Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c4.11

c4.11

The contagion spread to Northern and Western Bengal soon afterwards. Lakṣmaṇāvatī fell within the next two decades and Central and North-Central Bengal was devastated for a century by continued Musalman inroads. Artistic activity came to a sudden end in North-Western and West-Central Bengal in the earlier decades of the 13th century. Protected by its net-work of rivers Eastern Bengal continued its existence as an independent kingdom till the first quarter of the 14th century. Its artists continued to produce decadent stylised imitations of the 12th century when it was overtaken by the same fate as had befallen the Hindu, the Buddhist and the Jain alike in the north-western and central Districts of Bengal in the beginning of the 13th century. The supply of slates and basalts from Bihar had stopped and the artists of Eastern Bengal were compelled once more to have recourse to wood as the only cheap material available for plastic work. Wooden images are being discovered in different parts of Dacca District and in the majority of cases they are pitiable specimens which betray poverty of imagination and extreme decadence.