Chapter 6 - The Rewards of the Survey

The present investigation–based on intensive treatment of various strands of archaeology, namely, art and architecture, inscriptions on copper plate and metal coins and seals available from 1950’s to 2009 and assignable to the period of our survey–has proved to be only rewarding in so far as it has revealed many of the hitherto unknown pieces of information. The serendipities are of inestimable help to bring to light such information which are of significant help to build up the history and culture of Sripura which was a focal point of Central-Eastern India in the period under scrutiny i.e. 650 to 800 A.D. Whereas the site has been first known to be explored by such eminent British archaeologist like J.D.M. Beglar and A. Cumingham in the last quarter of the 19^th century and has drawn attention of the scholars and archaeologists since that time, no work worth the name has started in the site. A great connoisseur like M.G. Dixit took up excavations earnestly in three phases during 1954-56 and brought to light many extant as well as traces of structures and other antiquities of note. Many of them have been destroyed, damaged or lost after his work as no care or further work has been taken by concerned Departments of the State or Central Government. It is reported that he has brought to light as many as seven Buddhist monasteries of which five have again been buried under the earth. Two, of course, Ananda Prabha kuti and Swastika stand in all their glory and speak volumes about the cultural progress of Sripura.

The place has been the capital of the Sarabhapuriya dynasty in the later half of seventh cen. A.D. and of the Panduvamsis (Somavamsis) in the eighth century A.D. He traced the history of the place as dating at least from 5^th cen. A.D. on the basis of some of serendipities like the coin of Prasannamata of 5^th cen. A.D.

Towards the fag-end of 20^th century A.D. again the place came to limelight when excavations started on a massive scale, which has been continuing till date. Large number of structures–both religious and secular in different stages of decay, huge corpus of sculptures and icons of both stone and metal of which mention maybe made of about 87 number of bronze images of Buddhist deities are worth mentioning, fifteen sets of copper plate inscriptions about one and a half dozen of stone inscriptions and clay seals etc. have made the place as one of the richest heritage sites of the country. All these are an addition to already existing of the various categories. These are out of the total archaeological wealth that are still be unexplored fraction and unexcavated under the earth of Sripura. However even with the stack of present materials which may be said tobe in ample quantity, a historical narration may be made and a long-felt desideration of making a history of such a place may be fulfilled to a reasonable extent for the time being. As hinted earlier further excavations in some two hundred mounds located so far over a stretch of land about 35 sq. km. hold a big promise of bringing fresh data to light. Thus further light be shed on the historical developments of Sripura, time and again.

With fresh discoveries during our association with the excavation, during the first decade of 21^st century, we have, as said above come across so many new archaeological finds in intervals of two, three or six months that preparing catalogue of them has also become difficult. Descriptions of all of them will take volumes. It is not possible in the scope of the present Ph.D. dissertation to analyze them in threadbare detail and deduce their historical relevance and archaeological merit. However we have tried to take as many specimens as possible. Sometimes a few specimens of a particular variety or categories have been taken into consideration and analyzed them to make them yield as much of history as possible with the help of information gleaned from the primary sources of adjacent regions as well as secondary sources of literature.

The archaeological finds have been perused for the purpose of both political as well as cultural history. They provide us with a precise idea about the foundation and the growth of Sripura during the period of survey. It grew luxuriantly as an important metropolis of the time and the capital of two royal dynasties which have played a very vital role and brought the region as the focal point in the political as well as heritage map of a Central-Eastern India. In fact, it is corroborated by the travel accounts of the celebrated Chinese scholar pilgrim, Yuan Chwang who visited Kosal (South Kosala) on the eve of the beginning of our period, during the reign of the Sarabhapuriyas in 639 A.D. It appears that the Sarabbhapuriyas have named the place as Sripur or the abode of Laxmi (symbolic of royal glory).

The archaeological finds reveal the historical circumstances leading to the foundation of the kingdom of Sripura. The developments were a milestone in the path of the early Royal State formation, in the traditional geographic entity known as South Kosala with far reaching effects on its history and heritage. Pravararaja, the Sarbhapuriya king who was instrumental in the carving out of a separate state out of the body-politic of the Sarabhapuriya kingdom made it a factor to be reckoned with so far as the main branch of the dynasty in Sarabhapouriya was concerned. He made Sripura play a vital role both in politics and cultural attainments during the half century reign of the dynasty. Sripura and Sarabhapura and political machinations of the Panduvamsis towards fag end of the 7^th century A.D.

The Panduvamsis raised the superstructure of power which reached a great height in the reign of the founder of the Panduvamsi (Somavamsi) rule. Tivaradeva in the 8^th century A.D. by his policy of imperialism and diplomacy, he endeavored to extend his imperial sway over the adjacent territories of Kongoda and Utkala. Although he fell in the attempt in the front of Kongoda, he succeeded in that of Utkala. His success proved to be short-lived, but it gave a purpose and a direction to his successors which unfortunately none of them could pursue.

For the first time the downfall of Tivaradeva has been traced to the political turmoil of Eastern India in the first quarter of the 8^th century A.D. The whirlwind campaign of Yasovarman of Kanauj has been made responsible for the weakening of the Panduvamsi power. But a strong and consolidated Sripura sustained the shocks of the political ups and downs of the Eastern India and it enjoyed a comparatively peaceful time and great cultural developments in the second-half of 8^th century A.D. when Sivagupta Balarjuna reigned at Sripura.

The decline of the Panduvamsis has not been precisely determined as yet. However, on the basis of the epigraphic evidences, for the first time, the invasion of the Rastrakuta king Govinda-III (793-814 A.D) and/or that of the Nalas ruling in the adjacent Rajim region has been found to have contributed to the fall.

Sripura attained the apogee of political power and cultural glory during the reign of the Panduvamsis in 8^th cen. A.D., particularly in the later half of the century during the long six decades period of reign of the last known ruler Mahasivagupta Balarjuna (cir.750-810 A.D). This is revealed by two dozens of copper plate inscriptions, of which nineteen have been assigned to Balarjuna four to the founder of the dynasty Tivaradeva of which one has been discovered lately and one to Tivara’s son Nannaraja. As many as sixteen stone inscriptions of the time of Balarjuna have come to light during the present excavation of the past decade. A clay seal bearing the name of Tivaradeva has also been found in a site excavation recently. Of all these interesting and significant are the nine sets of copper plates discovered near the Balesvara temple complex sometime in the last decade of the previous century. The records contain grants in favour of Balessvara and some other Sivas like Ammesvara, Amaresvara etc. as well as a number of Saiva monasteries, feeding houses (Satra) and residential chamber in the compound of the Balesvara temple complex. It further suggests that it must have been a very sprawling complex. More important and still more interesting is the recently excavated Surang Tila complex at one end of the village Sripur. The excavation at this site during 2008-09 have brought another huge temple complex with varieties of temples, sculptures, lithic inscriptions and other archaeological finds. The five temples on a highly raised platform with Sivalingams of different colours are indeed, very charming. Though stocky and small temples may be considered as wonderful specimens of Sripur architecture. Besides a large number of Siva temples, as many as about thirty of almost the same design have been excavated in different parts of the village. Besides there are two temples belonging to the Vishnuite cult of the time of Balarjuna have been there before the excavations of 1999-2009. One of them, i.e. the Laksmana temple of brick masonry is a wonderful creation of art of Sripura. The other Rama temple which has been totally damaged is now under the process of conservation.

Still more important are the seven Buddhist monasteries excavated during the first decade of the present century. The first to come to light is the massive Sasai-Maha-Vihara-cum-a nunnery followed by others like the locally called Tivaradeva, Harsadeva, Padmapani Viharas etc. It has already been pointed out two of the seven Viharas excavated by M.G. Dixit in the fifties of the previous century, namely, Ananda Prabhakuti and Svastika survive while the others have gone under the earth again in the intervening period between that time and now. Of course, the most beautiful, the largest and architecturally important of the monasteries was Tivaradeva Mahavihara, whose external sidewalls are embellished with beautifully executed human and animal figures including a few from the Pancatanta. All the monasteries contain huge-sized images of Lord Buddha in bhumisparsa mudra. All the Viharas were two storied structure has revealed from the presence of stone topped steps. In 2007 a Jaina Vihara to the east of the Gandhesvara temple has been found. A Jaina Vihara came to light in 2007, 300 m. east of Gandhesvara temple. It comprises of a central pillared mandapa measuring 16 x 15 m and having several rooms and verandas. Adjacent to the Tivaradeva Mahavihara, there is a site surrounding three temples–one Jaina and the others Hindu. The temples were surrounded by a fortified wall. Outside the fortified walls, was the city.

Sculptures and icons of the different religious faiths are found in large corpuses of both stone and metal, prominent among them those in stone worth mentioning are the Visnu image riding on the Garuda (stolen from the Gandhevara compound and now said to have been preserved in London museum), the Visnu image found in Surang tila complex the Nataraj-Siva, UmaMahesvara, Mahisamardini, Ganesa and Karttikeya images of the Hindu Pantheon. The images of the Buddha of the Viharas; some of the Buddhist divinities, the Jaina Tirthankara Parsvanatha image, the miniature twenty-four Jaina Tirthankara images on a monolith now lying in the compound of Mahant Ghashi Das Museum, Raipur and some Jaina deities are famous. Most important were the large numbers of bronze images, as many as 87, of Buddhist deities of beautiful make which have been retrieved very recently.

All the structures and images show that while Sivagupta Balarjuna had extended lavish patronage to the construction of Saiva temples and Siva-Sakta images, he was equally generous to the making of the large number of Buddha Vihara and the statue. The plethora of bronze images indicate that both Buddhism and Buddhist art were in a state of flourish in Sripura. It was veritable centre of metal icon making. It is vouchsafed by the availability of the implements of goldsmith, discovered during excavations by M.G. Dixit in 1955 and A.K.Sharma in 2000-01, which were used in making the idols. Further Dixit’s excavation has yielded implements for melting metals, the test-stones bearing the marks of testing, a small hammer, a pair of forks, two pairs of scissors and an iron implement to straighten gold wire etc.

It is said that Nalanda School of metal art profoundly influenced the metal icon-making style. It is known from History that the Panduvamsi queen Vasata hailed from a royal house of Magadha and the tradition of metal art migrated in the trait of her marriage. All the images were cast in a mould first and they were attached with ornaments, sacred thread, hair-do or seats. The images were given a coating of gold with eyes gilded with silver, lips made red with copper and hair blackened with a black dye. Such metal images are found in Nalanda, Kurkihar-Akol and Vasantagarh.

There are two images of Tara in the Mahant Ghashi Das museum, Raipur. One of the two exhibits is exquisitely charming artistic appearance with two female devotees in worshipful posture below her seat and Buddha Amogha Siddhi on the top flanked by Bajrapani and a lotus flower. The other (Antiquity No. 3772) seated in ‘Lalitasana’ with the stalk of a lotus in left hand and right hand in Abhaya-mudra has the famous Buddhist mantra: Ye Dharma Hetu Prabhava … on her backside.

Two copper images of Padmapani, preserved in the M.G.M. Museum, Raipur one of which the biggest metal icon ever found from Sirpur and another copper image of Vajrapani in the same museum are artistic creations of the metal art.

Some of the important clay antiquities, preserved in the M.G.M. museum, Raipur include the comparatively big and significant image of Buddha in Dharmacakra Pravarttanamudra (giving discourse) is noteworthy. During the recent excavation two more clay seals, one recovered from the Tivaradeva Vihara (SRP-5) bearing the legend of Sri Tivaradeva, and another recovered from the palace complex on the bank of the Mahanadi bearing the legends of Mahasivaguptasrajas have been found. These seals as well as other earthen objects like potteries, images of elephant, horse, buffalo, ship, deer, bull and female images etc. are being made by traditional technique of preparing the object with soft and moist clay of the river bank, which were dried up and then burnt.

Sripura provided the congenial soil for the meeting, the intervention and the synthesis of various strands of art-forms under the enlightened patronage of the rulers, the receptivity and the skillful acumen of the artisans and the acceptance of the people at large. Mutual co-existence and responsiveness and regard of one religious group for the other, as in the case of religion, was the hallmark in the field of art.

While commenting on the Ratnagiri School of Buddhist Art D.R. Das (Journal of the Oriental Institute, Vol. XXVI, No. 4, June 1977, pp. 49) has observed:-

As the evidence stands, Ratnagiri comes to view a few decades after Buddhism first appeared at Sirpur.

The conclusion, therefore, becomes inevitable that Buddhism spread to the lower Mahanadi valley from

Kosala. This fact goes a long way to explain the Lalitgiri-Ratnagiri sculptures whose Gupta flavous has not precedence in Orissa. The identity in visual representation of images between Ratnagiri and Sirpur shows that the Gupta plastic tradition travelled from Magadha to Orissa via Kosala. The following grace imported through a sensitive and summary modeling endows the Lalitgiri-Ratnagiri figures with a liveliness and freedom which the sculpture certainly derived from Sirpur. The smoothness of the surface and the scupple roundness of the colossal Buddhas of Sirpur became the prevailing note of the images in the lower Mahanadi valley. The long tapering halo characterizing the divine image of Orissa has its origin in the elliptical nimbus of Sirpur.

Not only religious structures but also secular and residential ones like the palace complex on the right bank of the Mahanadi have come to light during the excavation of present time. The ground plan covers an area of 60 x 40 m with a number of rooms, pillared veranda and an open quadrangle, another house meant for royal residence was found in Balsevara temple complex. A clay sealing with the inscription Sivasguptarajas in the characters of 7^th century A.D. prevalent in the region has also been found here. The nine sets of copper plate refer to earlier has been recovered from near the house.

A remarkable feature of Sripura was the town planning, which is revealed by the traces and vestiges, which is said to have spread over an area of 35 sq.kms during the current excavation, as well as the narratives of scholars as stated in location and extent feature of the Chapter-1 and M.G. Dixit’s excavations between 1953-1956 have also revealed the existence of traces of the city in three different phases. The road running from Sirpur to Senakpat if considered from the archaeological view point, appears to be the principal high way of Sripura. Vast amounts of archaeological remains are witnessed on either side of the road for a very long distance.

A.K. Sharma (Special Report No. 1 Sirpur, p. 4) has made the following observations with regard to town planning of a capital:

“The selection of the site for their new capital by Sarabhapuriyas was strictly in accordance with the principles laid down in Vastu Sastra”.

“It is at the selected site for the capital that Mahanadi meanders to North-east (Isana) the direction of the Gods, and flows for nearly 7 kms before turning east”.

Two significant pieces of information revealed by the epigraphic sources of Sripura are the marital relation of Harsagupta of the dynasty with Vasata a daughter of Suryavarman of Magadha and, the regency of Vasata during the minority of her son Sivagupta Balarjuna which was, of course, an interregnum of great cultural importance.

The huge corpus of epigraphic records, particularly the Sirpur Laksmana temple inscription of Vasata and the recently discovered nine sets of copper plate records of the time of Balarjuna throw a flood of light on the cultural development of Sripura. Of these the inscription of Vasata is a receptacle of various strands of the cultural developments. It enlightens us about the salient aspects of social organization, varna, varnasrama and, more importantly, varnasankara which has been considered a deep social crisis of the time known as Kali-yuga and reflected in some of the contemporary inscriptions. It also refers to the organization of the “Brahmanic model of Society” on the line of Veda-trayi i.e. the Rg, the Sama and the Yajur system, which means that the Atharvaveda has not received recognition till that time in Kosala.

The record further alludes to the developments of the Vaisnavism particularly the prevalence of the Pancaratna rituals, the evolution of the different incarnations of Lord Visnu and, most importantly, the worship of Nrsimha (the Man-Lion form)which was apparently the culmination of the KrsnaVasideva cult of Bhagvatism which had been in progress in South Kosala since the beginning of the 6^th century A.D. till the time of Vasata under the benign patronage of the rulers and the propagating zeal of the Bhagavata Brahmanas, two of whom have been favoured with land grants in the inscription.

The tide of Vaisnavism received a set back with the accession of Sivagupta Balarjuna in the middle of the 8^th century A.D. He turned out to be a devout Saiva apparently due to the influence of the Saivacaryas of the Mattamayura cult of Saivism, many of whom had either settled at Sripura with the royal donations of land or at least made their sojourn. A large number of Saiva shrines were raised throughout the length and the breadth of the Sripura kingdom. A large number of Saiva monasteries attached to the shrines performed acts of charity, teaching and rituals of the cult. In fact, ‘Saivism’ received an unprecedented patronage of Balarjuna and grew luxuriantly in Sripura as revealed by the recent hoard of copper plate records.

Sripura, which was located at a comparatively hinterland, grew luxuriantly in political power and cultural glory during a brief span of a century and a half and made rich contributions to the multifarious aspects of history and heritage as revealed from the exploration of the ample quantum of archaeological sources. South Kosala, which has so far been sidetracked from the mainstream of the Indian history, was brought into it and made her place in the epochal annals of the hoary historical tradition of India.