The Donor-Executor Dilemma: Notes on an Enigmatic Inscribed Sculpture from Bihar in the Indian Museum, Kolkata

Rajat Sanyal (1)

1 University of Calcutta

A hitherto unnoticed inscribed image of a standing male figure in the Indian Museum, Kolkata, was recently published by Shyamalkanti Chakravarti. I subsequently had occasion to examine the piece. It is a seventh century image of a standing male figure holding a sturdy staff (dapda) horizontally at the level of the groin. The accompanying inscription designates it as a donation of a nobleman (bhattaraka) hailing from Telyadhaka (modern Telhara in Bihar) and further records that the installation of the image was performed by the son of an oil merchant (tailika). Both the iconography and the inscription of this sculpture throw challenges of art historical and epigraphic analyses. The note suggests that the identity of the sculpture remains a riddle, in spite of the possibility of the imagery of this class being associated with multifarious ritual and cultic traditions in different parts of the country. Further, the inscription provides a rather rare instance of a donation being installed/executed by a person other than the donor.

Mots clés: Stone sculpture; deity with staff in hand; dedicatory inscription; seventh century; Indian Museum; Bihar; Telhara; donor; executor.

Domaines: Héritage culturel et muséologie; Archéologie et Préhistoire

Rajat Sanyal. The Donor-Executor Dilemma: Notes on an Enigmatic Inscribed Sculpture from Bihar in the Indian Museum, Kolkata. Pratna Samiksha: a Journal of Archaeology, 2020, 11, pp.205-218. ⟨halshs-03223210⟩