1916.] A Note on the Bengal School of Artists. 27 



cellency Lord Carmichael to the Museum of the Society, they 

 published a Guide Book in English. In this, it will be found 

 that the Society have come to the conclusion that among the 

 specimens exhibited, there are a few stone images which might 

 be attributed to Dhfman or his immediate follower. 1 None 

 of these, we presume, contain any inscription, as there is no 

 mention of any in the Guide Book. We are at a loss to under- 

 stand how a particular image might be regarded as a specimen 

 of artistic creation of any particular person when there is noth- 

 ing in the shape of inscription indicating the name of the artist. 

 It is needless to say that sucli assertion, unsupported by evi- 

 dence, has no place in history. 



Many of the specimens of art which have been discovered 

 in Southern and Western Bengal are not in any way inferior to 

 those found in Northern Bengal, or Varendra. Recently Mr. 

 Nagendranath Vasu has discovered, in the village of Attahasa, 

 in the District of Burdwan, a stone image of a goddess seated 

 or squatting on her haunches. It is a figure of an old, emaci- 

 ated woman, on the pedestal of which are to be found in relief 

 the figures of two worshippers, one male and the other a 

 female, of a horse and of an ass. We have not yet succeeded 

 in finding what goddess it represents, but one would surely be 

 convinced of the genius of its author by merely looking at it. 

 The figure is draped by a single piece of cloth tied in the loins 

 in the Indian fashion, but the upper part of the body is un- 

 draped. The skill, with which the ribs and the emaciated 

 breast have been chiselled out, is certainly unrivalled and 

 covers it witli a glow of realism, so rare, and so artistic. At a 

 first glance one would think that it represents a human form 

 on the point of suffocation. The emaciated lips, parted by a 

 faint smile, testifies the high order of artist's conception. On 

 the neck of the image, there is a charm hanging by means of a 

 thin string necklace, and on the wrists a pair of bangles is in 

 evidence. There is no other ornament on the body of the 

 image. Her hair is dishevelled and thrown on her back. A 

 portion of the figure is broken away, yet what remains is a 

 standing testimony of the high order of art, of which South 

 and West Bengal may justly be proud. We do not remember 



1 According to Taranath, two great painters and sculptors, Dhiman 

 and Bitapala. flourished in Varendra in the reign of Dharmapala and of 



his successor Devapala and founded independent schools. A comparison 

 of exhibits Nos. 11, 14. 34, 95, and 99, which may be -afely attributed 

 to Dili man or to his immediate followers, with the best specimens of 

 media*\ al sculptures of Orissa, Behar and other parts of Northern India 

 reproduced in Chapter VII of Mr. V. A. Smith's monumental work * A 

 History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon' , clearly shows that the Tibetan 

 Historian is substantially correct, and that we have to look to Varendra 

 for the fountain-head of Mediaeval Art of Northern India."— Guide-Book 

 to the Exhibition of Relics of Antiquity and Manuscripts on the Occasion of 

 the Visit to Rajshahi of H. E. Lord Carmichael, Governor of Bengal, p. 8. 



