Teli ka Mandir: Difference between revisions

The Telika Mandir is one of the historic temples within the Gwalior old city. It is in the middle of the old town, built on a high point which makes it stand out from different locations within the fort.<ref name=asi356>[https://archive.org/stream/archaeologicalsu02arch#page/n443/mode/1up Teli Mandir], A Cunningham, pages 356-361</ref><ref name="Allen1991"/><ref name="Dobbie2004">{{cite book|author=Aline Dobbie|title=India: The Tiger's Roar|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-184ul4SfCAC&pg=PA61|year=2004|publisher=Melrose Press|isbn=978-0-9548480-2-6|page=61}}</ref> The site of the Teli ka Mandir and other historic temples is found in early inscriptions. Some of these refer to the town as Gopagiri.<ref name=asigwaliorfort>[http://asibhopal.nic.in/monument/gwalior_gwalior_gwaliorfort_more.html Gwalior Fort: Gwalior], ASI Bhopal Circle, Government of India</ref>

The doorway into the temple is {{convert|35|ft}} high, and it is ornate. Above the doorway is a relief of Garuda, the ''vahana'' of Vishnu. Inside, there is another doorway above which is a Ganesha relief.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Grand temples of Madhya Pradesh|journal=Tattvaloka|date=September 2018|volume=XLI|issue=6|publisher=Sri Abhinava Vidyatheertha Mahaswamigal Educational Trust|location=[[Sringeri]]|issn=0970-8901|last=Ramakrishna|first=Lalitha|pages=47–52}}</ref> There is a Nandi and lingam inside in the sanctum. The temple entrance and panels have several inscriptions, three of which are short likely from pre-10th century and others are longer from 15th-century. The latter inscriptions suggest that the temple was a Shaiva shrine by the 15th century.<ref name=asi356/><ref name=goetzp47/> One of the inscriptions discovered is a metrical hymn about Durga, which suggests a Shakta tradition influence.<ref name=asigwaliorfort/> The temple lacks a covered mandapa, but includes a circumambulatory path. This path has four entrances, one from each cardinal direction which a devotee can use to enter the temple for a ''[[darshana]]''.<ref name="Allen1991"/>

The temple is approached through a flight of stairs leading to a banded doorway containing sculptures of river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna with their waists leaning towards the center, each with a boy and a girl on the lower part. Above them are amorous couples in various stages of courtship and intimacy ([[mithuna]]). There are male and female [[dvarapala]]s along the outer and inner doorways, both genders carrying weapons and a kind expression of welcome, and possibly symbolizing the theology in Shaiva and Shakta traditions.<ref name="Bajpai2006"/><ref name=goetzp47/> Above the river goddess flanked eastern doorway are piled up chaitya-hall style ''gavaksha'' ornamentation, which reminds one of the Buddhist designs. The doorway leads to the [[sanctum sanctorum]] or [[garbha griha]].<ref name="Publications"/> There is a decorative sculpture of [[Garuda]] at the entrance to the temple.<ref name="Krishna1990">{{cite book|author=Brajesh Krishna|title=The art under the Gurjara-Pratihāras|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PMmfAAAAMAAJ|date=1 January 1990|publisher=Harman Pub. House|isbn=978-81-85151-16-8}}</ref>

The temple sanctum plan seems rectangular rather than the typical square, one that makes it the oldest surviving Hindu temple with a rectangular plan in Central India. According to Michael Meister, a professor specializing on Indian temple architecture, the temple is actually a study in squares nevertheless because its rectangles are formed by combining squares.<ref name=meister266/> The extensive damage and dislocation of its ruins before the 20th-century has led to misidentification and misclassification of the temple. According to Meister, and Hermann Goetz, the temple was broadly assumed in the colonial era to have been a Vishnu temple that was later converted into Shiva temple, the temple may have actually started as a temple dedicated to the Matrikas (mother goddesses), but one that included the motifs of Vaishnanism and Shaivism.<ref name=meister266/><ref name=goetzp47/> The evidence for these are now in the ruins held by the Gwalior Museum and Delhi National Museum. Similarly, the assumed "southern influence" is likely an incorrect hypothesis as well, proposed by those who saw something similar in the South Indian majestic gopuram or the vaulted roofs at [[Mahabalipuram]], Tamil Nadu.<ref name=meister266/> However, the influence could have been the other way around or possibly the result of collaboration between pan-Indian artist guilds. Post-colonial era studies have identified similar ruined barrel-vault capped historic temples in many places in north and east India, including those in Odisha. Closer study of the keel vault details suggest that the ideas are markedly different expressions of an idea, rather than a copy.<ref name=meister266>Michael W. Meister (1983), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3249613 Geometry and Measure in Indian Temple Plans: Rectangular Temples], Artibus Asiae, Vol. 44, No. 4 (1983), pages 266-296</ref><ref name=goetzp47/>