The Maharana brothers work on the 13ft Buddha statue that has now been sent to Bhutan. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 14: Brothers Prabhakar and Ratnakar Maharana, a sculptor duo, recently chiselled a 13-feet Buddha statue for a monastery in Bhutan.

This was perhaps the second biggest project for a sculptor in the state after Sudarsan Sahu’s monolith of Digambar Jain , the largest in the country, completed in August, 2010. The granite statue was placed on a hill in Pushpagiri on Indore-Bhopal Highway.

Speaking on the Buddha statue, which was transported to Bhutan early this week, Prabhakar said: “It stands nine feet tall on a four-feet pedestal. It weighed 11 tonnes, cost Rs 14 lakh and took us three years to complete. The sandstone, used for the statue, came from Rajasthan, because the monastery wanted only this stone to be used.”

The Maharana brothers are enamoured with Buddha having carved his statues in all shapes and sizes. The statues cost between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 14 lakh. At present, they are working on another Buddha idol that will have Jataka tales etched around it. The black granite statue will be six feet tall and come at a price of Rs 8 lakh.

Prabhakar said they had been supplying small and medium-sized statues to customers in Mumbai, New Delhi and Hyderabad.

He added that there was demand for bigger statues in countries such as Japan, Taiwan and Brazil. With a keen eye and zest for experimenting, the Bhubaneswar-based sculptors also specialise in miniatures, which can be as small as a grain of rice.

Prabhakar was inspired by his father, who had made a name for himself by carving images out of wood in the undivided Puri district. “In 1975, I joined the State Handicrafts Training Institute here at the age of 15. After completing my training at the institute (which is now State Institute for Development of Arts and Crafts), I started working on my own and later started my unit near Gangotri Nagar. Now, 25 workers and junior artists work in my studio.’’

Ratnakar trained at the Handicrafts Training Centre, Konark, in 1984. Apart from carving big statues, he always had an interest in miniatures without using a microscope or lens. “I get personal satisfaction in fashioning miniatures. There is a challenge in this which only an artist can understand,” he said.

The brothers believe that there is a lot of scope for sculptors, especially the ones who have adopted stone as their medium. “As the culture and tourism department, in association with the forest department, plans to convert Dhauli and its surrounding areas into a major tourist attraction, large statues of Buddha can be installed at the site to promote tourism. Even carvings depicting Buddha tales can be placed at the site,” Prabhakar said.