Page 118 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

SCULPTURE 115

As mentioned before, the zamindars or landlords under the Mughal governors were
left with almost autonomous power within their territory as long as they were loyal to
the throne and paid their dues regularly. These zamindars were the chief patron of
temple building of this period. Moreover, the long period of internal peace and
consequent improvement of trade, industry and commerce which started from the
period of Shahjahan, together with the import of hard cash in the form of silver by the
European traders arriving during this period, resulted in creating favorable conditions
which encouraged the work of temple building as a meritorious activity. On a few
monuments of 16th century the figured subjects are relatively few in number and the
floral designs resemble those of the Muslim monuments. But on the temples of
Rainagar in Jessore (1588) and Gokarna in Murshidabad (1590), the terracotta
carvings include larger numbers of deities, which set the pattern for later temples). 41
As already mentioned, from the first quarter of the 17th century, in different areas of
Bengal, including Bankura and Birbhum in India, temples are found to be profusely
decorated with terracotta figures which were created by the powerful and semi-
independent Malla rulers of Bishnupur in the District of Bankura in West Bengal.
Their success in this field soon helped to spread the tradition of decorating temple
walls with terracotta ornamentation during the last quarter of the 17th century and the
first quarter of the 18th century.
It is curious to note that in the 18th century, when the country was undergoing a
decided and far reaching change due to the arrival of European traders of various
nationalities and the political set up was changing fast with significant importance,
temple building activity went on with greater vigor, indicating that these changes did
not affect the rural society as a whole. But it is interesting to note that, in the period
after 1770, the temple building activity was more participated in by the newly
emerging business class and the professionals or the neo-rich men in the services of
the expanding English East India Company coming often from the lower casts, rather
than the zamindars and the landed gentry. Moreover the experiment with the revenue
system lasting up to 1793 created many new zamindars not always possessing social
respectability. Their newly acquired wealth was not always sufficient to elevate their
social prestige and by commissioning the building of these temples many of them
‘could considerably neutralize their social disabilities’, and rise in the sphere of social
influence. This is possibly why the largest number of the extant temples was built in
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the last quarter of the 18th and the 1st half of the 19th century.
In spite of the humid and damp atmosphere of Bengal most of these terracotta plaques
retain their original color and texture even after two / three hundred years, which is
really amazing. It is regrettable that though many of the temples contain inscriptions
which bear the name of the donor, hardly any of these mentions the name of the
architect, the artist or the modeler. Only in the inscriptions of some temples of late
18th century, the name of the chief architect and his village is mentioned, who may
have been very famous. They seem to have worked not only in their own area but also
were commissioned to build and decorate temples in far away places as well. The
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craftsmanship, skill and power of observation reflected on these monuments have