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PREFACE. It is always a satisfaction to be privileged to assist in the completion of any noteworthy piece of work: and when this work has been carried out in surroundings with which the person invited to participate has in the past himself been intimately connected, the pleasure is all the greater. The request of the Secretary to the Dacca Museum Committee for a preface to this Catalogue raisonnee of the Sculptures in the Dacca Museum carries the thoughts of the writer back to the early days of the newly formed Presidency of Bengal when, with the generous co-operation of His Excellency the late Lord Carmichael, he was able to obtain the sanction of the local Government to the restoration and handing over to a Committee, of the Audience Chamber (Baradwari) and adjoining Gatehouse of the former Nawabs of Dacca for the purpose of establishing a Museum in which the relics of the past that were then being (and still continue to be) discovered in the 2 Eastern Divisions of the Presidency could be permanently preserved. Inspite of difficulties of all sorts, the Museum has continued to grow in popularity and usefulness to students: and the present volume, the first to be issued by the Museum authorities, furnishes ample proof of the wisdom of Lord Carmichael's Government in agreeing to the establishment of a separate Museum for Eastern Bengal. Mr. Bhattasali's labour of love has been so thoroughly performed that little more remains to be done but to draw the attention of historians, as well as of all students of the Art and Religion of India, to the great store of new facts that are contained in the volume now under consideration. Specialists in this branch of recondite learning may not be able to agree with every one of Mr. Bhattasali's identifications in what must still be regarded as a comparatively uncharted field of research. Jambhala and Heruka, for example, instead of being separately

[ 1 ] dealt with as Tutelary deities, would probably have been more fitly included with Avalokitesvara and Manjusri as Bodhisattvas. The outstanding merit, however, of the book, which every one will cordially recognise, is the excellent series of sculptures that have been selected for reproduction. For the first time students are placed in possession of a unique collection of examples of the best period of religious Art of the Bengal school. Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Sastri, C. I. E., the doyen of Sanskrit learning in Bengal, while discussing the proof sheets of the work with the present writer, quoted the saying of the 11 th century Tibetan work Pog-Sam-Zom-Zam: "In Painting and Sculpture, Bengalis excel: next follow the Newars: then come the Tibetans and lastly the Chinese". To Mr. Bhattasali belongs the rare merit of having brought together a large number of Sculptures of the Bengali school, especially of the 11 th century: and the service he has thus done for the infant science of Iconography alone, quite apart from the important historical bearing of his enquiries, deserves the highest commendation from all lovers of the past. Calcutta, July, 12, 1929. H. E. STAPLETON.