Somapura Mahavihara

Foundation

Somapura was founded by the Pala king Dharmapala in the late eighth or early ninth century, in Varendra — the northern part of ancient Bengal, in ancient India, in what is now the Naogaon district of Bangladesh. It belongs to the group of great monastic foundations the Palas endowed across eastern India, alongside Vikramashila and Odantapuri.

The plan

The monastery is a quadrangle of about 280 metres on each side, with 177 cells opening onto an inner courtyard. At the centre stands the shrine: a cruciform structure rising in receding terraces, with projections at the four cardinal points and a circumambulation path at each level. The scale has no parallel among excavated monasteries in the subcontinent.

The plan matters beyond its size. A terraced cruciform temple set within a cell-lined quadrangle is a form that recurs at Mainamati and, in altered shape, in later monuments in Burma and Java. Somapura is the earliest large example, and the resemblance has been much discussed, though influence is easier to assert than to demonstrate.

Terracotta

Several thousand terracotta plaques are set into the basement walls of the shrine. Their subjects are not confined to Buddhism: Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesha and Surya appear alongside bodhisattvas, together with animals, musicians, hunters and ascetics.

The idiom is provincial rather than courtly, which is what makes the series valuable. The sculpture of the period is otherwise known mostly from finished stone made for patrons, and the plaques record a wider visual world.

Decline and rediscovery

The monastery was occupied into the eleventh or twelfth century and suffered at least one serious fire. It was abandoned as the institutional life of Buddhism in Bengal came to an end.

The mound was excavated from 1923 under the Archaeological Survey of India, and the site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985.