Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c28.s8.t4.10

v1.c28.s8.t4.10

Many Buddhist monasteries in Bengal (most of them now in Bangladesh: Rangpur, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Dacca etc.) flourished during the Pāla-Sen era and promoted the arts and crafts in stones and bronzes. Many bronze images of Buddha, Kuvera etc. have been found from the eighth-twelfth century AD site of Soampura, known as Paharpur, district Rajshahi, Bangladesh. A large monastery (built on 8th century AD) has been unearthed in 1955-57 at Mainamati, five miles west of Comilla. This site has shown silver coins (metal from Burma?), ‘an inspired orgy of terracotta art’ and large number of images of Buddha. (Mitra, 1971, 1980: 245-46) The Buddhist images found at Jhewari in Chittagong (10th- 13th century AD) site are marked by ruggedness and may be called provincial variations of the Pāla school. Bernet-Kempers (1933: 10-11 and 70-77) have shown in his critical study that the Javanese bronze have some resemblance with the Nālandā metal imagery. The Nālandā Copper Plate (AD 860) of Devapāladeva mentions that the kind Balaputradeva of Suvarṇadvipa built a monastery at Nālandā and requested Devapāla to assist in the maintenance of the monastery.