Haritaze of Pahar pur

 

The first excavation at paharpur were carried out in 1922-23 under the joint auspices
of the Varenda Research Society of Rajshahi and the CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY
under the direction of DR Bhandarkar of the university. After wards, these
excavations were taken over by the Archaeological survey of India. The excavation
continued till 1934 and beyond, except for a break in 1930-32. They were led by KN
Dikshit, but RD BANERJEE and Gc chandra were something’s in 1938 as Memoirs
no-55 of the Archeological survey of India and forms the most important and
complete report on any Bengal site till today. Excavation at paharpur led to
astounding results Architecturally, they revcaled a new type of a new type of
Buddhist temple architecture, labelled as the sarvatobhadra type, they had a
cruciform ground plan and a terraced superstructure and a new type of monastery
design ie four long rows of monastic cells enclosing a large quadrangle, the main
temple occupying the centre of the quadrangle several more examples of this kind of
cruciform temple were later discovered in Bangladesh at BHARAT BHAYNA,
Savar, and most notably at mainamati. Indeed, Bharat Bhayna, and at least one
example found in Mainamati, Predates paharpur. It is interesting to note that the
panarpur and the mainamati cruciform temples have marked affinities with some of
the Buddhist temples of southeast Asia, particularly some of the pagan (Now Bagan)
series in Myanmar. These Burmese temples were of later date than the paharpur and
mainamati ones. But Borobudur (late 8th
 cemtury AD
) may be contemporary. The
paharpur monastery complex was built by DHARMAPALA and was named, as
known from teh sealings of the monastery, as the Dharmapaladeva Mahavihara
situated at somapura.
Besides throwing light on architecture and Buddhist religion in early medieval
Bengal, the paharpur excavations were extremely significant from the Stand point of
the history for sculptural, 63 of which are fixed on the basement wall of the temple,
offer a unique opportunity to make a detailed study of them from the religious,
artistic, technical and socioeconomic point of view.
The numerous terracotta plaques, on the other hand, offer a means of study, among
other things, of everyday life in Bangladesh in those by gone days. The number of
miniatura bronzes from paharpur, which about in Bhasu viahr and Mainamati
however are not many. The discovery in 1982 of a c 9th
 century torso (43) of a
colossal bronze image of Buddha (which originally must have been over 8 in height)
mutilated by fire in ancient times, has, however, compensated for this. This is a
splendid example of the excellence achieved by ninth and tenth centuries AD in
bronze casting.