The Catalogue, Part 1 of the Akshaya Kumar Maitreya Museum North Bengal University was published in 1981. Since then a large number finds have been acquired by the Museum, the most outstanding of these have come from one generous donor Mr. Santipriya Roychowdhury of Malda. This has necessitated the publication of a new Catalogue, i.e. Catalogue, Part II from the Museum. I am beholden to the Museum authority for entrusting me the task of preparing the Catalogue of Sculptures and related materials acquired by the Museum so far.
In the meantime the organisational set up of the Museum underwent changes and again, during my tenure of two-year as Secretary of the Museum in 1993-94, the Department of Customs, Siliguri Division, Govt. of India, kindly gave their consent to collect a number of Stone Sculptures lying for years in their godowns in the different parts of North Bengal. The collection of these images from the different parts of North Bengal posed a great problem, and we are happy to record that with the assistance of a few custom officials both Md. Fazlur Rahma, Technical Assistant of the University Museum and myself succeeded in bringing the entire collection to our Museum after overcoming many an ordeal in the process.
I am grateful to Mr. Fazlur Rahman for providing me efficient secretarial assistance, without which the progress of the work would have been greatly hampared.
I take this opportunity of thanking all the previous secrataries under the new organisational set up of the Museum like Dr. Mihir Mohan Mukherjee, Dr (Ms) Mandira Bhattacharyya and Dr. Icchimuddin Sarkar as the museum continued to grow in stature during their respective tenure. I am also grateful to Dr. (Ms) Mandira Bhattacharyya, who was kind enough to give me a few suggestions which have been duly acknowledged and to Ms Bedasruti Bhattacharyya, M.Pil., for preparing the index.
I am also grateful to Prof. Romila Thapar formerly of Jawaharlal Nehru University for discussing some of the problems relating to this present Catalogue and also sending a few of her learned papers which have been acknowledged in proper places.
Asher' has drawn our attention to an imposing Buddha image made of copper at Nalanda as described by the Chinese pilgrim Huen Tsang in the seventh century. The pilgrim also supplies us with a vivid description of the veneration accorded to another nearby image of Buddha. It has thus been rightly suggested that 'far removed from its original context, isolated, for example, in a museum, no Indian sculpture can retain its full impact.' The artist was well aware of the setting in which his image would be placed and worked to evolve a figure that would most poignantly convey the proper meaning to a devotee.
The images, however, besides providing a medium between the devotee and his deity serve other important functions interalia the understanding of the evolution of art 'a full range of human thought and activity, including history and geography."
We can site here an unique Visnu Image from Gangarampur (No. 89, Plate 1). We have attempted to put it safely to the prepala age, though one may see a strong vestige of Gupta delicacy, and overall the form is not far removed from that of such Gupta Surya image as one carved in Bhumara candrasala. Along with the image of Visnu, the Surya Image (No. 189, Plate 38) donated by the Customs, Siliguri Division deserves special attention in view of the similarity of its design, technique and volume.
The sculptural remains in Eastern India dating prior to the Pala period, it is believed, are few by contrast to those of later centuries, but we can hardly ignore them. R. D. Banerji in his Eastern School of Medieval Sculpture narrates only a dozen of sculptures to the prepala days. Even LamaTaranatha who has popularised the idea of a new school of Art, better known as Eastern School of Art, which is believed to have developed under the famous artists named Dhiman and his son Bitpal with the rise of Pala power, seems to have been aware of earlier art in Eastern India.
We may refer hereto another very interesting image of Visnu flanked by Lakshmi and Ganesa which cohabit traits of Kusana features and also found from West Dinajpur (at present South Dinajpur).
Among the early Pala sculptures we may refer to the rare image of Lakulisa (No. 188, Plate, 37) co-founder of Pasupata religion alongwith his preceptor Siva-Srikantha of the Maha Bharata fame. In eastern India one would come across very few Hero's Stone. A solitary Hero's Stone (No. 121) found from Rajshahi may add a new dimension to the exhaustive study on these types of sculptures found in other parts of India.
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