Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c7.s3: Sopara
Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c7.s3
- Language
- English
Sopara
c7.s3.1
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
c7.s3.2
FIG. 6.—Relic box dug up at Sopārā.
c7.s3.3
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.)
c7.s3.4
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.
c7.s3.5
² See the Progress Report of the Archæological Survey of Western India for the year ending the 30th June 1898.