Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c6.18

c6.18

The existence of a school of sculpture can only be proved by fulfilling certain conditions, the most important of which are sufficiently long duration and extensiveness. It can be proved from inscribed sculptures, that this new school of sculpture, which rose in the Eastern provinces of India in the 9th century A. D., lasted as a school of sculpture till about the end of the 12th century A. D., when the irruption of Muhammadans into the fertile plains of Bihar and Bengal destroyed the ancient culture of these two provinces. The extension of the school can be proved by the discovery of specimens, which undoubtedly belong to it, in places outside the provinces; just as sculptures of the Mathurā School have been found as far east as Rajgir and Patna and as far south as Sanchi; for example, specimens of this school have been found in fairly large numbers in Benares³ and stray specimens have been traced as far west as Sahet Mahet⁴ (Śrāvastī). The influence of this school is so clearly to be felt in sculptures discovered in the eastern districts of the United Provinces that there seems to be no doubt about the fact that these districts were once included within the zone of influence of the Eastern School. This zone of influence seems to have extended westwards, from the ancient province of Tirabhukti, modern Tirhut, along the northern bank of the Ganges, because Benares appears to have stood outside the zone of its influence. Mediæval sculptures found in Benares do not indicate any influence of this school of sculpture, though stray specimens of the eastern school have been found in this place in large numbers. The proper zone of influence of the eastern school, therefore, seems to have lain north of the Gogra as Rai Bahadur Dayaram Sahni discovered sculptures in Gorakhpur, Gonda and Basti Districts in 1906, all of which are undoubtedly specimens of this particular school of sculpture.⁵