Mundeshwari Temple, Kaura, Kaimur – History

Mundeshwari Temple, Kaura, Kaimur – History

Mundeshwari Temple is an ancient temple dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva and Shakti and is considered one of the oldest Hindu temples in India. It is also considered as the oldest functional Hindu temple of India. The information plaque erected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) at the site indicates the dating of the temple to 625 CE. Hindu inscriptions dated 625 CE were found in the temple. The temple is a protected monument under ASI since 1915.

British Archeologist Buchanan was one of the first to notice and document the ancient ruins on the hills; but as he mentions, he could not conveniently see the ruins probably because of the height of the hill. His account is therefore based on the sketches or drawings of the painter sent by him for the purpose. Neither Alexander Cunningham nor any of his assistants surveyed or explored the ruins. Another colonial explorer Bloch’s reports for the years 1902 to 1904 adds some more information.

There was an inscription on a stone slab at the temple, which had broken into two pieces, one of which was found in1892, and the other in 1903 by Bloch in the course of clearance of the debris. Both the pieces are now in the Indian Museum, Kolkata. It was edited by R D Banerji in 1907 and by N Majumdar in 1920. The inscription refers to King Udayasena and to the date 30 of an unspecified era. It records erection of a matha of the god Viniteshwara and an endowment to provide for the offerings from the store room of Sri Mandaleshwara Swami Pada of the temple of Sri Narayana.

The reference to Sri Narayana was not satisfactorily explained either by RD Banerji or by N Majumdar. According to Bloch, the inscription refers to the erection of a temple of Narayana close to the temple of Viniteshwara, thus suggesting evidence of another temple on the hill; but of the existence of such a Vaishnava temple, there seems to be no indication at present, since the carvings among the ruins are primarily, if not exclusively Shaivite in character. The donor of the record is taken to be Bhagudalana by Banerji; while Majumdar takes him as Gomibhatta, the dandanayaka.

The reading of the inscription as well as the dating, are still open to question. The inscription as well as the ruins, are generally believed to belong to the fourth century. Prof Banerji took the year 30 to refer to the Harsha era commencing from 606 AD, and assigned the epigraph to 636 AD, which was also included as the date in the original Gazetteers of Shahabad in 1906 and 1924. Dr. Banerji’s view was however not shared by others.

Mr N G Mazumdar studied the palaeographic peculiarities of the inscription and referred to the year 30 to the Gupta era 318-19 AD, and held the date of the inscription to 348-49 AD. Dr D R Bhandarkar also considered the inscription to be much earlier than the fourth century AD. According to some scholars, the inscription which has a reference to Udayasena, is associated with a satrap of Pataliputra in “shak samvat” year 30 whom the Kushanas had made the ruler. Shak Samvat year 30 when juxtaposed with the Christian calendar coincides with 108 AD by that account. Further, the script also corresponds to the Shaka times, and prior to the Gupta age.

Buchanan also knew of an inscription on a loose stone at some distance from the temple referring to the name Mundeshwara; but it is not clear whether he is referring to the same inscription as referred by Bloch. This is a point which is to be verified by the drawing of his inscription taken by Buchanan. Dr. K C Panigrahi appears to have correctly related the three names in the inscriptions, namely Narayana, Vinitesvara and Mandalesvara. According to the commonly accepted story, which was also mentioned by Buchanan and Martin, Munda, the brother of Chanda, had established the Goddess Mundeshvari.

The real history of the shrine was apparently forgotten, and the people came fondly to believe that the Goddess was established by Munda. According to Panigrahi, this temple had seen “three periods of religious history viz. (i) When it was a Vaishnava temple of the God Narayana, (ii) When it was converted into a Shaiva temple of Viniteshwara, a name of Lord Shiva and (iii) When it was last converted into the temple dedicated to the Goddess Mundeshwari, perhaps under the Chero kings, who were Saktas.

The earliest sanctuary was of the 4^th or 5^th century AD, the existing ruins representing mostly the second period of its history, belong to the 7^th century AD. Along the road to the temple is a large oval shaped boulder, about 10 feet in diameter, the upper surface of which is smoothed and carved with a 6-armed Yaksha figure, in relief, flying away to the left, with a large elephant in two of his hands raised overhead.” To the left of the Yaksha, he says, are traces of a small female figure seated on a stool, and below him a fox or a jackal. Below the figure are a few letters of inscription in Gupta characters. The figure appears to be much older than the Mundeshwari temple.

Short records in Gupta characters containing only names of pilgrims are also reported to exist on the hill. Munda was a Chero king. Francis Buchanan and Martin were wrong in thinking that he had established the image of the Goddess Mundeshvari. The aboriginal tribes in this part of the country are more prone to worship the female deities and there can be no wonder that Shaktism flourished with the Chero kings and the deity of Mundeshvari, representing Shakti, came to be worshipped as the principal deity of the temple, where she was a minor image at one time.

The history of the temples in India shows that very few images installed in the central position have been subordinated to other deities fixed in the niches. Interestingly, a few years back noted BHU historian I S Roy found a Ceylonese seal while walking on a field adjacent to the hill near Mundeshwari temple. The pyramid-shaped stone seal with inscriptions in Brahmi script along with photograph also find mention in one of Roy’s articles in a Numismatic Society of India journal published in 2004. Maharaja Dutthagamani (101-77 BC), a powerful independent king of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), had constructed a great stupa and a large assembly of priests attended its consecration ceremony in the Mundeshwari hills.

According to experts, the seal acted as passport for Ceylonese pilgrims and ensured safe passage during their long journey through various kingdoms to Buddhist pilgrimage centres in India. Experts believe that earlier routes to Buddhist centres at Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh and Kapilvastu in Nepal were via Mundeshwari temple in Bihar’s Kaimur district. The discovery of a royal seal of the Sri Lankan ruler Maharaja Dutthagamani (101-77 BC) at the site in 2003 has taken back the history of the region by several centuries. 

In the year 2003, a man called Jahanvi Shekhar Rai discovered a seal near the shrine which he sent to the Sampoornanand Sanskrit university at Varanasi for deciphering. The linguistic experts there concluded that the seal belonged to “Maharaja Dutthagamani”, who according to “Mahavansh Granthawali” in Buddhist literature, belonged to Anuradhapura dynasty and ruled Ceylon between 104-77 BC. P C Roy Choudhury mentions “It is also remarkable that this temple appears to have been left unmolested when Muslim rule under Sher Shah was set up in this area.

The neighboring Chayanpur fort was one of the citadels of Sher Shah and the Muslim pockets in the neighbouring villages suggest that a much larger Muslim population had lived in the area when Muslim rule was predominant. The ravages to Mundeshvari are not man-made but due to the passage of time. The temple may already have been in a ruined state owing to disrepair over time, and thus may have escaped the attention of invaders, and thus survived. Interestingly, the present caretaker of the temple is Muslim, yet another example of the religious harmony at the grassroots level in India.