|
RELIGION
Vishnu and Rudra, are reverenced.1 and praised, a fact which indicates the eelectric spirit
of the age. Temples dedicated to Brahma are, however, very rare and none have yet
been discovered in any part of the Kalachuri dominion;2 but that the cult of Vishnu was
widely prevalent and had influential followers in the Chedi country is shown by several
inscriptions of the 10th and later centuries. At Bandhogarh and the adjoining village of
Gopalpur, Gollaka alias Gauda, the Amatya of Yuvarajadeva I, caused to be carved out
of the rocks huge images of several incarnations of Vishnu such as the Fish, the Tortoise,
the Boar, Parasurama and Haladhara (i.e., Balarama), besides one of Seshasayin (Vishnu
reclining on the serpent Sesha).3 It is noteworthy that as in some early panels, Balarama,
not Krishna, is included among the incarnations of Vishnu.4 Somesvara the Brahmana
minister of Lakshmanaraja II, who performed several Vedic sacrifices, erected a lofty and
magnificent temple dedicated to the Boar incarnation of Vishnu under the name of Soma
Svarmin at Karitalai in the Jabalpur District5 The remains of this temple are still extant
at the place. The contemporary Kalachuri king Lakshmanaraja II was himself a devotee
of Siva; but he granted a village for the maintenance of the eight Brahmanas whom he
settled there for the worship of the god. His queen Rahada and son Sankaragana III
contrary to the general tendency of the Kalachuris, he was a devotee of Vishnu and erected
a temple dedicated to that god under the name of Sankaranarayana at Bargaon in the Jabal
pur District.7 At Makundpur in the Rewa District of Vindhya Pradesh, there was an
other temple dedicated to Vishnu under the name of Jalasayana (the god who reposes on
water) by a private individual, viz., the Sreshthin Damodara8
Though the cult of Vishnu was thus prevalent in the Chēdi country and received a
considerable patronage from the royal family, it was far outshone by that of Śiva the tute
lary deity of the Kalachuris. Vāmarāja the founder of the Later Kalachuri Dynasty was a
devout worshipper of Śiva. No inscription of his reign has been discovered so far, but in
some records of his successors9 he receives the epithet paramamāhēśvara indicative of his
devotion to Śiva. He first established himself at Kālañjara, the impregnable fort in the
Banda District, which from very early times has been sacred to Śiva. Later, the family
divided itself into two branches; one establishing itself in the country of Sarayūpāra and the
other in that of Chēdi10 of them were devoted to Śiva. The Kalachuris of Sarayū
pāra had Nandin, the vāhana of Śiva, as their emblem on the seals of their copper-plate
chatters. Though the Kalachuris of Tripuri adopted the Gaja-Lakshmi as their distinctive
emblem, they did not omit Nandin from the seals of their charters.
Śaivism became the paramount cult throughout the extensive dominion of the
_____________________
1No. 37,11. 1-4.
2Subsidiary images of Brahmā are however, noticed in several temples of that period See H.T.M.,
pp. 52 63 etc.
3Nos. 38-41.
4R.D. Banerji, Eastern and Indian school of Mediaeval Sculpture, p.103. I have noticed the same in the
prabhāvli of an image of Vishnu found at Pavnār in the Wardha District According to the Bhāgavata
Purāna, Balarāma represents both himself and his younger brother Krishna.
5No. 42, 1.17.
6Ibid., 11.29-30
7No. 43,1. 3.
8No. 47,1.2. For other temples of Vishny at Amrakanatak and Vaishnava sculptures at Sōhōgpur,
see H.T.M., pp. 57 and 99 ff. There was a temple of Vishnu erected by a private person at Karanabēl for
which see below p. 653.
9No. 56,1. 22.
10See above ppf lxix
Home
Page,/u> |
