Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c13.s9: Dhotra
Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c13.s9
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Dhotra
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At Dhotra, eighteen miles south of Chikhli, are three old temples, the one about a quarter of a mile south of the village, in the fields, being the most important. It is a temple of Śiva, faces the east, and consists of a shrine and a closed maṇḍapa. The entrance is in the east end of the hall, opposite the shrine, while, off each of the two sides of the hall, is a deep recess like a shallow shrine without a doorway. A most unusual thing with the pilasters in this temple is that their shafts are built in sections, with the courses of the wall masonry, and are not, as in earlier work, a single stone built into the wall. The bracket capitals of the pillars have the cobra ornament upon them. Within the shrine is a liṅga. The dedicatory blocks above the shrine doorways have been left plain without images. (Plate CXII.)
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FIG. 16.—Pillar in the old temple at Dhotra.
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The exterior of the temple is fully moulded in horizontal bands of mouldings running round the whole of the walls, but there are no images, not even those three in a big chignon at the back. The left hand rests upon the knee and holds a fruit; the right hand has gone. Above her head is a wreath of flowers, over which is seated a little Jina, and beneath her seat are three panels, in the centre one of which are three heads in a row, each with a pyramidal coiled head-dress. Under the devī's left knee is a small tiger or lion. It is probably intended to represent Ambikā (Ambājī, Ambādevī or Ambā Bhavānī), a favourite Jaina goddess.
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FIG. 15.—A broken image at Sātgaon.
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SĀKEGĀON.
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Another temple of the same style and age as that at Sātgaon, and in an equally ruinous state, is that of Mahādeva at the village of Sākegāon, six miles west of Chikhli. It faces the east, and consists of a shrine, an antechamber and a hall, with a porch in front of the entrance on the east. It was surrounded by a heavily-built wall enclosing a courtyard, the entrance to which is on the north side. To the south of the main building is a small subsidiary temple facing the north, against which the surrounding wall abuts on either side, from which it is evident that the wall was built after the shrine. The masonry of the walls, and the pillars of the courtyard gateway, are of the same style and age as those of the temple at Mehkar, and therefore later than the temple itself. (Plate CX.)
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The walls of the *maṇḍapa* and shrine are quite free of images, save for those in two of the three large niches round the shrine, and are decorated with the usual basement mouldings and bands of geometric ornament. The back wall of the shrine, or rather its outer casing, has fallen, carrying with it a great part of the spire on that side. The back niche has gone with it. In the niche on the south side is an image of Naṭeśa, or the *tāṇḍava* of Śiva, and in that on the north side is an image of Mahākālī. The front of the tower is decorated with the trifoliated *chaitya* arch, and, under it, are the images of the *tāṇḍava* and of Śiva and Pārvatī, while upon the sides of the same are those of Bhairava, Mahiṣāsura-mardanī and Gaṇapati. Within the shrine is the *liṅga*.
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In the small temple, on the south side of the main building, against the back wall, is a seat for an image, but it is now absent, and it is not known to what deity the shrine was dedicated.
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KOTHALI.
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At Kothali, twelve miles south-east of Pimpalgāon-Rājā in the Buldānā District, are two old temples of the "Hemāḍpanti" class. The largest the temple of Mahādeva—is in the town, and has three shrines with one common hall. It faces the east and has Gaṇeśa over the shrine doorways, all of which are elaborately carved. In the main shrine is an old square *śālunka* with a circular hole for a *liṅga*; but the latter has gone. In the side shrine, on the north, is a *liṅga*, but the shrine on the south is empty. The hall has no pillars. The porch before the entrance has fallen, the platform, only, remaining. Out in front of this porch stand the ruins of what was once, perhaps, the Nandi pavilion, but it is ruined. Beyond this, again, are the remains of the main entrance to the temple courtyard with its steps. The *śikhara* was probably built of brickwork, since some brick masonry remains upon the roof and no carved *śikhara* stones lie about. (Plate CXI.)
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The second temple is outside the village to the south-east. It is dedicated to Chintāmaṇi, and faces west. It is made up of a shrine and *maṇḍapa*, the latter being supported upon four pillars. Gaṇeśa presides upon the lintel. The shrine doorway is carved, but not so elaborately as in the first temple.
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At Dhotra, eighteen miles south of Chikhli, are three old temples, the one about a quarter of a mile south of the village, in the fields, being the most important. It is a temple of Śiva, faces the east, and consists of a shrine and a closed *maṇḍapa*. The entrance is in the east end of the hall, opposite the shrine, while, off each of the two sides of the hall, is a deep recess like a shallow shrine without a doorway. A most unusual thing with the pilasters in this temple is that their shafts are built in sections, with the courses of the wall masonry, and are not, as in earlier work, a single stone built into the wall. The bracket capitals of the pillars have the cobra ornament upon them. Within the shrine is a *liṅga*. The dedicatory blocks above the shrine doorways have been left plain without images. (Plate CXII.)
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FIG. 16.—Pillar in the old temple at Dhotra.
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The exterior of the temple is fully moulded in horizontal bands of mouldings running round the whole of the walls, but there are no images, not even those three principal ones usually found upon the walls of the shrine. In this, as well as in temple No. 11 at Lonar, we find bands of chequered squares used in the ornament. That is, the surface of the stone is marked out into one inch squares, every alternate one being sunk. This was a favourite, and often characteristic ornament in very early temples, such as those of the Gupta period, but seems to have fallen out of use, in Western India at least, and not to have been used again until resuscitated in these very late shrines.
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On the west of the village is another old temple, but it is very much dilapidated. It has a shrine and hall with a porch and entrance on the east. The whole of the *mandapa* has fallen with the roofing of the porch. The exterior is severely plain.
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On the north-west of the village is another old ruined shrine with a closed *mandapa*, from which the outer casing of the walls has gone. The shrine is empty; the temple faces the east. In a row, over the shrine door, are nine faces, the third from each end having a curved tusk in the two corners of the mouth, otherwise the faces are alike.
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TEMPLE IN H. E. H. THE NIZAM'S TERRITORY.
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AUNDHA.
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A T Aundha, some forty miles to the south of Bāsim, in Haidarābād territory, is one of the twelve famous *jyotirliṅgas* of India in the temple of Nāganātha. The town is of some importance and considerable trade, standing, as it does, at the crossing of the trade routes from Nirmal and the Sirpur forests to Jālna and Aurangābād, and from Haidarābād to the Berārs. A very heavily-built stone wall originally surrounded the town, portions of which still exist. It is very pleasantly situated in a level and well cultivated plain surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills. Upon the east and south it is approached by rather steep and rough passes which ascend from the lower country on those sides. It has the appearance of being an ancient place, for parts of very old walls still exist, which are far older than the crumbling ones which now partly surround the town. Ancient Jaina temples, as well as Hindu ones, once flourished here, their remains now being the foul-smelling abodes of the bat and owl.
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The temple of Nāganātha is a building of two periods, the older portions of which, from the ground level to the eaves, being probably thirteenth century work carried out in the style of the Hindu work of North Gujarāt of the same period. When compared with the work of the temple of Ambarnātha, it is seen to be not quite so crisp and delicate of execution, and this is most noticeable in the figure sculpture. In the basement mouldings, as in the temple of Lakshmī-Nārāyaṇa at Pedgāon, occurs the horse-moulding above that of the elephants, and, thus, it contains the full complement of mouldings provided in the canons of architecture as followed in North Gujarāt. There is a double row of images which could only be introduced upon the larger buildings of this class. The whole of the whitewashed roof is of much later work. (Plates CXIII—CXV.)
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The half lotus band, just above the band of little figures at the top of the basement, is unusual, and although a regular Gujarāt ornament, it is seldom found in that province upon old buildings before the Hindu architects introduced it largely into the decoration of the mosques and tombs which they raised for their Muhammadan conquerors.¹ The pillars remind one much of some of those in the thirteenth century temple of Tejahpāla at Dilwārā on Mount Ābu. They have lost the more graceful outline of those of the eleventh century.
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¹ It occurs on the old temple at the Hīrā Gate at Dabhoi, of A.D. 1253.
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The floor of the shrine is considerably sunk below that of the hall, and the *liṅga* is thus not seen from the hall doorway.
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There is at Aundha the ruins of an old brick temple, in which the bricks have been carefully moulded to the contour of the ornamental bands which run round the building. The bricks are exceptionally well made and their edges are sharp and crisp. A small amount of stone masonry has been used in the entrance doorway and the beams, as well as in a low moulded plinth upon which the temple stands.