Copper in Ancient India c8.s2.1

c8.s2.1

A remarkable copper statue of Buddha was discovered at Sultanganj in the district of Bhagalpur in the ruins of an old Buddhist monastery. It has been taken away and now preserved in the Birmingham Museum. The attention of students of metallurgy has not been sufficiently drawn to this remarkable copper colossus, which according to the mode of its construction and owing to the discovery of a coin of the last Western satrap of Surāstra accompanied with one of Chandragupta II in the vicinity of the monastery, has been taken to be a specimen of the metallurgical skill of the ancient Hindus of the fifth century A.D.¹