Malla dynasty of Bishnupur

Mallabhum

The Malla dynasty ruled the laterite country west of the Bengal delta from Bishnupur, traditionally from the seventh century, and the kingdom was called Mallabhum. Its position in difficult, forested country gave it a long independence from the Sultanate and then the Mughals, to whom it eventually paid tribute.

Bir Hambir, converted to Vaiṣṇavism by Srinivasa Acharya in the late sixteenth century, made Bishnupur a centre of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava devotion, and the temple building of the following century followed from that.

Terracotta and music

Bengal has little building stone, and the Bishnupur temples are built of brick and faced with terracotta panels — the Shyamrai, Jor Bangla, Madanmohan and Rasmancha among them — covered with scenes from the Rāmāyaṇa, the Kṛṣṇa story, hunts, battles and court life. They are the finest surviving group of the Bengal terracotta tradition, and their roof forms, derived from the thatched hut, are the source of the curved bangla roof that entered Mughal and Rajput architecture.

The Bishnupur gharana, founded under Malla patronage in the eighteenth century, is the only gharana of Hindustani classical music native to Bengal, and preserves an older dhrupad style.

The kingdom declined in the eighteenth century under Maratha raids and famine, and in 1806 the estate was sold by the Company for arrears of revenue under the Permanent Settlement — an unremarkable administrative act that ended a dynasty of eleven centuries.