THE SHIVA TEMPLE AT PAYAR An Exquisite Song In Stone

(The Shiva temple at Payar is an exquisite achievement of the Kashmir school of temples. architecture. For centuries this "song in stone", as the writer calls it, has stood defiantly against time.)

A few months back the DD Kashmir telecast a news item about the ancient Shiva temple at Payar. In an interview a local villager disclosed that the temple had been desecrated by some "miscreants" from the adjoining villages and the local villagers could do nothing but watch helplessly.

The news was received by me as a shock for I was fascinated by this gem of a temple right from my childhood days. Memories of my visits to the place flooded my mind and I felt deeply sad. I had explored its architectural features and artistic charm in some detail and was mesmerised by its beauty And now there is every danger of this temple, well worth of becoming a world heritage site, being damaged. From far away Delhi, where I live now, I can do nothing about it except pray.

My first visit to the village of Payar, I recollect, was in the spring of 1975 when I was just a child. T was accompanied by the late Shri Srikanth Bhat', a resident of the village Tengpuna. We took a shortcut across the paddy fields and crossing some perennial streams reached the village. Some mud dwellings with thatched roofs, one or two houses built of sun baked bricks, dusty streets, and two or three small grocery shops is all that I remember of my first visit to the place.

All the villagers seemed to know Pandit Srikanth and each one of them greeted us warmly on our way to the temple. Huge carved stones were strewn at many places and the narrow

a street, which cut across the village, led us to a stream flowing by. On the bank of the stream was a mosque - a pucca structure with a plinth of chiselled stone and a superstructure of kiln baked bricks covered with galvanised iron sheets. The stream was flowing at the foot of a tableland known as the Koil Udar.

We took a U-turn and beheld with amazement a splendid structure in stone hidden among some acacias, a poplar and a walnut tree. This was the ancient temple of Payar which to me looked like a virtual jewel. Pandit Srikanth Bhat told me that foreign visitors came to see this place frequently. Pointing towards the carved boulders, he said that all these were once part of the temple complex.

In the subsequent years the village of Payar underwent a metamorphic change in the way it looked. During my visit to Payar in 1986, I found that a metallic road was paved to this village, connecting it with the district headquarters. Baked brick structures had been built in places where mud dwellings stood, roofed by galvanised iron sheets instead of thatched roofs. New shops had come up in the village catering to the growing needs of the villagers. The villagers acknowledged that it was the glory of this temple glowing in its lap that attracted visitors from different parts of the world.

After the Archeological Survey of India took over the temple in 1975-76, the protected area around the monument was enclosed by barbed wire fencing. A signboard and information about the shrine was put up in the temple complex, which got rusted with the passage of time and no one ever deemed it fit to replace it.

The village of Payar lies at the foot of the kareva or tableland locally known as Koil Udar at its north-western end, about 2 ½ kms from Pulwama, the district headquarters. A small stream named Darkol flows by in the village with the villages of Mughalpora, Tenghar, Koil, Tengpuna and Takibal surrounding it - Tengpuna and Koel being the nearest Hindu villages.

The place figures in accounts of European travellers as Payach. Aurel Stein refers to the Udar as Naunagar Udar, presently known as Koil Udar, but he is not able to relate it to any ancient site mentioned in the Rajtarangini or to the original name of the locality on the basis of popular etymology. The Shiva temple: a marvel of masonry.

Payar is a hamlet, three kilometres from of Pulwama. The Shiva temple located at the front of the kareva or tableland there can be described as a marvel of masonry, being built of ten perfect and large stones. The great thing about the temple is that it is in a well preserved condition, having withstood the vagaries of time and the assaults of the iconoclast. Though small in size, it is an eloquent testimony of Kashmir's architectural and sculptural glory. The temple is open on all the four sides and approachable by steps from the eastern side. Its structural features consist of a double pyramidal roof with triangular pediments on all the four sides enclosing a trefoil arch. 

The eastern trefoil niche contains an image of Lakulisa, which is something very significant for the light it sheds light on the religious history of Kashmir, pointing to the existence of the existence of the ancient cult associated with the name of the deity. The image shows the deity seated cross legged on a wicker seat. In the western trefoil niche is the exquisite figure of a dancing Shiva in high relief, the only such figure in Kashmir. The six-armed Shiva carries a trident and khatvanga in his hands and is dancing to the drum beats of a male drummer and tunes of a female flute player. The trefoil niche on the northern side contains an image of three-headed Shiva. The central image of Shiva has Aghora on its right and Uma on its left side. The southern trefoil niche depicts the Gajasamhara scene, with Shiva in the form of Bhairava shown killing the elephant demon Nila. Carved out of a single block of stone the dome shaped ceiling of the temple is an exquisite expression of art. Its exterior side is richly carved with motifs of geese and bulls besides decorative bands in relief.

G.T. Vigne (1842) refers to the place as Payach and from its perfect preservation makes out that the monument is more modern than any other temple in Kashmir. He relates its etymology to 'Panduyer-the place of Pandus. He also refers to the part displacement of the roof which according to popular version was the result of an attempt made by the Pathans to bring it down and remove it to the city. According to him the temple was dedicated to Vishnu as Surya and the radiated ceiling of the interior to represent the sun. Vigne praises it as the most beautifully proportioned of the old buildings in Kashmir. He also gives a drawing of the temple's structure, which though not elaborate gives an idea of its overall architectural setting.

Cunningham (1848) assigns the Payar temple to the end of the 5th century, saying that it was erected by Narendraditya. But in the Rajataranginil the temple of Narendraswamin is stated to be at Vaishnavite shrine and thus cannot be related to the temple at Payar, which is undoubtedly dedicated to Shiva.

James Fergusson (1876) dates it to the 10th century and writes that even with its small. dimensions it acquires a certain dignity due to its being built with only six stones-four for the walls. and two for the roof. In fact it is made up of ten stones, with four stones for the tympanums over the doors.

Arthur Neve (1899) describes the architectural features of the temple in detail and attracts our attention to the slightly displaced crown of the pyramidal roof, the displacement causing a crack. This crack, however, was later on repaired by the Archaeological Survey of India. Neve does not agree with the view, expressed by many contemporary writers, that the Pathans made an attempt to bring the temple down and remove it to the city, but suggests that an earthquake could be the probable reason of the crack. He identifies the sculptures above the doorway as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and the goddess Durga and states that the temple is dedicated to Surya. Neve, however, forgets to mention the enshrined Shivalinga, which is very prominent in the illustration he has published in his own book.

Another traveller, Ernest Neve (1931) refers to the place as Payach and ranks it as the most beautiful of all the ancient Kashmiri shrines. Francis Young husband" (1909) also gives the name of the place as Payach and describes it as the best-preserved specimen of ancient temple architecture in Kashmir.

Late Pandit Vasudev, a resident of Pinglina village, was the priest of the Payar temple till 1961. After him no one went to the temple to perform the duties as its priest. In one of the photographs published in Neve's book on Kashmir, a man wearing a turban and pheran is seen seated on the plinth of the temple. Most probably he is Pandit Vasudev. A samovar and a khos (a metallic cup) can be seen lying near him.

Strangely enough, when this author visited some villages adjoining Payar, no one seemed to know anything about the temple's history or any legend or story related to it. Everyone among the villagers looked blank when I tried to elicit any information about it from them. And yet, as I came to know, Hindus from the Tengpuna, Serun, Monghoma, Trisal, Koil and Tahab villages would visit this temple on the first navaratra, or Navreh as the Kashmiri Pandits call it celebrating it as their New Year, and would take tahari (yellow rice) and tea with them to the place. It is the time when the fields there are covered with golden mustard flowers, inspiring people to rejoice and sing praises of God for the rich harvest. 

According to Srikanth Bhat, a resident of Payar, one Sheikh Gulam Nabi of the village disclosed to him that he was a convert to Islam and so were all other inhabitants of Payar and nearby villages who became Muslims during the Pathan rule. Gulam Nabi Sheikh possessed an old horoscope and a Hindu religious manuscript belonging to his great-grandparents as evidence.

The settlement pattern of the present day village and the carved stones found on the bank of the rivulet suggest that there existed another temple larger than the present one located at the site where the village mosque now stands. Carved stones can be seen in the plinth of the mosque even today with some of them lying on the bank of the rivulet in the upside-down position.

The reason for the temple being left untouched by vandals and iconoclasts lies in its small size and its location outside the village. Another reason could be that the villagers were forcibly converted to Islam during the Pathan rule and were therefore reluctant to desecrate their own earlier place of worship.

In the year 1973, the temple committee of Tengpuna was looking for an idol of Devi to be installed in the Chandika Devi temple. One Hazi Abdul Rahman of Payar village told them about an idol which was lying on the bank of the stream. Four members of the temple committee, the late Gopinath Bhat (who expired in 1990), late Brijnath Bhat who expired in 1997 (President), Nath ji Bhat, presently residing at Muthi Camp, Jammu and Triloki Nath Bhat, presently living at Brunei, Jammu, visited Payar and met Hazi Rahman. The image of the deity sculpted on a big chiselled stone was in low relief and disfigured. The committee decided against installing it in the temple. All this flashed in my mind when I heard of the attempt made to desecrate it. It pained me greatly that this beautiful expression of Kashmir's architectural art has been left unprotected even though it is an ASI monument.

¹Pandit Srikanth Bhat Resident of village Tengpuna, District Pulwama expired in Feb' 2001

at the age of 85 in Jammu.

2Vigne, G.T. Travels in Kashmir, Ladakh, Skardu, the countries adjoining the mountain course of the Indus and the Himalayas, north of the Punjab, vol. II, (London 1842) pp. 39-41.

³F.Younghusband, Kashmir, Adam & Charles Black, London. 1909. (Reprinted from Koshur Samachar, March 2010.)

DISCLAIMER: 

The views expressed in the Article above are   Virendra Bangroo  views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."

Courtesy:   Virendra Bangroo  Koshur Samachar 2016, May