Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s5: Chāngdeva
Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s5
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Chāngdeva
c8.s5.1
Of about the same age as the temple at Sangameśvara is that of Chāngdeva at the village of the same name near the junction of the Purnā with the Taptī, fifteen miles east of Bhusāval. It has been a large and fine building, but whether it was ever originally finished or not is not very clear. It has been finished off in later times, with brick and mortar in a very clumsy manner. The whole length of the temple measures 97 feet, and it faces the east. At the entrance there are some inscriptions, but they are much effaced. The roof of the hall has gone, together with some of the pillars, and portions, only, of the lower parts of the walls of the hall remain, upon which mud and brick continuations have been carried up to supply the missing portions. The basement is silted up, and two or three feet of the lower mouldings are buried. The original stone walls end with the string course above the cornice, and it is possible that the śikhara was built, or was intended to be built, in brick and plaster as in the temple at Kokamthān in the Ahmednagar District. The temple appears to have been dedicated to Vaiṣṇava worship. (Plates XXXVIII—XL.)
c8.s5.2
Upon the broad sculptured band around the shrine walls are some boldly cut images, which stand out in relief from the walls, and are not placed in niches as in the earlier temples. Most of these are female images, the only male ones occupying the principal panels, one on each. On the north, west, and south central panels is a group of three figures, being in each case a male with a female on either side of him, which may well represent Kṛiṣṇa and some of his lady friends in whose company he is generally shewn. These male figures are possessed of but two arms each, which show that they cannot claim a higher status than demi-gods or avatāras.
c8.s5.3
As in the temple of Mahādeva at Sangameśvara there is a small oval dome in the antechamber to the shrine. Within the shrine is an image which is said to be that of Chāngdeva. Where the water of ablution runs out through the shrine wall on the north side, there is a very ornamental gargoyle in the shape of a *makara*, much like the one at the temple of Gondeśvara at Sinnar in the Nāsik District.
c8.s5.4
In the river bed is a temple of modern construction, built, it is said, by Queen Ahalyabāī of Indor, which has come to grief in a curious manner. The whole of the upper part of the temple has tumbled over into the bed of the river *en bloc*, and now lies partly buried in the sand, leaving the lofty platform, upon which it was built, with nothing upon it except the lower courses of the temple plinth. The two styles of construction—the older and the more recent—are well exemplified by these two temples. In the older no mortar was used, the massive blocks
c8.s5.5
FIG. 6.—Temple in the bed of the river at Chāngdeva.
c8.s5.6
being kept in their places by their own weight, superimposed one upon the other without any cementing material, and, sometimes, with a very sparing use of clamps. It thus naturally follows that when the foundations of such buildings give way the superstructure comes down like a house of cards, the blocks sliding off one another. In the more modern, mortar has been used with smaller blocks; and, the mortar being exceptionally strong, the whole has hardened into a solid mass. The temple of Ahalyabāī having been thus built, went over during a severe flood, in one mass intact. In the bed of the stream at Patunde between Chālisgāon and Vāghli, is another instance of the great tenacity of mortar in similar circumstances. It is the great square room of what appears to have been a Musalmān mausoleum, canted over off its basement into the sand at such an angle that a person may stand upon the accumulated sand outside and look down into the interior over the tops of the four walls, the dome having slid off. The four walls just hold together in an apparently uninjured state.