Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s1: Balsāne
Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s1
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Balsāne
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THE village of Balsāne is situated upon the north bank of the Burāi stream, at a distance of about twenty-seven miles in a north-westerly direction from Dhulia in Khāndesh. Near the village there are the remains of nine separate old buildings—eight temples and a *matha* or monastery. In a field, just above the bank of the stream, to the south-east of the village, are three of them; four are on high ground to the east of the village; the *matha* is at a short distance to the north-east of the last group, and there is a small temple in the fields across the river, some distance to the south of the village. Sculptured stones lie about, among which are images of the *panchalinga* and Brahmā, and the only inscription is one over the doorway of the *matha*. (Plates XVI—XXIV and XXVIII).
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Of the temples in the field, first mentioned, two are built parallel and close to one another, both facing west, while the third stands out in front of these and faces east. The larger one of the first two, to the south of the other, has been a very fine triple-shrined building, most elaborately and profusely sculptured, but it is now very shattered and weatherworn. Parts of the *sikharas* of the east, or main, and the south shrines remain, but that of the north has fallen, leaving the walls in a very shaky condition. The temple is of the same style as that of Ambarnātha, though differing in minor details, and the two must have been erected about the same time. It will be seen that the plan is very different, it having three shrines and one porch instead of three porches and one shrine as at Ambarnātha. It faces the west, and has been, from the beginning, a Śaiva temple. The shrine here is not sunk, but is on the same level as the rest of the floor of the building, and the antechamber is of full depth. In the main shrine is a *linga* and Nandi, the usual outside pavilion for the latter being absent as at Ambarnātha. The bull here, again, is not the original one. The dedicatory figures over both the shrine and main doorway have been wilfully damaged. The images upon the exterior would point to the south shrine having been occupied by a Vaishnava deity, but it is now empty. The north shrine is also empty, the images upon its walls, outside, being two *devīs* or goddesses. The east or main shrine held the *linga* of Śiva. Over the doors of the two side shrines is Ganapati, while, within each, is an altar for an image.
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There are six pillars—four in the hall, and two in the porch—of one pattern, and simpler in design than those of Ambarnātha. They have very few images upon them, their place being taken by fretwork designs.
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The ceiling patterns are similar to those of Ambarnātha. The central bay is domed, and rises, in two ascending rings of cusped mouldings, to the centre, which then falls in a cusped rosette pendant. The corners, in the angles between the beams and the circle of the dome, are filled with florid kīrtimukhas. The marginal ceilings of the hall are coved upwards from the walls to the tops of the beams over the central pillars, and are decorated with lines of ribbing as at Ambarnātha. The ceiling of the shrine is hardly less elaborately decorated than that of the hall, while that in the porch has been like that of the hall, but it is very much weatherworn.
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Passing on to the outer walls of the temple, we find them more richly encrusted with ornamental detail and more overlaid with tracery than in the temple of Ambarnātha; in fact, we have here the style in its fullest development, crystallized into its richest details, and sparkling with light and shade from summit to basement. Being a smaller building than Ambarnātha—64 feet over all—the basement is reduced in height by the further omission of the elephant moulding, thus making the basement four mouldings short of the full complement. But there is a change here in the torus moulding of Ambarnātha which has become wedge-shaped with a sharp edge. The walls above the basement are much the same as in that temple except that there is rather more richness in details. The śikharas, again, are more lavishly worked. Introduced into the walls will be found a few narrow vertical panels of scrollwork, which, later on, with surface fretwork and lozenge-shaped oranament, were used more fully to take the place of the more expensive image carving, as may be seen on the Kokamthān temple, Gondeśvara at Sinnar, and the temple of Mahādeva at Pātna. It is, here, but sparingly used.
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The principal images on the exterior of the temple are as follows: On the west face of the south shrine the image is much corroded and is not very distinct. On the south face is Narasimha, and on the east Trivikrama or the "Three Strides of Vishnu." On the south face of the main, or east shrine, is Bhairava; on the east Śiva dancing the tandava, and on the north face Mahākālī. On the west face of the north shrine is Mahisāsura-mardanī; on the north is a devī (Pārvatī?) with ten arms, who arranges the ornaments in her hair with two of her right hands, and holds up a mirror in one of her left. Two other hands, one on each side, seem to be tying something about her left leg which is raised towards them—perhaps putting on an anklet. The other niche of this shrine has fallen away. There are the usual indecent figures on the temple, but they are confined to the smaller images on the bands.
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Of the same style and age is the decorated temple with the three porches in the group on the east of the village. Here we have a temple on the same general plan as that of Ambarnātha except that, in the plan of the shrine the corners are at different angles with one another. The plan is of the star-shaped variety, as will be found repeated in the temple of Mudhai Devī at Vāghlī and in Gulteśvara at Sarnaī in the Kaira District and elsewhere. The temple faces east. The shrine is a total wreck, sufficient of the basement remaining to show what its plan was like. The ceiling panels, within the hall, are similar to those in the first temple described, save that the marginal coved ceilings, being much broader, struts rise at an angle, from the capitals of the four central pillars, to help to carry the additional weight. In the basement the garāspatti, or band of kīrtimukhas, is here replaced by a band of rosettes and lozenge-shaped flowers, the former being not unlike the heraldic rose. The shrine doorway, which still stands, is almost identical in design with that of the first temple, and, upon its dedicatory block is Gaṇapati. Curiously, the kīrtimukha faces are absent from the threshold of the first temple but are inserted upon the face of the slender pilaster on either side.
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This building is in a very dilapidated state; the stone of which it is built is of a soft nature, and has weathered in many parts to a state of murum which now crumbles away at the least touch. The broken masonry, at the back discloses the secret of the construction of its walls. An outer and an inner shell of block masonry, set up more or less on edge, are filled in between with loose blocks and boulders, without the least attempt at bonding, and with no cement of any kind. In fact, the outer and inner shells just keep the ‘filling-in’ from rolling out altogether. To prevent confusion in the description of these buildings and in the absence of names, they are numbered. This is No. 4. No. 5 is not far from it.
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Temples Nos. 2 and 3 in the first group, close to No. 1, and No. 5, are all of a later type by at least fifty years. They are characterized by less complex plans, and are practically free of figure carving on their exterior. No. 2, on the north of No. 1, though so much plainer in design, has its own merits, and cannot be considered a falling off from the more florid style of Nos. 1 and 4. It is a different style altogether, which seems to have been abruptly introduced, and to have been the type from which the later “Hemāḍpanti” of the fourteenth century may have been derived. Were it not that these temples bear the stamp of twelfth century work, one might almost think that the discontinuance of images upon the outside was due to the approach of the Muhammadans whom the Hindus soon had reason to dread as uncompromising iconoclasts and the most bitter foes of idolatry. Images, out of sight within a temple, might pass unnoticed, but those paraded upon the outside walls would but exasperate them and be a direct invitation to sacrilege.
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This particular temple had, like No. 4, a star-shaped plan, though little now is left of it. In its upturned floor—in all probability the work of Muhammadans in search of treasure—is a huge linga, while in a large niche in the back wall is a standing female image, the bust alone remaining, the rest having disintegrated away. This was probably an image of Pārvatī in one of her forms; and this being such a prominent and important image, here, it is possible she also occupied the north shrine in temple No. 1.
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The roof of the hall has fallen in, the pillars and beams remaining in their places. The type of pillar has changed entirely from those in the hall at Ambarnātha, but those in the north and west porches in the latter temple, stand about midway between the two. They are conspicuous by the absence of figure carving upon them, its place being taken by scroll and fretwork patterns. It will be seen that the pillars of both temples are made up of practically the same parts. The figure panels on the bases of the earlier ones are replaced by triangular facets, and the images upon the lower square part of the shaft are omitted, leaving the surface quite plain. The two bands of sculpture above this are replaced by fretwork panels, the kīrtimukha band above this, again, is retained, and so are the triangular ornaments above them. The capital is almost identical, and the whole is surmounted, in each case, by brackets, with squat supporting figures beneath them. There are a few small indecent figures on the walls of this shrine.
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Temple No. 3, opposite the last, is, even, a greater wreck. It is of precisely the same style. From the fallen blocks it is seen that it possessed a very finely designed ceiling panel—a small central dome adorned with cusped ornament and florid kīrtimukha corners. Ganapati presides over the shrine door. The two temples face one another and are built upon the same centre line. This one faces the east. The outside walls are rather plainer than those of No. 2. Around about, in this same field, are what appear to be the sites of other buildings.
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Returning to the group on the east of the village we find temple No. 5 a very differently planned one to those we have been considering. There is nothing new to note with reference to the main shrine, and the ceiling of the hall is supported, like others, upon four central pillars. But around the sides of the hall are a series of ten small shrines, as may be seen on the plan. In front of the hall doorway is a verandah-porch with a shrine at each end. As the temple faces the north it could not possibly have been dedicated to Śaiva worship. It was very likely Vaishnava, the main shrine containing an image of Vishnu and the ten smaller ones, round the hall, the ten avatāras of that deity. Within the main shrine is the image of a horseman, which may possibly be one of these, viz., the Kalka avatāra; but at our visit the front of the temple had been walled up, all but a small doorway, and the interior was so dark and filled with the overwhelming stench of bats, that it was not possible then to examine it thoroughly. The pillars and the exterior walls agree in style with those in temple No. 2. Beside the temple, on the same platform, is a little shrine with a partly mutilated standing devī somewhat similar to that in the shrine of No. 2. This building is plain and consists of a small shrine and an open antechamber, and it also faces the north. To the west of these is a small, simply constructed temple, very plain, facing east.
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Upon a knoll, about a hundred and fifty yards to the north-east of this group, is a low square plain building which is, as an inscription over the doorway declares, a matha or residence for priests. It consists of a large square room with plain walls, and four central pillars supporting the roof. A doorway leads out into a verandah, now partly destroyed, in each end of which is a small cell-shrine. The doorway has been, unlike those of the temples, fitted with a wooden door, sockets being provided in the stone frame, above and below, for the door to swing in, and large square deep channels in either side, about half way up, for a beam to slide in, behind the door. The outside walls are perfectly plain, and no ornament whatever appears to have been applied.
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The inscription which is above the doorway, in five long lines, records the rebuilding of the *matha*, which had been ruined, by Pandita Śrī Mahālūka on the banks of the Kesara at Balasāṇa in Saka 1106 (A.D. 1184). The river is now known as the Burāī.
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In addition to the remains already described, there are a small temple about half a mile to the south of the village, several *sati* and memorial stones, and mutilated sculptures in and around the village. One of the best of the memorial stones stands in front of temple No. 5. They are generally tall, square columns—not flat slabs as found in the Kanarese districts—sculptured upon all four faces with representations of warriors, death scenes of the heroes commemorated, their arrival in paradise, the *liṅga* as their object of worship, and other scenes. A group of these stands upon high ground between the river and the village. Amongst other sculptures lying about is a large boar covered with little figures in rows along his back. This may have been connected with the Vaishṇava temple No. 5.