(Lucknow-Uttar Pradesh)

State Museum, Lucknow

The museum in Lucknow, once situated in the historic Choti Chattar Manzil and the Lai Baradari, erstwhile coronation hall of the nawabs ofAvadh, moved in 1963 to its new premises, a modern three storeyed structure situated incongruously in the the Prince of Wales Zoological Gardens.

The initial collection centred around the arts of Avadh and objects related to the customs, habits and mythology of India. Gradually, it expanded to include excavated antiquities from Piparahawa, Kapilavastu, where the Buddha grew up. Today, this has evolved into a multipurpose museum with sculpture, bronzes, paintings, natural history and anthropological specimens, coins, textiles and decorative arts. From the vast number of displayed objects, some hundred are rare and of great value. These include an inscribed wine jar bearing the name of Aurangzeb Alamgir (17th century), a jade chamakali with the name Jahangir and the date 1036 AD, a 16th century painting of a scene from the Kalpasutra depicting an elephant rider and a Jain mum, a 16th century copy of the Harivansha in Persian with nine illustrations, rare silver and gold coins, a prehistoric anthropomorphic figure and a fossilised plant. However, what thrill visitors most are the Egyptian mummy and wooden sarcophagus (1000 BC).

Rare stone sculpture includes the earliest image ofBalarama and a panchmukhi shivalinga(both 2nd century BC), and a statue ofSaraswati, again reputed to be the earliest depiction (2nd century AD). The coin collection dates from 6th century BC onwards. Two recent acquisitions areJahangir's silver zodiac coins made at the Ahmedabad mint. Lai Baradari, the Kaisarbagh unit i museum, remains the archaeology and displays excavated antiquities from Uttar Pradesh.

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