Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c10.s5: Pedgāon
Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c10.s5
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Pedgāon
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Pedgāon, eight miles south of Śrīgunda, stands in rather a commanding position on the high bank of the Bhīmā. The village occupies a long strip of land which, with the river on the other side, hems in an old Musalmān enclosure which is roughly a quarter of a mile square, almost completely overrun with prickly pear. The fort is said to have been built by the Dakhan viceroy Khān Jahān who was in camp here during the monsoon of 1672 when in pursuit of Sivājī. He gave the place the name of Bahādurgadh which has not been retained. The Muhammadan buildings which, judging from the great amount of debris, must have been very extensive, have almost entirely disappeared, the most complete being the Bībī Maḥall, occupying a delightful position upon the ramparts overlooking the river. But, although nearly three times the age of the Musalmān remains, and despite the devastating effect of the spoiler's hand, there still remain, within the precincts of the fort, the ruins of five old temples, one of which, that of Lakshmī-Nārāyaṇa, is a perfect little gem. Pedgāon must have been a place of importance long before the advent of the Muhammadans, and, perhaps, this was due, in great measure, to its favourable position on the Bhīmā. At this point the Sarasvatī river, upon which Śrīgunda stands, joins the Bhīmā, the junction of rivers being generally considered more or less sacred places. (Plates LXXIV and LXXVI—LXXXIV.)
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The temple of Lakshmī-Nārāyaṇa, measuring about 54 by 35 feet when complete, is most profusely decorated both within and without, and its outer walls are thickly covered with image sculpture, which has come in for a certain amount of delicate attention from Musalmān iconoclasts. It is a Vaishṇava temple, facing west, built upon a high part of the bank above the river. Its tower, now absent, was, probably, like many of this class, constructed in brickwork. The basement mouldings are crowded with little figures of horses, elephants and men: the *aśvathara* or horse moulding, just above the elephants, being very rarely found in these temples. The walls, pillars and door frames are all richly wrought, but by no means so minutely as in the temple of Ambarnātha.
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The pillars are of a different type to those at Ambarnātha and Balsāne, having a new feature introduced which is found in most of the mediæval temples of North Gujarāt, namely, the water pot and foliage element.¹ It occurs in the temples at Jodghā and Kokamthān already described. In this case, however, the waterpot is rather masked by an ornamental ribbing of lotus buds and stalks which are bound around it by a narrow band or fillet. The foliage, very much conventionalised, hangs over the lip of the jar or pot and forms four corners upon which rests a thin square slab.² The waterpot, with and without foliage, enters very largely into the designs of the pillars in the cave-temples, where, as in the Kārli cave, it forms, without foliage, the greater part of the base and, inverted, the capital of the pillar.
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¹ See *The Architectural Antiquities of Northern Gujarāt*, by Dr. Jas. Burgess and Mr. H. Cousens.
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² This carries out the same idea as in Corinthian capitals, where the upward growing foliage, meeting the under surface of the flat tile or abacus, curls back upon itself, and, in the Indian examples, hangs down in more pendent masses. Good examples of this, occurring in early work in the cave-temples, may be seen in the plates LVIII, LXIII, LXVI (ribbed somewhat like the Pedgāon pillars) and LXXXIV in the *Cave-temples of India* (Fergusson and Burgess).
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The large band of images, around the walls, is not cut with the same delicacy of touch as in the earlier work; but the figures stand out boldly from the walls and are very effective.
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The hall, which had three porches, is enclosed by perforated screen walls, as may be seen in the elevation on Plate LXXXI, which allowed more light and air into the interior than in the older temples. This perforated panelling, like that in the side shrine at Kokamthān, is very plain when compared with the decoration of the shrine walls, and is an effective foil to the latter. Nor is it anything so rich as that found in Chālukyan temples, such as that of Trikuteśvara at Gadag in the Dhārwār District. It is here, perhaps, more the result of economy than any special purpose of design, for it is very evident that, for these later temples, not so much money was forthcoming as for the earlier. This, too, may account for the brick and plaster towers as found in the Kokamthān example.
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In the photograph, Plate LXXVIII, is seen the rough method of laying the foundations of the building with rough boulders upon the ground surface, already noticed in the Architectural Note.
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Standing out in front of this temple, and facing it, is the ruined temple of Bāleśvara. It is a picturesque pile of ruins, and looks particularly fine in the evening, backed up with the setting sun and the far-away windings of the Bhīmā. Besides these, the other temples here are those of Rāmeśvara, Kholeśvara (called also Malikārjuna) and Bhairavnātha, originally a Jaina temple. There is nothing particularly striking about these. They are sadly ruined and dismantled, the shrine only, in each case, standing, the rest being heaps of ruins.