________________
No. 24.)
SOME IMAGE INSCRIPTIONS PROM EAST BENGAL.
3D
No. 24.-SOME IMAGE INSCRIPTIONS FROM EAST BENGAL.
BY NALINIKANTA BHATTABALI, M.A., CURATOR, DACCA MUSEUM. The short votive inscriptions recorded on the pedestals of images are often very usefal to the antiquarian in more ways than one. They not only illumine the darkness of the past like flash-lights by furnishing pointed and concise historical information, but the help that they give in determining the periods of sculptural history is by no means inconsiderable. Students of iconography too have reason to welcome them, since many votive inscriptions contain the names of the images on whose pedestals they are inscribed, helping thus to identify them easily. Below I edit six such votive inscriptions from East Bengal, in some of which all the three characteristics noted above will be found to exist to the fullest degree.
1. THE BHĀRELLĀ NARTTĒŚVARA IMAGE INSCRIPTION. The worship of images of Naţēsa-siva (the dancing Siva) seems to have been a peculiarity of Southern India. Such images in metal abound in Southern India and Ceylon; but they are very rarely met with in the North-Indian Provinces. How Bengal came to share this pecuharity with the Deccan is one of the unsolved problems of history. We must, however, note here that north and west Bengal do not show this peculiarity, and it is only in the south-eastern districts, roughly comprising the ancient divisions of Vanga and Samatata, that images of the dancing Śiva were discovered. The Dacca Mugenm has three excellent specimens, while a rather ill-preserved one is to be found in the Rājshāhi Museum. I know of two other very well preserved Natosa images, which are being worshipped in two village in the Dacos and Tippera districts of East Bengal.
The discovery of so many images of the same claas in & rather limited area cannot be accidental, and it is quite possible that their worship was introduced by some Saiva ruling family. The Sēna kings, whose origin some trace to the Deecan, had their metropolis in Vikramapark in the Dacca district, in the heart of the ancient Vanga, as is at tested by the majority of their copper-plates, and they were renowned Saivas. It is very probable that the worship of Natoka. Siva came from Southern India with the Sēnas. It is worth noting that out of the seven images
far discovered and known to me, five came from Vikramapura; and a village situated in the suburbs of the capital of the Senas in Vikramapura (a pargana in the Daoca district) contains the ruins of a big temple and is still called Nätesvara. The present image, however appears to be earlier than the Senas.
The inscription here edited was found on the pedestal of a huge image of Natoka-siva dur out of a tank in a village called Bhārella, Police Station Badkimtā, in the district of Tippers It was brought to my notice in 1911; and in 1912 I went to Bhärellä too late to save the image, which was broken to pieces by a fanatic Fakir; but I procured the inscribed pedestal for the Dacca Sahitya Parishat, where it is at present preserved. A large fragment of the figure of the god is now in the Dacca Museum. I edit the inscription from the original.
The inscription is in two lines in four sections on foar planed faces of the pedestal, below the lotus-seat of the god. The whole inscribed sarface measures in length about 14", and that letters are approximately 1 long. The first section has suffered a little by the peeling of the stone, while the beginning of the third and the longest section has been altogether chopped off, damaging altogether 12 or 13 letters of each line. The first line runs connectedly to the end of
1 The image was found in the village of Kalikil ander Police Station Leahajang in the Vacon district. Svi thast not be taken as an instance of a find in north Bengal
