When you travel
from Bhuj towards Mata No Madh, the most famous shrine of the patron Goddess of
Kutch- Ashapura Mata, you cannot but miss an ancient ruined temple on your left
when you reach Manjal a village about 30 km down the highway from Bhuj.
During one of
our trips, we finally decided to stop and explore the place. To our surprise,
the temple- known as Punvareshwar Mahadev Temple was one of the oldest structures
in Kutch and carried along with it an ancient legend. The general area of the
temple is known as Paddhargadh or Punvaranogadh and has a few other ruins of
fort and temples and is associated with the ancient legend of Jakh Bothera.
The ‘Jakhs’ were
said to have been shipwrecked on the Kutch coast and came ashore at place, now
known as Jakhau. Variously described as tall and fair-complexioned with an
advanced culture, their traditional number is seventy-two with at least one
woman. Their origins are obscure.
Later they were
revered by people of Kutch as folk dieties and temples are erected in their
dedication at a number of places in Kutch. A fair dedicated to them is
organised on the second Monday of Bhadrapad (September-October) every year on
the foothills. This fair lasting two to three days is attended by thousands of
pilgrims.
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| Front View of the Temple |
The temple
itself was built around 878 AD by Punvara, son of the chief of Kera, Kutch.
Quarreling with his family, Punvara, whose chief characteristic seems to have
been cruelty, resolved to found a city and call it after his own name.
When the city
was finished, the architect was rewarded by having both his hands chopped off
that he might not do work like it for anyone else. It is said that Punvara
married a daughter of the king of Sindh. She was devotee of Shiva and carried
the deity to Punvaranogadh where she installed it.
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| Main Deity of the Temple |
Soon after,
seven devotees of Jakhs renowned for their virtues and miracles settled on a
hill near Punvaranogadh. Hearing of their fame, Punvar's childless queen had an
underground she after six months prayed them to ask the god
to give her a son. But, for her husband's sins, until a sacrifice was offered
in the palace, the prayer could not be granted. By the underground passage the
holy men entered the palace and were performing their rites when Punvara,hearing
that there were strange men in the women’s’ rooms, forced his way in, seized
the devotees, and set them with bare feet to tread out corn in a threshing
floor bristling with harrow-spikes.
Pitying their
sufferings a friendly barber named Babra offered to take the place of one of
them. The freed devotee went to the top of Lakhadiya hill nearby and call Jakhs
to their aid. Jakhs heard the prayer, and, with an earthquake that shook the
hills, appeared with seventy-one brothers and a sister, Sayari or Sairi.
Called on to
give up the holy men, Punvara refused and with the help of a magic amulet
suffered nothing from the arrows of Jakhs. Then Sayari, taking the form of a
mosquito, bit Punvara on the arm so that he drew off his amulet, leaving him
vulnerable. A stone falling from the roof broke his head. Jakhs cursed the town
and it has since lain desolate.
Punvareshwar
temple is a synthesis of two styles. This Shiva temple, which combines elements
of the Dravida and Nagara styles, is probably the oldest of its kind in Kutch.
Built on a high plinth and sparsely ornamented, the temple itself is relatively
small in size. But it has all the essential elements including an enclosed
ambulatory around the sanctum. Parts of it appear to have been rebuilt using
the original material.
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| Ruins of Ancient Carvings |
In the centre of
a platform, 7 feet 9 inches high 160 feet long and 41 wide, stands a temple of
Shiva, 50 feet 9 inches long and 22 feet 3 inches wide. In each corner of the
platform is a small ruined shrine. Between the ruined entrance and the porch is
a hollow for sacrificial fire, agnikund. The temple, facing the west, of blocks
of grey and black iron sandstone put together without cement, must have stood
about fifty feet high. The porch, 261⁄2 feet long and 18 wide, has 16 pilasters
and 8 square, 12 feet high, pillars forming two aisles. In the brackets are
figures of men and lions. The dome has fallen, hut an upper floor, with
rosettes in the middle of the ceiling and a cornice of creeping plants cut in
the stone, is entire. Above the lintel are large figures of musicians. The
upper part of the shrine has fallen and been rebuilt. Near the temple are some
tombstones apparently of later date, but without any writing.
This temple,
though ravaged and badly damaged by frequent earthquakes surely begets a visit
when you travel to Kutch next- if not for anything else but for its antiquity
and the quaint legend surrounding it.
