Cultural and Religious Aspects of Sculptures Discovered from Somapura Vihara, Naogaon : A Case Study of Sculptures Displayed at Paharpur Site Museum

Paharpur Buddhist Vihara is the largest vihara discovered in Bangladesh. The excavation work which started during the British colonial period is still going on around the central temple area and its vicinity. This paper discusses the problem of dating of the 63 stone sculptures which were originally attached on the surface of the central temple area. Most of these sculptures are now housed in different museums of India, while only a few of them are located in the Paharpur site museum. The paper highlights the problems of dating stated by different scholars based on execution style and suggests that further exploration should be conducted on these sculptures to set a firm chronology of these sculptures. The authors also takes an attempt to find out the reason for placement of Brahmanical sculptures on a Buddhist temple.