Consider the following statements about Pala School of Painting:

1. Earliest examples of mural painting in India belong to this form of painting.

2. Foreign students learnt Pala art in monasteries and carried it to Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka etc.

3. Pala art came to a sudden end after the destruction of the Buddhist monasteries by Brahmanic rulers.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Pala School represents the earliest examples of miniature painting in India. The Buddhist monasteries (mahaviharas) of Nalanda, Odantapuri, Vikramsila and Somarupa were great centres of Buddhist learning and art. The paintings are in the form a large number of manuscripts on palm-leaf relating to the Buddhist themes. The images of Buddhist deities at these centres which also had workshops for the casting of bronze images. Students and pilgrims from all over South-East Asia gathered there for education and religious instruction. They took back to their countries examples of Pala Buddhist art, in the form of bronzes and manuscripts which helped to carry the Pala style to Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka and Java etc. The extant illustrated manuscripts of Pala Empire mostly belong to the Vajrayana School of Buddhism.

By: Kamal Kashyap