Bihar has unearthed a 1,000-year-old Shiva temple of the Pala dynasty.
The chance discovery occurred on Sunday at a place that was long considered a garbage dump at Narayan Babu Lane under the Sulatanganj police station area in Patna.
The locals noticed debris of a building and started cleaning the garbage. Out came a tall, dilapidated building made of terracotta bricks with a dome on top. Once they cleaned its entrance, they were in for a surprise.
“We saw another small temple made of smooth black stone inside the domed structure. It had a shining black Shivlinga and two footprints carved out of the same stone. It seemed old. We had never seen anything like it before. We cleaned it,” said Bhola Kumar, a local.
According to locals, the place had an old monastery. It had fallen on hard times because of mismanagement, and buildings and temples related to it must have become obscured.
Once the news of the discovery spread, people started making a beeline to pray at the temple, which is quite an ornate one. Nicely carved stone gomukha (cow head) was installed around the Shivalinga seat to drain water, milk and other liquid.
Experts believe that the temple could date back to the Pala dynasty which ruled over Bihar and Bengal from the eighth to 12th century AD. Its various kings patronised arts and crafts. The temples and statues built by them were lost in the sands of time. At times some of them keep getting discovered in different parts of Bihar.
“The temple seems to be of the Pala era, during which the Shaiva and Vaishnava sects were patronised. The use of gomukha was popularised during that period. This structure could date back to a thousand years,” former Patna University professor, archaeologist, and iconographer Jaidev Mishra said.
Mishra added that Patna was one of the seats of power of the Pala dynasty and also served as its military hub or cantonment.
“Officials of the district administration or the archaeology department are yet to come to see the temple,” Sultanganj station house officer Ajay Kumar said.
