Sondani, also Sondhni, is a small village at a distance of about 4 km from Mandsaur situated on Mahu-Nimach Highway towards Mahu in Madhya Pradesh, India.
Victory monuments (525 CE)
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.
[ Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna]
The victory monuments consist in two pillars, with various other sculptural elements pointing to the existence of a former temple at this spot.
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.
[ Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna] After that point and for the next centuries, Indian politics became extremely fragmented, with the territory being divided between smaller dynasties.
["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 ] 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".
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, Sondani, circa 525 CE. National Museum, New Delhi]]
