The Age of the Imperial Guptas c9.71

c9.71

The time when the early Gupta empire was crumbling to pieces and when the Hūṇas had already advanced into the centre of India, saw the rise of a remarkable group of monuments in Central India, all of which denote a step in Gupta plastic art. Eran is already known to us as the findspot of a number of important inscriptions, the most important of which were inscribed towards the close of the 5th, and the beginning of the 6th century A.D. One of the latest of these records are incised on a pillar which is the *dhvaja-stambha* of Viṣṇu erected by the brothers, Mātṛ-viṣṇu and Dhanya-viṣṇu, when Suraśmicandra was the Viceroy of the country between the Yamunā and Narmadā. This pillar can be easily recognised by the presence of a figure of Garuḍa on its top bearing on it the wheel of Viṣṇu. It lies at a distance from the temple of the Boar and was erected in G.E., 165=484-5 A.D. Close to it is the second pillar which bears on it a record of Goparāja, the general of Bhānu-gupta who died here in a battle with the Hūṇas in 191=510-1 A.D. All over the highlands, on which these two pillars are situated, can be seen ruins and images. The most important of them is the colossal figure of the Boar incarnation of Viṣṇu which was dedicated by Dhanya-viṣṇu, after the death of his brother Mātṛ-viṣṇu, in the first year of the reign of Toramāṇa, the Hūṇa king. This Boar is slightly different in conception from that in the cave of Udaygiri near Bhilsa as it portrays a quadruped mammal and not a human figure with a Boar's head. As an object of art this colossal figure is an abject failure. It resembles an elephant more than a boar and anatomical details have been grossly neglected. So much so, that it cannot bear any comparison with the Udaygiri boar. By the side of this boar stands a beautiful porch of a temple on four-fluted columns, of the Bhumra type, bearing cruciform capitals with winged figures below them. This is only a part of the early Gupta temple enshrining a big image of Viṣṇu, still *in situ*. In style, this figure is far superior to that of the Earth goddess depicted on the breast of the boar and it seems that the temple of Viṣṇu and the image of the god are both earlier than the Boar. This image of Viṣṇu, the only specimen known to us belonging to the early Gupta period, shows a definite decline in the portrayal of the human figure, when compared to the little image of Gaṇeśa and the two attendant figures discovered at Bhumra in 1920.