Mathura A District Memoir Chapter-10

MAHA-BAN, GOKUL, AND BALADEVA

THE town of Maha-ban—population 6,182—is some five or six miles from Mathura, lower down the stream and on the opposite bank of the Jamuna. Though the country in its neighbourhood is now singularly bare, the name indicates that it must at one time have been densely wooded; and so late as the year 1634 A.D. we find the Emperor Shahjahan ordering a hunt there and killing four tigers. It stands a little inland, about a mile distant from Gokul; which latter place has appropriated the more famous name, though it is in reality only the water-side suburb of the ancient town. This is clearly indicated by the fact that all the traditional sites of Krishna's adventures, described in the Puranas as having taken place at Gokul, are shown at Maha-ban; while the Gokul temples are essentially modern in all their associations: whatever celebrity they possess is derived from their having been founded by the descendants of Vallabha-charya, the great heresiarch of the sixteenth century. The existence of Gokul as a distinct town was no doubt long antecedent to its religious aggrandizement, and probably dates from the time when the old Hindu fort was occupied by a Muhammadan garrison and the Hindus expelled beyond its immediate precincts.

Taking, then, Maha-ban as equivalent to the Gokul of Sanskrit literature, the connection between it and Mathura has always been of a most intimate character. For, according to the legend, Krishna was born at the one and cradled at the other. Both, too, make their first appearance in history together and under most unfortunate circumstances, having been sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in the year 1017 A.D. From the effects of this catastrophe it would seem that Maha-ban was never able to recover itself. It is casually mentioned in connection with the year 1234 A.D., by Minhaj-i-Siraj, a contemporary writer, as one of the gathering places for the imperial army sent by Shams-ud- din against Kalanjar; and the Emperor Babar, in his memoirs, incidentally refers to it, as if it were a place of some importance still, in the year 1526 A.D.; but the name occurs in the pages of no other chronicle; and at the present day, though it is the seat of a tahsili, it can scarcely be called more than a considerable village. Within the last few years, one or two large and handsome private residences have been built, with fronts of carved stone in the Mathura style; but the temples are all exceedingly mean and of no antiquity. The largest and also the most sacred is that dedicated to Mathura-nath, which boasts of a pyramidal tower, or sikhara, of some height and bulk, but constructed only of brick and plaster. The Brahman in charge used to enjoy an endowment of Rs. 2 a day, the gift of Sindhia, but this has long lapsed. There are two other small shrines of some interest: in the one, the demon Trinavart is represented as a pair of enormous wings overhanging the infant god; the other bears the dedication of Maha Mall Rae, ‘the great champion prince,’ a title given to Krishna after his discomfiture of the various evil spirits sent against him by Kansa.

Great part of the town is occupied by a high hill, partly natural and partly artificial, extending over more than 100 bighas of land, where stood the old fort. This is said to have been built by the same Rana Katehra of Mewar to whom is also ascribed the fort at Jalesar. According to a tradition current in the Main-puri district, he had been driven from his own country by an invasion of the Muhammadan, and took refuge with the Raja of Maha-ban, by name Digpal, whose daughter his son, Kanh Kunvar, subsequently married and by her became the ancestor of the tribe of Phatak Ahirs. It would seem that, on the death of his father-in-law, he succeeded to his dominion; for he made a grant of the whole of the township of Maha-ban to his Purohits, or family priests, who were Sanadh Brahmans, of the Parasar clan. Their descendants bear the distinctive title of Chaudhari, and still own two shares in Maha-ban, called Thok Chaudhariyan. The fort was recovered by the Muhammadans in the reign of Ala-ud-din, by Sufi Yahya of Mashhad, who introduced himself and a party of soldiers inside the walls in litters, disguised as Hindu ladies who wished to visit the shrines of Syam Lala and Rohini. The Rana was killed, and one-third of the town was granted by the sovereign to Saiyid Yahya. This share is still called Thok Saiyidat, and is owned by his descendants; the present head of the family being Sardar Ali, who officiated for a time as a Tahsildar in the Mainpuri district. The place where his great ancestor was buried is shown at the back of the Chhatthi Palna, but is unmarked by any monument.

The story as told in different localities is so identical in all its main features that it may reasonably be accepted as based on fact; but it is difficult to determine an exact date for the event, or decide which of the Sissodia Princes of Chitor is intended by the personage styled ‘the Rana Katehra.’ Still, though certainty is unattainable, a conjectural date may be assigned with some amount of probability; for as the Rana Katehra is represented as still living at the time when the fort of Maha-ban was recovered by Ala-ud-din, his flight from his own country cannot have occurred very long previously, and may plausibly be connected with Ala-ud-din's memorable sack of Chitor, which took place in the year 1303. If so, he can scarcely have been more than a cadet of the royal line; for, according to accepted tradition, the actual Rana of Mewar and all his family had perished in the siege, with the exception only of the second son and his infant nephew, Hamir, the heir to the throne, who eventually not only recovered the ancient capital of his forefathers, but made it the centre of a far wider dominion than had ever previously acknowledged the Sissodia rule. The stratagem of introducing armed men disguised as women in closed litters into the heart of the enemy's camp had been successfully practised against Ala- ud-din himself after a former siege of Chitor, and had resulted in the escape of the captured Rana. This may have suggested the adoption of the same expedi ent at Maha-ban, either in fact to the Sufi, who is said to have carried it into execution, or to the local legend-monger, who has used it as an embellishment to his narrative.

The shrine of Syam Lala, to which allusion has been made above, still exists as a mean little cell, perched on the highest point of the fortifications on the side where they overlook the Jamuna. It is believed to mark the spot where Jasoda gave birth to Maya, or Joga-nidra, substituted by Vasudeva for the in fant Krishna. But by far the most interesting building is a covered court called Nanda's Palace, or more commonly the Assi-Khamba, i.e., the eighty pillars. In its present form is was erected by the Muhammadans in the time of Aurangzeb out of older materials, to serve as a mosque, and as at now stands, it is divided, by five rows of sixteen pillars each, into four aisles, or rather into a centre and two narrower side aisles, with one broad outer cloister. The external pillars of this outer cloister are each of one massive shaft, cut into many narrow facets, with two horizontal bands of carving: the capitals are decorated either with grotesque heads or the usual four squat figures. The pillars of the inner aisles vary much in design, some being exceedingly plain and others as richly ornamented with profuse and often graceful arabesques. Three of the more elaborate are called respectively the Satva, Treta and Dwapar Yug; while the name of the Kali Yug is given to another somewhat plainer. All these interior pillars, however, agree in consisting as it were of two short columns set one upon the other. The style is precisely similar to that of the Hindu colonnades by the Kutb Minar at Delhi; and both works may reasonably he referred to about the same age. As is it probable that the latter were not built in the years immediately preceding the fall of Delhi in 1194, so also it would seem that the columns at Maha-ban must have been sculptured before the assault of Mahmud in 1017; for after that date the place was too insignificant to be selected as the site of any elaborate edifice. Thus, Mr. Fergusson's con jecture is confirmed, that the Delhi pillars are to be ascribed to the ninth or tenth century. He doubts whether the cloister there now stands as originally arranged by the Hindus, or whether it had been taken down and re-arranged by the conquerors; but concludes as most probable that the former was the case, and that it was an open colonnade surrounding the palace of Prithi Raj. " If so," he adds, " it is the only instance known of Hindu pillars being left undis turbed." General Cunningham differs from this conclusion, and considers it utterly incredible that any architect, designing an original building and wishing to obtain height, should have recourse to such a rude expedient as constructing two distinct pillars, and then, without any disguise, piling up one on the top of the other. But such a design, however strange according to modern ideas, did not, it is clear, offend the taste of the old Maha-ban architects, since we find them copying it for decorative purposes even when there was no constructural necessity for it. Thus some of the inner columns are really monoliths, and yet they have all the appearance of being in two pieces.

A good illustration of this Hindu fancy for broken pillars may be seen at Noh-jhil, a town across the Ganges in the extreme north of the district. Here also is a Muhammadan dargah, constructed out of the wreck of a Hindu temple. The pillars, twenty in number, are very simple in character, but exceptional in two respects; first, as being all of uniform design, which is quite anomalous in Hindu architecture; secondly, as being, though of fair height, each cut out of a single piece of stone. The only decoration on the otherwise plain shaft consists of four deep scroll-shaped notches half-way between the base and capital; the result of which is to make each column appear as if it were in two pieces. The explanation is obvious. In earlier days, when large blocks of stone were difficult to procure, there was also lack of sufficient art to con ceal the unavoidable join in the structure. In course of time the eye became accustomed to the defect, and eventually required its apparent introduction even where it did not really exist. A similar conservatism may be traced in the art history of every nation, and more especially in religious art. In breaking up his columns into two pieces, and thus perpetuating, as a decora tion, what in its origin had been a signal defect, the Hindu architect was unconsciously influenced by the same motive as the Greek, who to the very last continued to introduce, as prominent features in his temple facades, the metopes and triglyphs which had been necessities in the days of wooden con struction, but had become unmeaning when repeated in stone.

The two ancient Brahmanical temples on the Gwaliar rock, commonly known as the Sas Bahu, illustrate still more remarkably than the Noh-jhil dar gah the way in which what was originally a constructural make-shift has subse quently been adopted as a permanent architectural feature. In the larger of these two buildings the interior of the spacious nave is disfigured by four enor mous columns, which occupy a square in the centre of the area and obstruct the view in every direction. It is evident at a glance that, though the work of the same architect as the rest of the fabric, they are utterly out of harmony with his first design. Necessity alone can have compelled him to introduce them as props for a falling roof; while the shallowness and unfinished state of their sur face sculpture further suggest that they were erected in great haste in order to avert a catastrophe which appeared imminent. They were as little contemplated at the outset as the inverted arches in Wells Cathedral, or as the rude struts in serted by General Cunningham in this very same building to support the broken architraves of the upper story. In the smaller temple, which is of somewhat later date, the internal arrangement follows precisely the same lines, though here the lesser span of the roof rendered the detached pillars unnecessary, the massive walls being quite sufficient by themselves to support the small flat dome and the low tower that surmounted it. The central columns, however, are here so artistically treated, and are in such excellent proportion to the other parts of the building, having been designed with them and not subsequently intruded, that they are really decorative and add beauty to the interior.

Both these temples, like that of Gobind Deva at Brinda-ban, to which they form a most valuable and interesting complement, originally consisted of three compartments—a fact which has not been previously noticed by any archaeologist.

In the larger Gwaliar temple the nave and the choir remain, but the sanctum, as is usually the case, has been totally destroyed by the Muhammadans. That it once existed, however, is evident from the fact that the choir is seen from the interior to have communicated with an apartment beyond, though opening is now closed with blocks of stone. In the smaller of the two temples, the nave alone is perfect: the choir has utterly perished; but the end wall of the sanctum still exists in situ, built up into the ramparts of the fort. Gene ral Cunningham, in describing these. buildings, has followed Mr. Fergusson in using, instead of ` nave,' the misleading word 'porch,' and has thus failed to notice the triple arrangement which otherwise could not have escaped him.

To return to the Chhatthi Palna. On a drum of one of the pillars is an inscription—now upside down—which I read as Ram dasa kas eknavi kam, meaning, it would seem, ‘Column No. 91, the gift of Ram Das.’ This would rather lead to the supposition that the pillars were all originally of one set and belonged to a single building, though it is quite' possible that they may be the wreck of several different temples, all of 'which were overthrown by Mahmud of Ghazni, when he captured the fort in 1017. In either case there can be no questlon as to the Buddhist character of the building, or buildings, for I found let in to the wall a small seated figure of Buddha, as also a cross-bar and large up right of a Buddhist railing. The latter is ornamented with foliated disks, on one of which is represented a head with a most enormous chignon, and—what is unusual—has four oval sockets for cross-bars on either side instead of three . These columns and other fragments had probably barn lying about for centuries till the Muhammadans, in the reign of Aurangzeb, after demolishing a modern Hindu temple, roughly put them together and set them up on its site as a make shift for a mosque. When Father Tieffenthaller visited Maha-ban about the middle of last century, it seems that Hindus and Muhammadans were both in joint possession of the building, for he writes: "On voit a Maha-ban dans une grande maison 'portee par 80 colones, une peinture qui represente Krishna volant du lait en jettant le clair et jouant, avec d'autres. Cet edifice a ete converti en partie en une mosquee, en partie en une pagode." But the connection of the building with Krishna or his worship, even at any earlier period, is entirely fitious. That is to say, so far as concerns the actual fabric and the materials of which it is constructed: the site, as in so many other similar cases, has probably been associated with Hindu worship from very remote antiquity. In Sir John Strachey's time I obtained a grant of Rs. 1,000 for the repair of the building, which had fallen into a very ruinous condition, and in digging the foundations of the new screen-walls (the old walls had been simply set on the ground without any foundation at all) I came upon a number of remains of the true Hindu temple, dating apparently from no further back than about the year 1500 A.D. The Iconoclast would not use these sculptures in the construction of his mosque, since they had too recently formed part of an idolatrous shrine, but had them buried out of sighs; while he had no scruple about utilizing the old Buddhist pillars. Whatever I dug up, I either let into the wall or brought over to Mathura for the local Museum. The roof of the present building, as constructed by the Muhammadans, is made up of any old slabs and broken pillars that first came to hand; but two compartments are covered in with the small flat domes of the old temple, which are similar in character to the beautiful examples at Ajmer and Mount Abu.

Mothers come here for their purification on the sixth day after child birth —chhatthi puja—whence the building is popularly known as the Chhatthi Palna, and it is visited by enormous crowds of people for several days about the anni versary of Krishna's birth in the month of Bhadon. A representation of the infant god's cradle (palna) is displayed to view, with his foster-mother's churn and other domestic articles. The place being regarded not exactly as a temple, but as Nanda and Jasoda's actual dwelling-house, all persons, without regard to the religion they profess, are allowed to walk about in it with perfect freedom. Considering the size, the antiquity, the artistic excellence, the exceptional archaeological interest, the celebrity amongst natives, and the close proximity to Mathura of this building, it is strange that it has never before been mentioned by any English writer.

It is said that whenever foundations are sunk within the precincts of the fort, many fragments of sculpture—of Buddhist character, it may be presumed —have been brought to light; but they have always been buried again or bro ken up as building materials. Doubtless, Maha-ban was the site of some of those Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hian distinctly states existed in his time on both sides of the river. And further, whatever may be the exact Indian word concealed under the form Klisoboras, or Cliso bora, given by Arrian and Pliny as the name of the town between which and Mathura the Jamuna flowed— Amnis Jomanes in Gangem per Palibothros decur rit inter oppida Methora et Clisobora, Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi., 22—it may be con cluded with certainty that Maha-ban is the site intended Its other literary names are Brihad-vana, Brihad-aranya, Gokula, and Nandagrama; and no one of these, it is true, in the slightest resembles the word Clisobora. But this might well be a corruption of ' Krishna-pura,' the city of Krishna,' a term used by the speaker as a descriptive title—and it would be a highly appropriate one —but taken by the foreign traveller for the ordinary proper name of the place. Colonel Tod thought Clisobora might be Batesar, and most subsequent English topographers seem to have blindly accepted the suggestion. There is, however, really no foundation for it beyond the surmise that Clisobora and Mathura were quoted as the two principal towns in the country, and that Batesar must have been a place of importance, because its older name was derived from the Surasen, after whom the whole people were called Sauraseni. General Cunningham, in his a Ancient Geography,' has thrown out a new theory and identifies Clisobora (read in one MS. as Cyrisoborka) with Brinda-ban, assuming that Kalikavartta, or ‘Kalika's Whirlpool’, was an earlier name of the town, in allusion to Krish na's combat with the serpent Kalika. But in the first place, the Jamuna does not flow between Mathura and Brinda-ban, seeing that both are on the same bank; secondly, the ordinary name of the great serpent is not Kalika, but Kaliya; and thirdly, it does not appear upon what authority it is stated that “ the earlier name of the place was Kalikavartta.” Upon this latter point, a reference was made to the great Brinda-ban Pandit, Swami Rangacharya, who, if any one, might be expected to speak with positive knowledge, and his reply was that in the course of all his reading, he had never met with Brinda-ban under any other name than that which it now hears

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