Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Párá

by Joseph David Freedone Melik Beglar

PÁRÁ.

Close to Párá, about half mile to the west of the present village, in a field, is a small inscribed statue of a female on a lion; she is six-armed, of which four are now missing; on two sides of the lion are two pigs, and over them two elephants on each side, one large and one small; the inscription reads, "Sri Venábásini Sri Char" * * * * * &c.; the inscription is in bad order; it evidently records the name of the donor, a private individual apparently, and a worshipper of the charana (sacred feet) of the goddess: the fish emblem occupies the centre of the canopy over the head of the statue; I infer it, therefore, to be Vaishnavic; she is dressed in a short boddice and the sári, with the loose end gathered up and left hanging in folds in front, like the dhotis of the better class of people in Bengal at this day.

Párá contains several temples, most of which are comparatively recent; the one at the extreme west end is a curious and not inelegant building; it is clearly post-Muhammadan, but not of recent date; the roofs are all of overlapping courses, although the arches supporting them are true arches. There are also some brick temples, of probably the same age, in the village; these, but especially the Rádháráman temple, are profusely ornamented with moulded and cut brick; the minute tracery, executed in such a soft material as brick, exposed to the weather, is in wonderful preservation, and shows how much can be done in this material at little cost; photographs of both temples have been taken, and are worth studying.

The most ancient and interesting objects here are, however, two temples, to the east of, and just outside, the village; one is of brick, the other of a soft kind of stone; both are much weather-beaten and partially broken, but such portions as still exist are interesting.

The stone temple was once a large and complete temple; traces of the foundations of the mahamandapa can still be seen, but only the tower portion containing the sanctum is standing now; this portion was once profusely ornamented with mouldings and sculpture, but the weather has worn away the stone (a very soft sandstone) so much, that the correct outline of the mouldings can nowhere be made out. A curious peculiarity of the mouldings of the temple, and indeed of temples of this part of Bengal in general, is, that at intervals the mouldings are interrupted by thin spaces left projecting, showing that the mouldings were cut after the temples were completely built up plain, generally; the septa interrupting the line of mouldings are solid, but in this temple the mouldings were so bold, that they have found it possible to perforate the septa at the back, and thus carry through the mouldings. This sketch shows the appearance of one where the cross shading represents the mouldings in section; the single shading represents the septum in elevation, and the blank B the portion hollowed through. The faces A of the septa, which are wide, were profusely and delicately sculptured into chaityas, statues, processions, battle scenes, &c.; at present only a few half-worn ones exist to show what they were originally.

 

 

It will be seen from the photograph that the upper portion of the tower of this temple is built differently to the lower, both in material and execution, being of coarse stone (granite probably) plain cut; it will also be seen that the front or entrance is quite plain; these are clearly due to subsequent repair; in the front portion, not only does the plain portion not fit the ornamental part behind, but there is used, besides stones of various kinds, brick also, to fill in odd spaces; the stone, however, is set dry without any mortar, and this leads me to assign to the repair some antiquity; certainly the repair was not executed within the memory of any living man, nor does tradition say anything about it. I conclude, therefore, as the repair is evidently post-Muhammadan, though of an early period, that it was executed during the time that Mân Singh, as Akbar’s General, exercised supreme authority in these parts.

The temple enshrines a statue of fine black stone; it is of Lakshmi, and is two-armed; two elephants are sculptured as holding garlands over her head; she has lost her nose, but is otherwise in excellent preservation, and rivals the fine sculptures of Lakhisarai and its neighbourhood; there is a silly legend to account for the loss of the nose, which appears to me to have really been lost through strokes of Muhammadan axes or sabres before the Hindu General Mân Singh was sent as Chief in these parts.

A coat of plaster once covered the temple; and as the plaster could not have been put on when the temple was in good condition, from the circumstance that in some portions where the plaster still exists the stone underneath is nevertheless weather-worn, I infer that it was put on when the repairs were executed, so as to give a uniform look to the old and new portions; it has, however, long ago disappeared, being now found only in sheltered corners.

The lower portion of the temple is now buried to a depth of probably 3 feet underground.

An inscription was said to have existed in the temple, but had dropped out long ago, and remained uncared for a long time; it is, however, not to be seen now, and no one knows anything about it.

Close to it stands the brick temple; this temple is also old, perhaps older than the stone one; the bricks used measure more than 17 inches long by over 11 inches in width, and are all set in mud; they appear fairly well burnt, and well shaped, and the weather has acted less on them than on the apparently harder stone of the adjacent temple; the temple now stands apparently on a high plinth, but this plinth or basement is a later addition, made most probably to secure the temple from tumbling down, through weakening, by saltpetre or the weather, of the lowest courses; it is, therefore, merely a sort of envelope to the lower portion of the temple, which is, howeyer, by this means completely hidden from view, and it is, therefore, impossible to ascertain the forms of the mouldings of the lower part of the temple without removing it,—a proceeding not to be attempted, as the temple has jealous pujaris in attendance. From an examination of the line of junction of the temple and its outer casing or plinth, it is seen that the lower part of the original temple had become very insecure from the removal or disintegration of the lower courses of bricks; this examination made in front, further shows that the temple did not consist originally of only a cell, but that it had a mandapa in front besides, of which now no traces remain, a huge pipar tree having monopolised the ground which the mandapa once occupied; the plinth or casing is of brick set in mortar, the temple itself being as stated, of brick set in mud.

The entrance to the lower portion now existing is, as usual, cut up into two portions,—a lower rectangular doorway proper, and an upper pentagonal illuminating window, by a stone door-frame inserted in the opening; the upper portion, when it begins narrowing, does so by the usual expedient of overlapping courses; there is no trace of any arching whatever:—unlike the temples at Buddha Gáyá, and at Konch, the cell has but one roof, being the tall pyramidal roof formed by the tower itself; this is as it should be, for, as I have shown, the inner vaulted roofs of the temples at Buddha Gáyá and at Konch were put in afterwards, and, in the former case, for a special purpose.

The temple enshrines a ten-armed female statue.

The temple was at one time plastered throughout, but the peeling off of the plaster in most places, while it is intact in others, shows that it was put on afterwards; the temple appears to have originally had no coat of plaster, for the bricks forming the facing all round are carefully smoothed, cut and sculptured; and so minutely was the carving done, that a space 1 inch square shows sculptured two tiny bells, their ropes, and the twist of the several strands of the ropes clearly made out,—so that, nothing need have been added in the way of sculpture, in an external coat of plaster; but what conclusively proves the later date of the plaster coat is the circumstance that the sculptured figures, executed in the plaster coat, do not correspond to the underlying sculpture in the brick face itself; the plaster, therefore, is a later addition, and I would attribute it to the same period as the repairs of the stone temple, i.e., to the time of Mân Singh, Akbar’s General.

The forms of the towers, both of this and of the adjacent stone one, are very graceful; the upper portion of the tower of this one is broken, and it appears likely to be soon destroyed through the growth of trees, which are allowed to take root and flourish without hindrance.

Close to, and to the south-west of, this temple is a large mound, on which, and about which, lie several tapering plain pillars; this mound was clearly once the site of a large temple, larger than the existing ones. At the east end of the mound still stand two pilasters, with plain square mouldings; they measure 28 inches in width by 16 inches in thickness. Tradition says they are the side supports on which the trunnions of a dhenki used to work, the said dhenki having been set up by an evil Rankini, who was fond of human flesh, which she used to pound in this dhenki; and one of the long stone pillars, lying at the foot of the mound, is pointed out as the dhenki beam; it is said that, by agreement with the Raja, she was allowed one human victim daily. One day a poor cowherd, on returning with his cows to his master's house, saw his master and mistress crying bitterly; and ascertaining on inquiry the cause to be that one of them was to be made over to the ogress, he volunteered to go instead, stipulating only that be should be immediately furnished with some gram made of iron and some ordinary gram: armed with these, the man and his two dogs went to the temple and waited; presently in came the Rankini, and was about to seize him, when he said—"Hold, before you eat me, or I eat you, let us make a trial of strength: here is a handful of gram for you, and here is one for me, whichever of us two finishes eating the gram first, shall also eat the other." The Rankini agreed, but vainly tried to masticate the iron gram she had received, while the cowherd soon got through his share, and made as if he would begin on her next: terrified, the Rankini rent the temple and ran out, pursued by the cowherd and his two dogs; the Rankini fled to Dhalbhum, where, seeing a washerman washing at the river, she begged him to hide her, promising him the Ráj as recompense; the man hid her under his "pat" (the piece of wood they beat the cloth on), and the cowherd, after a fruitless search, was returning with his two dogs, when, in passing through the Baghal forest, near the village of Baghályá, he and his dogs were turned into stone, and exist to this day! In proof of the truth of this legend, they point to the Rajas of Dhalbhum, who are said to be dhobis by caste, and who are notorious for having practised human sacrifices, till very recent times, in honor, it is said, of this very Rankini, who became their tutelary deity and the principal object of worship in the country; her temple is said (and the site is pointed out at Sarangarh, near Ambikanagar) to have existed till within the last few years, and to have been regularly supplied with human victims till it was destroyed by the British authorities.

The petrified cowherd is nothing more or less than a Sati pillar, standing by itself, in the Baghályá forest (scrub jangal), near the Baghályá village; it is clear that the name of the village and of the jangal has suggested the identification of the Sati pillar (the real purpose of which was forgotten) with the petrified cowherd; the dogs are said also to be there, but one of them is certainly a lion from some temple, and the other is perhaps another from the same, or some other temple: the Sati pillar is now worshipped, if plenteous libations of milk and ghi be any criterion of worship. The Baghályá village is a couple or 3 miles off the road, between Kotrá and Jhaprá.

Párá is traditionally said to have been the seat of the Rajas, and is said to have possessed 52 tanks: one version says in Párá there are 6 coris of pokhars and 9 coris (scores) of garhwas (small ponds); there are numerous tanks and hollows to this day, and the temples noticed above stand close to a large one, and not far from several; but they are mostly either dry, or becoming rapidly choked up.

The temple of Rádháráman in the village noticed before, is said to have been built by one Purshottam Dás from Bindrában; his tomb (chhatri rather) faces the temple; the object of worship is a black two-armed male statue, 3 feet high. The founder having enshrined the statue, and provided for its maintenance, wished to return to his country, and told the statue so, but it replied—"Since you have brought me away, this is your native country; now therefore remain here." The mahant pleaded that he had no sons, and could get none unless he returned home, to perform his funeral obsequies, but the statue at once offered to do it himself; hence of all offerings to the statue the first share is set aside as an offering to the deceased mahant. Purshottam Dás is said to have built the temple during the viceroyalty of Mân Singh, who is said to have built the curious stone temple noticed at the west end of the village; to him I have also attributed the repairs of the two great temples of brick and stone, and, on the whole, it appears that the later flourishing days of Párá were during or about the period he exercised sway as Akbar’s General in these parts.