Mathura A District Memoir Chapter-9

BRINDA-BAN AND ITS TEMPLES.

ON their arrival at Brinda-ban, the first shrine which the Gosains erected was one in honour of the eponymous goddess Brinda Devi. Of this no traces now remain, if (as some say) it stood in the Seva Kunj, which is now a large walled garden with a masonry tank near the Ras Mandal. Their fame spread so rapidly that in 1573 the Emperor Akbar was induced to pay them a visit, and was taken blindfold into the sacred enclosure of the Nidhban where such a marvellous vision was revealed to him, that he was fain to acknowledge the place as indeed holy ground. Hence the cordial support which he gave to the attendant Rajas, when they expressed their wish to erect a series of buildings more worthy of the local divinity.
The four temples, commenced in honour of this event, still remain, though in a ruinous and hitherto sadly neglected condition. They bear the titles of Gobind Deva, Gopi-nath, Jugal-Kishor and Madan Mohan. The first named is not only the finest of this particular series, but is the most impressive religions edifice that Hindu art has ever produced, at least in Upper India. The body of the building is in the form of a Greek cross, the nave being a hundred feet in length and the breadth across the transepts the same. The central compart ment is surmounted by a dome of singularly graceful proportions; and the four arms of the cross are roofed by a waggon vault of pointed form, not, as is usual in Hindu architecture, composed of overlapping brackets, but constructed of true radiating arches as in our Gothic cathedrals. The walls have an average thickness of ten feet and are pierced in two stages, the upper stage being a regular triforium, to which access is obtained by an internal staircase, as in the somewhat later temple of Radha Ballabh, which will be described further on. This triforium is a reproduction of Muhammadan design, while the work both above and below it is purely Hindu. It should be noted, however, that the arches are decorative only, not constructural : the spandrels in the head might be—and, as a fact, for the most part had been—struck out, leaving only the lintel supported on the straight jambs, without any injury to the stability of the building. They have been re-inserted in the course of the recent resto ration. At the east entrance of the nave there is a small narthex fifteen feet deep; and at the west end, between two niches and incased in a rich canopy of sculpture, a square-headed doorway leads into the choir. a chamber some twenty feet by twenty. Beyond this was the sacrarium flanked on either side by a lateral chapel; each of these three cells being of the same dimen sions as the choir, and like it vaulted by a lofty dome. The general effect of the interior is not unlike that produced by Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. The latter building has greatly the advantage in size, but in the other, the central dome is more elegant, while the richer decoration of the wall surface and the natural glow of the red sandstone supply that relief and warmth of colouring which are so lamentably deficient in its western rival.
The ground-plan is so similar to that of many European churches as to suggest the idea that the architect was assisted by the Jesuit missionaries, who were people of considerable influence at Akbar's court : were this really the case, the temple would be one of the most eclectic buildings in the world, having a Christian ground-plan, a Hindu elevation, and a roof of modified Saracenic character. But the surmise, though a curious one, must not be too closely pressed; for some of the temples at Khajurao, by Mahoba, are of similar design and of much earlier date; nor is it very likely that the Jesuits would have interested themselves in the construction of a heathen fane. Such action on their part, supposing them to have taken it, would find a parallel in the persist ency with which the Duke of York (afterwards James II.) stood out for the provision of two side chapels in Wren's design for the Protestant cathedral of St. Paul's,—a building which he hoped in the course of his reign to recover for the Catholics.
It would seem that, according to the original design, there were to have been five towers; one over the central dome, and the other four covering respectively the choir, sacrarium, and two chapels.The sacrarium has been utterly razed to the ground the chapel towers were never completed, and that over the choir, though the most perfect, has still lost several of its upper stages. This last was of slighter elevation than the others, occupying the same relative position as the spirelet over the Sanctus bell in western ecclesiology. The loss of the towers and of the lofty arcaded parapet that surmounted the walls has terribly marred the effect of the exterior and given it a heavy stunted appear¬ance; while, as a further disfigurement, a plain masonry wall had been run along the top of the centre dome. It is generally believed that this was built by Aurangzeb for the purpose of desecrating the temple, though it is also said to have been put up by the Hindus themselves to assist in some grand illumi¬nation. It either case it was an ugly modern excrescence, and its removal was the very first step taken at the commencement of the recent repairs.
Under one of the niches at the west end of the nave is a tablet with a long Sanskrit inscription. This has unfortunately been too much mutilated to allow of transcription, but so much of it as can be deciphered records the fact that the temple was built in sambat 1647, i.e., A.D. 1590, under the direction of the two Gurus, Rupa and Sanatana. As it was in verse, it probably com bined a minimum of information with an excess of verbosity, and its loss is not greatly to be regretted. The following is taken from the exterior of the north-west chapel, where it is cut into the wall some ten feet from the ground, and is of considerable interest :—

संबत् ३४ श्री शकवंध अकबर शाह राज श्री कर्मकुल श्री
पृथिराजाधिराज वंश महाराज श्रीभगवंतदाससुत श्री
महाराजाधिराज श्रीमानसिंहदेव श्री बृंदाबन जोग पीठस्थान
मंदिर कराजौ श्री गोविन्ददेव को कामउपरि श्रीकल्याणदास
आज्ञाकारी माणिकचंद चोपाङ शिल्पकारि गोविन्ददास दील-
वलि कारिगरु: द:। गोरषदसुवींभवलृ ।।

" In the 34th year of the era inaugurated by the reign of the Emperor Akbar, Sri Maharaj Man Sinh Deva, son of Maharaj Bhagavan Das, of the family of Maharaj Prithiraj, founded, at the holy station of Brinda-ban, this temple of Gobind Deva. The head of the works, Kalyan Das, the Assistant Superintendent, Manik Chand Chopar (?), the architect, Gobind Das of Delhi, the mason, Gorakh Das." There is some mistake in the engraving of the last words, which seem to be intended for Subham bhavatu, like the Latin `Felix, faustumque sit.'
The Rao Prithi Singh mentioned in the above was one of the ancestors of the present Maharaja of Jaypur. He had seventeen sons, of whom twelve came to man's estate, and to each of them he assigned a separate appanage, which, collectively, is known as the twelve kothris of Amber. Raja Man Sinh, the founder of the temple, was his great-grandson.
He was appointed by Akbar successively Governor of the districts along the Indus, of Kabul, and of Bihar. By his exertions the whole of Orisa and Eastern Bengal were re-annexed; and so highly were his merits appre ciated at court, that, though a Hindu, he was raised to a higher rank than any other officer in the realm. He married a sister of Lakshmi Narayan, Raja of Koch Bihar, and at the time of his decease, which was in the ninth year of the reign of Jahangir, he had living one son, Bhao Sinh, who succeeded him upon the throne of Amber, and died in 1621, A.D. There is a tradition to the effect that Akbar, at the last, jealous of his powerful vassal and desirous to rid himself of him, had a confection prepared, part of which contained poison; but caught in his own snare, he presented the innoxious portion to the Raja and ate that drugged with death himself. The unworthy deed is explained by Man Sinh's design, which apparently had reached the Emperor's ears, to alter the succession in favour of Khusrau, his nephew, instead of Salim
In anticipation of a visit from Aurangzeb, the image of the god was transferred to Jaypur, and the Gosain of the temple there has ever since been regarded as the head of the endowment. The name of the present incumbent is Syam Sundar, who has two agents, resident at Brindaban. There was said to be still in existence at Jaypur the original plan of the temple, showing its five towers, but on inspection I found that the painting, which is on the wall of one of the rooms in the old palace at Amber, was not a plan of the temple at all, but an imaginary view of the town of Brinda-ban, in which all the temples are represented as exactly alike, distinguishable only by their names, which are written above them. However, local tradition is fully agreed as to the number and position of the towers, while their architectural character can be determined beyond a doubt by comparison with the smaller temples of the same age and style, the ruins of which still remain. It is therefore not a little strange that of all the architects who have described this famous building, not one has noticed its most characteristic feature—the harmonious combination of dome and spire—which is still quoted as the great crux of modern art, though nearly 300 years ago the difficulty was solved by the Hindus with character istic grace and ingenuity.
From the reign of Aurangzeb to the present time not a single step had ever been taken to ensure the preservation from farther decay of this most interesting architectural monument. It was looked upon by the people in the neighbourhood convenient quarry, where every house-builder was at liberty to excavate for materials; while large trees had been allowed to grow up in the fissures of the walls, and in the course of a few more summers their spreading roots would have caused irreparable damage. Accordingly, after an ineffectual attempt to enlist the sympathies of the Archaeological Department, the writer took the op portunity of Sir William Muir's presence in the district, on tour, to solicit the adoption on the part of the Government of some means for averting a catastrophe that every student of architecture throughout the world would have regarded as a national disgrace. Unfortunately he declined to sanction any grant from Pro vincial funds, but allowed a representation of the ruinous condition of the tem ple and its special interest to be made to the Government of India, for communica tion to the Maharaja of Jaypur, as the representative of the founder. .His Highness immediately recognized the claim that the building had upon him and made no difficulty about supplying tho small sum of Rs. 5,000, which had been estimated by the Superintending Engineer as sufficient to defray the cost of all absolutely essential repairs. The work was taken in hand at the beginning of August, 1873. The obtrusive wall erected by the Muhammadans on the top of the dome was demolished; the interior cleared of several unsightly party-walls and other modern excrescences; and outside, all the debris was removed, which had accumulated round the base of the building to the astonishing height of eight feet and in some places even more, entirely concealing the handsomely moulded plinth; a considerable increase was thus made to the elevation of the building—the one point in which, since the loss of the original parapet and towers, the design had appeared defective. Many of the houses which had been allowed to crowd the courtyard close up to the very walls of the temple wets taken down, and two broad approaches opened out from the great eastern portal and the south transept. Previously, the only access was by a narrow winding lane; and there was not a single point from which it was possible to obtain a com plete view of the fabric. The next thing undertaken was the removal of a huge masonry pillar that had been inserted under the north bay of the nave to support a broken lintel. This was effected by pinning up the fractured stone with three strong iron bolts; a simple and economical contrivance, suggested by Mr. Inglis, Executive Engineer on the Agra Canal, in lieu of the costly and tedious process of insert ing a new lintel and meanwhile supporting the wall by a masonry arch, which, though temporary, would have required most careful and substantial construc tion, on account of the enormous mass resting upon it.
On the south side of the choir stood a large domed and pillared chhattri of very handsome and harmonious design, though erected 40 years later than the temple. The following inscription is rudely cut on one of its four pillars :-

संबत् १६९३ वरषे कातिक वदि ५ शुभदिने हजस्त श्री
श्री श्री शाहजहां राज्ये राणा श्रीअमरसिंहजी को बेटो राजा
श्रीभीमजी री राणी श्री रंभावती चौषंडी सौराई छैजी ।।

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