Migration and Transformation
Dienstag, 26. April 2016 - 15:00 Uhr
Universität für angewandte Kunst
Lecture
Migration and Transformation
A Case Study of ?Kushan? people in Indian Context with special reference to Kushan Terracotta - Art of Bengal
Dr. Munmun Mondal is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Department of Archaeology, University of Calcutta.
The lecture intends to throw light on the migration of Kushan people in Indian subcontinent in general and more precisely in Bengal and its impact on the social transformation and upliftment of the people of this land.
The Yue-chi tribe, to which the Kushan belonged, the originally nomadic people of Central Asia, hailed beyond the Pamir and Oxus region but political and climatic condition compelled them to move westward. Around 1st century A.D, a branch of this tribe known as Kushan, migrated to North India and extended their territory upto the Pataliputa of Bihar in India.
The foremost urban sites of this period were concentrated more in Northern and north?western India. This period ushered a new era by introducing many new elements of art and culture of profound historical significance in the society with urban dimension which brought a basic change in the socio-economic perspectives. The impact of this process reached as far as to lower Ganga plain including Coastal Bengal. Though Bengal was never formed a part of the imperial kushan rule, but nevertheless the kushan influence had drastically changed the contemporary socio-economic lifestyle of the people of Bengal. This region developed greatly during this time as the receiving end of the kushana?s socio-economic cultural radiation.
Flourishment of social, economic and religious life with urban character in early historic bengal is very much evident from the material culture of Bengal. Early terracottas from Bengal, as a category of archaeological objects, overshadow all other aspects of material culture in the region. The terracotta art of the Kushan cultural phase in Bengal is essentially a product of the Early Historical urbanisation of the region. This urbanization was an extension of that of the upper & middle Ganga valleys. Innumerable terracotta figurines and objects belonging to this period have been discovered from the Kushan stratified level of the excavated Early Historic sites of Bengal like Chandraketugarh, Tamluk, Tilpi, Mangalkot, Bangarh etc.