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YAŠASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
Mahākāla Siva. The legends connected with the numerous sacred sites and lingas of Avantiksetra, known also as Mahākāla-vana, are narrated in detail in the Avantyakhanda of the Skandapurāna. Mahākālavana is described here as a yojana in extent, and mentioned as one of the most important Saiva Tirthas along with Prabhāsa, Puşkara, Kedāra and Kāyāvarohaņa. It is possible that the famous temple of Mahākāla existed as early as the fifth century A. D. Kalidāsa, in his Meghadüta (vv. 30-7), in the course of the description of Ujjayini, refers to the sacred abode (dhāma) of Candiśvara, styled also as Mahākāla, on the Gandhavati river, which is in fact one of the sacred streams of Avantikşetra mentioned in the Skandapurana.
The temple of Mahākāla at Ujjain was as famous as that of Somanātha in Kathiawar. About the middle of the tenth century, Dhanika, a Paramāra chief of Vāgada (the modern Banswara and Dungarpur States in Southern Rajputana, not far from Ujjain), is known to have erected the Siva temple of Dhaneśvara near Mahākāla.' Early in the tenth century, the Rāştrakūța emperor Indra III, while leading an expedition to conquer Kanauj, is believed to have stopped with his war elephants at the courtyard of the temple of Mahākāla to pay homage to the deity. The great temple continued to exist for more than two hundred years after the destruction of the temple of Somanātha; but the tragedy was re-enacted in 1233 A. D. when Sultan Iltutmish invaded Ujjain and demolished the ancient shrine during the reign of the Paramāra king Devapāla. According to Firishta, the magnificent temple was built on the same plan as that of Somanātha, and is said to have occupied three hundred years in building: it contained the image of Vikramāditya as well as that of Mahākāla, which the invader caused to be conveyed to Delhi and broken at the door of the great mosque.
The Paramāras of Mālava, who ruled as independent monarchs from about the middle of the tenth century to the end of the thirteenth, and whose dominions, in their widest limits, extended from Gujarat to Central Provinces and from Khandesh to Northern Indore, were devout worshippers of Siva and great builders of Siva temples. The Paramāra king Bhoja, the most famous Indian monarch of the eleventh century A. D., built a number of temples dedicated to Kedāreśvara, Rāmeśvara, Somanātha, Sumira (?) and Kālā nalaRudra. These temples no longer exist, as most of the religious edifices of Mālava were destroyed by the Muhammadans.
1 Avantyakhanda, Chap. I of Caturaśītilinga-mähätmya. 2 See Two Paramāra Inscriptions in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXI, p. 41; Ganguli:
History of the Paramāra Dynasty, p. 337. See Cambay Plates of Govinda IV (v. 19.) in Ep. Ind., Vol VII. The Kālapriya
mentioned in the verse is believed to be identical with Mahākāla. 4 Briggs: Firishta, Vol. I, p. 211; Prasad : History of Medieval India, p. 159. 5 See Verse 20 of the Udepur Prasasti of the kings of Malvā in Epigraphia Indica, Vol.
I, pp. 222-38. Bühler takes Kāla, Anala and Rudra separately. But the referenos seems to be to Kālāgni-Rudra, one of the terrible forms of Siva, mentioned by Somadeva in Yaśastilaka, Book I, p. 151.
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