West Indian Temples
"There is still space for speculation and conjecture as to why and how these mighty excavations were made, and why, after such an enormous expenditure of labour, these temples and monasteries, which erst resounded with the worship of the gods, and were swarming with human life, have become silent and deserted."
John William Kaye on Ellora (1867)
The west of India presents a kaleidoscope of landscapes and cultures that range from the desert people of Rajasthan to the fosherfolk of Maharashtra. The westernmost state of the country in the north is Rajasthan, land of the Rajput maharajas who built fortenesses on every hilltop and filled them with opulent palaces and temples. Just south of it is Gujarat, where India’s western coastline begins at the Rann of Kutch, a region of entrepreneurs and adventurous traderswho sent out their ships to Europe and Africa and then used their riches to build temples. Then south of Gujarat is Maharashtra with its long coastline of the Arabian Sea and the hills of the Western Ghats that run parallel to it. Here monasteries and temples were carved out of sheer rock and man-mde caves painted with enchanting murals.
Some of the earliest civilizations have flourshed here. Lothal which has been dated to the time of the Indus Valley Civilisation is in Gujarat. It has seen many invasionsby Hunas, Sakas, Scythians and later Turks and Afghans. This region has always been coveted by kings because of trade. The land route to the lucrative markets of the West Asia and Europe was through Rajasthan. From the ports of Surat and Cambay in Gujarat, cotton and spices, pearls and indigo were sent across the seas in laden ships for the markets of the West.
Trade routes and ports meant that the population became ethnically varied and it also meant the people were wealthy. In this region in the years when Buddhism flourished, kings, noblemen and merchants were the donors for the rock cut chaityas and monasteries of Karli and Ajanta. Then during the rule of the Pratiharas, the Solankis, the Rajputs and the Marathas the rulers tried to win the approval of the gods by building magnificent temples. Most of Rajasthan remained under the rule of Hindu rajas during medieval times, so the building of temples continued unabated, providing the sculptors with an opportunity to preserve their traditional craft.
This affluence also meant the regular apperance of invaders. The first notorious iconoclast was Mahmud of Ghazni who swept into India in many raids only to pillage and loot. The call many have been for jehad but the true reason was the legendary wealth of the temples of the region. Mahumud Ghazni’s biggest temptation was the fabulous treasures of the famous Somnath temple of Gujarat. And then his army rampaged across North India as far as Uttar Pradesh. This set a pattern that would continue till the reign of Aurangzeb. Most of the temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat were built after the reifn of Aurangzeb in the late medieval period and often at the site of destroyed shrines. The fabulous Somnath would be razed to the ground and would rise again and again but the original temple is now lost in the mists of history. Rajasthan
As if to day defy their hard, demanding lives the people choose to fill their days with a vibrant joy of living. They weave and print magical fabrics, craft silver, gold and gems into intricate jewellery. At every fair and festival at the temples the women in their brilliant lehngas and the men in their imperously flaring turbans come riding on ambling camels and dance and sing in celebration. Some of the finest craftsman of the country can be found in Rajesthan and among them are the silvats- the stone carvers.
The Palaces and temples of Rajasthan stand testimony to the work of these silvats. Sandstone carved into lacy fretwork, elegantly curving arches and intricate screens from behind which the women could watch the world go by. Most of the Rajput kings ruled from hilltop fortresses that dominated the landscape. Within the high forbidding walls of these forts they created a luxurious world of opulentpalces, assembly halls and beautiful temples. Every important fort in Rajasthan has its own temples, each an exquisite example of the art of the anonymous stone sculptor of Rajasthan.
Rajasthan, like Punjab was always in the path of invaders coming from the west through the Himalayan passes. Most of these hordes came to raid the rich palaces and temples. So the palaces towns were placed within hilltop fortresses and the temple towns were often built in remote corners of the land. Mount Abu’s Dilwara temples were located in a valley surrounded by hills, the temples at Osian in a faraway oasis in the Jodhpur desert. Then in the 17th century when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb began a systematic attack on the temples of the north many of the images were shifted to regions like orissa and Rajasthan under Hindu kings. The idols of Sakshi Gopal in Orissa, Govindji in Jaipur, Shri Nathji in Nathdwar and Madan Mohan in Karoli all come from the temples of Mathura and Vrindavan.
India is filled with temples of Shiva and Vishnu but brahma the creator is rarely worshipped and his most important shrine is at Pushkar. They sang to him in the Rig Veda but when it came to building temples the two more colourful gods of the holy trinity received the prauers of the people. Still, the devotee has not completely forgotten Brahma, not to the extent they have Indra and Surya. They do come to this Btrahma temple by the lake to offer him puja and once a year on the auspicious full moon of Kartik Purnima, Pushkar is transformed into a land of festival. At that time one of the most colourful cattle fairs of the country is also held here, with brightly clad Rajastjani peasants arriving in their camel driven carts to camp around the town.
According to the Padma Purana, Brahma’s loss of favour begins with the curse of an angry consort. Once while fighting a demon, a lotus fell from his hand and three petals landed at Pushkar, where three lakes sprang up. Pushp is ‘flower’ Kar is hand and that is how the place got its name. To cemebrate his victory over the demon Brahma now decided to hold a yagna by the biggest lake. At such a ceremony the presence of the wife is essential, so his consort Savitri was asked to attend. On the chosed day everything was ready, it was time to light the holy fire but Savitri had still not arrived. An impatient Brahma asked Indra to get him another wife and he brought the first woman he met-a cowherd’s daughter called Gayatri who Brahma promptly married.
When Savitri arrived at the yagna it had already started with Gayatri sittingf beside Brahma. Furious, she would not listen to any explanation form anyone and pronounced her curse. She said that in the future, Brahma would become a forgotten deity as Shiva and Vishnu would be worshipped everywhere. Then relenting a little she conceded that at pushkar Brahma could still receive the puja of the people. Finally Savitri walked off angrily to establish her own temple on top of a hill opposite while Gayatri was given a temple at the other end of town. The battle of goddesses goes on even to this present day.
Brahma’s temple stands beside the largest of the three lakes, the Jyeshtha Pushkar which is said to posses the same sanctity as Lake Mansarovar. It has a red tower and a swan, Brahma’s vehicle, over the doorway. Inside there is an image of the four-headed Brahma with Savitri on his right and Gayatri on his left. Within the temple precinct there are smaller shrines of Indra, the lord of the heavens and Kubera, the god of wealth.
On Kartik purnima pilgrims bathe in the largest Pushkar lake and then do a parikrama of all three lakes and visit the temple of the two consorts. The largest lake, Jyeshtha Pushkar has 52 ghats of which the Brahma, Varaha and Gau ghats are considered the most auspicious. These ghats have been built by the royal familes of Rajasthan and includes one financed by Queen Mary of England in 1911. Vishnu in his Varaha (boar) avatar is supposed to have appeared at the Varha Ghat and Lord Rama is said to have bathed in all three lakes.
Pushkar is an important tirthasthana. Some even consider it a dham and there are temples to most of the important deities, like Raghunath, Hanuman and varaha here. Savitri’s temple is on top of the Ratnagiri hill and is said to be over a thousand years old. The temple is reached after a long climb by the 4th century stairway. Gayatri’s temple is right across town on top of another hill. Though none of the temples at Pushkar are architecturally significant, their spiritual power draws pilgrims from across the country.
The only major Brahma temple in the country is located in Rajasthan. Legend has it that the god himself chose the location. Perhaps he thought his curse would not hold good in the sleepy desert town Pushkar. His multi-coloured temple, guarded by his faithful animal vehicle, the swan (hans), and the local camel fair or Pushkar Mela, are the only claims to fame this sleepy hollow of a town makes.
Originally the idol was established in a temple in the town of Govardhan in the Vrindavan region and was shifted to Rajasthan to save it from the armies of Aurangzeb. It is said the idol was being taken towards Udipur when the wheels of the chariot got stuck in mud and could not be moved. Talking this as an omen the Rana of Udaipur built the temple here. Nathdwar means the gateway to the home of Shri Nathji. The 17th century temple is architecturally a very simple structure but it is always crowded with pilgrims.
Nathdwar is the centre of the Vallabhacharya sect. This scholar saint from South India once won a religious debate against many other scholars at the court of King Krishna Deva Raya of Vijayanagar. The king presented him with a bag of gold coins and Vallabhacharya gave away most of the coins to the poor. He kept seven coins with which he got a gold ornament made which is still worn by the deity.
The 16 temples at Osian, an oasis in the Thar desert, 33 miles from Jodhpur, represent both the early and developed works of the Pratihara. These include the Hari Hara group of templesranging from the almost primitive Pipla mata to the more ornate Sun temples. Built on Large raisedfoundations, a pattern that was becoming more and more common in the Nagara style, many of these structures are panchayatana, increasing in intricacy and sculpted work with time .
Each temple has a porch or mandapa leading to the sanctum and these are all built in the traditional Nagara style. Built on high platforms, these small temples have a single mandapa each and small shikharas and some have four subsidiary shrines to form the panchayatana design. The manapas are open pillared halls with a vase and foliage on top of the capitals. The doorways to the sanctums are elaborately ornamented with navagrahas, the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna and the coils of the serpent god Sheshnaag. The Shikharas are carved with chaitya style dormers and the outer walls have niches carved with the traditional pantheon of deities.
The Dilwara temples at Mount Abu stand in a beautiful green valley surrounded by forested hills of the Aravalli range. This is the only hill resort in Rajasthan. Abi is named after Arbuda, one of the sons of the Himalayas and in ancient times it was a centre of Shiva worship. It became a Jain centre in the 11th century with the building of the Dilwara temples. The sage Vasishtha is said to have built an ashram here and some of the royal Rajput clans claim thery were created from the holy yagnja fire lit here by him. These Jain temples have by far the finest examples of the art of the Rajasthani sculptor. The two temples, Vimal Vasahi and Luna Vasahi are small and have plain exteriors that give no hint of the magical world waiting to be discovered inside. The arched doorways lead into a dazzling interior of pure white marble carved with such amazing virtuosity, it is hard to believe that such extraordinary perfection and beauty could be created out of mere stone by human hands.
Vimal Vasahi was built in the 11th century by Vimal Shah, a minister of the Solanki King of Gujarat and is dedicted to the first Jain tirthankara, Adinath. A parade of marble elephants lead up to the porch and on their backs sit the donot Vimal and hs family. The courtyard has 52 cells with icons of tirthankaras inside. A series of mandapas lead to the sanctum that has the bejwelled bronze icon of the saint. The walls, pillars and ceiling have been ornamented with subtle carvings of apsaras, animalas, scrolls and the doorways have intricately carved arches. The ceiling of the assembly hall, the ranga mandapa, has an exquisite pendant in the centre surrounded by delicate figures of female nymphs. The dome is designed in concentric circles with carvings of figures, animals and decorative motifs. The lowest ring has sixteen bracket figures of the vidyadevis, goddesses of learning, all framed within carved aureoles. The opulent Luna Vasahi is even more heavily carved. It was built two centuries later by Tejpal, another minister of the Gujarat kingdom and dedicated to the tirthankara Neminath. The temple is alive with such exuberant and brilliantly finished marble carvings that it gives the surface the texture of lace. Among the glittering pillars, figures and animals, the most striking creation here is the ceiling of the rangamandapa. The octagonal dome has an overhanging lotus delicately carved with extraordinary precession.
Dwaraka was the legendary kingdom of Krishna, and therefore one of the four holiest tirtha sthana-s dham-s (centers of pilgrimage) in India. The site for the beautiful town was chosen by the dark-skinned god, designed by the divine architect, Vishwakarma, and constructed by labourers sent to the earth from both heaven and hell. Krishna ruled there till his death, when a curse on him brought about the city’s destruction as well.
Years after the great war that was waged by the pandava princes and Krishna against their cousins, the Kauravas (as recounted in the Mahabharata), a hunter mistook a slumbering Krishna for a deer and killed him with his arrow. Then came the deluge and Dwaraka disappeared beneath the waves. But the land was so holy that it could not remain lost forever. Archaeologists have found that new towns have been built upon the same site at least five times.
The Small town which comes alive every year during Janmashtami, Krishna’s birthday, is the location of his Dwarakanath temple. It was supposedly built by one of his descendants, vajranath, and is the place where Krishan’s renowned devotee, Mira bai, a Rajput princess, gave herself up to the god, disappearing one night in the sanctum sanctorum. The only trace left or her was her saree hanging upon the image of her beloved Hari.
According to the Mahabharata, Lord Krishna first ruled in the kingdom of Mathura. However, through the years of diplomacy and intrigue, he had made many enemies and now faced a state of constant war. Finally he decided to shift his kingdom and moved westyard to Gujarat. Here, by the Arabian Sea, he established his new kingdom of Dwarka. With his brother Balaram by his side he ruled with great success but his last years were filled with sadness as he watched the moral downfall of his Yadava clan. A despondent Krishna withdrew into the forest where a hunter mistaking him for a deer shot him in the foot. The foot was Krishna’s vulnerable spot and he died and Balarama followed soon after.
Krishna had built a fabulous capital at Dwarka but soon after his death there was a bi storm and the sea inundated the land. As if in anger at Krishna’s sad end, the waves claimed the palaces and temples of Dwarka. What is amazing is that recently archaelologists have discovered the remains of an ancient port city on the seabed along the shoreline of the present city of Dwarka. They think the present city is built over at least four older cities and that Dwarka was a port as far back as the 15th century B.C. The Shrimad bhagvatam gives a description of krishna’s capital that was built by the divine architect Vishwakarma himself. In the the palaces, "the pillars were made of coral and the ceilings were bedecked with jewels. The walls as well as the arches between the pillars glowed from the decorations of different kinds of sapphires. Throughtout the palace there were many canopies that were decorated with strings of pearls. The furniture was made of ivory, bedecked with gold and diamonds and jeweled lamps dissipated the darkness within the palce."
For the pilgrim Dwarka is doubly sacred. It is saptapuri, one of the seven holiest tirthasthanas and it is also one of the four dhams, making it even more powerful than Kashi which is only a saptapuri. Ar Dwarka the most important shrine is the Dwarkadessh temple, also called the temple of Ranchhorji. The origninal temple is said to have been built by Krishna’s great grandson vajranabha over the Hari Griha, Krishna’s personal palace. The present temple was built in the 16th century. The building is five storeys high with pillared halls. The shikhara rises to a height of 78 metres and the pinnacle has the symbols of the sun and moon.
The garbha griha is called the Jagat Mandir and the deity within is called Trivikrama. The icon is of a fourarmed Vishnu holding the shankha, a conch, the gada, a mace, the chakra, a discus and the padma, a lotus. There are smaller shrines within the temple dedicated to Krishna’s brother Balarama, his son Pradymuna and grandson Aniruddha. The two entrances are named Swarga Dwar, the gate the heaven and Moksha Dwar, the gate to salvation. From the Swarga Dwar a flight of stairs leads down to the banks of the Gomati river. Every year the Dwarkadessh temple holds a joyous Janamashtami festival when pilgrims throng the narrow lanes of the town.
There are many other popular temples in Dwarka including one dedicated to Krishna’s mother Devaki and to Beni Madhav, another form of Vishnu. The prettiest temple is dedicated to Krishna’s first queen, Rukmini. Built in the 12th century the walls have paintings of episodes from Krishna and Rukmini’s lives. The banks of the Gomati river have a number of ghats and after flowring past Dwarka the river pours into the sea. The Chakra Tirtha Ghat, situated at the spot where the Gomati meets the Arabian Sea, is considered the holiest of the ghats. The Samudra Narain temple stands at this sacred confluence.
Originally Somnath was called Prabhas Patan, the place where Krishna watched the members of his Yadava clan fight each other in a drunken brawl and thus destroy all that he had built at Dwarka. Deeply disheartened he withdrew into a nearby forest where he was killed by the arrow of a hunter named Jara. His brother Balarama died soon after and Krishna’s best friend Arjuna came from Hastinapur to cremate their bodies at Somnath. However the Somnath temple is not dedicated to either Vishnu or Krishna. It is a Shiva temple and its deity is one of the twelve jyotirlingams.
The first Somnath temple is said to have been built beside the sea by the moon god Soma. Soma was one of the sons-in-law of King Daksha. Another was Shiva who had married Daksha’s daughter Sati with rather tragic consequences. Daksha obviously did not believe in cordial relations with the men his daughters married because in a fit of rage he put a curse on Soma for him to lose his light. In utter consternation poor Soma saw his radiance begin to wane. He came to Prabhas Patan on a moonless amavasya night and after bathing in the sea he prayed to Shiva. His prayers wre answered and since then the moon waxes and wanes. A grateful Soma built a temple for kind Shiva and placed a jyotirlingam within.
Once the river Saraswati used to flow into the sea at the spot where the original temple used to stand. In the Satya Yuga the temples was built in gold by Soma. In the Treta Yuga, Ravana built it in silver. In the Dwapar Yuga, Krishna built in in wood and now in the Kali Yuga it is made of stone. The legends about the stone temple talk of a huge, brilliantly designed building filled with carvings, pillars inlaid woth gold and jewels and solid sivler doors. Two thousand Brahmins, five hundred dancing girls and three hundred musicians were employed by the temple. The water for the puja came from the Ganga and the flowers from Kashmir.
In the 11th century the temple must have been a truly magnificent place. It is mentioned in the chronicles of Marco Polo and Al Biruni. The first temple is said to have been built by the Brahmin Vishnu Sharma, who is known to history as Chanakya, the powerful adviser to Chandragupta Maurya. And it was its legendary treasures that drew Mahmud of Ghazni to attack India in 1026. He carried away an immense booty including the gold Shiva lingam and the silver doors and then razed the temple to the ground.
The people built the temple again and on his next raid Mahmud destroyed it again. In the following centuries the temples was built and destroyed five times, the last time by Aurangzeb. In the 18th century rani Ahilya Bai Holkar of Indore built the sixth temple, a small shrine for the Shiva lingam and the present temple was built in 1950 over the original sandstone brahmashila of the last destroyed temple. The remains of the old temples can still be seen in the museum at Dwarka.
The legendary and rare temple of the Lord of the moon, is also the temple of nine lives. Destroyed repeatedly, its generations of devotees have persevered and rebuilt it time and again. Whether in a state of ruin or not, its sanctity was never forgotten.
Somnath-Patan is believed to be so very ancient that it witnessed the creation of the universe, One legend state that it was first built by Soma, the moon god, in gold; then by Ravana in silver; and athird time by Krishna, in wood. The more plausible explanation is that it was first constructed in the 6th century AD during the reign of Bhimadeva.
The story and reason for the temple’s location is intriguing. The moon was, along with siva, among the50 sons-in-law of King Daksha. The king seemed to have held a grudge against many of his daughters’ husbands. One day, angered by the radiant Soma’s disobedience, daksha vursed him, saying that his brilliance would be dimmed forever. And sure enough, from that day Soma started to disappear. The gods, frightened that the world would be in total darkness every night, beseeched Daksha to take back his words. Time had cooled the King’s fury so he told his son-in-law that he would be saved if he bathed at the confluence of the river Saraswati and the sea at Patan and then prayed to Siva. This he did and regained his light. Still, every month his light diminishes and on amavasya (no moon) night, Soma must return to the temple of his Lord, siva (somnath) and bathe in the holy waters of the river to become radiant once more.
So the original site of the temple was located where Soma worshipped the Siva linga. In the eastern part of the town of Patan, it stood by the seashore separated from the water by a retaining wall. The temple was famed for its jyotir (light/the lit one) linga-s, one of 12 special, sacred Siva linga-s in the country. The others are variously located at Srisailam, ujjain, Devgadh, Rameshwaram, Bhimashankara, Triambak near Nasik, Grishneshwar near Ellora, Kedarnath, Kashi, Mandhata, and Darukavana.
Somnath was forst sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1025 AD and according to noted Indian historian, romila Thapar, its "effects were to remain for centuries in the Hindu mind and to colour its assessment of the character of Mahmud, and on occasion, of Muslim rulers in general." The plunderer had come in search of gold idols to destroy. Ironically he did not quite succeed. Some remnants of the original structure of Somnath were utilized in the Maipuri mosque (at the site of another temple that Mahmud had torn down), despite the fact that they still bore religious sculptures and motifs. This use of Hindu temple walls, ceilings and panels in the Islamic places of worship in the Sultanate continued inexplicably and against the very motives of the invaders, throughtout the medieval period in Gujarat. Inadvertently, the oversight blended two religions while keeping the art of the temple tradition alive.
The Somnath Siva linga always escaped destruction, being whisked away from the temple whenever it was in danger, for it was attacked again in 1297, 1394 and 1706 AD. For a time, the priests kept the linga hidden.only installing it for worship when Rani graba grha, in the late 18th century. Still, the new temple is hardly a memorial to the grand original and is usually only visited by devout pilgrims.
The original was famed as indescribably exquisite and rich. Although only one storey high, Somnath was large in scale. It had a closed, central hall-gridhamandapa- with three entrances fronted by shady porticos. The hall’s intricately worked ceiling now graces the Maipuri mosque. The sanctum sanctorum, in which the idol is said to have floated but was probably controlled by some magnetic mechanism, was to the west of the hall. It had a wide circumambulatory, lit by big window-balconies, like the oriel or balcony windows of Khajuraho.
At Patan there was also the ancient Triveni sun temple, distinguished by the three sets of niches around its ambulatory, meant for the figures of the three divine couples-vishnu and Lakshmi; Brahma and Saraswathi and Parvati.
The temples of both religious in Gujarat were ornate and well planned. The wealthy mercantile community possessed the taste and could afford the resources required for such elaborate structures as the ones on Mount abu and Satrunjaya Hill. Mainly Nagara in style, the temples responded to the region’s warm, dry climate by being airy and well lit, often with unenclosed mandapa-s adorned with fabulously carved pillars and high, coffered ceilings. Their openness and the use of locally available materials like marble, and yellow, red, or brown sandstone, added to the temples’ delicacy and enabled sculpture to be complex but also buoyant and graceful. The early architecture of Saurashtra was greatly influenced by its northern immigrants while later Gujarati architecture reflected the predominant Jaina trend of the area. Between the two there was little similarity or Connection, separated as they were by time. The former was vernacular in style and devoted to deities like the sun, while the laatter, though dedicated to the tirthankara or aina saints, incorporated mainstream Hindu Nagara elements in its medieval structures.
The large, stepped, stone kund with recesses for small images of subsidiary deities, leads up a staircase to torana, with fine, broad-based pillars sans their joining arch. The now spireless shrine, built on a raised platform, is entered through a great, octagonal, pillared pavilion carved in the lavish fashion favoured by the Solankis. At a distance the pillars give the apperance of solid mass. Close up, they produce exactly the opposite effect, so finely carved and full of detail are they. As in other Surya temples, the carvings are predominantly of female attendants. Rows of frames carved out on each pilar hold graceful dancing figures as well as the plump gana-s or Yaksha-s that seem to hover around the gods.
A separate structure from this pavilion is the closed mandapa beyond it leading to the pradakshina path and garba grha. The temple may once have had more than one level but in its state of ruin it is difficult to tell. Recurring imges of the sun god appear at important positions throughout the structure, especially on the ‘dedicatory block above the mandapadoorway’. In Modhera too, as in Kashmir, the representation of the sun god seems to indicate a foreign model for the figure is clothed for cold weather in boots and cloak, unfamiliar to Gujarat. However, the main idol, and his sunken garba grha, are lost to us forever. It is fortunate that his chariot pulled by seven horses was drawn from the rubble around the temple before it could be further ruined.
Even before Konarak one of the most beautiful sun temples was built at modhera in Kathiawar. Even in its ruined state, architecturally it is among the finest in the country. Built in the 11th century by King Bhimadeva, the temple stands on a high plinth. A pillared natya mandapa leads to an octagonal sabha mandap, the main assembly hall and the garbha griha. It is designed in such a manner that sunlight can fall directly into the sanctum. The imge of the deity is bathed in the sun’s rays at dawn and the equinoxes. When Modhera was a living temple, on those sacred days of the equinox, the suns’s rays must have entered across the carvings to fall at the feet of the deity like a golden worshipper. Sadly, like Konarak the main deity is missing but there are many carvings of the sun god in niches on the walls and pillars that give us an idea of how it might have looked.
Designed with true grandeur, the pillars and walls are lavishly covered with carvings of languid yakshis, goddesses and dancers and intricate makara toranas curve across the arches. There is a large sacred pool, a surya kund, beside the temple and a flight of stairs lead up to the main shrine through a carved and fluted archway. Even with the shikhara missing and roofless mandapas that have pillars staring at the sky, the Modhera sun temple is a magnificent creation.
Although the temple’s shikhara is missing, the spires of the small kund temples are an indication of what it might have looked like. Even though probably more curvilinear than those of Konark or Khajuraho, Modhera’s spire followed the basic Nagara pattern of vertical lines meeting at a point directly above the garba grha.
The region saw many dynasties rise and fall-the Vakatakas, Kalchuris and Rashtrakutas. Many of the kings were generous and non-partisan patrons of monasteries and temple of Buddhists, Jains and Hindus. The Buddhists were the first to carve out chaitya halls and the cells of monasteries from sheer rock. At the Karli cave temple a many pillared chaitya hall with a stupa at one end still seems to carry a trace of incense in the air and the soft echo of the chant of monks.
In the series of caves at Ajanta the walls of these excavated monastic cells and prayer halls were painted with murals whose perfect drawings and jewel-like colours still make that ancient time come vibrantly alive. The Hindu rock cut temples came later, the finest being at Elephanta and Ellora. They were the high point of the art of rock cut architecture, created in an elegant bledn of the Nagara and the Dravidian styles that has earned it its own name Deccani architecture.
The Elephanta caves are dedicated to the many aspects of Shiva and they have some of the most powerful depictions of the many moods of this complex deity. There are a number of smaller shrines around the main cella and the panels of sculptures along the walls illustrate many episodes from the life of the god, like his marriage to Parvati, fighting the demon Andhaka and his bringing Ganga to earth. From the docks a flight of stairs lead to the entrance of the cave which has a columned verandah with figures of dwarapalas, or doorkeepers, at two ends.
The Mandapa has sculptures on all sides but the main icons are along the south wall. These giant sculptures of Shiva and his consort Parvati with their attendants groups of apsaras, demons and dwarfs are carved not just with superb technique and artistry but also a religious fervour that can be sensed even after the figures have been so cruelly mutilated. The sculptures done in high relief are carved in deeply cut niches in the wall and are guarded by dwarapalas set against pilasters. The rest of the cave is minimally decorated as if to create an ambience focused on the main deity, a temple where only Shiva is present to receice your devotions. Here he is Nataraja, the cosmic dancer as he dances the tandava, his enraged dance of destruction. He is Yogishwara, the supreme ascetic seated in the dhyana mudra on a louts and he is also Ardhanarishvara, half male and half female as a symbol of the active and passive forces of nature.
igh, with Shiva weating a high ornamental crown as the king of all three worlds. The magnificent sculptures has Shiva’s three faces showing a benign, an angry and a serene expression that capture the essence of the god with supreme artistry. He is the detached creator on the right holding a lotus, the kind preserver in the centre and the ruthless destroyere on the left with a snake writhing around his neck. Chiselled with an extraordinary passion by some long forgoteen sculptor this image has a power that only a true genius could have carved out of rigid stone. There are many beautiful shrines to Shiva but by their majestic sculptures these artists made sure Shiva dances only at Elephanta.
Through the ages the Maheshwara has swayed the imagination of people and Percy Brown tries to capture its enigmatic power in words: "Few works of sculpture excel the magnificent treatment of this colossal triple bust in which the whole essence of the creed is concentrated in forms of marvelous refinement and subtlety, curved and full and alive, in the white heat of his passion the sculptor seems to have melted the very substance of the rock and infused into it something of his own soul."
With the Kailashnath temple at Ellora the rock cut architecture of the Deccan reached the zenith of creativity and ambitious design. Till then caves had been excavated into the hillside and then the walls, ceiling and façade embellished with carvings. At Kailashnanth a whole temple with a plinth, walls, shikhara and subsidiary shrines was carved out of a hillside between the 8th and 9th centuries. It was begun in the reign of King Krishna I of the Rashtrakuta dynasty and took over a century ti complete. Visualised as Mount Kailash, Shiva’s home in the Himalayas, this remarkable creation makes this temple not a product of architecture but of pure sculpture.
Ellora was called Elapura in ancient times. Here thirty four Buddhist, Jain and Hindu cave temples were excavated out of the black basalt hillside. The Kailashanth temple is the worls’s largest monolith structure that is twice the area of the Parthenon of Greece one and a half times as tell. Only the guilds of Indian sculptors could have showed such panache and daring in visualizing this temple which is a marvel of ambitious engineering and superb carving technique. Generations of carvers visualised a complete temple that was literally scooped out of the hill side. The stone cutters began on top of the hill, cutting out three trenches at right angles to leave an island of rock in the middle. This immense slab of rock of 6,500 square metres aera stood in a pit 86 metres long and 48 metres wide. The temple that emerged from it was of an area of 1700 square metres. It was carved from the top down, a process of cutting down as against the traditional building up.
The carvers working from the top first chiseled out the shikhara and then moved downwards to the walls, pillars, gateways and then to the plinth. Once the outward shape had been created they moved to the interior. The garbha griha, antarla and a sixteen pillar mahamandapa wre carved out and decorated with friezes of sculpture. A shrine of Nandi was created in the courtyard, flanked by two pillars, the dhwajasthambhas. A series of gateways lead into a courtyard surrounded by cloisters with the Nandi shrine and the monolithic dhwajasthambhas. The main shrine has the mahamandapa, antarala and the garbha griha. The pretty toranas lead into the temple where the walls aer covered with a profusion of animals, humans, celestial apsaras, demons, dwarfs and deities. The high plinth is ornamented by a frieze of elephants and lions. Shiva is worshipped as a giant lingam in the garbha griha.
The shikhara rises in three tiers above the sanctum, soaring to over 30 metres and topped with a cupola. Many episodes form the Mahabharata and Ramayana are shown in the friezes along the outer walls. Among the tableaux the most interesting are the myths of Shiva. In one is shown his transformation into a column of light, the jyotirlingam and there is the omnipotent god with his foot in Ravana’s head as the demon king tests his strength against Shiva by trying to shake Mount Kailash.
Cave-1 is the Vihara of AD. 7th century. Cave-2 also of the 7th century is the Chaitya-hall in which a gigantic seated Buddha occupies the shrine. Cave-3 has a large seated Buddha with Avalokitesvara and Manjusri on either side. The side walls have two life sixe groups of votaries kneeling inadoration before the Buddha, one oggering garlands and other with ahnds clasped. Cave-4 is a simple Chaitya of AD. 1st or 2nd century.
Cave-2 has twelve massive columns with cushion capitals to support the roof. Theentrance to the main shrine is fkanked by the Bodhisattvas. The huge Buddha image at the rear is seated on a Lion Throne with Padmapani and Manjusri as Chauri bearers. The galleries, however, have Buddha gifures seated on lotuses in the traditional posture of a preacher, with Bodhisattvas in attendance.
Cave-5 is the largest Vihara, 117 ft. by 56 ft.,and has twenty-four pillars. There is a seated Buddha image in the main shrine attended by Avalokitesvara on one side and Maitreya on the other side.
Cave-6 is notable for its ante-chamber which has several interesting sculptures. These include figures from vajrayana pantheon. There is also figure of the Hindu Goddess of learning, Saraswati, well-known in India today in the same representation. The river Goddess Gnaga and Yamuna are also carved.
Cave-10, known as Visvakrma, or the Capenter;s Cave, is the only proper Chaitya-hall at Ellora. Its façade, richly decorated, has the semblance of masonry work. A porch surmounted by a gallery leads to another gallery inside the chapel. The Chaitya-hall third largest in India measures 26 metres in length, 13.4 metres in width and 10.4 metres in height. In the far end is the Stupa 8.2 metres high and 4.9 metres in diameter. Besides the large number of seated and standing Buddhas, there are a number of images of the Bodhisattvas. A staircase leads to a large pillared court and to a gallery with a railed terrace.
Cave-11 and Cave-12 are large, three-story structures alike in design and represent the peak of the earlier style at Ellora. Cave-12 is the bigger of the two and is more impressive. Known as Teen Thal, it is a vast excavation. The façade, nearly 50 ft. high plain and auster-looking has porches supported by pillars in each storey. The first storey is 115 ft. by 43 ft. The large hall in the second storey, 115 ft. by 70 ft. (35 metre by 21.33 metre) and 12 ft. high, is divided likewise by forty square pillars into five asiels. The interiors make a striking contrast to the undecorated façade, for the hal in each floor has galleries of images of the Buddha and almost all the deities of the Vajrayana pantheon. Among the huge Buddha figures, with Avalokitesvara, Padmapani and Vajrapani in attendance, the one in the shrine, with arms folded and the face deeply meditative is the most impressive one.
In the Brahmanical group of caves (Nos. 13-29) at Ellora, Cave-16 known as Kailasa, Siva’s mountain abode, is one of the best and the most important monument. Chiselled from one enormous rock during AD. eight or ninth century, the temple has magnificent sculpture. More than a mile away at the northern spur of the side, there are five Jaina Caves. Of these, Cave-32, known as Indra Sabha or Assembly Hall of Indra, king of the Gods, is the best. It is quite decorative.
Autangabad, the base city for Ajanta-Ellora Caves, has also 12 Buddhist caves. These caves are 3 kms north of the city beyond Bibi-ka-Maqbara. The site is reached after a hard climb and the two groups are separated by a mile across the hillside.
Cave-6, the first in the secomd groups, is a chaitya-cum Vihara. Its shrine has a seated Buddha with Bodhisattvas in attendance, and on either side kneeling devotees as in Cave-3. Cave-7 is the latest and the most decorative one at Aurangabad. In this cave, the shrine is in the centre with the processional path around it. To the right of the main door leading to the passage is a panel containing Manjusri, with man and woman attendants. On the left is a panel of the Litany of Avalokitesvara. In each scene around the Bodhisattva two figures seem to be saved from some form of danger. They are met by Avalokitesvara flying to their rescue. The eight dangers are of ‘fire’, the "sword of an enemy", "chains or fetters (imprisonment)", shipwreck or water", "the attack of a lion", "danger from snakes"," an enraged elephant", and the last "death". The sancturary contains a large image of the Buddha seated on a Lion throne, with celestial musicians and flying figures over his shoulders.
The west of India presents a kaleidoscope of landscapes and cultures that range from the desert people of Rajasthan to the fosherfolk of Maharashtra. The westernmost state of the country in the north is Rajasthan, land of the Rajput maharajas who built fortenesses on every hilltop and filled them with opulent palaces and temples. Just south of it is Gujarat, where India’s western coastline begins at the Rann of Kutch, a region of entrepreneurs and adventurous traderswho sent out their ships to Europe and Africa and then used their riches to build temples. Then south of Gujarat is Maharashtra with its long coastline of the Arabian Sea and the hills of the Western Ghats that run parallel to it. Here monasteries and temples were carved out of sheer rock and man-mde caves painted with enchanting murals.
Some of the earliest civilizations have flourshed here. Lothal which has been dated to the time of the Indus Valley Civilisation is in Gujarat. It has seen many invasionsby Hunas, Sakas, Scythians and later Turks and Afghans. This region has always been coveted by kings because of trade. The land route to the lucrative markets of the West Asia and Europe was through Rajasthan. From the ports of Surat and Cambay in Gujarat, cotton and spices, pearls and indigo were sent across the seas in laden ships for the markets of the West.
Trade routes and ports meant that the population became ethnically varied and it also meant the people were wealthy. In this region in the years when Buddhism flourished, kings, noblemen and merchants were the donors for the rock cut chaityas and monasteries of Karli and Ajanta. Then during the rule of the Pratiharas, the Solankis, the Rajputs and the Marathas the rulers tried to win the approval of the gods by building magnificent temples. Most of Rajasthan remained under the rule of Hindu rajas during medieval times, so the building of temples continued unabated, providing the sculptors with an opportunity to preserve their traditional craft.
This affluence also meant the regular apperance of invaders. The first notorious iconoclast was Mahmud of Ghazni who swept into India in many raids only to pillage and loot. The call many have been for jehad but the true reason was the legendary wealth of the temples of the region. Mahumud Ghazni’s biggest temptation was the fabulous treasures of the famous Somnath temple of Gujarat. And then his army rampaged across North India as far as Uttar Pradesh. This set a pattern that would continue till the reign of Aurangzeb. Most of the temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat were built after the reifn of Aurangzeb in the late medieval period and often at the site of destroyed shrines. The fabulous Somnath would be razed to the ground and would rise again and again but the original temple is now lost in the mists of history. Rajasthan
Pushkar- Osian- Nathdwar- Mount Abu
From the green foothills of the Aravalli ranges to the great Thar Desert this is a land of many terrains. The scrubland and rocky outscrops of the east change to endless stretches of sand dunes and cactus bushes of the west and this relentless land demands both courage and persistence from its people. Here the people live by the tradition of chivalry and valour and sing ballads of their Rajput heroes who ruled with great panache and died with gather courage. Rajasthan and its vivid history has always fascinated the world.As if to day defy their hard, demanding lives the people choose to fill their days with a vibrant joy of living. They weave and print magical fabrics, craft silver, gold and gems into intricate jewellery. At every fair and festival at the temples the women in their brilliant lehngas and the men in their imperously flaring turbans come riding on ambling camels and dance and sing in celebration. Some of the finest craftsman of the country can be found in Rajesthan and among them are the silvats- the stone carvers.
The Palaces and temples of Rajasthan stand testimony to the work of these silvats. Sandstone carved into lacy fretwork, elegantly curving arches and intricate screens from behind which the women could watch the world go by. Most of the Rajput kings ruled from hilltop fortresses that dominated the landscape. Within the high forbidding walls of these forts they created a luxurious world of opulentpalces, assembly halls and beautiful temples. Every important fort in Rajasthan has its own temples, each an exquisite example of the art of the anonymous stone sculptor of Rajasthan.
Rajasthan, like Punjab was always in the path of invaders coming from the west through the Himalayan passes. Most of these hordes came to raid the rich palaces and temples. So the palaces towns were placed within hilltop fortresses and the temple towns were often built in remote corners of the land. Mount Abu’s Dilwara temples were located in a valley surrounded by hills, the temples at Osian in a faraway oasis in the Jodhpur desert. Then in the 17th century when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb began a systematic attack on the temples of the north many of the images were shifted to regions like orissa and Rajasthan under Hindu kings. The idols of Sakshi Gopal in Orissa, Govindji in Jaipur, Shri Nathji in Nathdwar and Madan Mohan in Karoli all come from the temples of Mathura and Vrindavan.
Pushkar
India is filled with temples of Shiva and Vishnu but brahma the creator is rarely worshipped and his most important shrine is at Pushkar. They sang to him in the Rig Veda but when it came to building temples the two more colourful gods of the holy trinity received the prauers of the people. Still, the devotee has not completely forgotten Brahma, not to the extent they have Indra and Surya. They do come to this Btrahma temple by the lake to offer him puja and once a year on the auspicious full moon of Kartik Purnima, Pushkar is transformed into a land of festival. At that time one of the most colourful cattle fairs of the country is also held here, with brightly clad Rajastjani peasants arriving in their camel driven carts to camp around the town.According to the Padma Purana, Brahma’s loss of favour begins with the curse of an angry consort. Once while fighting a demon, a lotus fell from his hand and three petals landed at Pushkar, where three lakes sprang up. Pushp is ‘flower’ Kar is hand and that is how the place got its name. To cemebrate his victory over the demon Brahma now decided to hold a yagna by the biggest lake. At such a ceremony the presence of the wife is essential, so his consort Savitri was asked to attend. On the chosed day everything was ready, it was time to light the holy fire but Savitri had still not arrived. An impatient Brahma asked Indra to get him another wife and he brought the first woman he met-a cowherd’s daughter called Gayatri who Brahma promptly married.
When Savitri arrived at the yagna it had already started with Gayatri sittingf beside Brahma. Furious, she would not listen to any explanation form anyone and pronounced her curse. She said that in the future, Brahma would become a forgotten deity as Shiva and Vishnu would be worshipped everywhere. Then relenting a little she conceded that at pushkar Brahma could still receive the puja of the people. Finally Savitri walked off angrily to establish her own temple on top of a hill opposite while Gayatri was given a temple at the other end of town. The battle of goddesses goes on even to this present day.
Brahma’s temple stands beside the largest of the three lakes, the Jyeshtha Pushkar which is said to posses the same sanctity as Lake Mansarovar. It has a red tower and a swan, Brahma’s vehicle, over the doorway. Inside there is an image of the four-headed Brahma with Savitri on his right and Gayatri on his left. Within the temple precinct there are smaller shrines of Indra, the lord of the heavens and Kubera, the god of wealth.
On Kartik purnima pilgrims bathe in the largest Pushkar lake and then do a parikrama of all three lakes and visit the temple of the two consorts. The largest lake, Jyeshtha Pushkar has 52 ghats of which the Brahma, Varaha and Gau ghats are considered the most auspicious. These ghats have been built by the royal familes of Rajasthan and includes one financed by Queen Mary of England in 1911. Vishnu in his Varaha (boar) avatar is supposed to have appeared at the Varha Ghat and Lord Rama is said to have bathed in all three lakes.
Pushkar is an important tirthasthana. Some even consider it a dham and there are temples to most of the important deities, like Raghunath, Hanuman and varaha here. Savitri’s temple is on top of the Ratnagiri hill and is said to be over a thousand years old. The temple is reached after a long climb by the 4th century stairway. Gayatri’s temple is right across town on top of another hill. Though none of the temples at Pushkar are architecturally significant, their spiritual power draws pilgrims from across the country.
The only major Brahma temple in the country is located in Rajasthan. Legend has it that the god himself chose the location. Perhaps he thought his curse would not hold good in the sleepy desert town Pushkar. His multi-coloured temple, guarded by his faithful animal vehicle, the swan (hans), and the local camel fair or Pushkar Mela, are the only claims to fame this sleepy hollow of a town makes.
Nathdwar
This small town is an important place of pilgrimage for Vaishnavites because of the Shri Nathiji temple. It is dedicated to one of the most important icons of Lord Krishna. The image of Shri Nath depicts the episode of the child Krisha when he sheltered the people of his village from a deluge by raising the govardhan hill above them. So the icon of black marble shows Krishna as the young Gopal, with his right hand raising the hill and his left closed in a first resting on his hip. It is carved in base relief on a slab of black marble. The image has a diamond set beneath the lips that is said to be a gift from Akbar. Behind the image hang the the celebrated folk paintings called pichhwai that depict Krishna as Shri Nathji, with panels illustratin the important episodes from his wife.Originally the idol was established in a temple in the town of Govardhan in the Vrindavan region and was shifted to Rajasthan to save it from the armies of Aurangzeb. It is said the idol was being taken towards Udipur when the wheels of the chariot got stuck in mud and could not be moved. Talking this as an omen the Rana of Udaipur built the temple here. Nathdwar means the gateway to the home of Shri Nathji. The 17th century temple is architecturally a very simple structure but it is always crowded with pilgrims.
Nathdwar is the centre of the Vallabhacharya sect. This scholar saint from South India once won a religious debate against many other scholars at the court of King Krishna Deva Raya of Vijayanagar. The king presented him with a bag of gold coins and Vallabhacharya gave away most of the coins to the poor. He kept seven coins with which he got a gold ornament made which is still worn by the deity.
Osian
The oldest temples in Rajasthan are in a forgoteen patch of the Thar Desert beyond Jodhpur. These 16 ruined and empty temples stand in a deserted oasis with peacocks strutting among the sand dunes and bushes. They show both early and later forms of Pratihara temple architecture of the 8th to the 10th century. Osian was once a trading centre and the rich merchants built both Hindu and Jain temples here but today it is "A considerable city whose substance has departed and only the spirit remains." Among them are temples of Surya, Mahavira, Mahishamardini and Hari Hara.The 16 temples at Osian, an oasis in the Thar desert, 33 miles from Jodhpur, represent both the early and developed works of the Pratihara. These include the Hari Hara group of templesranging from the almost primitive Pipla mata to the more ornate Sun temples. Built on Large raisedfoundations, a pattern that was becoming more and more common in the Nagara style, many of these structures are panchayatana, increasing in intricacy and sculpted work with time .
Each temple has a porch or mandapa leading to the sanctum and these are all built in the traditional Nagara style. Built on high platforms, these small temples have a single mandapa each and small shikharas and some have four subsidiary shrines to form the panchayatana design. The manapas are open pillared halls with a vase and foliage on top of the capitals. The doorways to the sanctums are elaborately ornamented with navagrahas, the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna and the coils of the serpent god Sheshnaag. The Shikharas are carved with chaitya style dormers and the outer walls have niches carved with the traditional pantheon of deities.
Mount Abu
The Dilwara temples at Mount Abu stand in a beautiful green valley surrounded by forested hills of the Aravalli range. This is the only hill resort in Rajasthan. Abi is named after Arbuda, one of the sons of the Himalayas and in ancient times it was a centre of Shiva worship. It became a Jain centre in the 11th century with the building of the Dilwara temples. The sage Vasishtha is said to have built an ashram here and some of the royal Rajput clans claim thery were created from the holy yagnja fire lit here by him. These Jain temples have by far the finest examples of the art of the Rajasthani sculptor. The two temples, Vimal Vasahi and Luna Vasahi are small and have plain exteriors that give no hint of the magical world waiting to be discovered inside. The arched doorways lead into a dazzling interior of pure white marble carved with such amazing virtuosity, it is hard to believe that such extraordinary perfection and beauty could be created out of mere stone by human hands.Vimal Vasahi was built in the 11th century by Vimal Shah, a minister of the Solanki King of Gujarat and is dedicted to the first Jain tirthankara, Adinath. A parade of marble elephants lead up to the porch and on their backs sit the donot Vimal and hs family. The courtyard has 52 cells with icons of tirthankaras inside. A series of mandapas lead to the sanctum that has the bejwelled bronze icon of the saint. The walls, pillars and ceiling have been ornamented with subtle carvings of apsaras, animalas, scrolls and the doorways have intricately carved arches. The ceiling of the assembly hall, the ranga mandapa, has an exquisite pendant in the centre surrounded by delicate figures of female nymphs. The dome is designed in concentric circles with carvings of figures, animals and decorative motifs. The lowest ring has sixteen bracket figures of the vidyadevis, goddesses of learning, all framed within carved aureoles. The opulent Luna Vasahi is even more heavily carved. It was built two centuries later by Tejpal, another minister of the Gujarat kingdom and dedicated to the tirthankara Neminath. The temple is alive with such exuberant and brilliantly finished marble carvings that it gives the surface the texture of lace. Among the glittering pillars, figures and animals, the most striking creation here is the ceiling of the rangamandapa. The octagonal dome has an overhanging lotus delicately carved with extraordinary precession.
Gujarat
Dwarka- Smonath- Modhera
The terrain of Gujarat moves from the salt flats and marshes of the Rann of Kutch to the fertile banks of the Narmada river. India’s western coastline alon the Arabian Sea begins here and the people, have a tradition of maritime trade that goes back thousands of years. Lothal, a part of the Indus Valley Civilisation might have been a port. Later the ports of Porbander, galleons lay anchor even as Mughal ships returned from West Asia laden with gold and sivler. So this was a region not just of powerful kings but also wealthy merchants who took pride in patrons of the arts and the donors of temples. Like Rajasthan this region has a rich tradition of handicrafts- fabrics woven, printed and embroidered in man eyecatching hues, jewellery and carvings in wood and stone. This natural affinity for colour and design was reflected in the Hindu and Jain temples that were built in Gujarat. And again the wealth of these temples acted like magnets for the invaders from the west. The most famous temple of them all was thefabulous Somnath temple, whose repeated destruction scarred the Hindu psyche for centuries.Dwarka
Dwaraka was the legendary kingdom of Krishna, and therefore one of the four holiest tirtha sthana-s dham-s (centers of pilgrimage) in India. The site for the beautiful town was chosen by the dark-skinned god, designed by the divine architect, Vishwakarma, and constructed by labourers sent to the earth from both heaven and hell. Krishna ruled there till his death, when a curse on him brought about the city’s destruction as well.
Years after the great war that was waged by the pandava princes and Krishna against their cousins, the Kauravas (as recounted in the Mahabharata), a hunter mistook a slumbering Krishna for a deer and killed him with his arrow. Then came the deluge and Dwaraka disappeared beneath the waves. But the land was so holy that it could not remain lost forever. Archaeologists have found that new towns have been built upon the same site at least five times.The Small town which comes alive every year during Janmashtami, Krishna’s birthday, is the location of his Dwarakanath temple. It was supposedly built by one of his descendants, vajranath, and is the place where Krishan’s renowned devotee, Mira bai, a Rajput princess, gave herself up to the god, disappearing one night in the sanctum sanctorum. The only trace left or her was her saree hanging upon the image of her beloved Hari.
According to the Mahabharata, Lord Krishna first ruled in the kingdom of Mathura. However, through the years of diplomacy and intrigue, he had made many enemies and now faced a state of constant war. Finally he decided to shift his kingdom and moved westyard to Gujarat. Here, by the Arabian Sea, he established his new kingdom of Dwarka. With his brother Balaram by his side he ruled with great success but his last years were filled with sadness as he watched the moral downfall of his Yadava clan. A despondent Krishna withdrew into the forest where a hunter mistaking him for a deer shot him in the foot. The foot was Krishna’s vulnerable spot and he died and Balarama followed soon after.
Krishna had built a fabulous capital at Dwarka but soon after his death there was a bi storm and the sea inundated the land. As if in anger at Krishna’s sad end, the waves claimed the palaces and temples of Dwarka. What is amazing is that recently archaelologists have discovered the remains of an ancient port city on the seabed along the shoreline of the present city of Dwarka. They think the present city is built over at least four older cities and that Dwarka was a port as far back as the 15th century B.C. The Shrimad bhagvatam gives a description of krishna’s capital that was built by the divine architect Vishwakarma himself. In the the palaces, "the pillars were made of coral and the ceilings were bedecked with jewels. The walls as well as the arches between the pillars glowed from the decorations of different kinds of sapphires. Throughtout the palace there were many canopies that were decorated with strings of pearls. The furniture was made of ivory, bedecked with gold and diamonds and jeweled lamps dissipated the darkness within the palce."
For the pilgrim Dwarka is doubly sacred. It is saptapuri, one of the seven holiest tirthasthanas and it is also one of the four dhams, making it even more powerful than Kashi which is only a saptapuri. Ar Dwarka the most important shrine is the Dwarkadessh temple, also called the temple of Ranchhorji. The origninal temple is said to have been built by Krishna’s great grandson vajranabha over the Hari Griha, Krishna’s personal palace. The present temple was built in the 16th century. The building is five storeys high with pillared halls. The shikhara rises to a height of 78 metres and the pinnacle has the symbols of the sun and moon.
The garbha griha is called the Jagat Mandir and the deity within is called Trivikrama. The icon is of a fourarmed Vishnu holding the shankha, a conch, the gada, a mace, the chakra, a discus and the padma, a lotus. There are smaller shrines within the temple dedicated to Krishna’s brother Balarama, his son Pradymuna and grandson Aniruddha. The two entrances are named Swarga Dwar, the gate the heaven and Moksha Dwar, the gate to salvation. From the Swarga Dwar a flight of stairs leads down to the banks of the Gomati river. Every year the Dwarkadessh temple holds a joyous Janamashtami festival when pilgrims throng the narrow lanes of the town.
There are many other popular temples in Dwarka including one dedicated to Krishna’s mother Devaki and to Beni Madhav, another form of Vishnu. The prettiest temple is dedicated to Krishna’s first queen, Rukmini. Built in the 12th century the walls have paintings of episodes from Krishna and Rukmini’s lives. The banks of the Gomati river have a number of ghats and after flowring past Dwarka the river pours into the sea. The Chakra Tirtha Ghat, situated at the spot where the Gomati meets the Arabian Sea, is considered the holiest of the ghats. The Samudra Narain temple stands at this sacred confluence.
Somnath
Originally Somnath was called Prabhas Patan, the place where Krishna watched the members of his Yadava clan fight each other in a drunken brawl and thus destroy all that he had built at Dwarka. Deeply disheartened he withdrew into a nearby forest where he was killed by the arrow of a hunter named Jara. His brother Balarama died soon after and Krishna’s best friend Arjuna came from Hastinapur to cremate their bodies at Somnath. However the Somnath temple is not dedicated to either Vishnu or Krishna. It is a Shiva temple and its deity is one of the twelve jyotirlingams.The first Somnath temple is said to have been built beside the sea by the moon god Soma. Soma was one of the sons-in-law of King Daksha. Another was Shiva who had married Daksha’s daughter Sati with rather tragic consequences. Daksha obviously did not believe in cordial relations with the men his daughters married because in a fit of rage he put a curse on Soma for him to lose his light. In utter consternation poor Soma saw his radiance begin to wane. He came to Prabhas Patan on a moonless amavasya night and after bathing in the sea he prayed to Shiva. His prayers wre answered and since then the moon waxes and wanes. A grateful Soma built a temple for kind Shiva and placed a jyotirlingam within.
Once the river Saraswati used to flow into the sea at the spot where the original temple used to stand. In the Satya Yuga the temples was built in gold by Soma. In the Treta Yuga, Ravana built it in silver. In the Dwapar Yuga, Krishna built in in wood and now in the Kali Yuga it is made of stone. The legends about the stone temple talk of a huge, brilliantly designed building filled with carvings, pillars inlaid woth gold and jewels and solid sivler doors. Two thousand Brahmins, five hundred dancing girls and three hundred musicians were employed by the temple. The water for the puja came from the Ganga and the flowers from Kashmir.
In the 11th century the temple must have been a truly magnificent place. It is mentioned in the chronicles of Marco Polo and Al Biruni. The first temple is said to have been built by the Brahmin Vishnu Sharma, who is known to history as Chanakya, the powerful adviser to Chandragupta Maurya. And it was its legendary treasures that drew Mahmud of Ghazni to attack India in 1026. He carried away an immense booty including the gold Shiva lingam and the silver doors and then razed the temple to the ground.
The people built the temple again and on his next raid Mahmud destroyed it again. In the following centuries the temples was built and destroyed five times, the last time by Aurangzeb. In the 18th century rani Ahilya Bai Holkar of Indore built the sixth temple, a small shrine for the Shiva lingam and the present temple was built in 1950 over the original sandstone brahmashila of the last destroyed temple. The remains of the old temples can still be seen in the museum at Dwarka.
The legendary and rare temple of the Lord of the moon, is also the temple of nine lives. Destroyed repeatedly, its generations of devotees have persevered and rebuilt it time and again. Whether in a state of ruin or not, its sanctity was never forgotten.
Somnath-Patan is believed to be so very ancient that it witnessed the creation of the universe, One legend state that it was first built by Soma, the moon god, in gold; then by Ravana in silver; and athird time by Krishna, in wood. The more plausible explanation is that it was first constructed in the 6th century AD during the reign of Bhimadeva.
The story and reason for the temple’s location is intriguing. The moon was, along with siva, among the50 sons-in-law of King Daksha. The king seemed to have held a grudge against many of his daughters’ husbands. One day, angered by the radiant Soma’s disobedience, daksha vursed him, saying that his brilliance would be dimmed forever. And sure enough, from that day Soma started to disappear. The gods, frightened that the world would be in total darkness every night, beseeched Daksha to take back his words. Time had cooled the King’s fury so he told his son-in-law that he would be saved if he bathed at the confluence of the river Saraswati and the sea at Patan and then prayed to Siva. This he did and regained his light. Still, every month his light diminishes and on amavasya (no moon) night, Soma must return to the temple of his Lord, siva (somnath) and bathe in the holy waters of the river to become radiant once more.
So the original site of the temple was located where Soma worshipped the Siva linga. In the eastern part of the town of Patan, it stood by the seashore separated from the water by a retaining wall. The temple was famed for its jyotir (light/the lit one) linga-s, one of 12 special, sacred Siva linga-s in the country. The others are variously located at Srisailam, ujjain, Devgadh, Rameshwaram, Bhimashankara, Triambak near Nasik, Grishneshwar near Ellora, Kedarnath, Kashi, Mandhata, and Darukavana.
Somnath was forst sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1025 AD and according to noted Indian historian, romila Thapar, its "effects were to remain for centuries in the Hindu mind and to colour its assessment of the character of Mahmud, and on occasion, of Muslim rulers in general." The plunderer had come in search of gold idols to destroy. Ironically he did not quite succeed. Some remnants of the original structure of Somnath were utilized in the Maipuri mosque (at the site of another temple that Mahmud had torn down), despite the fact that they still bore religious sculptures and motifs. This use of Hindu temple walls, ceilings and panels in the Islamic places of worship in the Sultanate continued inexplicably and against the very motives of the invaders, throughtout the medieval period in Gujarat. Inadvertently, the oversight blended two religions while keeping the art of the temple tradition alive.
The Somnath Siva linga always escaped destruction, being whisked away from the temple whenever it was in danger, for it was attacked again in 1297, 1394 and 1706 AD. For a time, the priests kept the linga hidden.only installing it for worship when Rani graba grha, in the late 18th century. Still, the new temple is hardly a memorial to the grand original and is usually only visited by devout pilgrims.
The original was famed as indescribably exquisite and rich. Although only one storey high, Somnath was large in scale. It had a closed, central hall-gridhamandapa- with three entrances fronted by shady porticos. The hall’s intricately worked ceiling now graces the Maipuri mosque. The sanctum sanctorum, in which the idol is said to have floated but was probably controlled by some magnetic mechanism, was to the west of the hall. It had a wide circumambulatory, lit by big window-balconies, like the oriel or balcony windows of Khajuraho.
At Patan there was also the ancient Triveni sun temple, distinguished by the three sets of niches around its ambulatory, meant for the figures of the three divine couples-vishnu and Lakshmi; Brahma and Saraswathi and Parvati.
The Land Of The Moon
This is tha land of Lothal, city of the ancient Harappans. The land where rishna, the mischievous cowherd god, spent much of his illustrious life and where he died. The land where many sacred sites of the Jaina sect are located. That land which, jutting outminto the Ariban Sea, forms the westernmost frontier of post-independence India. Gujarat. The modern state of Gujarat now consists of an eastern mainland, the peninsular region of Kathiawar, and the more isolated Rann of Kachchh on the border of Pakkistan. Kathiawar, known in ancient times as Saurashtra, had an extraordinary link with the people of Kashmir, a factor which greatly influenced its ancient temple tradition. Here, along the coast and some of the areas inland, many of the great events inKrishna’s life occurred and some of India’s greatest temples were built. Unfortunately, Muslim invaders responsible for the destruction of many religious buildings in northern India made especially severe, repeated and concentrated attacks on the wealthy temple sites of Gujarat. The result More ruins and documentation than the legendary temples themselves. The apparently spectacular shrines had been constructed by the early Maitrika clan and the productive builders of the Solanki dynasty. They were responsible for many of the great Hindu and Jaina shrines of the region, erected in the eras both prior to and after, the Sultanate period.The temples of both religious in Gujarat were ornate and well planned. The wealthy mercantile community possessed the taste and could afford the resources required for such elaborate structures as the ones on Mount abu and Satrunjaya Hill. Mainly Nagara in style, the temples responded to the region’s warm, dry climate by being airy and well lit, often with unenclosed mandapa-s adorned with fabulously carved pillars and high, coffered ceilings. Their openness and the use of locally available materials like marble, and yellow, red, or brown sandstone, added to the temples’ delicacy and enabled sculpture to be complex but also buoyant and graceful. The early architecture of Saurashtra was greatly influenced by its northern immigrants while later Gujarati architecture reflected the predominant Jaina trend of the area. Between the two there was little similarity or Connection, separated as they were by time. The former was vernacular in style and devoted to deities like the sun, while the laatter, though dedicated to the tirthankara or aina saints, incorporated mainstream Hindu Nagara elements in its medieval structures.
Modhera
King Bhimadeva I, who ruled the Saurashtra region in the 11th century AD, is said to have built the beautifully carved sun temple at Modhera, north of Kathiawar, between 1026 and 1027. Built in front of a rectangular tank (which has small shrines at three of its sides), Modhera is a precursor of the Sun temple at Konark. The similarity between the two is evident in that the idols were installed to be naturally lit by the sun. In the case of Modhera, the icon was placed so that it was bathed in light at the time of the equinoxes.The large, stepped, stone kund with recesses for small images of subsidiary deities, leads up a staircase to torana, with fine, broad-based pillars sans their joining arch. The now spireless shrine, built on a raised platform, is entered through a great, octagonal, pillared pavilion carved in the lavish fashion favoured by the Solankis. At a distance the pillars give the apperance of solid mass. Close up, they produce exactly the opposite effect, so finely carved and full of detail are they. As in other Surya temples, the carvings are predominantly of female attendants. Rows of frames carved out on each pilar hold graceful dancing figures as well as the plump gana-s or Yaksha-s that seem to hover around the gods.
A separate structure from this pavilion is the closed mandapa beyond it leading to the pradakshina path and garba grha. The temple may once have had more than one level but in its state of ruin it is difficult to tell. Recurring imges of the sun god appear at important positions throughout the structure, especially on the ‘dedicatory block above the mandapadoorway’. In Modhera too, as in Kashmir, the representation of the sun god seems to indicate a foreign model for the figure is clothed for cold weather in boots and cloak, unfamiliar to Gujarat. However, the main idol, and his sunken garba grha, are lost to us forever. It is fortunate that his chariot pulled by seven horses was drawn from the rubble around the temple before it could be further ruined.
Even before Konarak one of the most beautiful sun temples was built at modhera in Kathiawar. Even in its ruined state, architecturally it is among the finest in the country. Built in the 11th century by King Bhimadeva, the temple stands on a high plinth. A pillared natya mandapa leads to an octagonal sabha mandap, the main assembly hall and the garbha griha. It is designed in such a manner that sunlight can fall directly into the sanctum. The imge of the deity is bathed in the sun’s rays at dawn and the equinoxes. When Modhera was a living temple, on those sacred days of the equinox, the suns’s rays must have entered across the carvings to fall at the feet of the deity like a golden worshipper. Sadly, like Konarak the main deity is missing but there are many carvings of the sun god in niches on the walls and pillars that give us an idea of how it might have looked.
Designed with true grandeur, the pillars and walls are lavishly covered with carvings of languid yakshis, goddesses and dancers and intricate makara toranas curve across the arches. There is a large sacred pool, a surya kund, beside the temple and a flight of stairs lead up to the main shrine through a carved and fluted archway. Even with the shikhara missing and roofless mandapas that have pillars staring at the sky, the Modhera sun temple is a magnificent creation.
Although the temple’s shikhara is missing, the spires of the small kund temples are an indication of what it might have looked like. Even though probably more curvilinear than those of Konark or Khajuraho, Modhera’s spire followed the basic Nagara pattern of vertical lines meeting at a point directly above the garba grha.
Maharashtra
Elephanta-Ellora
The volcanic plateau of the Deccan begins with the state of Maharashtra. This land acts as a bridge between the alluvial plains of the north and the tropical peninsula of the south. And like the terrain, the culture and architecture is also a blend of the northand south. Maharashtra’s long coastline hugs the edges of the Arabian Sea and has the hills of the Western Ghats running parallel to it. In medieval times these hills were used by kings like Shivaji to build impregnable fortresses but long before that they provided the canvas for some of the most famous rock cut temples in the country.The region saw many dynasties rise and fall-the Vakatakas, Kalchuris and Rashtrakutas. Many of the kings were generous and non-partisan patrons of monasteries and temple of Buddhists, Jains and Hindus. The Buddhists were the first to carve out chaitya halls and the cells of monasteries from sheer rock. At the Karli cave temple a many pillared chaitya hall with a stupa at one end still seems to carry a trace of incense in the air and the soft echo of the chant of monks.
In the series of caves at Ajanta the walls of these excavated monastic cells and prayer halls were painted with murals whose perfect drawings and jewel-like colours still make that ancient time come vibrantly alive. The Hindu rock cut temples came later, the finest being at Elephanta and Ellora. They were the high point of the art of rock cut architecture, created in an elegant bledn of the Nagara and the Dravidian styles that has earned it its own name Deccani architecture.
Elephanta
This island off the coast of Mumbai ws once called Gharapuri and here among the low hills a number of caves were excavated between the 5th and 8th centuries and filled with a profusion of majestic sculpture. No one really knows for sure who created these cave temples, which king or dynasty chose to leave their imprint in stone on this island. The Portuguese named the island Elephanta after the figure of an elephant that stood at the door of the caves. At the same time it was Portuguese soldiers who Vandalised the caves and defaced many of the sculptures.The Elephanta caves are dedicated to the many aspects of Shiva and they have some of the most powerful depictions of the many moods of this complex deity. There are a number of smaller shrines around the main cella and the panels of sculptures along the walls illustrate many episodes from the life of the god, like his marriage to Parvati, fighting the demon Andhaka and his bringing Ganga to earth. From the docks a flight of stairs lead to the entrance of the cave which has a columned verandah with figures of dwarapalas, or doorkeepers, at two ends.
The Mandapa has sculptures on all sides but the main icons are along the south wall. These giant sculptures of Shiva and his consort Parvati with their attendants groups of apsaras, demons and dwarfs are carved not just with superb technique and artistry but also a religious fervour that can be sensed even after the figures have been so cruelly mutilated. The sculptures done in high relief are carved in deeply cut niches in the wall and are guarded by dwarapalas set against pilasters. The rest of the cave is minimally decorated as if to create an ambience focused on the main deity, a temple where only Shiva is present to receice your devotions. Here he is Nataraja, the cosmic dancer as he dances the tandava, his enraged dance of destruction. He is Yogishwara, the supreme ascetic seated in the dhyana mudra on a louts and he is also Ardhanarishvara, half male and half female as a symbol of the active and passive forces of nature.
igh, with Shiva weating a high ornamental crown as the king of all three worlds. The magnificent sculptures has Shiva’s three faces showing a benign, an angry and a serene expression that capture the essence of the god with supreme artistry. He is the detached creator on the right holding a lotus, the kind preserver in the centre and the ruthless destroyere on the left with a snake writhing around his neck. Chiselled with an extraordinary passion by some long forgoteen sculptor this image has a power that only a true genius could have carved out of rigid stone. There are many beautiful shrines to Shiva but by their majestic sculptures these artists made sure Shiva dances only at Elephanta.
Through the ages the Maheshwara has swayed the imagination of people and Percy Brown tries to capture its enigmatic power in words: "Few works of sculpture excel the magnificent treatment of this colossal triple bust in which the whole essence of the creed is concentrated in forms of marvelous refinement and subtlety, curved and full and alive, in the white heat of his passion the sculptor seems to have melted the very substance of the rock and infused into it something of his own soul."
Ellora
With the Kailashnath temple at Ellora the rock cut architecture of the Deccan reached the zenith of creativity and ambitious design. Till then caves had been excavated into the hillside and then the walls, ceiling and façade embellished with carvings. At Kailashnanth a whole temple with a plinth, walls, shikhara and subsidiary shrines was carved out of a hillside between the 8th and 9th centuries. It was begun in the reign of King Krishna I of the Rashtrakuta dynasty and took over a century ti complete. Visualised as Mount Kailash, Shiva’s home in the Himalayas, this remarkable creation makes this temple not a product of architecture but of pure sculpture.Ellora was called Elapura in ancient times. Here thirty four Buddhist, Jain and Hindu cave temples were excavated out of the black basalt hillside. The Kailashanth temple is the worls’s largest monolith structure that is twice the area of the Parthenon of Greece one and a half times as tell. Only the guilds of Indian sculptors could have showed such panache and daring in visualizing this temple which is a marvel of ambitious engineering and superb carving technique. Generations of carvers visualised a complete temple that was literally scooped out of the hill side. The stone cutters began on top of the hill, cutting out three trenches at right angles to leave an island of rock in the middle. This immense slab of rock of 6,500 square metres aera stood in a pit 86 metres long and 48 metres wide. The temple that emerged from it was of an area of 1700 square metres. It was carved from the top down, a process of cutting down as against the traditional building up.
The carvers working from the top first chiseled out the shikhara and then moved downwards to the walls, pillars, gateways and then to the plinth. Once the outward shape had been created they moved to the interior. The garbha griha, antarla and a sixteen pillar mahamandapa wre carved out and decorated with friezes of sculpture. A shrine of Nandi was created in the courtyard, flanked by two pillars, the dhwajasthambhas. A series of gateways lead into a courtyard surrounded by cloisters with the Nandi shrine and the monolithic dhwajasthambhas. The main shrine has the mahamandapa, antarala and the garbha griha. The pretty toranas lead into the temple where the walls aer covered with a profusion of animals, humans, celestial apsaras, demons, dwarfs and deities. The high plinth is ornamented by a frieze of elephants and lions. Shiva is worshipped as a giant lingam in the garbha griha.
The shikhara rises in three tiers above the sanctum, soaring to over 30 metres and topped with a cupola. Many episodes form the Mahabharata and Ramayana are shown in the friezes along the outer walls. Among the tableaux the most interesting are the myths of Shiva. In one is shown his transformation into a column of light, the jyotirlingam and there is the omnipotent god with his foot in Ravana’s head as the demon king tests his strength against Shiva by trying to shake Mount Kailash.
History of Ellora
The caves at Ellora, about 30 km. From Aurangabad, are a combination of three religious systems; Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. The first 12 caves at Ellora are the earliest and were excavated by the Buddhists over a period of 200 years from AD. 550 to about AD. 750. Unlike the paintings at Ajanta, sculptures, massive in size and superb in execution, dominate the Ellora Caves. They portray chiefly the Buddha, Bodhisattvas and other divinities and follow the accepted formulae of such representations. Howevere, these being a late Mahayana creation, Hindu influence is noticeable. The notable Buddhist caves at Ellora are 2,5,6,10,11 and 12.Cave-1 is the Vihara of AD. 7th century. Cave-2 also of the 7th century is the Chaitya-hall in which a gigantic seated Buddha occupies the shrine. Cave-3 has a large seated Buddha with Avalokitesvara and Manjusri on either side. The side walls have two life sixe groups of votaries kneeling inadoration before the Buddha, one oggering garlands and other with ahnds clasped. Cave-4 is a simple Chaitya of AD. 1st or 2nd century.
Cave-2 has twelve massive columns with cushion capitals to support the roof. Theentrance to the main shrine is fkanked by the Bodhisattvas. The huge Buddha image at the rear is seated on a Lion Throne with Padmapani and Manjusri as Chauri bearers. The galleries, however, have Buddha gifures seated on lotuses in the traditional posture of a preacher, with Bodhisattvas in attendance.
Cave-5 is the largest Vihara, 117 ft. by 56 ft.,and has twenty-four pillars. There is a seated Buddha image in the main shrine attended by Avalokitesvara on one side and Maitreya on the other side.
Cave-6 is notable for its ante-chamber which has several interesting sculptures. These include figures from vajrayana pantheon. There is also figure of the Hindu Goddess of learning, Saraswati, well-known in India today in the same representation. The river Goddess Gnaga and Yamuna are also carved.
Cave-10, known as Visvakrma, or the Capenter;s Cave, is the only proper Chaitya-hall at Ellora. Its façade, richly decorated, has the semblance of masonry work. A porch surmounted by a gallery leads to another gallery inside the chapel. The Chaitya-hall third largest in India measures 26 metres in length, 13.4 metres in width and 10.4 metres in height. In the far end is the Stupa 8.2 metres high and 4.9 metres in diameter. Besides the large number of seated and standing Buddhas, there are a number of images of the Bodhisattvas. A staircase leads to a large pillared court and to a gallery with a railed terrace.
Cave-11 and Cave-12 are large, three-story structures alike in design and represent the peak of the earlier style at Ellora. Cave-12 is the bigger of the two and is more impressive. Known as Teen Thal, it is a vast excavation. The façade, nearly 50 ft. high plain and auster-looking has porches supported by pillars in each storey. The first storey is 115 ft. by 43 ft. The large hall in the second storey, 115 ft. by 70 ft. (35 metre by 21.33 metre) and 12 ft. high, is divided likewise by forty square pillars into five asiels. The interiors make a striking contrast to the undecorated façade, for the hal in each floor has galleries of images of the Buddha and almost all the deities of the Vajrayana pantheon. Among the huge Buddha figures, with Avalokitesvara, Padmapani and Vajrapani in attendance, the one in the shrine, with arms folded and the face deeply meditative is the most impressive one.
In the Brahmanical group of caves (Nos. 13-29) at Ellora, Cave-16 known as Kailasa, Siva’s mountain abode, is one of the best and the most important monument. Chiselled from one enormous rock during AD. eight or ninth century, the temple has magnificent sculpture. More than a mile away at the northern spur of the side, there are five Jaina Caves. Of these, Cave-32, known as Indra Sabha or Assembly Hall of Indra, king of the Gods, is the best. It is quite decorative.
Autangabad, the base city for Ajanta-Ellora Caves, has also 12 Buddhist caves. These caves are 3 kms north of the city beyond Bibi-ka-Maqbara. The site is reached after a hard climb and the two groups are separated by a mile across the hillside.
Cave-6, the first in the secomd groups, is a chaitya-cum Vihara. Its shrine has a seated Buddha with Bodhisattvas in attendance, and on either side kneeling devotees as in Cave-3. Cave-7 is the latest and the most decorative one at Aurangabad. In this cave, the shrine is in the centre with the processional path around it. To the right of the main door leading to the passage is a panel containing Manjusri, with man and woman attendants. On the left is a panel of the Litany of Avalokitesvara. In each scene around the Bodhisattva two figures seem to be saved from some form of danger. They are met by Avalokitesvara flying to their rescue. The eight dangers are of ‘fire’, the "sword of an enemy", "chains or fetters (imprisonment)", shipwreck or water", "the attack of a lion", "danger from snakes"," an enraged elephant", and the last "death". The sancturary contains a large image of the Buddha seated on a Lion throne, with celestial musicians and flying figures over his shoulders.
