Painting picture courtesy Christie's Auction House Sometimes, a painting begins to ask more questions than it answers. A late eighteenth-century painting, attributed to the Mandi school and catalogued as showing Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra with a courtier, has intrigued me for some time. At first glance, the identification appears straightforward enough. Two men sit opposite each other, smoking hookahs, while attendants stand behind them holding fly-whisks. One figure is dressed in red, the other in white. The scene is informal, almost intimate, and yet unmistakably courtly. But the more I looked at the painting, the less convinced I became that the red-clad figure was Sansar Chand. The reason came from looking at other portraits. Among the surviving paintings associated with the Mandi court are several portraits of Raja Surma Sen, who ruled Mandi from 1781 until his death in 1788. One such portrait shows him seated smoking a hookah, attended by a fly-whisk bearer. Another depicts ...
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| Pangna Palace |
In 765, it is believed that along with his followers, probably Rajput adventurers like himself, Bir Sen crossed the Sutlej river and advanced into the interior, and defeated the then warring factions of Ranas and Thakurs, thus lording over them. Eventually, Bir Sen selected a site in the Surhi ilaqa, at 5,000 ft. above sea level, called Pangna, where he built a palace, and made it the capital of the State. The Pangna palace is still in a good state of preservation,and houses temples of the deities Mahu Nag and Chindi Mata, both of whom the royal family prays to even now. Interestingly, the fort is reminiscent of Japanese castles and forts of the Tokugawa era.
An interesting thing about Suket is the presence of a Radha Krishna Temple that came up over 340 years ago. Here, Krishna is worshipped in the form of Lord Jagannath as in the Puri, Odisha tradition. As per Beotra's Gazetteer of Suket State (1927), this temple in Nagar town has an interesting history to it. A Bairagi faqir came here from Jagan Nath on the coast of Orissa, carrying an an idol of Jagan Nath made of sandal wood and the Suket Court hearing that he wished to sell it offered him Rs. 500 for it, but he refused the offer, saying that he was taking the idol to Kullu, whose Raja promised him Rs. 1,000. By chance the faqir died before he could set out for Kullu, and consequently the idol was, by the Raja's order, placed in the buildings previously used as a seraglio. He appointed
pujaris to the temple and granted land for its maintenance, spending Rs. 500, the price of the idol, on the funeral ceremonies of the Bairagi, and built the temple at State expense. The temple is managed by pujaris who belong to the Kondal gotra of Brahmans. Interestingly, this temple carries out its own ratha yatra like the Jagannatha temple of Puri, Odisha. A description was thus given by Beotra:
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| Rath Yatra in 2015. Scale has Reduced today (courtesy: The Tribune, India) |
The idol is then brought back, and placed in its temple where arti is performed. Then Jagan Nath is taken to the Jungambag garden, the procession is attended by the State officials, elephants and horses forming the retinue. Other people, with drums, flags and palkis, etc., also join it. The idol is brought back in full retinue."
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