Page:Memoirs of the archaeological survey of India no.8.pdf/8

 SIX SCULPTURES FROM MAHOBA.

THE sculptures described in this article were found near the Kirat Sagar tank, at Mahoba in the Hamipur district of British Bundelkhand by some labourers, while digging on an isolated little mound in the midst of low-lying fields, owned by Rai Bahadur Pandir Sheo Charan Tewari, one of the richest landholders in the neighbourhood. The discovery was reported to Government by the Collector of Hamirpur and the sculptures were subsequently acquired for the Provincial Museum at Lucknow on the recommendation of the Superintendent, Hindu and Buddhist Monuments, who has also kindly supplied to me some of the photographs reproduced in this note. Mahoba, originally known as Mahotsavanagara, is associated in its rise and fall with the well-known dynasty of the Chandellas of Jejakabhukti. Brahmanical and Jaina sculptures have long been known among the ruined shrines of Mahoba, but the first clue to the fact that Buddhism also flourished here until the 11th or 12th century, was supplied by the discovery of a stone pedestal inscribed with the Buddhist formula in letters of that period. (Cunningham, Archl. Survey Report, Vol. II, p. 445.) The present find gives still more tangible data for the study of medieval Buddhism in Bundelkhand. These sculptures are some of the best specimens of later medieval art and offer a vivid contrast with the lifeless productions of the contemporary Buddhist school of Magadha, as also with the numerous stereotyped examples of local Jaina artists. In some respects, the artists prove themselves superior to the older artists of the Sarnath of Mathuni schools. for example, in the delineation of the perfectly placid features of the face, of the graceful pose of the body, and in the faultless mechanical execution. Indeed the statue of Siṅhanāda-Avolōkitēśvara is likely to take a rank among the finest examples of Indian sculpture.

The inscriptions on the pedestals of two of the images, though undated, can be assigned on the palaeographic grounds to about the 11-12th century A.D. It is evident, that the artists mentioned in the inscriptions on two of the images are not only the donors of them but also the sculptors who carved them; and it is likely that these sculptors lived in the time of Kirtivarmman, one of the greatest of the Chandella rulers, who reigned at Mahoba during the