Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c38.20

c38.20

As to the manner in which the temples of Bengal were architecturally decorated, there is ample evidence provided in the mosques of Gaur and Pandua, for these Islamic buildings are rich repositories of sculptured remains. From the carved stones indiscriminately built into the later mason-ry, it is unmistakably apparent that under the Sena kings there flourished a school of plastic art, which for variety of design and skilled execution, could have had few equals in India There is little doubt that this was the grand and final flowering of that art movement which three centuries before had taken form under the previous regime of the Pala dynasty. For on the authority of Taranath,¹ the Buddhist historian, it is known that at Varenda under these rulers in the ninth century, there lived the famous and versatile artists, Dhiman and Bitpalo, father and son, the Lorenzo Ghibertis of India, as, like the celebrated Florentine they were accomplished, not only in the arts of sculpture and metal work, but also in mural design and colouring. And so powerful was the influence of their productions that from them emerged that eastern school of sculpture with its ultimate development under the Senas at Lakhnauti, and now visible, embedded in the subsequent structural schemes of the Moslems.