Village in Madhya Pradesh, India
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Sondani, also Sondhni, is a small village at a distance of about 4km from Mandsaur situated on Mhow-Neemuch Highway towards Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh, India.
The spot is famous for a series of monuments with inscriptions, established by Yasodharman (ruled 515 – 545 CE), who praised himself for having defeated the Alchon Hun king Mihirakula.[1]
Mandasor stone pillar inscription of Yashodharman.
"He (Yasodharman) to whose two feet respect was paid, with complimentary presents of the flowers from the lock of hair on the top of (his) head, by even that (famous) king Mihirakula, whose forehead was pained through being bent low down by the strength of (his) arm in (the act of compelling) obeisance"
The victory monuments consist in two pillars, with various other sculptural elements pointing to the existence of a former temple at this spot.[3]
Style
The art and style of the sculptural remains at Sodani are considered as a good marker of the final period of Gupta art, being dated to the reign of Yasodharman (ruled 515 – 545 CE), and more precisely to about 525 CE.[4][5] After that point and for the next centuries, Indian politics became extremely fragmented, with the territory being divided between smaller dynasties.[6] The art of Sondani is considered as transitional between Gupta art and the art of Medieval India: it represents "an aesthetic which hovered between the classical decorum of Gupta art on the one hand and on the other the medieval canons which subordinated the figure to the larger religious purpose".[7]
Punjab Monitor, April 2013 , from Fleet, John F. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum: Inscriptions of the Early Guptas. Vol. III. Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publications Branch, 1888, 147-148.
"The reign of Yasodharman thus forms an important dividing point between the period of the imperial Guptas, whom he emulated, and the following centuries, when India fell into a kaleidoscopic confusion of shifting smaller dynasties" in Williams, Joanna (1972). "The Sculpture of Mandasor"(PDF). Archives of Asian Art. 26: 52. ISSN0066-6637. JSTOR20111042.
The Sondani site in 1908
Plan of Sondani
Sondani overview
Sondani pillar
Sondani, two Dvarapalas
Vidyadhara, Sondani, circa 525 CE. National Museum, New Delhi
Sondani pillar capital
Info of Victory pillar of Yashodharman at Sondani, Mandsaur
Sondani reliefs
