History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c47.6

v2.c47.6

The road to this locality lies from either of the railway stations at Byree or Dhanmandal on the Bengal Nagpur Railway. The highest hill is the Udaygiri, at the bottom of which there is a colosal image of Buddha, half buried in the debris and the jungle, which like the great Buddha of Baudh is built in sections.¹ This Buddha is a seated figure in the *Bhumisparśa mudra* and measures 9 feet in height.² Close by is the Naltigiri, on which there are a number of rock-cut figures all of which are about 5 feet in height. One of these is a regular Lokeśvara with a miniature figure of Amitābha on the head dress.³ It was not possible to judge the standard of excellence of these early Buddhist sculptures from Ratnagiri and Udaygiri on the basis of the crude drawings and lithographs published by earlier writes. Even the inscriptions mentioned by late Chandrasekhara Banerji or Beams have not been correctly deciphered as yet. The neglect is extremely deplorable, but sculpture is not studied in the newly created province of Bihar and Orissa, though it possesses a museum, a research society and an university of its own. The pioneer in the field of scientific analysis of the oldest mediaeval Orissan art is Professor Haran Chandra Chakladar, M. A., of the University of Calcutta, whose photographs of the Udaygiri images as published in a well-known Bengali monthly are the best yet known.¹ From the meagre description given by this scholar we can now judge that the standard of the Buddhist art of these neglected ruins of Orissa is far above that which we see in later mediaeval shrines, whether Hindu or not. The great Bengali literateur Bankim Chandra went into raptures over the sculptures of Udaygiri and Lalitagiri. It now appears that the great Buddha built in sections possesses another rival on the top of Lalitagiri which is far superior in standard of excellence to the former. Along with these a number of photographs have been published by Prof. Chakladar which throw intense light on the practically unknown Buddhist sculpture of Orissa. Many images are still buried in debris and many more have been recently brought to Calcutta, the most notable among these being the recent additions to the Calcutta museum by Rai Bahadur Rama Prasad Chanda and those lent for a time to the Museum of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad by Mr. Ajit Kumar Ghosh, M. A., B. L. Among the photographs published by Prof. Chakladar are a beautiful Sita Tara from Ratnagiri and the figure of a dancing male with a garland of skulls, holding a staff surmounted by a human skull in the crook of his right hand. In age and excellence these two images belong the first known period of renaissance in Orissa. Had it been possible to determine the exact characteristics of the stage immediately preceeding this renaissance, then it might have been feasible to determine the nature and amount of changes introduced during it. The succeeding steps are perfectly clear. The style and artistic ideals steadily declined till about the beginning of the 9th century, when it revived in certain localities only.