<span style='color:red'>Sri Har Mandir, Malinagar Bihar</span>
On the banks of Old Gandaki river, on the lands of the earstwhile princely state of darbhangA, and presently in the samastIpur distt. of bihar, is a village called mAlInagar. The village itself is non-descript, except for a 'forgotten' temple of 12/13th century, that it has.
On one side of the river lies samastIpur, while on the other darbhangA. On the samastipur side is this village. During the heavy rains, the river is often flooded, causing enormous desctruction to both sides. Right on the banks lies this temple known by the locals as Sri Har Mandir.
The temple, actually a complex of twin temples - of Sri Ram, and of Bhagwan Siva, was constructed by some "mahathA" (Mehta?) gold-merchants from Gujarat, as the shilA-leka located here proclaims in sanskrit-prAkrit. Then later there was certain dispute between the wealthy merchants and the king of darbhangA - due to which the merchants left mAlInagar, although the descendant mahathA-s still patronize the temple.
<img src='http://inlinethumb52.webshots.com/24627/2407462780100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Siva temple is the older one, while Rama temple was constructed 25 years after it, as per the shilA-lekha. Siva temple is very unique. The large shiva-linga which is worshipped here, displays the face of Godess Parvati growing upon it. The linga also has a thousand tiny shiva-linga-s "sprouting" on it - making it a 1001 shiva-lingas in one. Or, are these sahasra-lochana-s, the thousand eyes of Siva - as Ravana recited in the tAnDava-strotram?
<img src='http://inlinethumb47.webshots.com/23982/2130656050100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Guarding the entrance to the gopuram is a trimurti - Sri Kartikeya on the left side , Sri Vinayaka on top, and Sri Bhairava on the right side of the entrance. Like Godess Parvati's face on the main Linga, this pratima of sri kArtikeya has his face emerging from a small round shiva-linga too. All these vigraha-s are in black sand stone.
<img src='http://inlinethumb24.webshots.com/23191/2479585120100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
The walls, roofs and other surfaces of the temple are painted in colourful and bright paintings depicting themes from (especially Siva-) Purana, particularly the Siva-vivaha / kumara-sambhava episode. Style of course is madhubani, but with inflence from early Rajput or Jain-style paintings.
The other temple - that of Bhagwan Ram - originally had only the vigraha of Sri Ram, but over time the other murti-s have been added to it, and now besides the main pratima of Bhagwan Ram - one can not miss observing this - the rest of the pratimas look more like a show case arranged in a room.
The caretaker Sri Bajpai-ji explains the phenomenon. He told that it was indeed only a Ram-Sita-Lakshaman temple, guarded by Hanuman and Garuda. This area is prone to natural disasters like floods and earthquakes (and of course ghazi invasions). So, as and when any other temple in the area - even faraway - had any such calamities, its dev-pratima found a place in this temple. And eventually it became what it is now in. The fact is very clear by the different style, stone, size and colour of the pratima-s in Sri Rama temple.
The outer Shikhara of the two temples are of the same height and overall dimensions but different in style. And while there is a trishUl on top of Siva temple, there is a chakra on top of Rama temple.
Sri Bajpai-ji also points to another feature of the temple - the parikramA-dIrghA - which is kind of interesting. The circumambulation path is arranged in a way that the devotee does a parikramA of Siva alone, Rama alone, and then both Siva and Rama together. Kind of shows the unity of Saiva and Vaishnava.
Then Bajpai-ji mentions another important heritage. Father of the Hindi prose - Babu Devaki Nandan Khatri - spent his days writing masterpiece ChandrakAntA santati in this temple. He shows a marble platform - takhta - which Khatri used to use, and also points that Khatri had mentioned the temple in the preface of the legendary work.
The temple is in very bad repair - needs financial help to restore.
It is a rather tough journey to reach the place. Nearest "major" railway station would be Muzaffarpur - about 50 KMs away. The last 20 KMs is a bumpy drive - well at least after ganDak has ravaged the roads.
Another important landmark heritage is a small railway station about 12/15 KMs from here. This otherwise non descript 2-platform station on which majority trains don't stop is called PUSA Road station. Hutatma Sri Khudiram Bose Ji was surrounded and captured like an animal, by the british police at this very railway station, about exactly 99 years back from today - in year 1908. Only 19 years old at that time, he can be said to have probably been the first "known" Indian in the Struggle for Independence to have thrown a bomb at a British Officer. Hanged by british, he martyred with Bhagavadgita in his hands and Vande Mataram on his lips.
His sacrifice has made this railway station immortal. Nitish Kumar, Railway Minister in 2003 and Bihar CM now, has dedicated this station to Bose, and it is known as Khudiram Bose railway station.
would post more images later.
On the banks of Old Gandaki river, on the lands of the earstwhile princely state of darbhangA, and presently in the samastIpur distt. of bihar, is a village called mAlInagar. The village itself is non-descript, except for a 'forgotten' temple of 12/13th century, that it has.
On one side of the river lies samastIpur, while on the other darbhangA. On the samastipur side is this village. During the heavy rains, the river is often flooded, causing enormous desctruction to both sides. Right on the banks lies this temple known by the locals as Sri Har Mandir.
The temple, actually a complex of twin temples - of Sri Ram, and of Bhagwan Siva, was constructed by some "mahathA" (Mehta?) gold-merchants from Gujarat, as the shilA-leka located here proclaims in sanskrit-prAkrit. Then later there was certain dispute between the wealthy merchants and the king of darbhangA - due to which the merchants left mAlInagar, although the descendant mahathA-s still patronize the temple.
<img src='http://inlinethumb52.webshots.com/24627/2407462780100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Siva temple is the older one, while Rama temple was constructed 25 years after it, as per the shilA-lekha. Siva temple is very unique. The large shiva-linga which is worshipped here, displays the face of Godess Parvati growing upon it. The linga also has a thousand tiny shiva-linga-s "sprouting" on it - making it a 1001 shiva-lingas in one. Or, are these sahasra-lochana-s, the thousand eyes of Siva - as Ravana recited in the tAnDava-strotram?
<img src='http://inlinethumb47.webshots.com/23982/2130656050100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Guarding the entrance to the gopuram is a trimurti - Sri Kartikeya on the left side , Sri Vinayaka on top, and Sri Bhairava on the right side of the entrance. Like Godess Parvati's face on the main Linga, this pratima of sri kArtikeya has his face emerging from a small round shiva-linga too. All these vigraha-s are in black sand stone.
<img src='http://inlinethumb24.webshots.com/23191/2479585120100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
The walls, roofs and other surfaces of the temple are painted in colourful and bright paintings depicting themes from (especially Siva-) Purana, particularly the Siva-vivaha / kumara-sambhava episode. Style of course is madhubani, but with inflence from early Rajput or Jain-style paintings.
The other temple - that of Bhagwan Ram - originally had only the vigraha of Sri Ram, but over time the other murti-s have been added to it, and now besides the main pratima of Bhagwan Ram - one can not miss observing this - the rest of the pratimas look more like a show case arranged in a room.
The caretaker Sri Bajpai-ji explains the phenomenon. He told that it was indeed only a Ram-Sita-Lakshaman temple, guarded by Hanuman and Garuda. This area is prone to natural disasters like floods and earthquakes (and of course ghazi invasions). So, as and when any other temple in the area - even faraway - had any such calamities, its dev-pratima found a place in this temple. And eventually it became what it is now in. The fact is very clear by the different style, stone, size and colour of the pratima-s in Sri Rama temple.
The outer Shikhara of the two temples are of the same height and overall dimensions but different in style. And while there is a trishUl on top of Siva temple, there is a chakra on top of Rama temple.
Sri Bajpai-ji also points to another feature of the temple - the parikramA-dIrghA - which is kind of interesting. The circumambulation path is arranged in a way that the devotee does a parikramA of Siva alone, Rama alone, and then both Siva and Rama together. Kind of shows the unity of Saiva and Vaishnava.
Then Bajpai-ji mentions another important heritage. Father of the Hindi prose - Babu Devaki Nandan Khatri - spent his days writing masterpiece ChandrakAntA santati in this temple. He shows a marble platform - takhta - which Khatri used to use, and also points that Khatri had mentioned the temple in the preface of the legendary work.
The temple is in very bad repair - needs financial help to restore.
It is a rather tough journey to reach the place. Nearest "major" railway station would be Muzaffarpur - about 50 KMs away. The last 20 KMs is a bumpy drive - well at least after ganDak has ravaged the roads.
Another important landmark heritage is a small railway station about 12/15 KMs from here. This otherwise non descript 2-platform station on which majority trains don't stop is called PUSA Road station. Hutatma Sri Khudiram Bose Ji was surrounded and captured like an animal, by the british police at this very railway station, about exactly 99 years back from today - in year 1908. Only 19 years old at that time, he can be said to have probably been the first "known" Indian in the Struggle for Independence to have thrown a bomb at a British Officer. Hanged by british, he martyred with Bhagavadgita in his hands and Vande Mataram on his lips.
His sacrifice has made this railway station immortal. Nitish Kumar, Railway Minister in 2003 and Bihar CM now, has dedicated this station to Bose, and it is known as Khudiram Bose railway station.
would post more images later.