The art and architecture evince phenomenal growth due to several factors, including patronage as well as great skill of the silpins. In truth, art-activity in India's past involved different sections of society: artisans for raising monuments, patrons for financing the projects, priests for consecrating the monuments, and so on. The works accomplished by silpis in their time stand today as a living testimony of their skills and dedication. However, silpins, who were the real hero of building, could not receive due attention of the scholars yet. The lack of foundational record virtually makes the matter complicated. The large inscriptions have mostly studied in detail, but no systematic study seems to have been persuaded for documenting and analysing the minor inscriptions and graffiti, which are no less important. The evidence encountered in the minor inscriptions and graffiti are at the temples and other buildings, or in the quarry, or at the working sites, or engraved on the various architectural members lying loose at the site, in the contiguous area, or in the museums. In general, minor inscriptions comprise of personal names either individual or along with parent's name, designation, ganas, etc. Personal names engraved at the time of construction are mostly of silpins and provide interesting and useful idea about the patterns and artisanship of the silpins or stone carvers as well as their specialisation in building certain components of the temple and other monument. By identifying the artefacts signed by a particular person or group one can comprehend most of the aspects of silpins and their art-activity. Besides, these labels help in identifying the depiction, iconographic features and so forth. As for personal names, they are in full or abbreviated form. In addition to signing the art-pieces by names, some of the stone carvers left marks as their monogram. For the study of such a huge primary data, only some scholars, like R.N. Misra, B.M. Pande, Vidya Dehejia, and the author, have made a few attempts. Some others, who also noticed a number of minor inscriptions and marks executed on the sculptures, temples and other buildings, which contain information about the silpins, their working group or guild, and in few cases used as label of the depiction or monument. From the noticed information, one thing seems certain, more names and marks exist that have to be discovered.
Strangely ancient Indian silpins issue have conspicuously avoided in Indian art studies that taken Indian art as anonymous. The notions about anonymity have perpetually thrived, aided by western scholarship until early 20th century that judged Indian art in the light of oriental or classical archaeology, and by brahmanical texts, which steadily degraded crafts and artisans demoting them to the rank of sudra. In a marked contrast to the carlier notions about anonymity, recent researches have brought out useful information on artists, their role in different departments of art-activity and the social realities that governed their status and function. The relevant information, so brought forth, helps in eroding assertions about anonymity of ancient Indian art tradition adding at the same time significant epigraphic data on silpins and their specific work.
In fact, silpa (art), silpin (artist) and the sastra (canon) are the three basic elements of Indian traditional art. A highly advanced and technical terminology and the aesthetic formulations as well as the measures to achieve them recorded in the treatises of silpa, which also indicate a procedure, whose significance cannot be minimise. Yet the credit of perfecting the form, style, and the treatment as well as the total external effect of the temples, other buildings and sculptures should appropriately go to the silpins, who shaped the monuments according to their training and skill in the process affected innovations and changes usually within the framework of canonical prescriptions. In case the whole system of the art-activity being scrutinised with regard to the respective roles of its various constituents, the silpins would obtain a place next only to the silpasastras, however the practitioners of the silpa too sometimes composed the silpasastras. In view of these points, using both textual and epigraphic sources, this book seeks to define the silpa, particularly the silpin and their association with different temples and other buildings. Its section on silpins of different order deals with different questions. It discusses the question of anonymity, historical antecedents, origin of the distinct class of stone-workers, as well as various categories in a hierarchical setting, mobility in their rank, and their expertise in variant silpas. It also takes in notice the corporate work, hereditary nature of job, proficiency, itinerant character, honours to them, organisation, operations and activities, work culture, authority, discipline and dissent, monetary gains, the patronage that made their work possible, and other aspects related to their art and art-activities. The book also has sections on silpins' signatures, which expressed in the form of masons' marks and masons' names, and could be observe on a few Indian monuments, ranging from 6th to 17th century, and encompasses a precise analysis of their signatures on the Chandelas temples at Khajuraho.
Khajuraho is extremely rich in terms of epigraphic records, both of formal, recording the political achievements, creation, renovation, management, and addition to temples, construction, installation of images, excavation and maintenance of water bodies; and so on; and normal records of masons, visitors, and devotees. By visiting the site, a number of times, especially for documenting the masons' marks and masons names, and sitting at the desk for long hours, it has been possible for me to place it before the readers. It includes a detailed documentation and interpretations of approximately all the masons' marks and masons' names findings at the Khajuraho and some other monuments of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which like many other heritage sites are facing danger of extinction due to ecological pressure and vandalism. There could hardly be diverse opinions on the urgency for documentation and in-depth study of the silpins and their signatures, and it is perhaps a beginning which now has received much awaited attention.
The documentation and detailed study of silpin and his signature on the Indian monuments compiled in this book would certainly to be useful to the historians and researchers of archaeological studies. A large number of illustrations assist in better understanding the nature of stone carvers' marks and names of different sites and continuation of variant forms of the marks for two thousand years.
At the conclusion of this work now, I am happy to be able to express my unmitigated gratitude towards my guru, Professor T.P. Verma, and my other teachers of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology Department of Banaras Hindu University, as well to my friends and well-wishers, to whom I dedicated this work.
This mammoth task completed because of the full support and input of various institutions and individuals. The Central Government of India or State Government protects most of the monuments, and the permission to study the archaeological remains of the sites kindly granted by the Director, Archaeological Survey of India, and the Archaeology Department of concerned States for that truly I am thankful to all of them. I should take opportunity to place on record my sincere gratitude to my friends and well-wishers for making this work possible: visit to the Khajuraho and documentation work could not conceive without the support of Dr. Rajendra Yadav, Superintending Archaeologist in the Archaeological Survey of India. Dr. Subhash Chandra Yadav, Regional Archaeological Officer of Varanasi Region in U.P. State Archaeology Department, Lucknow helped in documentation during our visit to Khajuraho in December 2019, staff of the temples and museums at Khajuraho for their cooperation, and to Usha Singh, my wife, who was a constant source of confidence to me. I wish to record my sincere thanks to the institutions and each person for their help. In the preparation of this book, I have received valuable help from the published material, and it is my picasant duty to acknowledge the contributions of their authors.
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