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No. 24.]
SOME IMAGE INSCRIPTIONS FROM EAST BENGAL.
4. THE DEULBADI SARVVĀŅĪ IMAGE INSCRIPTION OF MAHADEVI PRABHĀVATI, QUEEN OF DEVA-KHADGA.
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Deulbāḍi is a village situated about 14 miles south of Comilla, on the trunk road running from Comilla to Chittagong. The image with which we are dealing was found about two decades ago by one Muhammad Faqir Choudhury, when demolishing the ruins of an ancien structure standing on plot No. 447 of the Settlement Map of Jammura, a mauza in which the small village of Dealbadi is included, under Police Station Chauddagrama, in the Tippera district. A fine brass statuette of the sun-god, in which the god is represented sitting inside his one-wheeled car, drawn by seven spirited horses, as well as some brass lingas, of which one was inscribed with a short votive inscription, were discovered along with the image of Sarvvani. Babu Taranath Chakrabartit, the then Sub-Inspector of Police in charge of the Chauddagrama Police Station, secured the images and placed them with one Kailas Chandra Chakrabartti of Deulbadi. There the images remained for about sixteen years, until they were bought by Babn Saratchandra Chakrabartti and Babu Nibaran Chandra Chakrabartti of the village Dajdi, Police Station Chandpur, District Tippera. These two brothers are the priests of a temple on the Chanḍimura peak of the Lalmãi Hills in the district of Tippera, near the Lalmai Station on the Assam Bengal Railway. As the ungo installed in the temple of Chandi had long disappeared, these two brothers were anxious to get an image of Chandi for their temple, and they obtained the present image from a cousin of Kailas, who in the meantime had died. The image was brought to Comilla along with the other images discovered, and for cleaning they were placed in the care of Babu Mahesa Chandra Bhattacharyya, a well-known Homœopathic druggist. When the images were with Mahesa Babu, the inscriptions on the Sarvvant image and on one of the lingas began to attract attention. Babu Anukülchandra Roy, ́ Manager, Wards' Estates, Comilla, sent me an imperfect rubbing of the inscription on the image, I at once recognized that this was a new inscription of the Khadgas and wrote to Anukal Babu to that effect. With the help of Mr. F. C. French, C.S.I., I.C.S., late Commissioner of the Dacca Division and President of the Dacca Museum Committee, I opened negotiations for the acquisition of the image for the Dacca Museum and went over to Comilla and obtained rubbings of the inscription and photographs of the image. The owners of the image, after much persuasion by Rai Annadaprasad Sen Bahadur, the Additional District Magistrate, and Mr. T. Emerson, C.I.E., I.C.S., the then Magistrate of Tippera, consented to part with the image on condition that a duplicate should be made for them and a sum of money given. At this juncture the annual grant received by the Dacca Museum from the Bengal Government was reduced from Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 3,000 and all ideas of acquiring the image had to be abandoned. The image was taken to the temple at Chanḍimura and set up for worship. I am informed that it has since been stolen from the temple and lust sight of.
The image is of the goddess Sarvvani, one of the forms of Durga. It is about 20" in height and rather heavy. A portion of the rim of the top towards the proper left is broken away and lost. The image is cast in low relief. The technique is rather crude, and the pose rigid. The goddess has eight arms, holding on the proper left, from the bottom upwards, the thunderbolt, the bell, the bow and the shield; and on the proper right, from the bottom upwards, the conchshell, the goad, the sword and the wheel. Two maids are on her two sides, holding fly-whisks. She stands on a lotus-seat on the back of a couchant lion, with a rather well-executed head. The image was gilt all over with thin sheets of gold, the pious work of queen Prabhavati, and the original gilding is still intact in places. The white patches in the photograph show where it still clings fast.
**RG[«*]NEW.
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