The medieval Martand Surya Temple of Kashmir, located just five miles away from Anantnag, is, regrettably, a legacy lost. Its ruins suggest a once-magnificent, pedimented structure with soaring, pyramidal roofs, strategically sited on an alluvial plateau, the Mattan karewa [1], against a background of distant, snowy peaks. A. A. Cunningham described it as “perhaps the finest view in the known world”. Built of enormous, dressed limestone ashlars arranged in horizontal courses, and bonded with lime mortar and metal dowels, the now heavily-mutilated temple, dedicated to Surya, the sun god, is believed to have been constructed in the reign of Lalitaditya Muktapida of the Karakota dynasty of Kashmir in the second quarter of the 8th century. [2] The grand conception of this temple reflects the dynamic personality of Lalitaditya, the scion of an energetic, warlike dynasty who left behind a vast empire and impressive monuments. It is believed to be the only sun temple in the whole of north India, and the oldest in the country. [3]
As part of several empires and their outreach, be it Gupta, Kushan or Gandhara, Kashmir knitted together diverse architectural and cultural traditions into an artistic vocabulary to evoke a style that was more suited to its geographical and climatic exigencies. Its proximity to prominent Gandharan sites (such as Taxila, Peshawar and the northwest frontier) ensured considerable commercial intercourse and artistic exchange between the two. [4] Gandhara flourished at the crossroads of Asia, connecting trade-routes and absorbing cultural influences from diverse civilizations. This ensured an incorporation of the Graeco-Roman and Indo-Buddhist influences into Kashmir’s art. In fact, important Buddhist communities continued to thrive in Kashmir long after the mid - 5th century, when Gandhara was conquered by the Huns. The spiritual landscape of Kashmir is, thus, a melting-pot of various religions and philosophical traditions and its monuments stand testament to this cultural diversity. Some of the characteristic features of medieval Kashmiri temples exhibit striking foreign flavours such as the peristylar quadrangle, a ubiquitous use of the classical Greek fluted column [5] (particularly in the peristyle), pedimented trefoil arches, and a variety of pilasters and quasi-Doric columns.
All these can be seen in the Martand Surya Temple. Like most medieval temples of Kashmir, the Martand Surya Temple consists of a courtyard with a central shrine and a colonnaded peristyle. The peristyle of this temple is the largest example of its kind in the Kashmir valley. The Kashmiri peristyle clearly develops from the Buddhist cellular quadrangle of Gandhara, seen with such clarity in the ruined, massive, monastic institution of the Takht-i-Bahi (“Throne of the Water Spring”) [6] at Mardan, Pakistan. But rather than provide monastic accommodation, the Kashmir cell, greatly reduced in size, contained images of deities. At the Martand Temple, these stood on pedestals and only a few have survived. The Martand peristyle is 220 ft. long by 142 ft. broad and contains 84 fluted columns facing the courtyard. It has 25 cells on the north and south walls, 19 on the east and 12 on the west. Two mock cells with projecting paired columns face out on the corners of the outside front wall of the enclosure. The central cells on the north, east and south walls are larger in scale and their columns project from the colonnade. The imposts were surmounted with human-headed birds facing each other and a small bird, looking to the front. Only about one-third of this entablature still exists, principally on the north-eastern side of the quadrangle.
The praveshdvara (gateway) to the temple complex was constructed as a prominent and imposing structure of the same width as the temple itself. Built on a raised platform or an adhishthana (base platform), it had two staircases, one on the outside and another leading into the temple courtyard. This praveshdvara was further divided into two chambers by a cross wall with a rectangular opening in the middle. The walls of the gateway were elaborately decorated internally and externally with rows of double-pedimented niches alternating with rectangular panels. Most of the pedimented niches contained single standing figures of gods. The rectangular panels contained sitting groups, floral scrolls, pairs of geese, etc.
The main shrine also stood on an adhishthana. This plinth is two-storied, the wall of its upper story decorated with ornamental columns containing sculptures of the principal Hindu deities, the river goddesses and the dikpalas (guardians of the directions), while the smaller niches of the lower walls contain divine couples, minor deities, dancers and musicians framed by pilasters. A staircase flanked by a sloping member on either side, leads to the pedimented, trefoil arched entrance (simulating a torana or freestanding ornamental gateway), the entablature supported by huge pilasters. These are framed by even larger corner pilasters, bearing three niches on each shaft with double-pedimented arches enclosing relief sculpture of deities, now heavily damaged. Double-chambered wings on the two sides of the mandapa (hall) stand laterally on the same plinth, and could have enshrined images of the two consorts of Surya, Sandhya and Chhaya, or they could have functioned as granaries. It must have been a remarkably striking entrance in its time.
The opening from the mandapa to the oblong antarala (vestibule) is in the form of a stupendous trefoil arch with its height equal to that of the front one. Lateral walls bear figures of Ganga and Yamuna carved in bold relief in niches identical to those in the mandapa. This is the vestibule to the inner sanctum beyond, the garbhagriha (sanctum-sanctorum), also of rectangular form, where the principal deity was once enshrined. In external plan, the temple widens behind the mandapa, with massive pedimented trefoil blind arches standing on the north, east and south walls. These niches almost certainly once contained images of Surya. More depictions of Surya were placed around the plinth of the temple, and together with the Surya images which must have occupied some of the quadrangular cells, enhanced an iconography of Martand or Surya as the Universal with the temple’s central image conceived of as emanating the secondary images. The temple which is externally tri-ratha [7] on plan, was built in such a way that the sun’s rays fell throughout the day on the Surya idol.
In front of the staircase leading to the mandapa of the temple, a small square stepped tank was built which used to be fed through a water channel from a canal on the hillside behind the peristyle of the temple. The plinths of four subsidiary shrinessurvivearoundthetemple,ofwhichthree(onthenortheast, northwest and southeast) face the main sanctuary. It was thus a panchayatana structure. [8] The smaller shrine on the southwest neither occupied the corner, nor faced the sanctuary. R.C. Agarwala, while working on conservation of the north-eastern shrine, noticed an inscription on part of the dado and below the projecting mouldings. The inscription consisted of eight lines in Sharda character. It records the dedication of an image of Martand by Shriverma, possibly a king. On palaeographical grounds the inscription has been dated towards the end of the 8th century A.D. [9]
An interesting feature noticed during the conservation of the monument was the occurrence of massive storage jars embedded in the courtyard of the temple. These had conical bases and were probably used for storing grains. Removal of the accumulated debris from the base of the temple also brought to light a very important fact - namely, that previous to the construction of the present temple, there existed another temple of somewhat smaller dimensions at the site. Some historians hold the view that the construction of the Martand temple was initiated by King Ranaditya who ruled Kashmir around 223 A.D. [10] When the new temple was built, the older temple base was not destroyed, but was incorporated within a new base of larger dimensions.
The Martand Temple was destroyed in the early 15th century by Sikander Butshikan, the sixth sultan of Kashmir’s Shah Miri dynasty. He was a religious bigot and responsible for the forced conversion of Hindus to Islam. It is said that it took him one year and a dedicated team to bring damage to this spectacular shrine.
Before this wanton destruction, the building must have been extraordinary, its mandapa and auxiliary wings, the main temple, the imposing gateway and the encircling subsidiary shrines all with soaring pyramidal roofs. The temple revealed a great depth of thought, delicacy of execution and the balanced proportion of figures in its construction. Even in its present ruinous condition, it evokes awe and wonder. However, extremes of weather in Kashmir coupled with erosion and microbial growth are working like termites, and if immediate measures are not taken, the remaining structure may crumble and this historic marvel will be lost to the invisible hands of neglect. This once holy revered house of God is now a lonely and desolate archaeological monument. It is, however, testament to the creative brilliance of past ages, organically integrating varied traditions but keeping alive an unbroken and vital link with the indigenous past. The temple may be broken in structure, but not in spirit - 1200 years later, we can still visualize the splendor that once was.
Notes:
1. Wudars or karewas are uplands or plateaus, which date back to the lacustrine epoch in Kashmir. They range in height from 100 to 300 ft. and in area from 5 or 6 square metres to over 50 miles each.
2. By far the greatest amount of our information regarding ancient and medieval Kashmir is supplied by indigenous historians of whom Kalhana is the most oldest and most informative. He composed his Rajagtarangini
(“ River of Kings”) in 1148-49 A.D. This is a metrical and historical chronicle of the north-western Indian sub-continent, particularly the kings of Kashmir.
3. Other sun temples are at Konark in Odisha and at Modhera in Gujarat.
4. The kingdom of Kashmir appears in ancient records as part and parcel of Gandhara in the list of sixteen mahajanapadas (sixteen kingdoms that existed in Northern ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.). There was considerable trade if not actual political connection between the valley and the principalities of Peshawar and Kabul in the last two centuries B.C. and the first century A.D.
5. “It is more likely that the fluted column survives from a lost Hellenizing tradition in Kashmir than that it was introduced by displaced Byzantine artists as suggested by Goetz,” John Siudmak, “Religious Architecture (500-1200)” in Pratapaditya Pal, The Art of Kashmir (Cincinnati: Asia Society, Oct 2008), 46.
6. The Takht-i-Bahi complex (1st century A.D.) is regarded by archaeologists as being particularly representative of the architecture of Buddhist monastic centers from its area, and is very well-preserved. The ruins are located about 15 kms from Mardan in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
7. In Hindu temple architecture, ratha is a facet or vertical offset projection on the plan of the sanctum and shikhara above, or other structure. Ratha is generally carried up from the bottom of the temple to the super-structure.
8. In the panchayatana layout in architecture, the main shrine of a Hindu temple is surrounded by four subsidiary shrines.
9. R.C. Agarwala, Kashmir and its Monumental Glory (Delhi: Aryan Books International), 145.
10. The construction of smaller panels around the main shrine is attributed to his wife, Queen Amritprabha. Some art historians also believe that the foundation of the Martand Surya Temple was laid as early as between 350 and 500 A.D. A few claim that Samdhimati Aryaraj (35 B.C.) built the Martand Surya Temple.The medieval Martand Surya Temple of Kashmir, located just five miles away from Anantnag, is, regrettably, a legacy lost. Its ruins suggest a once-magnificent, pedimented structure with soaring, pyramidal roofs, strategically sited on an alluvial plateau, the Mattan karewa [1], against a background of distant, snowy peaks. A. A. Cunningham described it as “perhaps the finest view in the known world”. Built of enormous, dressed limestone ashlars arranged in horizontal courses, and bonded with lime mortar and metal dowels, the now heavily-mutilated temple, dedicated to Surya, the sun god, is believed to have been constructed in the reign of Lalitaditya Muktapida of the Karakota dynasty of Kashmir in the second quarter of the 8th century. [2] The grand conception of this temple reflects the dynamic personality of Lalitaditya, the scion of an energetic, warlike dynasty who left behind a vast empire and impressive monuments. It is believed to be the only sun temple in the whole of north India, and the oldest in the country. [3]
As part of several empires and their outreach, be it Gupta, Kushan or Gandhara, Kashmir knitted together diverse architectural and cultural traditions into an artistic vocabulary to evoke a style that was more suited to its geographical and climatic exigencies. Its proximity to prominent Gandharan sites (such as Taxila, Peshawar and the northwest frontier) ensured considerable commercial intercourse and artistic exchange between the two. [4] Gandhara flourished at the crossroads of Asia, connecting trade-routes and absorbing cultural influences from diverse civilizations. This ensuredanincorporationoftheGraeco-Roman andIndo-Buddhist influences into Kashmir’s art. In fact, important Buddhist communities continued to thrive in Kashmir long after the mid - 5th century, when Gandhara was conquered by the Huns. The spiritual landscape of Kashmir is, thus, a melting-pot of various religions and philosophical traditions and its monuments stand testament to this cultural diversity. Some of the characteristic features of medieval Kashmiri temples exhibit striking foreign flavours such as the peristylar quadrangle, a ubiquitous use of the classical Greek fluted column [5] (particularly in the peristyle), pedimented trefoil arches, and a variety of pilasters and quasi-Doric columns.
All these can be seen in the Martand Surya Temple. Like most medieval temples of Kashmir, the Martand Surya Temple consists of a courtyard with a central shrine and a colonnaded peristyle. The peristyle of this temple is the largest example of its kind in the Kashmir valley. The Kashmiri peristyle clearly develops from the Buddhist cellular quadrangle of Gandhara, seen with such clarity in the ruined, massive, monastic institution of the Takht-i-Bahi (“Throne of the Water Spring”) [6] at Mardan, Pakistan. But rather than provide monastic accommodation, the Kashmir cell, greatly reduced in size, contained images of deities. At the Martand Temple, these stood on pedestals and only a few have survived. The Martand peristyle is 220 ft. long by 142 ft. broad and contains 84 fluted columns facing the courtyard. It has 25 cells on the north and south walls, 19 on the east and 12 on the west. Two mock cells with projecting paired columns face out on the corners of the outside front wall of the enclosure. The central cells on the north, east and south walls are larger in scale and their columns project from the colonnade. The imposts were surmounted with human-headed birds facing each other and a small bird, looking to the front. Only about one-third of this entablature still exists, principally on the north-eastern side of the quadrangle.
The praveshdvara (gateway) to the temple complex was constructed as a prominent and imposing structure of the same width as the temple itself. Built on a raised platform or an adhishthana (base platform), it had two staircases, one on the outside and another leading into the temple courtyard. This praveshdvara was further divided into two chambers by a cross wall with a rectangular opening in the middle. The walls of the gateway were elaborately decorated internally and externally with rows of double-pedimented niches alternating with rectangular panels. Most of the pedimented niches contained single standing figures of gods. The rectangular panels contained sitting groups, floral scrolls, pairs of geese, etc.
The main shrine also stood on an adhishthana. This plinth is two-storied, the wall of its upper story decorated with ornamental columns containing sculptures of the principal Hindu deities, the river goddesses and the dikpalas (guardians of the directions), while the smaller niches of the lower walls contain divine couples, minor deities, dancers and musicians framed by pilasters. A staircase flanked by a sloping member on either side, leads to the pedimented, trefoil arched entrance (simulating a torana or freestanding ornamental gateway), the entablature supported by huge pilasters. These are framed by even larger corner pilasters, bearing three niches on each shaft with double-pedimented arches enclosing relief sculpture of deities, now heavily damaged. Double-chambered wings on the two sides of the mandapa (hall) stand laterally on the same plinth, and could have enshrined images of the two consorts of Surya, Sandhya and Chhaya, or they could have functioned as granaries. It must have been a remarkably striking entrance in its time.
The opening from the mandapa to the oblong antarala (vestibule) is in the form of a stupendous trefoil arch with its height equal to that of the front one. Lateral walls bear figures of Ganga and Yamuna carved in bold relief in niches identical to those in the mandapa. This is the vestibule to the inner sanctum beyond, the garbhagriha (sanctum-sanctorum), also of rectangular form, where the principal deity was once enshrined. In external plan, the temple widens behind the mandapa, with massive pedimented trefoil blind arches standing on the north, east and south walls. These niches almost certainly once contained images of Surya. More depictions of Surya were placed around the plinth of the temple, and together with the Surya images which must have occupied some of the quadrangular cells, enhanced an iconography of Martand or Surya as the Universal with the temple’s central image conceived of as emanating the secondary images. The temple which is externally tri-ratha [7] on plan, was built in such a way that the sun’s rays fell throughout the day on the Surya idol.
In front of the staircase leading to the mandapa of the temple, a small square stepped tank was built which used to be fed through a water channel from a canal on the hillside behind the peristyle of the temple. The plinths of four subsidiary shrines survive around the temple,ofwhichthree(onthe northeast, northwest and southeast) face the main sanctuary. It was thus a panchayatana structure. [8] The smaller shrine on the southwest neither occupied the corner, nor faced the sanctuary. R.C. Agarwala, while working on conservation of the north-eastern shrine, noticed an inscription on part of the dado and below the projecting mouldings. The inscription consisted of eight lines in Sharda character. It records the dedication of an image of Martand by Shriverma, possibly a king. On palaeographical grounds the inscription has been dated towards the end of the 8th century A.D. [9]
An interesting feature noticed during the conservation of the monument was the occurrence of massive storage jars embedded in the courtyard of the temple. These had conical bases and were probably used for storing grains. Removal of the accumulated debris from the base of the temple also brought to light a very important fact - namely, that previous to the construction of the present temple, there existed another temple of somewhat smaller dimensions at the site. Some historians hold the view that the construction of the Martand temple was initiated by King Ranaditya who ruled Kashmir around 223 A.D. [10] When the new temple was built, the older temple base was not destroyed, but was incorporated within a new base of larger dimensions.
The Martand Temple was destroyed in the early 15th century by Sikander Butshikan, the sixth sultan of Kashmir’s Shah Miri dynasty. He was a religious bigot and responsible for the forced conversion of Hindus to Islam. It is said that it took him one year and a dedicated team tobringdamagetothisspectacular shrine.
Before this wanton destruction, the building must have been extraordinary, its mandapa and auxiliary wings, the main temple, the imposing gateway and the encircling subsidiary shrines all with soaring pyramidal roofs. The temple revealed a great depth of thought, delicacy of execution and the balanced proportion of figures in its construction. Even in its present ruinous condition, it evokes awe and wonder. However, extremes of weather in Kashmir coupled with erosion and microbial growth are working like termites, and if immediate measures are not taken, the remaining structure may crumble and this historic marvel will be lost to the invisible hands of neglect. This once holy revered house of God is now a lonely and desolate archaeological monument. It is, however, testament to the creative brilliance of past ages, organically integrating varied traditions but keeping alive an unbroken and vital link with the indigenous past. The temple may be broken in structure, but not in spirit - 1200 years later, we can still visualize the splendor that once was.
Notes:
1. Wudars or karewas are uplands or plateaus, which date back to the lacustrine epoch in Kashmir. They range in height from 100 to 300 ft. and in area from 5 or 6 square metres to over 50 miles each.
2. By far the greatest amount of our information regarding ancient and medieval Kashmir is supplied by indigenous historians of whom Kalhana is the most oldest and most informative. He composed his Rajagtarangini
(“ River of Kings”) in 1148-49 A.D. This is a metrical and historical chronicle of the north-western Indian sub-continent, particularly the kings of Kashmir.
3. Other sun temples are at Konark in Odisha and at Modhera in Gujarat.
4. The kingdom of Kashmir appears in ancient records as part and parcel of Gandhara in the list of sixteen mahajanapadas (sixteen kingdoms that existed in Northern ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.). There was considerable trade if not actual political connection between the valley and the principalities of Peshawar and Kabul in the last two centuries B.C. and the first century A.D.
5. “It is more likely that the fluted column survives from a lost Hellenizing tradition in Kashmir than that it was introduced by displaced Byzantine artists as suggested by Goetz,” John Siudmak, “Religious Architecture (500-1200)” in Pratapaditya Pal, The Art of Kashmir (Cincinnati: Asia Society, Oct 2008), 46.
6. The Takht-i-Bahi complex (1st century A.D.) is regarded by archaeologists as being particularly representative of the architecture of Buddhist monastic centers from its area, and is very well-preserved. The ruins are located about 15 kms from Mardan in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
7. In Hindu temple architecture, ratha is a facet or vertical offset projection on the plan of the sanctum and shikhara above, or other structure. Ratha is generally carried up from the bottom of the temple to the super-structure.
8. In the panchayatana layout in architecture, the main shrine of a Hindu temple is surrounded by four subsidiary shrines.
9. R.C. Agarwala, Kashmir and its Monumental Glory (Delhi: Aryan Books International), 145.
10. The construction of smaller panels around the main shrine is attributed to his wife, Queen Amritprabha. Some art historians also believe that the foundation of the Martand Surya Temple was laid as early as between 350 and 500 A.D. A few claim that Samdhimati Aryaraj (35 B.C.) built the Martand Surya Temple.