History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c47.37

v2.c47.37

There is a sudden break in the mediaeval plastic art of Orissa. The great Hindu centres are Bhuvaneśvara and Jajpur, and at both places the Hindu sculptures are much earlier than those of Puri or Konarak. As Chanda has pointed out, the splendid sculptures of Khiching have very little connection in the earlier stages with the evolution of the plastic art of Orissa in general. Orissa still abounds in sculptures of all classes, but no attempt has yet been made to survey them, in order that analysis or synthesis may be possible. In 1911-12 the writer collected a large number of images from the compound of the Kedāra-gaurī temple at Bhuvaneśvara and the old Circuit house at Puri for the Archaeological section of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, which vary in date from the 8th to the 13th century. Though extremely interesting from the point of view of Hindu Iconography, they could not be precisely dated at that time and offered no help to the study of the evolution of plastic art of Orissa. Such a study, forming just the beginning of a regular synthesis, has become possible after Chanda's exploration of Khiching, his intelligent study of the sculptures of the Liṅgarāja or Kṛittivāsa temple, Prof. Chakladar's researches in the Udaygiri, Lalitagiri and Ratnagiri sites along with the publication of Wilhelm Cohn's *Indische Plastik*, Codrington's *Ancient India* and Coomaraswamy's *History of Fine Art in India and Indonesia*. As soon as the analysis of Buddhist sculptures is over, the student is faced with a very serious difficulty, a paucity of inscribed sculptures, which can be, more or less precisely dated. In the study of Hindu sculptures one has to fall back upon great centres like Bhuvaneśvara, Jajpur and Konarak and select images still *in situ*. Thereafter, when special characteristics have been determined, we can proceed with the chronology and art criticism.