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MONUMENTS & SCULPTURE A.D. 300 TO 600
TERRACOTTAS
In relation to these sculptures, the terracottas lack in artistry and seem to repeat an archaism which they had inherited. Among those from Vaisal there are about a dozen figurines identified with Naigamega, the Jaina deity of child-birth. They are characterized by an animal-face with goat-like features and long dangling ears having either pierced holes or slitmarks. Generally the mouth is indicated by a deep-cut slit just below a hooked nose. Three types are evident in the Vaisali terracottas of Naigameşa viz., female, male and couples, either with a child or without it; among these the female type is predominant. In the similar figurines of Kushan period horns over ears are an added feature. The excavations at sites IV and V of Kumrahar have supplied a dozen of such figurines belonging to Period IV (circa A.D. 300-450) and Period V (circa A.D. 450-600). They represent the male and female varieties and are similar in style to the Vaisali specimens. All these terracotta figurines are hand-made and have nothing like the sweeping charm of Ahicchatra Naigameşa figures. Cursorily hand-modelled, archaic and crude, they appear to belong to some hieratical tradition which had not been transformed by the touch of the classical plasticity and sophistication. There is, however, a suggestion that among the Paharpur terracottas some 'older panels might have been readjusted when the Jaina monastery was reshaped during the eighth century." Paharpur, it is said, witnessed a transformation of art-idiom from Gupta to medieval," but the extant finds fail to reveal Jaina affiliations of any such art-activity.
[PART III
Pp. 229-34.
"Stella Kramarisch, Indian Sculptures, London, p. 216.
1 Krishna Deva and Mishra, op. cit., p. 51, plate XII C 7: Sinha and Roy, op. cit., pp. 162-63, pl. LII, figs. 1-9. Sinha and Roy classify Period IV of Vaišäll, to which these terracottas belong, as chronologically covering circa A.D. 200-600.
For Harinegameşa, see U.P. Shah in Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, XIX, 1952-53, pp. 19 ff.
V.S. Agrawala in Ancient India, 4, 1947-48, p. 134.
Krishna Deva and Mishra, op. cit., p. 51.
Agrawala, op. cit., pp. 134-37, plate XLVIII A.
C.C. Dasgupta, Origin and Development of Glay Sculptures in India, Calcutta 1961,
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R.N. MISRA
