11/09/2021
Pandukeshwar, Architectural Knowledge, and an Idea of India
Nachiket Chanchani
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Abstract
This essay probes a temple complex at Pandukeshwar—a sacred center near a glacial source of the Ganga River in the Central Himalayas—where lithic shrines in local, regional, and transregional architectural typologies stand side by side. I first descriptively analyze the forms and layouts of these edifices, then connect the archaeological evidence to the historical record to date the shrines. Thereafter, I show how their design, construction, and use appears to be connected to the emergence, refinement, and dispersion of an idea of India as a geo-cultural landscape extending from the Indian Ocean up to the high Himalayas. This conception, I conclude, was transmitted along knowledge corridors, routes that connected institutions of learning.
Introduction
Pandukeshwar Village is an extraordinary place. It is situated in a Central Himalayan gorge near the glacial source of the mighty Alakananda-Ganga River (map 1).[1] It is also the last hamlet in Uttarakhand State in India to host a year-round population on a perilous ancient route that leads from the lush northern plains to Mana Pass, an entry into the frosty Tibetan plateau. Four early medieval lithic temples stand at Pandukeshwar (fig. 1). One temple, honoring Viṣṇu as Yogabadrī, is built in a typology of the Drāviḍa or southern Indian mode. The other three temples, honoring Gaṇeśa and Viṣṇu in his manifestations as Vāsudeva-Badrī and Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa, are built in architectural typologies that reference the Nāgara or northern Indian mode in dissimilar ways. Enshrined in these temples are gold and copper images of the Vaiṣṇava pantheon and four copperplate inscriptions. The later documents are written in Sanskrit and are datable to the ninth and tenth centuries.
Map 1. Places of historical and cultural significance in the Central Himalayas.
Map 1. Places of historical and cultural significance in the Central Himalayas.
1. (left to right) Lakṣmī Nārāyaṇa temple, Yogabadrī temple, Gaṇeśa shrine (this diminutive monument abuts the Yogabadrī), and Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar, Uttarakhand: Unless otherwise noted, all maps, plans, and photographs are by the author
1. (left to right) Lakṣmī Nārāyaṇa temple, Yogabadrī temple, Gaṇeśa shrine (this diminutive monument abuts the Yogabadrī), and Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar, Uttarakhand
Unless otherwise noted, all maps, plans, and photographs are by the author
To find such a variety of material remains at Pandukeshwar is astounding for at least three reasons. First, even today it is dangerous and difficult to reach this far-flung settlement.[2] Snowfall frequently obstructs access during winter months. Flashfloods and landslides triggered by cloudbursts periodically prevent visitors from reaching the village at other times of the year.[3] Second, despite the abundance of lithic monuments in India, very rarely does one find medieval temples built in the Drāviḍa and Nāgara modes standing side by side. In fact, Mahakuta and Pattadakal—the closest settlements where medieval temples in these modes can be seen next to one another—are located more than 2,800 kilometers away in Karnataka State in peninsular India (map 2). Third, despite the fact that the four temples at Pandukeshwar are visited by thousands of Hindu pilgrims annually and have been protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) since 1942, until now they have not been recognized as belonging to different modes of Hindu temple architecture. On the contrary, they have been regarded as specimens of Buddhist architecture and have been compared to edifices in such places as Nalanda in northeastern India.[4]
Map 2. Places where medieval temples in Nāgara and Drāviḍa modes stand side by side (italicized and in gray). Key sites traditionally associated with Ādī Śaṅkara’s life are in black
Map 2. Places where medieval temples in Nāgara and Drāviḍa modes stand side by side (italicized and in gray). Key sites traditionally associated with Ādī Śaṅkara’s life are in black
The quality and diversity of architectural modes and typologies at Pandukeshwar raise a series of questions. When and under what circumstances did the more broadly applicable knowledge of lithic temple construction and the more specialized knowledge of the Drāviḍa and Nāgara modes reach the Central Himalayas at large and this village in particular? How was this knowledge received and deployed? How did the accretion of monuments affect religious practices? Who were the original and subsequent patrons, builders, and users, and how were they connected to each other? How, if at all, was Pandukeshwar related to other fords (tīrthas) and sacred centers?[5] And finally, how do temple construction and the expansion of religious networks in the Central Himalayas intersect with social, political, and cultural changes elsewhere in South Asia?
I adopt an integrated method to investigate these questions. Given the extreme paucity of written records at Pandukeshwar and elsewhere in the Central Himalayas, it is the material record—built, landscaped, and sculpted—that constitutes the bulk of the historical evidence. Therefore, I carefully record and analyze this material evidence by (a) making maps that visualize spatial relationships among and between settlements; (b) drawing plans showing the orientation and arrangement of parts of individual temples; (c) using a Sanskritic terminology to understand temple forms; (d) employing precise language to record relationships between plans and elevations, external structures and internal systems, and original temple fabrics and later additions; and (e) forging a relative chronology. In addition, I look at epigraphs, oral narratives, toponyms, and contemporary practices. I use analytical tools devised by historians and anthropologists to decode the aforesaid items. I record geographical features that have had an impact on the locations of tīrthas and movements of people. I consider bridle paths that connect hill settlements to one another as well as cart roads that lead in and out of the mountain range. I also survey artistic accomplishments and political processes of earlier epochs and other parts of South Asia that influenced cultural production in the early medieval Central Himalayas.[6] Finally, I look briefly at the cultural expressions and political movements of subsequent centuries to understand how they may complicate my interpretations.
Using this methodology, I recover important moments in the history of Pandukeshwar and its region. I also cast new light on the transmission of architectural knowledge in early medieval India. This phenomenon, I posit, shaped Central Himalayan communities and reflected their variable aspirations. It also solidified a long-lived idea about India that continues to resonate with its residents today—that it is a cohesive geo-cultural entity that extends from the sandy shores of the Indian Ocean to the snow-clad Himalayas.
Temples and Communities in Early India: Plotting Trends and Transformations
To understand the forms, layouts, and functions of Pandukeshwar’s temples, we must review the genesis and development of stone temple architecture in early India. Stone temples, a new technology that connected Hindus to divine forces, began to be constructed in India in the early fifth century CE. Located in the fertile plains in the middle of the subcontinent, the earliest temples consisted of small, cave-like sanctums (garbhagṛhas) preceded by shallow porticos. The garbhagṛhas housed either aniconic or anthropomorphized images of deities. The porticos accommodated devotees. In the fifth century, these devotees were likely members of esoteric cults rather than the lay populace. Goaded by ascendant dynasties eager to accrue merit and preceptors seeking to strengthen authority, the interest in erecting temples spread from middle India to other regions. By the seventh century, temples were being constructed in distant corners of the subcontinent. In addition, two distinct architectural modes, the Drāviḍa and Nāgara, had emerged.
In Tamil Nadu in southern India, the early Drāviḍa formula consisted of a shrine (vimāna) composed of a molded platform beneath the floor level (adhisṭhāna), masonry walls punctuated by pilasters and occasionally niches, a prominent eave (kapoṭa) adorned with semicircular window motifs (kuḍus), and one of two kinds of superstructure. The superstructure might be composed of a balustrade (hāra) and a diminutive cottage with a domical roof, as rendered in a famous seventh-century relief at the port town of Mamallapuram (fig. 2).[7] Or it might consist of several stories (talās)—with balconies enclosed by railings, aedicular cottages (k***s), and vaulted halls (śālas)—surmounted by a small cottage with a domical roof, as exemplified by a nearly contemporaneous temple by the seashore in the same town (fig. 3). In contrast, the early Nāgara formula consisted of a square shrine (mūlaprāsāda) with central offsets (bhadras) surmounted by a curvilinear tower (latina śikhara). At the well-preserved Parasurameśvara temple, built in the seventh century in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, the latina śikhara consists of compacted cornices, neckings, projecting central bands (madhyalatās) accentuating the plan’s bhadras, cogged discs at the corners (karṇāmalakas) and a crowning cogged disc (āmalaka) (fig. 4). In subsequent decades, the Drāviḍa became the preferred mode of builders in southern India who saw it as an apt symbol for a “new” temple-centered Hinduism and territorial sovereignty. Meanwhile, patrons and masons in northern India enthusiastically embraced the Nāgara as a sign of their autonomy. At Mahakuta and Pattadakal, Drāviḍa and Nāgara monuments were erected besides each other in the eighth century; the pairings possibly signaled the strategic marital alliances and extravagant political ambitions of their patrons, the Cālukyas (figs. 5, 6).[8]
2. Great Narrative Relief, Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu
2. Great Narrative Relief, Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu
3. Seashore temple, Mamallapuram
3. Seashore temple, Mamallapuram
4. Parasurameśvara temple, Bhubhaneshwar, Orissa. Photo courtesy of the American Council of Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) Collection, University of Michigan, History of Art Department, Visual Resource Collections
4. Parasurameśvara temple, Bhubhaneshwar, Orissa. Photo courtesy of the American Council of Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) Collection, University of Michigan, History of Art Department, Visual Resource Collections
5. Nāgara and Drāviḍa temples, Mahakuta, Karnataka. Photo courtesy of the American Council of Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) Collection, University of Michigan, History of Art Department, Visual Resource Collections
5. Nāgara and Drāviḍa temples, Mahakuta, Karnataka. Photo courtesy of the American Council of Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) Collection, University of Michigan, History of Art Department, Visual Resource Collections
6. Nāgara and Drāviḍa temples, Pattadakal, Karantaka. Photo courtesy of the American Council of Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) Collection, University of Michigan, History of Art Department, Visual Resource Collections
6. Nāgara and Drāviḍa temples, Pattadakal, Karantaka. Photo courtesy of the American Council of Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) Collection, University of Michigan, History of Art Department, Visual Resource Collections
To appreciate the forms of the Drāviḍa and Nāgara temples at Pandukeshwar, glean when they were built, and elucidate what they signaled, it is important to summarize formative political processes and cultural trends in this mountainous frontier. In the third century BCE, the installation of a monumental rock edict brought Kalsi Village—where the Yamuna River enters the plains—into the ambit of the Mauryan Empire. Shortly thereafter, events such as the importation of large red sandstone sculptures of Śiva and Pārvatī to Rishikesh, where the Ganga leaves the mountains and enters the plains, deepened contact between the foothills and the “Hinduizing” civilizations of upper India.[9] In time, the riverways that connected Kalsi to Mathura and Rishikesh to Pāṭaliputra drew Śaiva and Śākta pilgrims and traders toward the high Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. Over time, these visitors contributed to the gradual transformation of Kalsi, Rishikesh, and nearby Haridwar into trading posts, gateway towns, and tīrthas in their own right.
Conquests also played their part in establishing enduring settlements, spreading Brahmanical ideologies, and fostering a sense of regional identity. As the hold of the Kūṣāna rulers over the fertile Doab weakened, minor princes expanded their territories and performed legitimizing Aśvamedha yajñas (Vedic sacrificial rituals), as Sīlavarmaṇa did at Jagatgram near Kalsi.[10] The imperial Guptas and their armies—who ruled over much of northern India between the fourth and sixth centuries—did not reach the Himalayas. However, some architectural styles and aesthetic conventions that developed in the Gangetic heartland during their reign did make inroads along the upper courses of the Ganga and Yamuna. One such monument is a seventh-century brick temple at Koteshwar, sited just upstream from the celebrated confluence of the Alakananda-Ganga and Mandakini. Perhaps this temple’s large front hall was built to accommodate pilgrims.
Other seventh-century temples in the Central Himalayas seem to have been the preserve of specialized cults and their royal patrons. At Lakhamandal, on the Yamuna’s upper reaches, a preceptor honored the memory of widowed hill queen’s husband by asking her to build a lofty brick-and-stone terraced podium with a columnar shaft connoting Śiva’s presence (liṅga) at its summit.[11] A panegyric (praśasti) celebrating the queen’s virtues also records that this ensemble was designed by Īśvaranāga, an architect (sūtradhāra) from Rhotak in Haryana, about two hundred kilometers downstream from Lakhamandal. The panegyric also identifies Īśvaranāga as its composer. Exotic architectural projects and literary compositions—occasionally imported to the Central Himalayas by the same individual—appear not only to have enjoyed respect in the region but also to have spurred local artisans to erect lithic monuments. In the decades after the terrace temple’s construction, local artisans constructed small shrines nearby. These edifices have simple base moldings, small square sanctums, and plain walls. Their tiered superstructures are articulated like cornices and neckings and crowned by āmalakas. This architectural formula quickly came to be associated with the Central Himalayas.
In the eighth and the ninth centuries, builders at incipient tīrthas in the Central Himalayas constructed subsidiary shrines and commemorative monuments using the recently devised architectural formula. A few latina Nāgara temples also were built in the region. At Lakhamandal and Jageshwar, the latina Nāgara mode was selected for Śiva temples and the regional typology reserved for funerary monuments. And at Paithani, the latina Nāgara mode was used for the principal temple at the center of a quincunx complex (pañcāyatana) and the regional typology adopted for the four corner shrines (fig. 7). The previously mentioned and other latina Nāgara temples in the Central Himalayas appear to have been designed by émigré architect-priests with greater knowledge of how to use the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala to control the sanctum’s proportions and generate its plan and elevation.[12] The names of the patrons who commissioned these lithic edifices have not come down to us. However, architectural sculpture such as frontons (śukanāsas) bearing relief carvings of Lākuliśa, the deified founder of Pāsupata Śaivism, and statuary such as columnar shafts bearing Śiva’s four faces (caturmukhaliṅgas) at many of these sites suggests the influence of Pāśupata Śaiva ascetics.[13]
7. Pañcāyatana temple complex, Paithani, Uttarakhand
7. Pañcāyatana temple complex, Paithani, Uttarakhand
Vāstu Vidyā at Pandukeshwar
In the ninth and tenth centuries, communities in the Central Himalayas were smaller and socially less striated than many others in the subcontinent.[14] Extra hands were needed for building and repairing everything from irrigation ducts to the retaining walls of terrace fields and from cow pens to private residences. Therefore, most householders in the region were, in part, seasonal builders.
A scrutiny of the four temples erected at Pandukeshwar during this period indicates that the possession of Vāstu Vidyā, an integrative body of architectural theory, distinguished their builders from those who periodically provided hands for construction projects. Vāstu Vidyā included everything from site selection to the consecration of the ground and from plan development to the er****on of robust three-dimensional spaces. Although comprehensive in its scope, Vāstu Vidyā was capable of being enlarged and adapted by its holders.
The location of the temples within Pandukeshwar indicates what their builders knew about site potentials. It is a short walk from the riverbank, the destination of many pilgrims visiting the tīrtha. At the same time, it is significantly removed from the torrential river’s pathway. Furthermore, like the gently swelling shell of the cosmic turtle, described in classical Sanskrit literature as bearing the world’s weight, the site’s center faintly rises above its edge.[15] Therefore, neither snowmelt nor rainfall accumulates in this sanctified space. Moreover, the surface of the earth where the temples stand is firm—strong enough to support the load of several buildings, yet porous and fertile enough to allow seedlings to break through the ground and grow into healthy plants.
The temples’ carefully calibrated square plans divulge other details about the builders’ capacities. These skills likely included observing the sun’s movement across the sky and using the resulting knowledge to generate cardinally orientated square plans. A general understanding and acceptance of Hindu associations between and among cardinal directions and planets as well as the square form and the characteristics of the ordered cosmos must have accompanied such knowledge. It is difficult to establish how much builders at Pandukeshwar knew about the closely allied concept of the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala—with its intricate subdivisions, imagery of the body, and the significance of its lines and their points to intersection. What is clear is that, unlike many of their contemporaries, they did not use it to precisely control plans and elevations.
As suggested by the millennium-old stands of Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodara) at Jageshwar and elsewhere in the Central Himalayas, timber has long been an abundant resource in the region.[16] Therefore, the consistent use of a grayish stone for the fabric of the temples and black schist for architectural sculpture, rather than wood, is noteworthy. Both stones are smooth, and neither is fragmented by deep veins nor flaking at the edges, which shows that builders knew how to obtain and work with particular stones. Such understanding may have been accompanied by the knowledge of chants and rituals associated with quarrying, hauling, dressing, and laying stone courses and with the purported merits of building with that material.[17] Finally, the decision to construct using as such an enduring material shows the builders’ engagement with the emphasis on the eternal nature of Hindu deities that is found in many genres of Sanskrit literature.[18]
Finally, the Pandukeshwar temple morphologies—and measurements taken at the khura course of their base molding sequences and at the point where their wall friezes begin—lead to the conclusion that their designers and executors were knowledgeable about alignment, classification, juxtaposition, and proportion. The first shrine encountered by devotees entering the sacred enclosure is aptly dedicated to Gaṇeśa, the remover of obstacles (figs. 1, 8). Like subsidiary shrines at Paithani and votive monuments at Jageshwar, the east-facing Gaṇeśa shrine at Pandukeshwar has a truncated vedībandha (base molding unit), walls composed of unornamented single slabs of stone, and a superstructure made up of progressively diminishing slabs whose edges are articulated as cornices and neckings. A large āmalaka and a pot (kalaśa) crowns the formation. Furthermore, like the subsidiary shrines and votive monuments that orbit and shield the largest temples at the previously mentioned tīrthas, Pandukeshwar’s Gaṇeśa shrine is set just left of the entrance of the Yogabadrī temple, the biggest and most important monument in the village.[19]
8. Gaṇeśa shrine, Pandukeshwar
8. Gaṇeśa shrine, Pandukeshwar
The Yogabadrī temple is so different from the Gaṇeśa shrine and all other monuments in the Central Himalayas that it baffled Kanti Prasad Nautiyal, the sole scholar to write about it (figs. 1, 9, 10). He wrote that it was “either influenced by the Buddhist stupa type because of the proximity of the place to the Tibetan region or it may have been just a reproduction of the Pala temple.”[20] Close examination of the Yogabadrī temple’s structural components, however, shows its affiliation with temples in southern India, suggesting that it is a Drāviḍa alpa vimāna.[21] For reasons that I shall explain shortly, I date it to circa 850–1000 CE.
9. Detail, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
9. Detail, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
10. Schematic plan, drawn at floor and wall frieze levels, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
10. Schematic plan, drawn at floor and wall frieze levels, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
The foundational moldings of Yogabadrī’s square-plan vimāna appear in the following sequence: minor projecting molding (kṣudropāna),[22] lotus-formed molding (padmopāna), recessed band (antarita), tri-faced torus molding (tripaṭakumuda), recessed molding (golapāda) with block-projections (galas)[23] and with crocodilian creatures (makaras) only at the corners, upper-fillet molding (ūrdhvakampa), minor molding (upāna), and oversailing fillet (mahāvājan). In contemporaneous Drāviḍa alpa vimānas in Tamil Nadu, this sequence constitutes the molded base (adhisthāna), and it invariably is set beneath the garbhagṛha’s floor level. Furthermore, in Tamil Nadu, a water chute (praṇāla) typically cuts through the mahāvājan or equivalent crowning course. The Yogabadrī temple’s floor level, however, is sited in the middle of this set of molding courses, a feature externally indicated by the water chute that cuts through the tripaṭakumuda.[24]
Such variances apart, the Yogabadrī temple compares well with better-known alpa vimānas erected at villages such as Viralur, Nartamallai, and Kalayadipatti in Tamil Nadu, in the ninth and tenth centuries (figs. 11–13).[25] A wall frieze punctuated by rather plain pilasters rises above the temple’s foundational mahāvājana course. The uppermost portion of the wall frieze features a row of galas, which are sheltered by a heavy kapoṭa decorated with gavākṣas (dormer-window motifs) with trefoil finials. Sculptures of sejant lions are set on the four corners of the plank molding (pratis). Calling to mind a sculptural typology and an architectural convention first seen at the seashore temple at Mamallapuram, they symbolically protect the temple, weigh down a course carved with a diamond-and-pearl pattern, and safeguard the vulnerable junctures of walls (figs. 14–17).
11. Śiva temple, Visalur, Tamil Nadu
11. Śiva temple, Visalur, Tamil Nadu
12. Ancillary shrine, Nartamallai, Tamil Nadu
12. Ancillary shrine, Nartamallai, Tamil Nadu
13. Shrine, Kalayadipatti, Tamil Nadu
13. Shrine, Kalayadipatti, Tamil Nadu
14. Sejant lion, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
14. Sejant lion, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
15. Sejant lion, seashore temple, Mamallapuram
15. Sejant lion, seashore temple, Mamallapuram
16. Sejant lion, Chettiapatti, Tamil Nadu. Photo courtesy of the American Institute of Indian Studies, Gurgaon
16. Sejant lion, Chettiapatti, Tamil Nadu. Photo courtesy of the American Institute of Indian Studies, Gurgaon
17. Horned lion (vyāla), Tamil Nadu. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
17. Horned lion (vyāla), Tamil Nadu. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
A tall dome rises behind the lions. More cylindrical in shape than the circular and octagonal domes of alpa vimānas in Tamil Nadu, it features a necking (grīva), wide fl**ge, and tall, arched window-motifs (kuḍus) crested with heads of composite beings (kirtīmukhas) from whose mouths fluids and flames cascade down. At each kuḍu’s base is a pedestal. It is not possible to determine whether these pedestals ever bore sculpted images of gods (grīva devatas), as was customary in alpa vimānas in Tamil Nadu.[26] Lastly, such alpa vimānas were crowned with jar finials (stūpīs). As a large umbrella-like wooden canopy (chattra) currently surmounts the Yogabadrī temple’s dome, it is not possible to determine whether it too originally had a stūpī.
A rectangular, enclosed front hall (guḍhamaṇḍapa) fronts the vimāna. It shows the same base molding courses as the vimāna, but its wall frieze is plainer. Beaten copper sheets clad an older roof composed of sloping stone slabs.[27] A short flight of stairs contained by a banister—reminiscent of the curvaceous balustrades of so many Drāviḍa temples in Tamil Nadu—leads devotees toward an unornamented portal. Stepping through this portal, one enters a dark hall, with a door at its far end leading into the garbhagṛha. A cluster of hitherto unpublished metal images of Viṣṇu and his celestial retainers are enshrined in this exalted space (fig. 18). The largest of these images, a golden sculpture depicting Viṣṇu seated in a cross-legged meditative posture (padmasana), appears to date from the time of the temple’s construction in the ninth or tenth century.
18. Garbhagṛha deities, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
18. Garbhagṛha deities, Yogabadrī temple, Pandukeshwar
The mulaprāsāda and guḍhamaṇḍapa of a latina Nāgara temple with two planes of offset (dvi-aṅga) stand to the Yogabadrī temple’s left.[28] Today, this Nāgara temple is dedicated to Nārāyaṇa (figs. 1, 19–21). I tentatively date the oldest portions of the Nārāyaṇa temple’s mulaprāsāda to either the tenth or the eleventh century, as it appears to have been self-consciously paired with the Yogabadrī’s vīmāna.
19. Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
19. Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
20. Yogabadrī temple (foreground), Nārāyaṇa temple (background), Pandukeshwar
20. Yogabadrī temple (foreground), Nārāyaṇa temple (background), Pandukeshwar
21. Schematic plan, drawn at floor and wall frieze levels, Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
21. Schematic plan, drawn at floor and wall frieze levels, Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
The Nārāyaṇa temple’s vedībandha comprises the customary sequence of courses seen on Nāgara temples. However, the distinctive characteristics of the individual courses are attenuated. The minimally projecting kapota course barely resembles a sheltering awning. And the blocked-out dormer-window motifs on it bear greater resemblance to the galas on the Yogabadrī temple’s adhisṭhāna than to gavākṣa motifs that customarily occupied this position. The Nārāyaṇa temple’s wall frieze (jaṅghā) also shows such modifications. It is unadorned by stacks of richly carved pilasters and stringcourses. Wall niches (rathikās) crowned by tall pediments (uḍgamas), flanked by pillarets and relief carvings of celestial maidens (apsarās), seers (munis), composite leonine creatures (vyālas)—all frequently seen on latina Nāgara temples—are also absent. On the contrary, its surface features barely projecting pilasters that echo those on the walls of the Yogabadrī. Rising above the jaṅghā is a cyma recta transition zone(varaṇḍikā) bearing a latina śikhara. The śikhara’s mismatched stones, abnormal taper, and oversized chattra all point to a reconstruction.[29] The temple’s śukanāsa in contrast, has survived well. It features a fierce masculine face carved of black schist, the same stone as the Yogabadrī’s ferocious lions. Finally, the Nārāyaṇa temple is also fronted by a plain guḍhamaṇḍapa with a pitched roof.
Standing near the Nārāyaṇa temple is the north-facing Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa temple (figs. 1, 22). This unevenly preserved monument consists of a mūlaprāsāda preceded by a kapilī (porch). Having two planes in plan and elevation, the mūlaprāsāda rises above a socle (pitha). Above it is the vedībandha composed of the hoof (khura), pitcher (kumbha), pot (kalaśa), and kapoṭa courses. The jaṅghā is punctuated by a deep rathikā framed by pillarets supporting a ribbed awning (khurachādya) and bifurcated by a stringcourse. Filled with a row of diamond and orb-shaped medallions, this course girdles the temple and helps date it to no earlier than the late ninth century.[30] A curvilinear latina śikhara, springs off the jaṅghā. However, its damaged state and heavy-handed reconstruction make it impossible to describe it too carefully.[31]
22. Lakṣmī Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
22. Lakṣmī Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
The lacunae of the recent reconstruction not withstanding, it is possible to glean something of the artisans’ abilities and objectives by examining those portions of the original fabric that have survived in fairly good repair. The pīṭha, half-diamond (ardha-ratna) motifs emblazoned on the khura, composite pillarets, and khurachādya framing the rathikā all establish the builders’ awareness of ornament associated with Nāgara temples in central and western India. Meanwhile, the diamond and orb-shaped motifs and some other elements confirm the builders concurrent interest in visually linking this temple to those already erected at Pandukeshwar.
An inspection of a hitherto unpublished copper image of Nārāyaṇa enshrined in the Nārāyaṇa temple’s sanctum illuminates our understanding of the capacities of metalworkers active around Pandukeshwar during the decades when the temples were constructed (fig. 23). About forty-two inches high, this image depicts the deity with a cone-shaped crown standing upright. His raised rear hands hold a conch and discus; his lowered front hands bear a lotus and a mace. Matched makara earrings emerge and disappear into wavy locks. The bare upper body, adorned with a jeweled necklace, contrasts with the lower body, which is wrapped in a dhoti with cascading, crescent-shaped folds. A parikara (frame) with makara-topped columns is set around the figure. A fiery arch springs from the wavelike tips of makara tails. Formally, the Nārāyaṇa icon and its parikara compare nicely with two tenth- or eleventh-century metal sculptures of the same deity said to be from the western Himalayas.[32] This said, certain details of this statue recall traits of metal mūrtīs cast elsewhere. Reminiscent of Vaiṣṇava images from Bengal are the sensuous fingers of the raised rear arms and the treatment of the parikara. Faintly recalling visions of portable icons (calamūrtis) from medieval Tamil Nadu are the necklaces, a diaphragm band intersecting the sacred thread (yajnopavīta), and the mace’s position.
23. Nārāyaṇa, garbhagṛha, Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
23. Nārāyaṇa, garbhagṛha, Nārāyaṇa temple, Pandukeshwar
The metalworkers remarkable capabilities and their interest in citing, juxtaposing, and habilitating local, regional, and transregional forms and techniques parallels those of the master-masons and stone carvers. Where did all these artisans acquire their abilities and proclivities? And why did they, and their patrons, choose to display their accomplishments in this tiny Himalayan village over all other places? In the next two sections, I probe these questions by melding the geographical, literary, inscriptional, and archaeological record.
The Ganga’s Descent and the Drāviḍa’s Ascent
Pandukeshwar’s geographical location and cultural position are just as striking as the range and fineness of its temples and sculptures. The village is situated near a ravine’s end. From there, a road winds its way up a mountain and then down into an elevated alpine valley.[33] Bisecting the valley is the Alakananda-Ganga, a torrent born from the mouths of glaciers and rivulets trickling down from the surrounding snow-capped peaks. The seasonally inhabited hamlet of Badrinath is sited at the alpine valley’s center near four steaming sulfur pools. Meadows—sometimes carpeted with snow and at other times with wild flowers, medicinal herbs, aromatic shrubs, and herds of domesticated yak—encircle Badrinath. As a watercolor painted on-site makes clear, the sole trail leading northward and out of Badrinath initially veers past corrals of yak herders before meandering through ice-laced slopes and mounds of moraine. It eventually reaches Mana Pass (fig. 24),[34] through which the watercolor’s painter crossed into the windswept Tibetan plateau. Mana Pass has long been a corridor for the movement of men and goods.[35]
24. Hyder Young Hearsey (1782–1840), A View of the Badrinath Valley, 1808. Photo courtesy of the British Library, London
24. Hyder Young Hearsey (1782–1840), A View of the Badrinath Valley, 1808. Photo courtesy of the British Library, London
Badrinath (ancient Badrī, Badrikā, or Badrikāśrama) has occupied an immensely important place in the Indic imaginary for millennia. In the Mahābhārata, a Sanskrit epic redacted between 400 BCE and 400 CE, Badrinath is celebrated as the site where Nara, the primordial man, and Nārāyaṇa performed a protracted penance side by side.[36] According to the epic, many ages later when Nara was reborn as the Pāṇḍava Arjuna, he returned to the Ganga’s upper reaches. There, after an intense combat with Śiva—in his guise as a Kirāṭa, a wild man of the mountains—Arjuna received a formidable weapon. While Arjuna was away, his brothers and co-wife gradually made their way to nearby Badrinath, where they received the blessings of assembled hermits. They then dispelled the fatigue that they had accumulated during their travels to countless tīrthas by wandering around Badrinath’s sublime environs. These landscapes, in the epic poet’s understanding, were adorned with trees bearing lush fruits, expansive snowfields, mountains streaked with luminescent minerals, and cascading streams.[37]
From the post-Gupta period onward, the events narrated in the Mahābhārata were elaborated and recounted in the Purāṇas, courtly poems (mahākāvyas), and sculpted reliefs. Furthermore, Badrinath came be celebrated as the stage for more wondrous events. For instance, the redactors of the Skanda Purāṇa identified this tīrtha as the place where the legendary sages Nārada and Mārkaṇḍeya gained an auspicious sighting (darśana) of their cherished deity and where Viṣṇu as Varāha and Narasiṁha retreated after performing heroic deeds.[38] The Ganga’s upper reaches and Badrinath also feature in the Kirāṭārjunīya, Bhāravi’s (sixth-century) acclaimed poetic transcreation of Arjuna’s combat with Śiva.[39] It is also plausible that a large relief carved on the eastern wall of the sixth-century temple at Deogarh in the Gangetic plains depicts Nārāyaṇa instructing Nara at Badrinath.[40] Finally, it is likely that a scene included in the enormous seventh-century relief at Mamallapuram—featuring a preceptor and his students studying on the banks of a cascading river in the foreground, a Drāviḍa alpa vimāna honoring Viṣṇu in the middle ground, and ascetics performing penances in the background—is, in fact, a rendition of Badrinath and its environs (fig. 2).[41]
Neither archaeological remains nor inscriptional evidence assignable to the very centuries in which Indian sculptors and versifiers were valorizing Badrinath have survived in the alpine valley. However, documents preserved elsewhere establish that the village has attracted travelers for centuries.
Captain R***r, a British explorer who reached Badrinath in 1808 along with the previously mentioned watercolor painter, calculated that at the time some 45,000 to 50,000 pilgrims were visiting the tīrtha annually. R***r added that “the greater part of these were fakirs who came from the most remote quarters of India.”[42] That number had risen to 175,000 by 1975. A decade before this count, the ethnographer Surinder Bhardhwaj found that the average pilgrim to Badrinath traveled 789 kilometers from his or her hometown.[43] According to records kept by the temple committee, 981,000 Hindu pilgrims visited the tīrtha in 2011.[44]
Finally, it should be noted that at least since the late nineteenth century—when colonial authorities began documenting activities at Badrinath—local residents have recounted legends of the great South Indian Advaita philosopher Ādī Śaṅkara’s (788–820 CE?) visit to Badrinath.[45] One priestly account, first recorded by Edwin T. Atkinson, author of a pioneering study on Himalayan religion, runs as follows:
When Sankara Acharya in his digvijaya travels visited the Mana valley, he arrived at the Narada-kund [one of the four sulfur pools] and found there fifty different idols lying in the waters. These he took out one by one and when all had been rescued a voice from heaven came saying: “These are the images for the Kaliyug: establish them here.” The Svami accordingly placed them beneath a mighty tree whose shade extended from Badrinath to Nandprayag, a distance of forty kos, and hence the name Adi-badri given to the sacred jujube of the hermitage.”[46]
Another priestly account first recorded by Atkinson—and still communicated to pilgrims visiting Badrinath today—also credits the philosopher with the restoration of tīrtha’s ancient Hindu temples.[47] According to yet another local legend, the hill ruler Kanak Pāla helped Śaṅkara to expel Buddhism from the region and erect the Badrinath temple.[48]
Badrinath is not the sole Himalayan settlement associated with the great philosopher. Like their forefathers, the current residents of Joshimath (ancient Jyotirmaṭha)—a large village perched on a slope just south of Pandukeshwar—speak about how Śaṅkara established a maṭha (monastic center of learning) there to propagate his teachings. Furthermore, like many other modern Hindus, Joshimath’s residents believe that Saṅkara established at least three other maṭhas: at Puri in coastal Orissa, at Dwaraka in marine Gujarat, and at Kanchipuram in the Kaveri delta in Tamil Nadu.[49] Today, these monastic institutions are directed by Saṅkarācaryas, pontiffs who have taken the early medieval philosopher’s name, and are visited by thousands of Hindu pilgrims during their circumambulation of the land. [50]
In considering the previously mentioned scenarios, it is important to bear in mind that the great philosopher wrote nothing about his travels. However, it is equally important to recall that one of the few points of agreement in all seven premodern Sanskrit hagiographies of Saṅkara is his pilgrimage to Badrinath. All seven hagiographers report that upon reaching at Badrinath, Śaṅkara heroically defeated resident sages in debate, vanquished Buddhist heretics, restored the tīrtha’s purity, and wrote commentaries on theological texts.[51] The veracity of episodes recounted in these hagiographies cannot be independently confirmed, as they were composed many centuries after the philosopher’s life. Yet the possibility of Śaṅkara’s epic journey to the four quarters of India remains quite likely. As Siddha Kuśaladeva’s biography attests, learned individuals from South India did undertake long-distance journeys to the Himalayas despite uncertainties and privations.[52]
The earliest plausible record of an association between Pandukeshwar and Badrinath is found in an inscribed copperplate discovered in the mid-nineteenth century at the Nārāyaṇa temple. Bearing a date corresponding to 853–54 CE, this inscription directs priests based at Garuḍagrāma to aid celibates (brahmacārīs) at Badrinath. Given this copperplate’s findspot and Pandukeshwar’s position in a ravine at the threshold of the elevated valley, it is likely that the village historically occupied a subordinate position to Badrinath and was named for Garuda, Viṣṇu’s loyal attendant. Pandukeshwar’s stature has grown in the millennium since this order was issued. Today, Namboodri Brahmins from Kerala, Śaṅkara’s home state in southern India, officiate at its temples. In the summer, the Namboodris attempt to relax the pace of pilgrims hurrying on to Badrinath by recounting a meandering narrative about how Arjuna’s father, Pāṇḍu, performed a penance there in the guise of a deer. Furthermore, the Namboodris effectively transform Pandukeshwar into Badrinath each winter. This conversion begins at winter’s onset when the principal image of Viṣṇu in the Badrinath temple is laid in a supine position and a calamūrti is brought out of the temple in a palanquin. The temple doors are then locked, and the calamūrti is transported in fanfare to Pandukeshwar. Accommodated in the Yogabadrī temple’s crowded sanctum, it is regularly worshipped until its return to Badrinath at the start of summer, when the doors are unlocked, and the supine image is restored to an upright position and ritually reawakened.
It is undeniable that this custom parallels the seasonal migrations of other deities as well as administrators, pastoralists, priests, and traders in other Himalayan districts.[53] It is also evident that Pandukeshwar has enjoyed an enviable location on a transregional knowledge corridor—a passageway that connected far-flung places of learning—at least since the construction of its temples.[54] Still, questions remain. Who took the awareness of diverse architectural forms to Pandukeshwar? And who paid for the construction and upkeep of these monuments?
One possibility is that the Pandukeshwar temples were built by a hill dynasty who concurrently wished to celebrate and draw people to a spot sited at Badrinath’s threshold into their little kingdom, welcome the many and varied pilgrims passing by, and accommodate their equally diverse ritual practices. Keeping this scenario in mind, it is worth asking if Tamil architects (sthāpatis) and skilled builders, who occasionally traveled to distant lands to design temples for special patrons,[55] could have built the Yogabadrī temple in its entirety. Several conceptual, formal, and aesthetic discrepancies between “proper” Drāviḍa vimānas in Tamil Nadu and the vimāna at Pandukeshwar, however, make this possibility unlikely.
Another possibility is that an energetic, learned, and determined North Indian sūtradhāra conceived of pairing a Drāviḍa vimāna and a matched Nāgara mūlaprāsāda and enlisted the services of Central Himalayan artisans to construct them. Even if this scenario seems feasible, it is important to ask just how this sūtradhāra and the master masons, stone carvers, and laborers working under his supervision learned about the Drāviḍa typology.
It is tempting to imagine that the sūtradhāra was familiar with the general appearance of a South Indian temple from compendia that predated the encyclopedic Samrāṅgaṇasūtradhāra and like it had chapters on the construction of Drāviḍa and Nāgara temples.[56] However, this proposition has problematic aspects. No such ninth- to tenth-century śilpa śāstra compendium has come down to us. And even if one assumes that such works did exist, it is hard to know whether its prescriptions—with all their idiosyncrasies and contradictions—would have been intelligible to a sūtradhāra more familiar with Nāgara conventions. Furthermore, as śilpa śāstra texts tend to say little about anatomical articulation, construction techniques, and other important aspects, one wonders whether a sūtradhāra sitting in windswept Pandukeshwar systematically read them.[57]
Given Pandukeshwar’s position on a knowledge corridor, it is possible the sūtradhāra learned about the general appearance of a South Indian temple and its characteristic proportions from discourses given by Joshimath’s erudite monks; conversations with Badrinath’s priests from the South who were connected to Śaṅkarā; or even chance encounters with well-traveled pilgrims undertaking epic journeys to tīrthas in India’s four corners.[58] From encounters with such individuals, the sūtradhāra may have also learned something about listing, ranking, and scaling different types of temples, kings, and subjects as well as about linguistic, numerical, and categorical homologies connecting them to subjects as diverse as astronomy, medicine, and prosody.
The previously mentioned encounters also may have brought the sūtradhāra and artisans—who already possessed a wide repertoire of skills—into contact with models of different types of temples and icons (fig. 25). These models most likely would have taken the forms of miniature shrines and diminutive images of deities with which pilgrims sometimes traveled rather than purpose-built, scaled replicas of existing or potential buildings.[59] Indeed, the more private practice of carrying miniature shrines and icons of one’s favorite deities on a pilgrimage and the more public ritual of processing a mobile image in a palanquin around a sacred landscape continue to the present day.[60]
25. Medieval “model” of a Drāviḍa vimāna. Photo courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
25. Medieval “model” of a Drāviḍa vimāna. Photo courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
In all, such activities allow me to reconsider the precision of a conclusion once reached by architectural historian M. A. Dhaky:
The Northern Indian temple builders, though aware of the Drāviḍian temple forms, as is evidenced by their vāstuśāstras, never were interested in representing or actually manipulating these forms. There was no curiosity, if not respect, for forms lying outside their own. The difference amounts to what exists between the attitudes and orientations of the Carnatic and the Hindustani musicians of the present day. A Carnatic musician sings compositions in all the four Southern languages, namely Telegu, Kannaḍa, Malayala and Tamil, and in addition, in Sanskrit, Vraja, and Avadhi (bhajanas of Mīrañ and Tulsidāsa)—the dialects of North—and also Marāthī (abhaṅgas) and of late even Gujarātī (bhajanas of Nṛsimha Mehta) and Bengali songs. No Northern Indian musician has shown such elastic capacity nor inclination to learn anything outside his own tradition, Carnatic the least and never! As now, so in the past, there was a difference in outlook between the two, the Southern though conservative and sticking to his own regional form was more ready to understand the Northern forms.[61]
Great Temples, Little Kingdoms
Shifting from the production to consumption, we know neither the names of individuals who maintained and visited temples in and around Pandukeshwar nor what rituals were performed there in the ninth and tenth centuries. However, the construction of front halls (maṇḍapas) and an increase in the number of metal statues of various deities indicate greater pilgrim traffic, a diversification of rituals, and more wealth in the hands of these institutions.
Archaeologists have found only five documents from this moment in the history of the Central Himalayas.[62] Four of these records are written in Sanskrit on rectangular copperplates and are preserved at Pandukeshwar. The fifth one, written in Sanskrit and engraved on a stone slab, is kept at Bageshwar. Taken together, the documents provide important, if partial, insights into new patterns of patronage and ritual that complement findings recoverable from the foregoing study of the archaeological evidence. These records establish that the cult of Viṣṇu—especially one centered close to the glacial source of the Alakananda-Ganga—received support from three short-lived hill dynasties rather than from the Pāśupatas who had been especially influential in the Central Himalayas for several centuries. These three dynasties ruled from the ceremonial capital of Kārttikeyapura, possibly in the Katyur Valley. Tribhuvanapāla, the scion of one royal house, installed an image of Vaikunṭha Viṣṇu in a temple in the valley in 1002 CE.[63] Another hill dynasty included King Lalitasuradeva and his consort Sāmādevī. When Sāmādevi built a Nārāyaṇa temple at Gorrunasāri, her husband gifted the revenues of various villages to it and to the Nārāyaṇa temple at Garuḍagrāma (Pandukeshwar?).[64] A third lineage, which initially reigned from Kārttikeyapura and later from Subhikṣapura, included Padmaṭadeva and his son and successor, Subhikṣarājadeva. Father and son lent their support to the Badrinath temple.[65]
Earlier rulers, such as Princess Īśvarā of Lakhamandal who had enjoyed some authority over the Central Himalayas, had more interest in erecting Śiva temples than in making provisions for their long-term ritual and physical maintenance. In contrast, the copperplate inscriptions of later Himalayan leaders, including Lalitasuradeva, Padmaṭadeva, and Subhikṣarājadeva, indicate a personal interest in such activities as “providing perfumes, flowers, incense, lights, ointments, offerings of eatables, sacrifices, oblations of rice, &c., dancing, singing, music, charities, &c., for the repair of what may be damaged or broken, as well as for the ex*****on of new work, and for the maintenance of servants and attendants.”[66] In other words, these rulers were interested in properly establishing Viṣṇu as a glorious sentient being with various requirements and expectations in this region.
The rulers of the little hill kingdoms of the medieval period also tried to selectively foster new networks between tīrthas. In one edict, Lalitasuradeva specifically directed the brahmacāris of Ga
