The village Mogalmari is situated in Dantan police station in the district of Paschim Medinipur. The village is about 5.2 km north of Dantan station & 46 km south of Kharagpur railway station & 2 km south of Nekurseni station on National High Way No. 60. The archaeological site of Mogalmari was located on the left bank of Suvarnarekha, which now floes about 4.5 km west of Mogalmari.
Chinese scholar Hiuen Tsang in his memoirs, dating back to the seventh century, had written about some prominent Buddhist monasteries in Tamralipta state. Generations of historians have tried to look for them, but apart from the one at Karna Subarna (today's Murshidabad), no one has been able to trace any monastery anywhere in Bengal. However, the recent discovery beneath a forsaken mound at Mogalmari, a few kilometres off Dantan in West Midnapore, will provide vital clues to the missing links from Hiuen Tsang's memoirs.
The mound has given way to a massive site covering an area of 3,600 square meters, which is being already touted by archaeologists as the biggest and oldest excavated site in Bengal, dating back 1,500 years in time.
In 2003, Indologist and coins expert B N Mukherjee, along with a team of scholars from Calcutta University, had visited Dantan to document the navigational history of Bengal. During their recce, these scholars were shown a huge mound at Mogalmari which was popular in local lore as Sashi Sena or Sakhi Sena.
It has taken six years of extreme toil by three experts from the Calcutta University's archaeology department, research scholars and students to excavate the remains of the monastery. From the debris has risen an 11-foot high plinth that is ornated all over with divine, human, animal, floral and abstract stucco figures.
The nature of the architecture proves that construction and growth here happened in two phases. The first was between the sixth and seventh century while the second was in the ninth and tenth century.
The Asiatic Society will bring out a full-fledged publication and will publicise the discovery in the academic world.
Recent excavations at Mogalmari, a Buddhist monastery complex in West Bengal's Paschim Medinipur district, reveal a historically strong presence of Buddhism in the State which dates as far back as the sixth century AD. This has so far remained largely unnoticed by historians.
“During the excavations carried at the site in March we found 13 different figurines in situ [at the place of their original occurrence] and four votive terracotta tables with Buddha as the central character flanked by Bodhisattvas and bearing Buddhist inscriptions.
The western wall of the central temple complex has revealed in situ stucco figures of Buddhist deities and gana images. The monastery complex measures 60 metres by 60 metres, the largest so far discovered in West Bengal.
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