THE BUDDHIST ATELIERS OF ANCIENT MAGADHA

India's rich art history is littered with masterpieces by unknown artists. This is especially true when it comes to the creators of some of the most internationally influential Buddhist art of Bihar. Lounge journeys to the state to reveal the stories of two such ateliers

- Bibek Bhattacharya

To gaze on a Kurkihar bronze is to be entranced by texture. Deep inside the cavernous bowels of the Bihar Museum in Patna, lit by soft, diffused overhead illumination, resides a small gallery of bronze sculptures, depicting the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. These range from statues as small as a few centimetres to ones that are over 5ft tall. But no matter what the size, each sculpture glows. In the larger images, the grains of the aged bronze stelae, sculpted in the lost-wax (or cire perdue) process, sparkle where the light hits. In the smaller, portable statues that are sculpted in the round, the bronze gives off a matte sheen.

After a gap of a millennia, many of the original colours and shine can dissipate. However, many of the Kurkihar bronzes have managed to retain their original, resplendent hues. A small ninth century CE statue of a standing Buddha displaying the varada mudra is particularly beautiful for the rich array of colours it portrays, especially on the Buddha’s exquisitely crafted robe, its striped effect derived by a masterful blending of metals of different colours.

So, who were these artists? Scholars are increasingly of the view that throughout the long period of the suzerainty of the Buddhist Pala emperors of Bengal and Bihar (750-1170 CE), the iconographic needs of a new, resurgent and international Buddhism were met by seeding ateliers of artisans, especially attached to large Buddhist establishments like monasteries, throughout eastern India. In time, many of these workshops developed distinct styles, which would go on to influence each other, and be exported across South Asia and beyond.