Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c4.8

c4.8

The palæographical examination of the inscribed specimens in the Indian Museum proves further that the decline of artistic activity in the Eastern provinces in the 9th and 10th centuries was not parallel with the decline in the political fortunes of the Pāla kings. In these two centuries also the artists of Eastern Bengal were much more active than those of Northern and Western Bengal. The specimens from the Eastern provinces of Northern India, which can be definitely assigned to the 9th and 10th centuries A. D. come from Magadha or South Bihar and the Dacca District of Eastern Bengal only. The vigour of expression and correctness of delineation of the 9th century is absent in the tenth but we do not as yet the preponderance of hard and fast rules of the School, which begins in the Eastern School of Sculpture only from the end of the 10th century onwards.