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Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s2: Pāṭṇā

Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s2

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Pāṭṇā

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Pāṭṇā, ten miles to the south-west of Chālisgaon in Khāndesh, is the site of a deserted town, now overgrown with jungle, where, scattered among the ruins, are the remains of several old temples. The range of the Sātmāla hills, running east and west and separating Khāndesh from the Nizām's territory, is at this point recessed, forming a horse-shoe-shaped valley. The hills at the entrance of the valley are about a mile apart, while the glen between them runs back about a mile and a half. At the upper end of the valley, above the temple of Āi Bhavānī on the eastern side, a rough mountain path winds up the lonely ravine—the Pitalkhorā or "Brazen Glen"—at the top of which, in the wild solitude of the rocks, is a group of very old Buddhist caves. A stream, fed by the innumerable rivulets that trickle down the sides of the hills around, winds down the Pāṭṇā valley, in one of its curves sweeping by the shrine of Āi Bhavānī, where there is still kept up a yearly *jatrā* or fair. The stream inclines, throughout its meanderings, towards the eastern side of the valley leaving a considerable area between it and the western cliffs, in which, high up above, are the cave-temples known as Nāgārjuna's Kotri, Sītā's Nhānī, and the Śrinagar Chāurī, a space ample enough for the old town of Pāṭṇā, whose ruins now occupy the ground. The whole of the valley is thickly wooded, and, being quite uninhabited, save by the owl and the jackal, the pig and the panther with an occasional tiger, it is, between the lights, quite an eerie and lonely place to camp in. The ruins of the old town are thickly scattered about, and, with difficulty, maintain their ground against the jungle which, where unable to displace them, just grows over and casts its creeper entanglements firmly around their mouldering walls. (Plates XXV—XXXII.)

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Beyond the few ruined temples, tanks and wells, there is now little above ground to represent the more ancient city. The ruins that now exist, composed of mud and rubble stone walls and Musalmān graves, are of a comparatively recent town, and that of no great size. It appears to have been walled in.

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with high mud walls and lofty bastions, as was usual in the Dakhan, within which was a citadel similarly fortified. The crumbling walls of these enclosures, with the foundations of mud and rubble-built houses, still exist. One of the walls runs along east and west by the side of the principal temple, that of Maheśvara, and is built on to it on either side; this makes the temple itself, which is upon high ground, part of the wall, the north face being within, while the south face is without the fort. Opposite this, on the south, and separated from it by a broad passage, is another small fortified enclosure in which is a small ruined temple with an inscription over its doorway. Besides these, there are two other small ruined shrines, which, like them, have been included within the fort wall on its east side. These are a few hundred yards to the east and north-east, respectively, of the first temple, one being Brahmanical and the other Jaina. With the temple of Āi Bhavānī, up the valley, these are all the remains visible of the more ancient city of Pāṭṇā.

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The temple of Maheśvara, the largest and most important, is built upon the usual plan with shrine, *maṇḍapa* or hall, and porch. The hall has been an open one, the marginal pillars, supporting the eaves, standing upon a dwarf wall which encloses the hall. There has been but one entrance, on the east side, the direction in which the temple faces. The plan of the shrine is star-shaped, being formed on the basis of a circular star of twenty-eight angles or points. Two points are absorbed, on the north, west and south, in forming the central panels on those sides, and eight have had to make way for the antechamber and entrance. The inside of the shrine is, of course, square. The pillars are of a somewhat later type than those at Ambarnātha or Balsāṇe, but their design is dignified and their proportions good. The *kīrttimukha* mask, which does not appear in the basement mouldings outside, is used very much as a decorative detail on the pillars, which have absolutely no images upon them.

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The shrine doorway, which is neatly decorated, has Gaṇapati upon the dedicatory block above, and on the threshold, on either side of the centre, is the *kīrttimukha*. In a frieze of small niches at the top, above the cornice, are images of Śiva in the centre with the *saptamātṛīs*, or seven mothers, and Gaṇapati on either side of him. In the middle of the floor of the shrine is a *liṅga*, and in the centre of the back wall is a niche to hold an image.

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The exterior walls of the temple, though fully decorated, are not so thickly overlaid as those at Balsāṇe; and what is very noticeable is the absence of much figure sculpture. The only large images have been those in the three principal niches round the shrine and on the central angle of the walls between them. Beneath them, and just above the basement, are small niches with tiny images in them. Beyond these there are no others. The image in the north niche is Mahākālī, and in the south one Bhairava; the west or back niche is empty. The *śikhara*, or spire, has disappeared. There are several images lying about which were probably in some of the niches of the temple, among which are Śiva, Pārvatī, Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa and Sūrya.

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Built into the wall of the antechamber, on the south side, is a large inscribed slab, bearing a record in ancient Devanāgarī. It belongs to a chieftain of Khandesa named Govana, and ancestor of the rulers of 1,600 villages, Sōidēva and Hēmādidēva, mentioned in the inscription at the temple of Āi Bhavānī. It records the consecration of a temple of Śiva, which had been begun by Indrarāja, the father of Govana, and had been finished after his death, as well as a grant of a village, called Devasamgana, made by Govana on that occasion. Govana's minister was Chāngadeva.¹

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¹ Indian Antiquary, VIII, 39.

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The building beside this one on the south, in the other enclosure, which is now in ruins, seems to have belonged to the larger temple. Its axis, passing through the entrance doorway and the doorway of its enclosure, passes through the centre of the shrine of the large temple; and it faces the large temple. Its interior is much like the interior of the hall on the south side of the enclosure of the temple of Gondeśvara at Sinnar. It has no shrine, the interior being a long plain hall. It was probably a maṭha or resthouse attached to the large temple. Over its entrance doorway, as already mentioned, is a much worn and damaged inscription, just as occurs over the door of the maṭha at Balsāne.

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Straight in front of the large temple, at a short distance from it, is the small ruined Brahmanical shrine, already mentioned, facing the north; and, in front of this, about a hundred yards away, is another ruined shrine originally dedicated to a Jina, having a seated Jina over the entrance doorway, and an empty throne seat, well-carved, within the shrine.

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At the upper end of the valley, on the east side of the stream, is the old, but very insignificant, temple of Āi Bhavānī. Very little of the original building remains intact, most of what is seen being rebuilt from the material of an older temple. From what little does remain the temple would appear to have been a cluster of small shrines, with one or two small halls. At present the place is in a very ruinous and dirty condition. Built into the outside of the enclosing wall is a much abraided inscription slab, but as this wall has been built partly of old temple materials, this may not be in its original position. The greater part of it is in Sanskrit, the remainder in a kind of old Marāṭhī. Its main object is to record that the chief astrologer of the Yādava king Simhaṇa, Changdeva by name, grandson of the well-known astronomer Bhāskarāchārya, founded a college for the study of the Siddhāntaśiromaṇi and other works of his grandfather and relations. The college was endowed with land and other sources of income by the brothers Sōidēva and Hēmādidēva, two members of the Nikumbha family, who, as feudatories of the Yādavas, ruled over the country of the 1,600 villages. The metrical part of the inscription is followed by a prose passage which records a grant made by Sōidēva in favour of Chāngdēva's college in Śaka 1128 (A.D. 1206). This grant must, of course, have been made some time before the inscription itself was composed; for we know, from the preceding, that the inscription was put up during the reign of Simhaṇa who began to rule in Śaka 1131. and at a time when the feudatory Sōidēva was dead and had been succeeded by his younger brother. The inscription itself is not dated, but it may have been composed in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, some time after A.D. 1209-10.²

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² Epigraphia Indica, I, 338.

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