________________ OBSERVATIONS ON THE VAISALI TERRACOTTAS LAKSMAN JHA, B. A. (HONS.) Bihar Government Scholar in Archaeology, London . The excavations carried on at Vaigali by T. Bloch in the year 1903-04 brought out a mass of materials including terracottas, pottery, clay-scals, coins etc. which together with the finds at Mathura, Kausambi, Buxar, Pataliputra, Belwa (Saran) and Kasia (Kusinara, Gorakhpur) supply us with a wealth of information about the life of the people in Northern India in the first four centuries of the Christian era. We choose here the terracottas for a study of the costume prevalent during the days of the Guptas and the four centuries before and after them. Little clay-toys burnt or otherwise give us a clue to the whole outlook of people of those times. They are in many ways better records of the thoughts and aspirations of the people of the times than the overwhelming flood of philosophical treatises and literary compositions synchronistic with these terracottas. An examination of these terrcottas together with those found at Mathura, Kausa mbi, Buxar, Pasaliputra, Belwa (Saran), Kasia (Kusinara, Gorakhpur) and the Didarganj image of the Mauryan age as well as the reliefs at Bharhut of the following century reveals that in matter of dress almost the same pattern was followed throughout Northern India all through the eight centuries beginning with the Mauryas (300 B. C.-500 A. D.): the head-dress and necklace, the waist-chain and the dhoti going round the waist with one end pressed by the chain behind and the other end hanging down in front between the thighs and legs up to the ankles and rings round the ankles; no cover for the portion of the body below the neck and about the waist; in case of males no cover for the thighs and legs; nothing, for the arms except a broad chain round each of them against the armpit. This pattern stands bold in a contrast with what obtains to-day in our society and has been in vogae for the last eight
