Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

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YAŠASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
the influence of the Saiva monks of the Mattamayūra line and their monasteries in the Cedi country. As regards temples, the remains are found chiefly in Rewa State: at Chandrehe and Gurgi, not far from Rewa town, and at Bhirpur, Amarkantak and Sohagpur. The Siva temple at Chandrehe was built about the middle of the tenth century A. D. It is the earliest specimen of the circular type of temples which came into vogue in this part of the country during the tenth century. The ruins of another temple of the same type were found near the village of Masaun in the neighbourhood of Gurgi, twelve miles due east of Rewa Town. Temples of this kind, with circular garbhagrhas, are extremely rare; and it has been suggested that this type of temple architecture was designed by the builders employed by the Saiva monks of the Mattamayūra sect in the Cedi country. The Gurgi temple appears to belong to the same period as the one at Chandrehe which it closely resembles; and it is probable that it might be the Śiva temple which, according to the Gurgi inscription of Prabodhasiva, was built by the abbot Praśāntasiva, close to the very high temple of Siva built by Yuvarājadeva I, who ruled in the first half of the tenth century. The latter temple seems to have been built on the Gurgaj mound, at Gurgi, where the sites of two large temples are now marked by deep pits and the overturned colossal figures which were once enshrined inside'. The figures in question refer to a four-armed Durgā nine feet high, seated on a lion, and a still larger sculpture of Siva aad Pārvati lying on its face, the slab being more than twelve feet long by more than five feet broad. If the temples which occupied this mound bore any proportion to the size of the colossal figures which they enshrined, they must have been of considerable size, certainly not less than 100 feet in height.'
Among other temples of the Cedi region may be mentioned that of Virāțeśvara Siva at Sohagpur, the Karan Mandir at the sacred site of Amarkantak, and the temple of Vaidyanātha Mahādeva at Baijnath, all in Rewa State. The Karan Mandir is a Siva temple ascribed by local tradition to Karņa Rāja, the powerful Haihaya king who ruled in the third quarter of the eleventh century A. D. It is a temple of rare design having three separate shrines; but it never was completed. The superb magnificence of such a temple with its three tall and profusely sculptured lofty towers of graceful outline can only be realised by actual sight. Lastly, the Bheraghat inscription of Albaņādevī, the widow of king Gayākarņa, issued in 1155 A. D. records the foundation of a temple of Siva with a matha or monastery and a ball of study and gardens around them. This temple, or rather the lower part of its garbhagyha, still exists and is known by the name of the temple of Gaurīšań. kara.' It stands on the summit of a hillock at Bheraghat, better known as the Marble Rocks, thirteen miles from Jubbulpur. The temple is located within the circular enclosure of the shrine of the Sixty-four Yoginis of which we have spoken.
It will be thus seen that the early monuments of the Cedi country are almost exclusively devoted to the cult of Siva. It is evident that at the time
Gayākarņa, issued in chat inscrip
Or 2001 he lo
of study and gardiation of a temple of Siva
Gaur
1 See Chap. XV.