22

The Mandasor Silk

Weavers’ Inscription
of 437 CE and
Temples of the
Aulikaras

K.L. Mankodi
 The Mandasor Silk
Weavers’ Inscription of
437 CE and Temples of
the Aulikaras

THE AULIKARAS OF DASHAPURA,

BANDHUVARMAN’S LINEAGE
Some twenty inscriptions of the Aulikaras of
ancient Dashapura in western Malwa, present
Mandasor in Madhya Pradesh, are known.
Some of them are of considerable length and
poetic merit and all are important for the
history of the dynasty. D.C. Sircar included no
fewer than eight in his Select Inscriptions
Bearing on Indian History and Civilization.
For this writer, and surely for many other
students of Indian history, the inclusion of an
epigraph in Select Inscriptions is a measure of
a particular epigraph’s importance.
For scholars working on the history and
epigraphy of the period of the Imperial
Guptas, the Mandasor inscription of the time
of the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta and his
Aulikara feudatory Bandhuvarman of 437 and
473 CE, known as the inscription of the Silk
Weavers, is of special interest, because it
presents them with a yet unresolved
conundrum.
Shorn of the panegyric parts about the
kings and the builders of the temple, the
inscription provides the following
information. In Krita (=Malava) year 493/437
CE, the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta was

ruling in Magadha. His feudatory in Dashapura

or western Malwa at that time was a king of the
Aulikara dynasty, whose name was
Bandhuvarman. Bandhuvarman was
descended from a line whose four previous
rulers were Jayavarman, Simhavarman,
Naravarman and Vishvavarman, all of whom

ruled in a direct line from father to son. In this
town of Dashapura, a guild following the trade
of silk weaving had settled down after
migrating from Lata or southern Gujarat.
Members of this guild in 437 CE built a temple
of the Sun god. A poet named Vatsabhatti
supervised the building of the temple.
During the period of thirty-seven years
after the temple’s construction, during which
period ‘other kings’, who are not named, are
said to have ruled in Dashapura, part of the
temple’s structure suffered damage. The same
silk weavers’ guild restored the structure, in
Krita year 529/473 CE, the same Vatsabhatti
supervised the restoration, and he also
composed the inscription eulogizing the act.
And this is where the conundrum, one that has
troubled historians and epigraphists for more
than a century after its discovery, lies.
In the intervening period of thirty-seven
years, Kumaragupta (reign-period 414-455 CE)
had passed away, as also his immediate Gupta
successors. Whether the Aulikara feudatory
Bandhuvarman was still alive and ruling in
Dashapura is not certain, some scholars
believing that he was, others that he must
have died in the interim.
Thus, among the three dramatis
personae of 437 CE, Kumaragupta,
Bandhuvarman, and Vatsabhatti, at least the
third one was living: Vatsabhatti not only had
supervised the temple’s original construction
in 437 CE but its restoration in 473 CE; he also
composed the inscription chronicling all the
above events.
As all the scholars who wrote on the
subject have commented, the phraseology in
Vatsabhatti’s poem describing the history of
the short time between 437 and 473 CE—
barely one generation—is curious. Vatsabhatti
records that “part of the structure got
damaged when a long time had elapsed during
which other kings were ruling”
(bahunasamatitenakalenaanyaishchaparthivaihvy-
The Mandasor
Silk Weavers’
Inscription of
437 CE and
Temples of
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307
ashiryataikadeshah). This statement has
puzzled the minds of scholars for more than
one hundred years. They all noted the guarded
reference to the kings who must certainly be
kings of another house.
Who were these ‘other kings’? Were they
inimical to Bandhuvarman and to the
Aulikaras? Why should Vatsabhatti be so
discrete, tactful, and subtle, as if he did not
wish to offend those ‘other kings’ who were on
the throne for the period of about one
generation that followed the building of the
temple?
Such circumspect manner of speaking
about hostile rulers is not the norm; rather,
kings and their eulogists revelled in running
down their rivals. Defeated enemies were not
mentioned in ‘neutral’ terms. Bandhuvarman’s
own record says: “Even today, when the long-
eyed beautiful women of his
(=Bandhuvarman’s) enemies, afflicted by the
fierce calamity of widowhood, remember him,
a tremor springs up through fright causing
torture to their compact breasts” (verse 28 of
the present inscription, Bhandarkar/Chhabra/
Gai, p. 330).
The interpretation of this particular
passage about the damage to the Sun temple
that occurred after it was built in 437, which
necessitated its restoration after such a short
interval in 473 CE, has attracted much
speculation. The fifth century and the early
decades of the following century was a time of
many twists of fortune for the ruling houses of
Malwa. It has been proposed that the damage
to the structure took place when the Aulikaras
had been supplanted by hostile rulers, or that
it might have been caused by those kings; the
Hunas and Vakatakas have been held as
responsible. (See for example Inscriptions of
the Early Gupta Kings, “Corpus Inscriptionum
Indicarum” III, originally edited by John
Faithfull Fleet in 1888, revised by Devadatta
Ramakrishna Bhandarkar, edited by
Art, Icon and
Architecture
in South Asia
308
Bahadurchand Chhabra and Govind Swamirao
Gai, Archaeological Survery of India, New
Delhi, 1981, pp. 329-330, the long footnote 2
beginning at p. 329, and p. 331, footnote 1. See
also Goyal, S.R., A History of the Imperial
Guptas, Allahabad Central Book Depot, 1967,
p. 289; Jagan Nath, “Govindagupta, A New
Gupta Emperor”, Indian Historical Quarterly,
22, 1946, pp. 286-290).
Sircar, Select Inscriptions, p. 306,
footnote 2, went with Dashrath Sharma, as the
following quotation shows: “Here the period of
about 36 years has been mentioned as ‘a long
time’. Fleet translates, ‘under other kings, part
of the temple fell into disrepair’. The language,
however, seems to support D. Sharma, who
wants to translate, ‘a part of this building was
destroyed (damaged?) by other kings’. He
thinks of the occupation of Central India by
the Hunas (Ind. Cult., III, pp. 379 ff.; IV, pp.
262f.). Bandhuvarman must have died long
before AD 473, but the passage may refer to an
attack on Dasapura by hostile kings and not to
the occupation of the kingdom by the Hunas,
which probably took place later.”
Now Bandhuvarman was the fifth king
who ruled in direct line in Dashapura,
preceded by Jayavarman, Simhavarman,
Naravarman and Vishvavarman from at least
the early fifth century (Naravarman’s
Mandasori nscription of 404 CE) down to
Bandhuvarman (437 CE). There was also the
celebrated Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana,
known from his 532 CE Mandasor inscription
and other undated inscriptions, but his
relation with the early Aulikaras of the fifth
century is not relevant to our paper.
THE AULIKARAS OF DASHAPURA:
PRAKASHADHARMAN’S LINEAGE
Ever since the inscriptions of the Aulikaras
were discovered it was assumed, quite
naturally, that the dynasty comprised just this
one lineage represented by Bandhuvarman.
However, a stone inscription of a hitherto
unknown king Prakashadharman, of (Malava)
Samvat 572/515 CE, was discovered at Risthal
in the Sitamau Tehsil of Mandasor district in
1983. Prakashadharman also calls himself an
Aulikara and mentions the names of five of his
predecessors who ruled from Dashapura. This,
therefore, turns out to be a record of a
collateral line of the Aulikaras that had also
ruled in the Dashapura area at the same time
that the kings of Bandhuvarman’s house. The
Risthal inscription showed that the Aulikara
dynasty did not consist of just the one line
starting with Jayavarman and including
Bandhuvarman, as had always been thought,
but that there was another line one of whose
kings was named Prakashadharman. It also
showed that the other celebrated Aulikara
king Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana, already
known, who lived in 532 CE, had belonged to
Prakashadharman’s lineage and was very
likely that king’s son/successor, but that is
beyond the scope of this paper.
It is suggested in this paper that
Prakashadharman’s inscription may finally
solve the conundrum of the ‘other kings’
mentioned in Vatsabhatti’s poem.
K.V. Ramesh and S.P. Tewari first
published the Risthal inscription in 1984, and
other scholars, such as V.V. Mirashi and D.C.
Sircar, followed them. Richard Salomon
published it with an impression, text and
translation, a full consideration of Aulikara
history, together with a detailed discussion of
the views of the other scholars who had
written on the dynasty.1
The Risthal inscription traced the kings in
direct succession, from Drapavardhana to
Jayavardhana, Ajitavardhana,
Vibhishanavardhana, and Rajyavardhana up
to Prakashadharman, who issued the record in
515 CE, all of them ruling from Dashapura.
Prakashadharman records the construction of
temples of Shiva, Brahma and other gods at

Dashapura itself and the excavation of a lake
(evidently at Risthal).
Even more evidence for
Prakashadharman is available. Shortly before
the discovery of the Risthal inscription in
1983, and Salomon’s exhaustive paper written
in 1989, V.S. Wakankar had independently
confirmed the existence of this king with the
discovery of two glass seals from Mandasor
itself2—that also located Prakashadharman in
Dashapura—as far as portable objects such as
seals could be said to do this.
Thus, on the one hand, the dynasty of
Jayavarman and his four successors were
ruling from at least 404 CE (Naravarman’s
Mandasor inscription) to Bandhuvarman 437
CE (if not 473 CE) from Dashapura, on the other
hand, the dynasty of Prakashadharman and his
predecessors, consisting of six kings starting
from an unknown date down to
Prakashadharman, who issued the record in
515 CE, and on to his own successor/son
Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana, who was
living in 532 CE, ruled, also from Dashapura
(and in that general region). The dates of the
individual kings of both these houses, both
Aulikaras, surely must have overlapped at
some points. Would this crisscrossing of kings
of the same clan on the same throne have
always been cordial?
We can see that all the names of
Bandhuvarman’s family end in the suffix
‘varman’, as against the names of five of
Prakashadharman’s family, which end in the
suffix ‘vardhana’. Even Prakashadharman’s
successor Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana
has the suffix ‘vardhana’ as part of his name.
Salomon has arranged the two principal
families as ‘Early’ and ‘Later’ Aulikaras. Among
the Early Aulikaras are all the kings who ruled
in a direct line of succession from father-to-
son, and whose existence was already known
before the Risthal inscription was discovered:
Jayavarman and Simhavarman (before 404 CE,
The Mandasor
Silk Weavers’
Inscription of
437 CE and
Temples of
the Aulikaras
309
who are known only from the inscription of
the next king), Naravarman, Vishvavarman,
Bandhuvarman, and (probably also)
Prabhakara (467 CE). The Later Aulikaras, as
now known, were Drapavardhana (the name is
clear in the record but the meaning is not),
Jayavardhana, Ajitavardhana,
Vibhishanavardhana, Rajyavardhana,
Prakashadharman, and Yashodharman-
Vishnuvardhana (Mandasor inscription of 532
CE).
Now that we know about King
Prakashadharman, who was an Aulikara, we
may suppose that he and his family were
cousins or clan relatives of the kings of
Bandhuvarman’s line, and we may better
understand why Vatsabhatti was so
circumspect about the rulers during whose
time the Silk Weavers’ Sun temple suffered
damage. Vatsabhatti was a subject of the
Aulikara Bandhuvarman when the Silk
Weavers first erected their temple of the Sun,
and he was still living when they restored it
thirty-seven years later—only the throne had
changed hands from one Aulikara branch to
another, collateral, branch in the interim. We
are not told if Vatsabhatti was an official of
Bandhuvarman’s court or just a freelance
poet.
The Aulikaras’ records are found from
the western Malwa region (Fig. 22.1), such as
Mandasor itself, Gangdhar (in the Jhalawar
district of Rajasthan), and Bihar Kotra
(Rajgarh district, Madhya Pradesh).
These various kings ruled over a rather
small territory, but their influence must have
been felt over a wider sphere beyond
Mandasor. According to Salomon
…it is now clear that all the Aulikaras, and
probably the affiliated dynasties as well
[such as king Gauri], must have ruled
from Dasapura (Mandasor). As is virtually
always the case for ancient Indian
dynasties, we cannot determine the
Art, Icon and
Architecture
in South Asia
310
Fig. 22.1. Map of western Malwa (from Google maps).
boundaries of their territories or spheres of
influence with any accuracy. The most
distant record from Dasapura/Mandasor is
Bihar Kotra…, some 130 miles to the east-
south-east, issued under Naravarman while
the early Aulikaras were subordinates of the
Guptas. … [The] Aulikara and related
dynasties seem to have maintained a stable
but relatively small kingdom centered in
Dasapura/Mandasor.3
THE AULIKARS AS BUILDERS OF
TEMPLES
Aulikara inscriptions record the creation of
shrines, commemorative or heraldic columns,
mandapas, pavilions, stupas and viharas,
reservoirs and watering places (vapi, kupa,
prapa, udapana) by kings, noblemen and lay
people.
Charitable works like the excavation of
wells are particularly esteemed. Apart from
simple draw wells were those with spiralling
steps along the wall. Mayurakshaka, minister
of Vishvavarman, son of Naravarman, built, at
Gangdhar, two shrines, one for Vishnu and the
other for the Mothers (Matrs), besides
excavating a well, in VS 480/423 CE. His record
is very weathered, but even in its poor
condition, it affords a tantalizing glimpse
about the Dakinis, who are probably also
called the Matrs or Mothers, who “utter loud
shouts of excitement”; about the Shakta or
Tantric rites practiced in their shrine; and
about “the stormy winds generated from those
rites stirring up the oceans themselves.”4
A staircase winded down Mayurakshaka’s
well. In the Gangdhar inscription, whose
composer was a talented man, the stair is
compared to a slithering cobra
(bhujangopama: Gangdhar inscription, stanza
24; Sircar, Select Inscriptions, p. 405).
Prabhakara, also an Aulikara king, excavated a
well, whose water is likened to “the cool
company of a friend, pure like the mind of a
saint, and light like the speech of a teacher”
(Mandasor inscription of VS 524/467 CE).5
Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana’s minister
Daksha in VS 589/532 CE donated a well in
memory of his departed uncle, and alluded to
the epic story of the digging up of the ocean by
the sons of King Sagara for the liberation of
their ancestord (= the myth of the descent of
the river Ganga). Prakashadharman of the
collateral line commemorates the excavation
of a lake in memory of his grandfather
Vibhishanavarman, and the building of shrines
and assembly halls, and the digging of wells.
Vasudeva Vishnu’s ‘thousand-headed’
(sahasra-shirsha) form seems to be referred
to in stanza 1 of Naravarman’s VS 461/404 CE
inscription. Again, in stanzas 10-11 in the
same record Vasudeva Vishnu’s Vishvarupa
aspect is intended when he is represented as a
fruit-bearing tree (phalada, literally, ‘fruit-
giver’), with the gods as fruits, heavenly
women (svargastri = apsaras) as leaves, etc.,
as Sircar has suggested.6

Fig. 22.2. Bhim ki Chauri, Dara, from south-east.
Considering the richness and variety of
all this body, coming from a rather remote
area in central India, it is regrettable that only
one standing monument can be attributed to
the Aulikaras, and that too is in a ruined state.
This is the shrine known as Bhim ki Chauri at
Dara or Mukandara, 50 km to the south of
Kota on National Highway, 12 km from Jaipur
to Jabalpur.
In its present condition, only the
moulded platform at one end of which the
structure stood, with the columns that formed
part of the shrine, survives (Fig. 22.2). The
stone slabs forming the walls, together with
the superstructure, have vanished; they were
taken away long ago to be used in building
another temple nearby. The columns are
massive, square, surmounted by beams
decorated with thick creepers and garlands
(Fig. 22.3). Vegetal forms, thick twisted floral
ropes, leaf-tailed fanciful makaras, such
The Mandasor
Silk Weavers’
Inscription of
437 CE and
Temples of
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311
decorations predominate. Human forms have
the stockiness of early Yaksha figures, (Figs.
22.4, a fragmentary door guardian, and Fig.
22.5, Ganga in the Ajmer Museum) though
they do have their hair in Gupta curls (Fig.
22.6).
The most celebrated of all of Bhim ki
Chauri’s carvings, however, is the ‘Drummer’
(Fig. 22.6). Housed in a semi-circular niche
formed by two leafy fish-tailed makaras, this
gana must have formed one part of the
decoration of the square superstructure;
unfortunately, the pieces of the three other
sides are lost. Bhim ki Chauri furnishes an
example of the terrible abode where the
Dakini-like Mother Goddesses chanted their
Tantric hymns or where the Vishvarupa
Vishnu might have been enshrined, just as the
deep well cut into the rocky ground nearby
with its winding stairs furnishes an example of
Mayurakshaka’s donation.
Art, Icon and
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Fig. 22.3. Bhim ki Chauri, massive columns and beams.
We may imagine the Silk Weavers’ shrine
at Mandasor in visual terms provided by Bhim
ki Chauri.
The Map (Fig. 22.1) reveals that Dara is
about 150 km to the north-east of Mandasor,
not too far for it to have been within Aulikara
sphere of influence. Gangdhar, from where
Mayurakshaka’s inscription of 423 CE of the
time of Vishvavarman, son of Naravarman,
was found, is roughly between Mandasor and
Dara; and Bihar Kotra, from where the 417 CE
inscription of Naravarman himself was found,
is only a little greater distance to the south-
east of Dara. Now Dashapura-Mandasor, the
capital, is to the west from the find-spots of
both Gangdhar and Bihar Kotra; Dara in fact
would be closer to the capital city than Bihar
Kotra. Hence, it can be said to have been
located within the sphere of influence of the
Aulikaras. Situated on an ancient highway, any
local power would wish to control the spot;
therefore, Bhim ki Chauri has a claim to be
considered an Aulikara foundation, or one
that was built by a nobleman or minister, as
the Gangdhar shrines of the Mothers and
Vishnu, and quite a few others from both the
clans, were.
Bhim ki Chauri is datable to the second
quarter of the fifth century CE, when the Gupta
emperor Kumaragupta was on the Magadha
throne. According to Michael W. Meister “The
temple is of the early Gupta period, most
probably of the first quarter of the fifth
century.”7 I would place it around 425 CE,8
which is also M.A. Dhaky’s dating.9
Malwa was included in the Gupta Empire
in the time of Chandragupta II (reign-period
375-414 CE) and Kumaragupta I (reign-period
414-455 CE). Hence, Bhim ki Chauri can be
designated as a ‘Gupta’ monument. However,

Fig. 22.4. Bhim ki Chauri, a broken door-keeper at the site.
the Guptas were represented there by their
local vassals, the Aulikaras of Dashapura/
Mandasor. A date of around 425 CE places
Bhim ki Chauri in the reign of Vishvavarman,
son of Naravarman, from whose period comes
the well-known inscription of VS 480/423 CE
from Gangdhar, less than 150 km south from
Dara, and his Gupta overlord Kumaragupta
(414-455 CE).
Thus, in the fifth and sixth centuries, a
variety of beneficial works, sacred and social—
temples surely, but also wells, watering places,
cisterns, shelters and pavilions, stupas and
viharas—were being carried out in Aulikara
territory, not far from Dara itself. Practically
the whole of Malwa being included within the
Gupta Empire by that time, their Aulikara
feudatories or contemporaries probably
controlled the vital Dara pass in Hadoti on the
trade route from Avanti (Malwa) in the South
to the Uttarapatha or North India, even
though direct inscriptional evidence from
Bhim ki Chauri itself is wanting. A case can
The Mandasor
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therefore be made out for the fifth-century
Bhim ki Chauri also to have been built under
the Aulikara’s rule, even if not directly by an
Aulikara ruler.
The Aulikaras, both clans, were thus an
illustrious ruling house between 404 and 532
CE, now one branch (names with ‘varman’
termination), and now another (‘vardhana’
termination) enjoying ascendancy in this
somewhat small kingdom of Dashapura-
Mandasor in the culturally prominent western
Malwa region.
WAS THE SILK WEAVERS’ TEMPLE A BRICK
STRUCTURE?
The silk weavers’ temple built in 437 CE
already was in need of repair (jirnoddhara)
only thirty-six years later in 473 CE
(Vatsabhatti calls it sanskaritam, but in view
of vyashiryataikadeshah, the term
jirnoddhara can be applied). Temples last for
centuries; they do not wear out in a single
generation.
Vidya Dehejia10 conjectured, from the
appearance of the Silk Weavers’ temple as
Art, Icon and
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314
Fig. 22.5. Bhim ki Chauri, Ganga riding on her makara,
fragment .
described in the inscription, “pale red like the
mass of the rays of the moon just risen”, that it
was built of bricks. Now brick temples were
built since early times, the temple at Nagari
near Chittor being a contemporary example,
and at Dashapura also that may have been the
case, regardless of what the inscription says.
The words “bright red like the rising moon”,
etc. may reflect the reddish lustre of freshly
fired bricks, as Dehejia imaginatively
conjectured. (Brick or stone, comparison of
the building’s lustre with the Moon when the
temple is of the Sun may be evidence of the
composer’s rather laboured style.) Equally
likely, the walls would be whitewashed,
concealing any original red hue, as Dehejia
herself writes.11 However, it is not so likely
that the temple needed repairs so soon after it
was built because it was a brick structure.
Bricks once fired (and plastered) are not
appreciably less durable than stone, at least in
the normal course of their life; many brick
structures have survived over the centuries.
The structure probably needed repairs
because of damage resulting from other
factors, lightning perhaps being among them.
Vatsabhatti, builder of the Silk Weavers’
temple—then its restorer thirty-seven years
later—and composer of the record about the
restoration, occupies a wedge of time that
witnessed a change of guard from one Aulikara
clan to another (and perhaps back again). He
recorded this political interlude as tactfully as
he could have, since “it was all in the family”,
as it were: after he had built the temple when
Bandhuvarman was king, the structure
suffered damage when “other kings”,

Fig. 22.6. Bhim ki Chauri, the “Drummer”.
predecessors of Prakashadharman (possibly
his grandfather Vibhishanavardhana) had
occupied Dashapura. Perhaps there is no need
to invoke the troubled times the Gupta
dynasty was facing (Bhandarkar-Chhabra-Gai)
or the Hunas or the Vakatakas (Sircar, Mirashi,
etc.).
All the scholars who wrote about
Vatsabhatti’s captivating poem have
commented on the unusual fact that though
the mansion of ‘Dipta-rashmi’ or the Sun god
was raised in 437 CE, the record about it was
carved only thirty-six years after that event,
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1 . Richard Salomon, ‘New Inscriptional
Evidence for the History of the Aulikaras of
Mandasor’, Indo-Iranian Journal, 32, 1989,
pp. 1-36.
The Mandasor
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Inscription of
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315
in 473 CE. However, who can tell if there was
indeed a foundation record as well, which did
not survive?
The man who composed the record for the
Silk Weavers had no claim to being a great poet.
He used figures of speech, similes, and word
pictures to describe the seasons, the beauty of
the women of Dashapura, standard stock in
trade available to any poet who composed
Kavya poetry; yet his creation has a captivating
interest for us. A.L. Basham singled out
Vatsabhatti’s simple inscribed block of stone
built into the flight of steps leading down to the
river at Mandasor as “perhaps the finest relic of
the Gupta period”.12
2 . M.D. Khare (ed.), Malwa through the Ages,
Directorate of Archaeology and Museums in
Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal, 1983.
3 . Salomon, op. cit., p. 25.
Art, Icon and
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316
4 . Matrnamchapramudita-ghan-atyarttha-
nihradininam/ tantr-odbhuta-prabala-pavan-
odvarttit-ambhonidhinam/……
gatam=idamdakinisampra- kirnnam/
veshm=atyuggramnrpatisachivo=karayatpunya-
hetoh// (As edited by Fleet, lines 35-37 and
pp. 76, 78, and Sircar, stanza 23, p. 405.)
Fleet translated veshmatyuggram as “very
terrible abode”. Perhaps it would suit the
sense better to say “potent”, in the context of
a shrine housing the goddesses with such
mercurial temper. However, Michael D.
Willis, The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
etc., (South Asia edition), 2009, pp. 179-80,
has offered a new reading:
Matrnamchaprachudita-ghan-atyarttha-
nihradininam/ taantr-adbhuta-prabala-pavan-
odvarttit-ambho-nidhinam etc., “the ocean
winds, impelled (prachudita) … wind rising
from the sound of the lyre (taantradbhuta)”.
5 . “Suhrdsangamashitalancha,
manomuninamivanirmalancha, vachoguru-
namivachambupathyam…”: D.C. Sircar,
Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History
and Civilization, second edition, University of
Calcutta, Calcutta, 1965, p. 408.
6 . Sircar, Select Inscriptions, p. 398, fn. 6. A
pillar of the sixth century found in
Mandasor has two panels on each of its four
sides, which seems to include a
representation of Vishvarupa: K.L. Mankodi,
‘A Carved Pillar from Mandasor’, Journal of
the Indian Society of Oriental Art, New Series,
Vol. XI, 1980, pp. 34-42.
7 . Michael W. Meister, ‘Darra and the Early
Gupta Tradition’, in Anand Krishna (ed.),
Chhavi-2, Rai Krishnadasa Felicitation
Volume, Bharat Kala Kendra, Varanasi,
1981, p. 196.
8 . See Jagat Narayan and K.L. Mankodi, ‘The
Case of the Bhim ki Chauri Ruins at
Mukandara’, Marg, Volume 62, No. 1,
September 2010, pp. 80-91.
9 . M.A. Dhaky, personal communication.
1 0 . Vidya Dehejia, ‘Brick Temples: Origins and
Development’, in Amy G. Poster (ed.), From
Indian Earth: 4,000 Years of Terracotta Art,
The Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1986,
p. 44.
1 1 . Ibid., note 3 at p. 56.
1 2 . A.L. Basham, ‘The Mandasor Inscription of
the Silk-Weavers’, in Bardwell L. Smith
(ed.), Essays on Gupta Culture, Motilal
Banarsidass, Delhi 1983, p. 93.