Jageshwar Group of Temples – History

Jageshwar Group of Temples – History

The origins of the Jageshwar temples site are unclear. Its remote location has limited its studies and scholarly attention. The site shows evidence of different architectural styles and building periods for both temples and stone steles, which range from the 7^th to 12^th century, and then in the modern times. According to the ASI, some belong to the post-Gupta or the second half of 1^st millennium while others belong to the 2^nd millennium.  Another prevailing theory is that Adi Shankara built some of these temples, but once again there is no textual or epigraphical evidence to support this claim. Instead, the architectural features and style of some of these Hindu temples is from early 7^th century, which is about 50 to 100 years before Adi Shankara lived (c. 788-820 CE).

Most temples were built by the Katyuri dynasty that ruled the area from 7^th to 14^th Century CE. These temples were then maintained by Chand rulers who ruled from 15^th - 18^th Century CE. Inscriptions in the temples also mention Malla Kings. The historical evidence indicates that Salivahana, the king of Ayodhya, built the temple of Gangnath and King Vikramaditya built the temple of Mahamritunjay. There are over 25 inscriptions of different periods are inscribed on the walls and pillars of the Jageshwar temples. Most of these belong to the period between the 7^th century AD to 10^th century AD. The dialect of inscriptions is Sanskrit and Brahmi.

The valley has three major clusters of Hindu temples, and a number of roadside shrines. Of these some 151 temples have been numbered by ASI as protected pre-12^th century monuments. The three largest groups are locally called as the Dandeshwar group temples, Kuber group temples and Jageshwar group temples. Of these, temple number 37, 76 and 146 are the largest, all dated to the late centuries of the 1^st millennium. In historic text, Jageshwar is also referred to as Yageshvara.

Jageshwar was once the center of Lakulisa Shaivism, likely by monks and migrants who left the plains of the Indian subcontinent from places such as Gujarat and settled in the high mountains. The resemblance between Kumaoni language and Gujarati language probably hints at the fact that followers of Lakulisa settled at Jageshwar. The temples site over time was positioned as and grew as a sacred geography in the form of northern (Uttara) Kashi (Varanasi).