Dashavatara Temple, Deogarh – History

Dashavatara Temple, Deogarh – History

The Dashavatara Temple or "Gupta Temple", located in Deogarh was built in 400-500 AD, is one of the oldest Hindu temple that is still existent until modern era. The temple was first discovered by Captain Charles Strahan. It was given its name by the archaeologist, Cunningham. Deogarh is an ancient site. Numerous inscriptions in different languages and scripts have been found here, as have a series of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist monuments. These suggest that it was once a significant human settlement, likely a location on an imperial trade route that brought people from different linguistic backgrounds to it.

Deogarh is nestled within picturesque hills in north, west and south along with its abundant waters was conveniently located between the major ancient economic centers such as Pataliputra (Patna), Kashi (Varanasi), Sanchi, Udayagiri, Ujjain, Bhilsa and Bagh.  Deogarh has been referred as Lauchcchagira in a ninth century CE inscription of the King Bhoja. A fort was constructed here, and the village thereafter is named as Karnali-ka-kila (the fort of Karnali). However, who was this Karnali and when this name change happened is still unknown.

The town witness another name change when the Chandelles won over this region from the Paramaras of Kanauj in 1097 CE. An inscription of the Chandella king Kirtivarma engraved by his minister, Vats-raj, informs that the Chandellas emerged victorious in this war and the place is referred as Kirti-Giri-Durg, probably on the name of the Chandella king. The present name, Devgarh or Deogarh, is probably due a local Dev dynasty which flourished in the nineteenth and twentieth century CE.

Cunningham in 1875, noted that the inscriptions he found in Deogarh during his tour were in Gupta script and few others he could not decipher. The ones his team was able to read were Hindu Sanskrit inscriptions that started with phrases such as "Om! namah Shivaya! (...)", and the samvat dates included within the inscriptions meant that the various inscriptions ranged from 808 CE to 1164 CE, none before the 8^th century or after the 13^th century. 

Cunningham reported about the colossal statues of Tirthankaras in the Jain temples site and then added an extensive report on the solitary Hindu Deogarh temple which he called the "Gupta Temple". At the very end of his report, he remarked that the architectural style and themes displayed in the Dashavatara temple suggest that the temple must have been built before 700 CE, with his guess being 600 to 700 CE. Before Cunningham's 1875 report, the temple was visited by Charles Strahan around 1871, who found it midst the jungle growth.

Strahan shared his enthusiasm about the temple with Cunningham as follows: The jungle is heaviest in the immediate neighborhood of Deogarh, where the Betwa is overlooked on either bank by rocky cliffs once sacred to Hindu shrines, whose ruins display the utmost profusion of the art of sculpture, but which now hardly overtop the surrounding trees. One temple of great magnificence, with a broad paved causeway leading from the foot of the hill on which it stands, along the face of the rocks, is of great archaeological interest, some of the sculptures being well preserved.

In 1899, P.C. Mukerji surveyed the site more comprehensively on the behalf of Archaeological Survey of India. He noticed the profusion of Vishnu imagery in the reliefs and accepted the local oral tradition that claimed that the ten avatars of Vishnu were carved on the temple but are now missing. In his report, he called it the Dashavatara temple and mentioned the local Sagar Marh name for the temple. In the decades following the Mukerji's report, excavations in the Deogarh region in early 20^th century such as those by Daya Ram Sahni yielded evidence of more Hindu shrines as well inscriptions, Jain temples and Buddhist monuments. These include the Naharghati inscriptions, a monastic cave and the inscribed relief of Saptamatrikas (seven mothers, Shaktism).

In 1918, Sahini also found panels from the temple buried near the foundation and used by someone to build a wall nearby. These panels narrated scenes from the Hindu epic Ramayana. According to Bruhn, the Deogarh Naharghati inscriptions, cave and sculptures are all Hindu monuments and one of richest archaeological findings in Deogarh area, and they include Gupta era art, several early and late Nagari script inscriptions, an early Mahisasuramardini Durga relief, Shiva Lingas and various Hindu statues.

In early 20^th century, the missing ten avatars that Sahni knew about but no one else had seen proof of, led to a debate whether the temple should be called Dashavatara temple or something else. However, the excavations and subsequent study of reliefs from the Deogarh temple site by scholars such as Vats yielded the evidence of reliefs showing Krishna, Narasimha, Vamana, Balarama, Rama, and others. Thereafter the temple has generally been known as the Dashavatara temple of Deogarh. According to Vats, the evidence suggests that a large number of reliefs that existed in late 19^th century went missing in the first few decades of the 20th century. 

Much of the Dashavatara temple, along with Jain temples nearby, are in ruins and shows signs of damage. Archaeologists have inferred that it is the earliest known Panchayatana temple in North India. It was subsequently renamed by Cunningham as Dashavatara Mandir or Dashavatara Temple (because the temple depicts ten incarnations of Vishnu), and also as Sagar Marh (meaning: the temple by the well).

Cunningham had originally proposed a reconstruction of the temple with four columns on each side supporting a portico and a shikhara topped by an amalaka. However, Vats and Imig have proposed that it was a Panchayatana temple. Imig compared a number of temples from the region and from other regions from similar period and concluded that the garbhagriha (sanctum) cell was surrounded by a wall forming an ambulatory.

The Dashavatara temple is generally dated between late 5^th century and early 6^th century, or about 500 CE. Benjamín Preciado-Solís, a professor of Indian History specializing in Hindu and Buddhist iconography, dates it to the 5^th century. According to George Michell, an art historian and a professor specializing in Hindu Architecture, it is unclear when exactly the Dashavatara temple was built but its style suggests the sixth century. Michael Meister, another art historian and professor of Indian temple architecture, dates the temple to between 500–525 CE.