps the feature of the fourth lady sculpture from the centre.) Sujata became the chauri bearing yakshi with features far from the Aryan Besnagar yakashi.
The ten years evolution (delay) of these sculpture tells this romantic story of Ram Kinker Baij, one that has evolved with Sujata. An intricate story of a politically left leaning artist, who had his intensive negotiation with his art and its form. A journey of love for identity and its politics. He tells us the story of an average guard in this country through Yaksha; an average aboriginal Indian of discriminated economic and cultural strata, the one who protects the temptations of this country (here for instance the money minting RBI) . Also this guard, even as he fights to protect or facilitate the temptation drama, he never becomes an element of that seductive trick himself. He looks stout as thug and still remain only a loyal soldier, one who is discriminated as ugly by the outsider-insider game of aryan- Dravida visual culture, the aesthetics of the society of economic affluence.
In his Yakshi, although he found the depiction of loyal agency of service in womanhood, but he brings in the grace of feminism by abolishing the construct of female form in elite visual culture and its male gaze. He construct her as stout, aboriginal counter part of yaksha in nude. Her existence, one that is on your face and as a provocative nudity of confident aboriginal female who's dominance in existence disturb the mainstream society. The nudity of Yakshi and its presence there in front of RBI went upto the level of a parliament discussion to decide the righteousness of her existence as a confident nude labourer, something that proved the merits of Ram Kinker's political construct of Yakshi, the marginalised female laborer's body politics. In his first Sujata, if she remains an aesthetically slender lady of elite grace for male gaze, his second Sujata, Yakshi becomes a powerful, confident, assertive on your face naked lady of eminence, who is not ashamed of her "Labour" status. Sujata becomes the lady, we often encounter in the fields of rural India or among factory labourers. Ram kinker's yakshi becomes the epitome of the aboriginal female labourer who fills the length and breadth of this country and still goes missing from mainstream visual culture. Ram kinker, the left leaning artist immortalise her by placing at the most important sight of this country, where money is produced and maintained, one that defines the value of labour and its associated visual constructs. Most importantly they were built with constructivist style of art.
Sujata and Ram Kinker epitomises the love of every artist with his or her socio-political or cultural positions in life that determines one's art and its form. Ram Kinker Baij's Yaksha and Yakshi at RBI Delhi, defines it.
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| Emperor Ashoka tries to take Buddha's relics from nagas. Sanchi. Here again we can see Sujata at second position from second pillar form right
Image courtesy : RBI,ASI and wiki
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