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Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c7: Temples in the Thāna District

Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c7

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Temples in the Thāna District

Ambarnātha

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THOUGH not strictly within the confines of the Dakhan it will be well to include a description of the old shrine of Ambarnātha since it is of the same style of work as those above the Ghāts. It is a solitary and superb example, which could neither be conveniently included in an account of the Chālukyan temples of the south of those of Gujarāt on the north. Moreover, it is the earliest dated example of the Dakhan style that we have found.

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The little village of Ambarnātha is situated about four miles south-east of Kalyān, and a mile and a half west of the Ambarnātha station on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, in the Thāna District. At a short distance to the east of the village, in a hollow upon the bank of a small stream, stands the venerable pile of weather-stained sculptured stone—the old temple of Ambarnātha. It is practically in disuse at present, a solitary pujāri attending once or twice a day to strew a few flowers upon its almost deserted linga. The general mass of the building has a rather heavy and gloomy look, owing, in great measure, to the truncated condition of its sikhara, and the absence of the many crowning finials of the roof which originally lightened its otherwise heavy outline. Upon closer inspection the mass breaks up into a thousand facets of light and shade, and the rich and multitudinous carvings of its surface reveal themselves in all their fantasy of design and form. The walls are found to be cunningly arranged in alternate projections and recesses. These, again, are crossed by horizontal lines of deeply cut mouldings, which, with the great profusion of images, large and small, produce a most bewildering but, withal, pleasing effect of chiaroscuro. (Plates III—XI.)

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At the back of the temple, the stream is dammed up at this point to form a long deep pool, and, upon its still surface, fringed with reeds and boulders, are reflected the old gnarled branches of the trees that overhang its grassy banks, and the lights and shadows of the fretted temple in the background. The flaming blossoms of the scarlet palasa stand out in gorgeous contrast with the purplish-black masonry of the shrine. The temple being in ruins, and well-nigh deserted by human beings, it is a peaceful spot whose quiet is broken only by the busy mainas in the trees above or the occasional splash of a solitary kingfisher in the pool. From the walls of the temple rows of sleepy-eyed deities look down complacently upon the comings and goings of the infrequent pilgrim or casual visitor as they have ever done during the long, long centuries and still they hold their own counsel. Could we but see all their stoney eyes have looked upon through those ages, what a strange panorama of life would unfold itself!

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Though the gods without are silent, their lips being sealed, the stones within cry out; and, with no uncertain voice, they tell us something of the origin of this *chef-d'œuvre* of the builder's art. Upon a beam, above the inside of the north door of the hall, is engraved an inscription which records that in *Saka* 982 (A.D. 1060) this temple was built (possibly upon the site of an older one) during the reign of the Silāhāra chief Mummuṇi or Māmvāṇi. We shall notice it in more detail further on.

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The original enclosure around the temple, which has been walled about, measures some fifty yards from east to west by thirty-five from north to south. The temple itself measures 89 feet by 73½ feet. About fifteen yards to the west of the temple are the ruins of two carved gateways. Close to the temple on the south-west is a small tank entered by a carved doorway and surrounded by a ruined wall.

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The temple faces the west, and is made up of the sanctum and *maṇḍapa* or hall, the latter being provided with three entrances, each with its own porch. Four free-standing pillars support the ceiling of the hall; and these, with six others in the three porches, are all that are found in the temple. The plan, as will be seen, is peculiar, being apparently made up of two squares set diagonally to one another, touching corner to corner—the smaller being the shrine, the larger the hall. But in reality it is formed of two squares touching side to side, whose sides have been whittled down to narrow panels by the deep recessing of the corners into a line of angles running straight between the diminished sides. This produces very unequal thickness in the masonry, but, at the same time, as will be seen in the photograph, these heavy masses come immediately under the heavier portions of the *śikhara* above. In the hall, the recesses of the doorways tend to equalise the thickness of the walls, the weight of the roof being more equally spread over them. Yet there are places where the masonry seems to be dangerously thin. The projections around the walls form so many buttresses to strengthen them. As with all this class of old work, the masonry is put together without cementing material, the stability of the mass depending upon the weight and level bedding of the blocks composing it. The varied treatment of the square, in designing the plans of these temples, the sides being more or less broken up by projections and recesses, tends to produce somewhat fanciful, yet, nevertheless, pleasing-looking figures.

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The floor of the shrine is sunk below the outside ground level, and some eight feet lower than that of the hall. It is approached by a flight of steps, space for which is obtained by sacrificing nearly the whole depth of the usual antechamber, thus bringing the shrine door considerably forward. There seems to be little doubt that the original shrine was on the same level as the hall, but that the fall of the *śikhara* crushed down through its floor and destroyed it. Upon both the north and south walls, at a height of eight feet above the present floor, and on the same level as the hall floor, is a broken ledge of masonry which might well be the remains of the slabs of the upper floor where they were built into the wall. Another broken ledge beneath this on the north wall only, four feet seven inches from the floor, will no doubt be all that is left of the broad shelf which is generally found in these shrines. A temple of the same age as this—that of Sūrya at Mudhera in north Gujarāt—was similarly provided with an upper and a lower shrine, the upper, with its śikhara, having been blown up with gunpowder by the Muḥammadans. The modern shrine of Somanātha at Paṭṭan in Kāṭhiāwād has a lower shrine in which the principal liṅga is placed, a duplicate, for every day worship, being placed in the upper shrine. This was so arranged at a time when Muḥammadan aggression was feared, when the entrance to the lower was closed and the iconoclasts were allowed to wreak their vengeance upon the upper or dummy liṅga.

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The liṅga is but a projecting lump of natural rock, and, for that reason, probably, a much more sacred object than the one which was in the upper shrine. A natural rock liṅga, like this, is in the shrine of the celebrated jyotirliṅga temple of Oṅkāra at Māndhāthā on the Narmadā in the Central Provinces.

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The small shrine on the north-east corner of the hall has been a later addition to the building.

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Fig. 5.—Pillar in the temple of Ambarnātha.

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Of the pillars there are three varieties. The four in the hall are alike and are richly carved (Fig. 5). They are somewhat similar in style to those in Vimala Śā’s temple at Abu and the old temple of Somanātha at Paṭṭan. A second variety is found in the main, or west, and the south porches, while those in the north porch differ again from these. though not so much as they all do from those in the hall. The principal difference in the porch pillars is that, while those in the west and south porch rise from the square to round necks and round capitals, those in the north porch continue the square plan all the way up. It might have been expected that, since the side porches are symmetrically placed with reference to the whole building, their pillars would have been of the same pattern, even though those of the main porch differed. The pilasters correspond, more or less, with the pillars which stand before them.

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The ceiling panels, within the hall, are very richly decorated in the prevalent style of the best work of the eleventh century. In the central bay, which rests upon the four heavy beams over the four central pillars, is the main dome. It rises in a series of concentric circles to a central pendant. The lowest circle is decorated with a running scroll, while the remaining four are scooped out into half cup-shaped and cusped hollows. These allow of an effective play of light and shade. The triangular spaces in the corners, between the angle of the beams and the edge of the circle, are filled in with the *kīrtimukha* face and scrollwork. Between the central dome and the shrine doorway are two flat ceiling panels which are repeated in the recesses of the three entrance doorways. These are decorated with lotus rosettes and other flat ornament. The ceiling, upon three sides, between the columns and the walls, is coved downwards from the inner square to the walls, and this is decorated with two tiers of ribbing with lozenge-shaped rosettes between the ribs. The ceilings of the porches are flat. In the hall the faces of the beams are decorated with rows of little figures in miniature pillared niches, and a string course of these runs round the tops of the walls just under the coved ceiling. This string course is broken above the north entrance by a curious group of sculpture which will be noticed again in connection with the inscription below it.

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The doorways are of the style generally found in these temples, and are adorned with the usual mouldings. A slender pilaster on either side, at the base of which are small standing figures, supports the two ends of the overhanging cornice, each being set in the middle of a group of vigorously cut vertical mouldings. Above the cornice is a row of small figures set in little pillared niches, the central seated figure being Śiva. The raised threshold of the doorway has a *kīrtimukha* face on either side of the central boss; and, before it, is the ornamental *ardhachandra*, or low step, like a half round mat.

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A noticeable feature, in the basement mouldings on the exterior, is the torus or half round moulding, immediately under the *garāsaṭṭi* or line of *kīrtimukha* faces. This follows more the section of the moulding as found in very old temples. It will hardly be found again in later work as it changes to a knife-edged moulding, somewhat wedge-shaped in section, as in the temples at Balsāṇe for example. No temple, unless it be of the largest class, has a complete series of mouldings in the basement, certain of them being omitted, in a regular order, as the dimensions of the building decrease. Here we find three missing, viz., the *chajali* which should come in between the round moulding, described above, and the *garāsaṭṭi* or band of faces; the *aśvathara* or horse moulding which should have come immediately above the band of elephants, and the *narathara*, or band of men, which is usually the topmost moulding of the basement. The top of the basement series of mouldings should always be on the same level as the floor of the hall, and it is so in this case. The band of scrollwork does not belong to the *pīṭha* or basement but to the *maṇḍora* or walls. In the basement of the great temple of Somanātha, at Paṭṭaṇ, these three missing bands are found, the full complement of mouldings being inserted.

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The walls proper, or *maṇḍora*, from the basement to the cornice, have the ordinary mouldings and figure panels. In the Somanātha temple, in order to get extra height for the larger structure, the *jangha*, or band of figure panels, is duplicated. It is in this band that the principal images, which adorn a temple, are found. They are made up of gods and goddesses, *yogis* and dancing girls, with, now and again, some quaint sculpture thrown in. There are three principal niches on the outside of the walls of the shrine—one in the centre of each—and it is from the images in these that it is possible to determine the deity to whom the temple was dedicated. This especially applies to the niche on the back wall of the shrine. In this case it contains a threefold image, or, at least, an image with three faces, which appears to represent the *trimūrti*, or trinity of the three gods Siva, Brahmā and Viṣṇu. It is a standing male figure with three faces and eight arms, but all of the latter are broken off, save the upper left, which holds the serpent of Siva. The more usual way of representing the *trimūrti* is by a bust only, with three faces, such as we find it in the Elephanta and Elurā caves and in the temples on Chitorgaḍh. On the north side the principal niche is occupied by Mahākālī, one of the forms of Pārvatī, the wife of Siva, while below her, in the basement niche, is Brahmā with his wife upon his knee. This image had been mistaken for another *trimūrti*, but the fact of the wife being present should dissipate this idea; for, in that case, she would be the common wife of the three divinities! Moreover, the faces are bearded, which is usually the case with Brahmā but not with the *trimūrti*. Then, again, the symbols held in the hands are all those of Brahmā—the *śaluṅkā* staff, the book, bound round with cord, the rosary and the waterpot. Brahmā's goose, or what remains of it, is seen below his right knee. The central niche on the south side has Siva dancing the *tāṇḍava* as Naṭeśvara. The basement niche, below this, is empty, as is also that on the east side beneath the *trimūrti*. Above Mahākālī, on the north side, is a mutilated image which appears to be another *trimūrti*, and above this, again, in a circular niche, is Naṭeśvara. A small image of Brahmā is seen up above the *trimūrti* on the east face. The roof, from the cornice upwards, is in what Fergusson designates the Northern or Aryan style, which has been described in the Architectural Note. Quite half the tower has fallen, but it is not difficult to reconstruct it from more complete examples, elsewhere, of the same class. The tower has had rather a fine frontispiece, judging from the fragment that remains of this above the roof of the hall.

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The temple has been surrounded by a courtyard containing smaller buildings, but it is now a ruin, and most of the material has disappeared. There was, no doubt, a pavilion right in front of the west or main entrance, under which the Nandi or bull rested, facing the shrine. This has gone and a Nandi, which is probably not the original one, now occupies the main porch. On the south side of the courtyard is a small square tank with steps leading down to the water.

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It remains to notice the inscription. This, as already stated, is inscribed upon a beam above, and inside, the north doorway of the hall. It tells us that in *Saka Samvat* 982 (A.D. 1060), during the reign of the illustrious *Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara* Māṃvanirājadeva, and while certain ministers of his, who are mentioned by name, were in power, the temple of Śrī Amranātha was built, or rebuilt, (the text is not very clear). Built or rebuilt matters little, for the rebuilding, if there had been any, would simply mean the erection of the present temple, in the place of an older one, which was possibly in brick and thatch. There has been a difference of opinion as to the first figure in the date. It is an unusual form and somewhat like a 7, which some scholars thought it was, while others considered it a 9. The style of the temple, when compared with others elsewhere. is undoubtedly of the 11th century A. D. and certainly not of the 8th, and there is no reason to suppose the inscription refers to an older temple or has been brought from anywhere else. The beam, on which it is, is an integral part of the temple, and fits its place as accurately as any other in the temple. There is not a vestige of sculptured stonework of a 8th century or earlier building; the few sculptured fragments found built into the masonry of the present temple, in other than their proper positions, are nothing more than spoilt and rejected blocks used up as "filling-in." We frequently find the same in other temples. This identical form for 9 has been found on a set of Śilāhāra copper plates, found at Thāṇa by Mr. K. B. Pāthak, in which the date 1049 is expressed in words as well as numerals, thus removing all doubt about it.

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The Māmvāṇi or Mummuṇi of the inscription was one of the Śilāhāra Mahāmaṇḍaleśvaras of the northern Koṅkaṇ whose capital was Purī, which was possibly situated on Sālsette island near the Kondivte caves, and five or six miles south of those of Kaṇheri, where, in spite of the clearances and appropriations of the Portuguese, and the Muhammadans before them. there are still a few remains of the Hindu period both above and below ground.¹ The great feudatory family of the Śilāhāras was divided into three main branches, one of which ruled over the Northern Koṅkaṇ while the other two governed the Southern Koṅkaṇ and the districts around Karād and Kolhāpur respectively. The Śilāhāras of the Northern Koṅkaṇ were tributary to the Rashtrakūṭas and the later Chālukyas of Kalyāṇa. Māmvāṇi was thus, in all probability, a feudatory of the Chālukya king Somēśvara I. They carried the suvarṇa-Garuḍa-dhvaja, or the ‘Banner of the Golden Garuḍa,’ which device is found upon their copper-plate grants. They bore the hereditary title of Tagarapura-paramēśvara, or ‘Supreme Lord of the city of Tagarapura,’ commemorative of their original home. In the Kanheri Caves is one of their inscriptions, dated in A.D. 842, giving the name of their capital as Purī, and their territory the whole of the Koṅkaṇ. As this records a grant to the Buddhist community at the mount of Kṛishṇagiri (Kaṇheri) it shews that that sect was still flourishing in the Koṅkaṇ in the ninth century, and was worshipping side by side with their Hindu neighbours.

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¹ See note on Purī in the Appendix.

Pārol

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There are, in the Northern Koṅkaṇ, a few other mediæval remains which may be mentioned. At Pārol, a village at the base of the eastern slopes of Tuṅgār hill, and about twelve miles north-east of Bassein, are the remains of at least four old Hindu temples, at none of which worship is now carried on. The two called the temples of the big and little pools—the Mothā and Lahān Tānkyas—stand on the southern and northern banks of a stream which runs down the steep side of Tuṅgār. The Lahān Tānkya temple is about half a mile west of Pārol village; it is levelled to the ground and is now represented by a heap of carved stones. The Big Pool or Mothā Tānkya temple, about half a mile further up, is better preserved. It has an older look about it than the temple of Ambarnātha, and its comparatively plain walls contrast with the profusely decorated ones of that temple. There is very little of it left standing—just the back and portions of the side walls of the shrine. (See Plates XII and XIII.)

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Of two in the limits of the village of Majavli, one, not more than a few hundred yards south-west of the village site of Pārol, seems to have been the largest of the group. Its superstructure has gone, and only the plinth and some of the steps remain.

Sopara

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Sopārā, situated about six miles north of Bassein and a mile and a quarter in from the sea face, is one of the oldest sites in western India. It was the Suppāraka or Sūrpāraka of early Buddhist writers, the Sorpāraga, Sopāraya and Sopāraka of the Kārli, Nāsik, Nānāghāt and Kanheri cave inscriptions, the Soupara of Ptolemy, the Ouppara of the *Periplus*, and the Subara of the early Arab traveller Ma'sūdi. More interesting still, it has been identified with the Ophir of King Solomon. In 1882 a Buddhist *stupa* was opened up here which yielded

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FIG. 6.—Relic box dug up at Sopārā.

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very important relics considered to be nothing less than fragments of Buddha's begging bowl.¹ The base of another *stupa* was subsequently discovered, together with the empty relic casket, which is now in the Museum of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.² Built partly on this mound, its foundations cutting through it, had been a Hindu temple, probably Śaiva, since, among the sculptures scattered about, was a fragment of a huge linga. The sculptures lying about around the mound, in an adjacent garden, at the temple on the west bank of the Rāmakunda, on the east bank of the great Gās talāv, and on the west bank of the Nirmal tank were probably intended for this temple which appears to have been left unfinished. The great figure of Brāhmādeva, at the temple on the west bank of the Rāmakunda, is an unfinished work, it being left in the rough, and so is one of the images on the bank of the Nirmal tank, which is merely blocked out and is lying where the masons left it. (Plate XIV.)

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¹ For a full account of this most interesting discovery see the late Dr. Bhagvanlal Indraji's article in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society XV, 273.

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² See the Progress Report of the Archæological Survey of Western India for the year ending the 30th June 1898.

Borivli

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The oldest remains of a structural building in this part of the country, and, perhaps, coeval with the latest cave-temples of Kanheri in the neighbourhood, are sundry carved stones of one or more Buddhist temples scattered through the fields between the railway station of Borivli and the caves themselves. The site of one building is on a knoll about a mile east by south from the station. Lying about upon it are some small stone dāgobas, whole and in fragments, with remains of brickwork and signs of platforms. These were, probably, votive dāgobas, such as are found near the large tank on the top of Chitorgarh in Rājputānā and other Buddhist sites. They are found cut in the rock at the Bhājā caves in one big group. A slight surface clearing on the spot yielded nothing more than a solitary drilled red cornelian bead, like many of those found in such numbers upon the old site of Brāhmanābād in Sind.¹ About a quarter of a mile further on, is a small temple connected with the hamlet of Devi-ka-Pārā, beside which is the site of some Buddhist building or stūpa. In the centre was a well-laid brick platform, while, around it, on all four sides, ran one or more walls, of which the traces of foundations and some of the masonry remain. There was not sufficient left from which to form any opinion as to what the building was. A few carved stones lie about with Buddhist symbols upon them, showing that a substantial building of some sort once existed here. The bottom portion of a square stone receptacle was unearthed from the debris, which had the appearance of part of a relic box similar to the Kolhāpur one in the museum of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. There are other sites, like the first, hidden away in the jungle in this locality, no doubt once connected with the great Buddhist settlement at the Kaṇheri caves.

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¹ Annual Report of the Archæological Survey of India, 1903-4, pl. XLIX.

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FIG. 17.—Image of Brāhmā at Sopārā.

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At a short distance to the north-west of Borivli railway station, in a field, is a group of seven curious memorial stones, which, on account of their close resemblance to similar stones found in the Kanarese country, have been already described in a previous volume on Chālukyan Architecture.¹ They were probably set up during the time of the Śilāhāras of the Northern Koṅkaṇ; and, judging from the sculptures on them, they commemorated the deaths of heroes who fell in some action carried out upon land and sea. Some of the stones shew the land battle, in which elephants, protected with coats of mail, took part, while others depict the lines of vessels, propelled with banks of oars like the old Roman *biremes*, both in their advance upon the enemy and the melée itself. (Plate XV.)

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¹ *The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts.*

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There is such an action recorded. We are told that the Yādava king, Mahādeva, led his forces against those of the Śilāhāra king of Thāṇa, Somēśvara, and, according to the account of Hemadri, completely subdued him. Mahādeva invaded the Koṅkaṇ with an army consisting of a large number of elephants. Somēśvara was defeated upon land and is said to have then betaken himself to his ships. There somehow he met with his death, probably by drowning, for it is said that even the sea did not protect him, and that he betook himself to the submarine fire, thinking the fire of Mahādeva's to be more unbearable. The Koṅkaṇ was thereupon annexed by the Yādavas.²

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² *Bombay Gazetteer*, Vol. I, Part II, 246.

Lonād

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Five miles to the north of Kalyāṇ, on the other side of the river, is the small and rather insignificant temple of Rāmeśvara at the village of Lonād. It is a Śaiva shrine, but a very plain one compared with that of Ambarnātha. Like the latter, it has a sunken shrine, the floor of which is some three feet below that of the hall. The hall has fallen, and most of its material has been cleared away; but, lying around, are a good many sculptured stones, some of them with very obscene representations. An interesting thing upon one of the basement mouldings of the hall is the name of the ubiquitous *jogi* Magaradhvaja, with the once mysterious number "700" following it. This name occurs upon temples at Mārkanda, Bilhāri, Amarakantaka, Chandreha, Khurda, Khajarāha, Chitor in Bihār, in the Khairāgarh state and elsewhere, and the number puzzled the late Sir Alexander Cunningham and his assistants. They looked upon the "700" as indicating a date, but in what era they could not say, since it would fit in with no known era. It is of course impossible for a *jogi*, travelling on foot in the leisurely way they usually do, to have visited all these places in the course of one year, so we may at once discard the idea of the number indicating a date. Not long ago a bard when reciting a *kīrtana*, brought in the words, in the middle of it, "Goraknātha and his seven hundred disciples" which at once explained the mysterious number. Magaradhvaja, also, measured his importance by the number of his following: he was the leader of seven hundred disciples.¹

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¹ Mr. Hiralāl, an official in the Central Provinces, and a keen antiquarian, called my attention to this.

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Sufficient has been said to show that this part of the Koṅkaṇ has been a place of very considerable activity from the beginning of the Christian era down to the times of the Śilāhāra chiefs.

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