History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s5.32

c14.s5.32

There is found in the period a śikhara style: on the square body [Nāgara plan] a four-sided śikhara.¹ Of this type, I have discovered a very small temple at Suraj Mau, which though dedicated to a lingam, now outside the temple, is called the Nāg Bābā Temple. The small temples of Karkoṭa Nāgara with śikharas, were out of a class. The temple which I discovered at Suraj Mau has in its lower square portion the perfect ‘Gupta’-body, while the śikhara part is a suggestion of so many storeys rising one on the other, tapering in imitation of a mountain peak. Such shrines at Khajurāho of Chauñsaṭh Joginis belong to that class. Cunningham rightly dates the latter before the grandfather of Dhaṅga, i.e. about 800 A.D. (A.S.R., XXI, 57). A glance at the two (the Suraj Mau Nāg Bābā)² and the Jogini shrines³ will at once convince one that the Nāga Bābā is much older. Cunningham found at Tigowa foundations of 34 such small temples,⁴ open on the east and closed on three sides, i.e. like the Suraj Mau Temple and of similar dimensions. He assigned them to the Gupta period, a date which he gave to the sculptures there. Smith after the publication of his History of Art, amended the date of the Tigowā remains by placing them in the Vākāṭaka period, contemporaneous with Samudra Gupta.⁵ I found there numerous four-sided śikhara pieces. The small śikhara temples at Karkoṭa Nāgara would also go back, at the latest, to 350 A.D., after which date the Mālavas disappeared, and the deserted town yields no coins subsequent to that date. These small temples, remains of which were found at Karkoṭa Nāgara and Tigowā, were Hindu votive temples after the fashion of the votive stūpas of the Kushan period. Architecturally thus they would follow immediately the Kushan period. A normal, as opposed to a ‘votive’, śikhara temple must have been large. Śikhara had been an old thing; ‘excellent śikharas with carved interior’ are noted in the Hathigumphā inscription (c. 160 B.C.); their artists, one hundred in number, received land-grants from the Emperor Khāravela (E.I., XX, p. 80, Insc. line, 13). The Nāgara śikhara was a particular, probably a new, variety, which arose in the time of the Nāgas, i.e. the Bhārasiva dynasty, and after their name received a permanent and wide name as ‘Nāgara’. The Vākāṭaka period, which follows the Nāga period, affords an example of the Nāgara śikhara in the shape of its Chaturmukha Śiva Temple at Nachnā. Its Pārvati Temple is an imitation of a mountain (parvata) with caves and wild animals; while the Śiva Temple has the śikhara (Kailāsa). Both are contemporary, and both styles existed contemporaneously. The age of both are fixed by what we call ‘Gupta’ sculptures, that is, the temples cannot be post-Guptan, yet they are not Guptan.¹ The figures and decorations on both were done by the same masons. The Chaturmukha Temple has a tall śikhara with slightly curved sides and having a height of about 40 feet. It stands on a raised platform. Pillars and halls it lacks [App. A].