The Mystery of Masrur

The Rock Cut Temple Complex of Masrur

 Rock cut monoliths are an interesting and rare feature in India. Himachal Pradesh, curiously, houses one such set. Only four monolith temple structures are known in India in places as far away from each other as one can imagine. Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu and Ellora in Maharashtra are globally famous, carrying a reputation of their own. The monoliths are not restricted to just the south though - Dhamnar in Rajasthan, and Masrur in Himachal Pradesh are the other two sites of India. Masrur in Guler, Kangra district, in fact is the highest in terms of altitude, located 2500 feet above sea level.

As per Professor N P Singh, the local legend of Masrur is linked directly to the Pandavas of the Mahabharata. This is not surprising, given that this is located in the old Jalandhara/Trigarta kingdom which also apparently fought on the side of the Kauravas in the war. The temples, as per legend, were built by the Pandavas during their agyatvas or period of hiding post their exile, where they started work during a fabled six month long night. A woman who wondered why the night did not end, lit a lamp to find the reason. The light as a result of the lamp made the Pandavas to think that daylight has struck in, and they stopped construction, thus leaving the temple incomplete.

Today it houses Rama, Lakshmana and Sita; however, the temple is definitely Saivite in nature. Attempts to identify the builder have failed so far. Professor Singh has noted that historians including Hargreaves have mostly acknowledged that the temple, built in Nagari style, were built duing the 8th century A.D. However, there is no consensus on the builder. There are several conjectures, and the conviction depends on the person you talk to. For instance, one conjecture believes that the old kings of Trigarta built these temples between 6-8th century A.D., and the proof cited is the memory of the Gaddi tribe in identifying Guler as Jalandhar even today. Another more likely theory propagated is that the temple was built by Jayapal Shahi, one of the last great rulers of the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul, who ruled over large parts of north-west India right through 9th century A.D., including Lahore.

One theory that seems to have wider acceptance is that Yashovarman of Kannauj, the contemporary of  Lalitaditya of Kashmir, may have commissioned the project. It is here that Michael Meister's 2006 paper on the subject is very interesting. Meister has proposed that the temple complex is probably the inspiration for the magnificent temples of Cambodia that started in the 12th century A.D. In fact, the Varmans eventually set up a kingdom north of Ravi river in Bharmour, Chamba after they lost power in Kannauj, and probably an offshoot of this clan was what ended up in Cambodia too.

Some very interesting features of the temple complex are put forth by Meister to bolster his argument. While the temple today has been identified to have three entrance four faced Siva shrines, much like Jogeswari temples near Bombay from the 5th century A.D., Meister has used cartography to demonstrate that the temple was also meant to have had a fourth entrance, with sikh aras over the existing east mandapa and on the west. As Meister noted from Stella Kramrisch's analysis of the study of the "hundred-and-one temples" listed in the important eighth-century text, the Visnudharmottara, Stella Kramrisch identified one category "whose Mandapas are essentially part of their plan" that seems particularly relevant to what we find at Masrur. In particular

"The tern pie [type called] Kailasa heads the list. It has 5 Sikharas, 4 Mandapas and 4 doors. The Mandapas being in the four directions, the entrances at the cardinal points, this cross shaped temple would have one central Sikhara and each Mandapa would have a lesser Sikhara of its own."

  

 

Meister has thus proposed that Masrur actually predates the "oldest known example of the temple mountain" found in Cambodia, the eighth-century brick structure of Prasat Ak Yum in Siem Reap, and that Masrur's temple-tank embodies the relationship of water to the temple's range of towers.

Whatever be the case, the temples are certainly a must visit. About 70-80km from Dharamsala, do take the time out to walk through what remains of this wonder, ravaged by time and impacted by the 1905 Kangra earthquake