Sharda Peeth to Martend
During the visit of few ancient architectural monuments, I was very much amazed to see the grand architectural remains of ancient stone built monuments at several places particularly at Martand, Tappar and Avantipira.
Locally these grand remains are known as Pandave lari, the buildings of the Pandavas. Generally the common people have been attributing these monuments to the pandavas and in local dialect are known to them as pandav lari, meaning the buildings of pandavas. This curious legend is based on this experience that since these are huge structures, formed of heavy and massive stones as such they think this could be the work of pandavas.
Pandavas are locally referred to belonging to a tall and physically strong race and since these structures are formed of massive blocks of stone, as such these are attributed to this race. But this is not historically proven fact. It is only on the bases of massiveness of the materials used that general people have got this belief. Otherwise most of the people know that these are the remains of historical buildings identified some as ancient temples and monasteries while few of them as palaces. These are dated to medieval and early medieval periods. Most of these remains are believed to have been built during Karkota and Utpala periods which roughly correspond to 7th to 10th century AD; some are even earlier.
In fact I could also find something interesting about these ruins. I found these architectures highly advanced and doubted that this could be the job of any local architect.
To arrange the extraction of such massive stones from its quarries and then to lift those to the designated places of plan required not only the advanced technology but also the strong manpower. I keenly observed their plan, architectural styles and softness adopted in these ancient constructions. I was puzzled, although I could little bit understand the architecture design. But could not understand the technology and techniques followed in raising of these wonderful structures. Lifting of bold cuboids, rectangular, square and other geographical designed massive stones, and placing these on each other to farm large and heavy walls, that too in neat and clean form is quite surprising.
More curious is formation of arch cells and erecting of long and heavy single stone columns. Indeed a man could not be master of all trades. Although I have got technical knowhow in archaeology, numismatic and epigraphic fields, in architecture I am just a layman. so I studied few papers which were on our classical architecture. I observed that the master ruins of Martand, Awantipora and some other places, built of massive stone with heavy columns were very much influenced by classical Grecian and Roman styles. I could understand that this tradition may have developed here during Indo-Greek influence.
Alexander Cunningham’s view
Most of the stone temples and monasteries built in ancient period in highly finished blue lime stones are almost in ruins. These are locally called the Pandav lari, means the houses of Pandavas. Historically speaking these are basically the remains of the magnificent places, temples and monasteries built here during the historic period. Some of these buildings date as high as the end of eight century AD and there are others that must undoubtedly be more ancient, perhaps even as old as the beginning of the christen era.
The archaeologists have felt strong Greek and Roman architectural influence on these ancient Kashmirain stone architectures. Alexander Cunningham who made the first on the spot study of the ancient stone architectural remains of Kashmir, had also felt the strong Greek and Roman influences. He wrote a detailed article on ancient temple architecture of Kashmir titled, ‘An essay on the Arian order of architecture as exhibited in temples of Kashmir'.
General view
Generally speaking, within the sub continent these types of architectures look quite different and indigenous and have got resemblances with the other monuments found in the other parts of India and Pakistan. Although most of the ancient stone built remains are in ruins, but the grace and splendor of these wonderful constructions is still visible even through their ruins at their respective sites.
In fact when one enters these ruined complexes, it feels as if you are walking through the lanes of ancient Rome. These wonderful ruins can be experienced in the lower and upper Jhelum valley of Kashmir from Sharda peeth in Pakistan Administrated Kashmir, up to Martand in Anantnag. And with its strong influences are also encountered in Babour group of temples of Udhampur. But surprisingly this type of architecture is not encountered in the plains of Punjab and other adjoining lands. I have made most of these observations in my recent book, titled, Ancient Romans and Greeks in Kashmir.
The most remarkable included the stone formed monuments at Sharda Peeth, Bunyar, Rampur Ushkar, Tappar Pattan, Prashpura, Pandrathan, Avantipura and Martand. More or less most of these structures have followed similar plan, material and architectural style. Much has already been written and explored on the history and architectural styles of these monuments but still one and most important thing about these monuments which still remains unanswered is the technique of art and technology adopted. Keeping in mind the timeline of these monuments, it was not so easy task to arrange the extraction of massive lime stones from its quarries and then to lift those to the designated places of plan. It not only required the advanced technology but also the strong manpower. I keenly observed their plan, architectural styles and softness adopted in these ancient constructions, I was very much puzzled, although I could understand the architecture design a little, but could not understand the technology and techniques followed in raising of these wonderful structures. Lifting of bold cuboids, rectangular, square and other designed massive stones, and placing these on each other to farm large and heavy walls, that too in neat and clean form is quite surprising.
One wonders how in ancient times, when no such building equipment and technology were available to the builders, the massive stones were lifted and laid in position with great precision. The stones had been brilliantly carved and laid in tiers in manner even joints of these stones are invisible. To understand this aspect of these monuments I did leave hardly any page written about these monuments but I could not get any satisfactory reply to my query.
Since the purpose and plan of these structures is to some extent understandable, but I am unable to know the technology used in formation of the architectural wonders, I could not find any reply to my this query even in the notes put forth by master archaeologist of early 19th century like Alexander Cunningham. The other archaeological literatures available about these monuments deal with the history and architectural significances of these remains, but there is no mention of the technology and means followed in raising of these heavy structures anywhere in the written archaeology literatures.
The modern day archaeologists working on Jammu and Kashmir’s ancient and mediaeval archaeology and architecture shall focus on this aspect of archaeology and find out the evidences of that technology followed in lifting and rising of these heavy stones in formation of these glorious and magnificent structures.
The writer is a senior archaeologist.
