quite possible that the occurrence of the motive at Sānchī and Mathurā may be partly the result of Aryan contact in ancient times with Egyptian and Babylonian civilisation. However, it would be difficult to find in early Western art any examples of the "woman-and-tree" motive which show as much freshness, plastic strength and decorative beauty as this sprightly Indian wood-nymph.
But though this contact with Mesopotamia and Egypt explains many of the foreign elements in early Indian art, the Sānchī sculptures are best understood as a vivid artistic commentary on the life and thought of Vedic India. This Indian Dryad, associated by Buddhist sculptors with Māyā, the mother of the Blessed One, is sung in the Rig-Veda[1] as Araṇyānī, the elusive Spirit of the Forest, a goddess of plenty, who opened freely her bounteous store to the villager, always kindly and gracious to man, though her children, the wild beasts, were to be feared:
Araṇyānī! Araṇyānī! Ere you vanish from our sight, will you not to
the village? You are not afraid?
When the bull bellows the cicada replies, dancing to his cymbals.
Araṇyānī then rejoices.
In the fading twilight cattle grazing and cottages loom dimly : Araṇyānī
then sends home her creaking carts.
One man calls his cow. Another fells a tree: a loiterer in the forest
fancies he hears a scream.
Though the fierce beasts may kill us, Araṇyānī does no harm. Let us
feast on her sweet fruits and rest there at our will.
Praise be to Araṇyānī, Mother of forest beasts! Musk-scented, fragrant,
bountiful of food—though no peasants till her soil.
The Vedic Rishi dwelling in the forest aṣram could tame the fiercest of Araṇyānī's offspring. At Sānchī we see them flocking together to join in worship at
- ↑ X, 146.
