Shrines as monuments: Issues of classification, custody and conflict in Orissa in H.P Ray (ed)...

Introduction � 239

IX

Shrines as ‘Monuments’ Issues of Classifi cation, Custody

and Confl ict in Orissa1

Umakanta Mishra

From

T N Ramachandran, Superintendent, Archaeological Survey, Eastern Circle

To

Additional District Magistrate, Puri

I have inspected the image in question in company with the sub-divisional officer, Khurda today on 4.3.1950. The Barabhuji image which is found in one of the Jaina caves is actually the Jaina sasanadevata, Chakresvari who is the Yakshini of the first Tirthankara. The effigy of the Tirthankara is actually found on the top of the stone. I wonder how anyone can worship the image as different goddess altogether. This goddess is not an Hindu [sic]. (emphasis mine).2

1 I am extremely grateful to Professor Himanshu Prabha Ray, Chairperson, National Monuments Authority (NMA), for going through the essay and suggesting improvements. I am also thankful to Professor Bhairabi Prasad Sahu of the Department of History, University of Delhi, and Professor K K Basa of the Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, for their valuable suggestions to improve the essay.

2 Bundle no. 12, serial no. 239, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Eastern Circle, Calcutta, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

240 Umakanta Mishra

Important religious shrines of India represented to the colonial admin-istrators of the 19th century a conveniently ruined Indian past which could be recovered, repaired and protected. The process of recovery and protection of the ancient past stands as a living testament to, on the one hand, the ‘contribution’ the colonial government had made in ‘protecting India’s past’, and on the other, the decadence to which the ancient religions of India had fallen due to either desecration or internal degeneration. In 1848, Alexander Cunningham offered a scheme of archaeological investigations to the Government of India, arguing that such recovery and protection of India’s past would be an undertaking of vast importance to the Indian government politically, and to the British public religiously. This colonial enterprise was institutionalised when the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was created in 1861, and Major General Alexander Cunningham was appointed its first Director General (DG). In the view of the colonial state, the enterprise could not be left to individual initiatives and Asiatic Societies alone. It was, in fact, considered the supreme duty of the Imperial Government to systematise the process of recovery and protection of the Indian past. In 1870, George Campbell, Secretary of State for India and the eighth Duke of Argyll, while appreciating the early archaeological endeavours in India, recommended that the responsibility for the supervision of such endeavours be concentrated in one department of the imperial government and not be left, without the imperial control, to different chiefs under different local governments.3 The Viceroy, Lord Mayo, echoed this need for imperial control of this enterprise when he said:

The duty of the government is of a widely different and much larger and important kind. I believe that the duty of investigating, describing and protecting the ancient monuments of a country is one that is recognised and acted on by every civilised nation in the world. India has done less in this direction than almost any other nation and considering the vast materials for the illustration of history which lie unexplored in every part of Hindoostan, I am strongly of opinion that immediate steps should be taken for the creation under the Government of India of a machinery for discharging a duty, at once so obvious and so interesting . . . I think

3 Upinder Singh, Discovery of Ancient India: Early Archaeologists and the Beginnings of Archaeology, Delhi: Manohar, 2004, p. 79.

pc4-hp

Highlight

P

pc4-hp

Sticky Note

Permanent Blackl. Pl. delete Manohar

Classifi cation, Custody and Confl ict in Orissa 241

the time is come when a great and enlightened Government can no longer neglect contributing to the archaeological literature of the world.4

This enterprise was taken to new heights when Curzon became the Viceroy and enacted the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act (AMPA) or Act VII in 1904. The conservation and protection of monuments became a supreme obligation which could not be left to the provincial governments. The main objectives of the AMPA were to ensure the proper upkeep and repair of ancient buildings in private ownership, excepting those used for religious purposes; to prevent the excavation of sites of historic interests by ‘ignorant’ and ‘unauthorised’ persons; and to secure control over traffic in antiquities and to acquire ownership, where necessary and possible, of monuments and objects of archaeological and historical interest.5

The Act invested the executive, for the first time, with sufficient authority with regard to monuments in private ownership and was destined to make a new era in the preservations of archaeological remains in the country.

The enactment of the AMPA dramatically extended the sphere of the bureaucratic state as the conserver and protector of these sacred centres and converted living shrines into ‘monuments’. This giant leap in the colonial control over shrines was, however, fraught with problems. Not always could a neat division be made between monument and places of worship. Many monuments, such as the Lingaraja temple, the Jagannatha temple of Puri, and the Khandagiri and Udayagiri caves, were under active worship, but they are ‘exceptionally’ significant from architectural point of view, and hence needed to be ‘protected’. While conservation of such religious shrines was accommodated in sections 3 and 4 of the AMPA, which allowed religious observances, a neat boundary between the realm of religious activities and the clauses of protection could never be drawn. It led to a continuous friction between communities worshipping at these shrines and the ASI, especially over application of ghee, dedication of a lamp, sacrifice of animals, holding of special festivals in the protected complex, etc.

4 The Viceroy’s Note, 30 July 1870, in E. C. Bayley, Notes in Home/Public, 30 July 1870, nos 204–16, part A, National Archives of India (NIA), New Delhi.

5 For the clauses of the AMPA, see http://asi.nic.in/pdf_data/5.pdf.

242 Umakanta Mishra

Another flashpoint was the entry of ‘non-believers’ into temples for overseeing conservation works and entering mosques with shoes on. The extended bureaucratic claim of a department of the colonial state over the ‘religious centres’ saw the state taking a particularistic and narrow stand on the religious affiliation of the shrines. The ASI’s clas-sification of ‘discovered’ and ‘protected sites’ failed to take into account the different meanings attached to such sacred sites by religious groups. The ASI classified a site on the basis of its physical antiquity, and such narrow approach very often saw the ASI taking a partisan view of the very nature of a sacred centre, which had acted as a ‘multivalent centre’ in the past. Multivalent centre, as Mircea Eliade says, had the capacity to express different meanings for different religious groups.6

This monopolisation of sacred sites by the ASI led to mispercep-tions of the Indian past. One central argument of the colonial narrative pertained to the way religions and religious shrines and complexes were looked at. Right from the days of the Orientalists, religions of India were seen in terms of oppositional and exclusive categories. Indian history was seen in terms of the rise and fall of religions of ancient past: the rise of a protestant Buddhism as a reaction against the Vedic rituals, the Brahmanical insurrection against the Buddhist Mauryas by Pushyamitra, the expansion of Buddhism under the Kushanas, the rise of Brahmanical religion under the Guptas, and the decline of Buddhism due to ‘corruption’ and ‘imitation’ of the Brahmanical religion.7 Thus, colonial historiography posited Indian religions in binary opposition. These binaries constituted the basis of a priori classification of ‘discovered’ and ‘protected’ religious centres. The buried sites were discovered and excavated by the archaeologists and inscriptions were deciphered by James Prinsep and Cunningham, but in this process of discovery and reporting, the colonial historians distorted the nature of these sites. Colonial historians claimed to

6 According to Mircea Eliade, religious or sacred symbols are multivalent. By this, he means a symbol’s ‘capacity to express simultaneously a number of meanings whose continuity is not evident on the plane of immediate experience’ (Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, trans. Philip Mairet, Princeton, NJ: Princeton: University Press, 1991, p. 15).

7 C. K. Wedemeyer, ‘Tropes, Typologies, and Turnarounds: A Brief Genealogy of the Historiography of Tantric Buddhism’, History of Religions, 2001, 40(3): 223–59; Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘the Mystic East’, London: Routledge, 1999.


have discovered them, whereas the evidence suggests that these sites had continued to attract pilgrims throughout the historical period. Further, the colonial historians began to classify these sites in exclu-sivist terms. Bodh Gaya was considered a Buddhist site, which was occupied by Hindu mahants when Buddhism declined in 12th century CE.8 Similarly, Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex, even though it had attracted pilgrims of other denominations throughout history, was considered to have been discovered by Kittoe and afterward classified as a prominent Jaina site. However, such classification failed to take notice of the very nature of many sacred complexes, which continued to be revered for different reasons. Different religious groups wor-shipped the same deity under different names. The Jainas considered the Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex sacred. So did the other religious group, the Hindus, for different reasons. To take another instance, the Svayambhu Purana was a Buddhist text, but the Hindus also con-sidered it to be their own.9 The deity Matsyendranatha of Nepal is a form of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, but the Hindus also claim the deity as a form of Krishna.10 The colonial classification distorted the nature of religious centre as habitus of ‘plurality of religious beliefs and practices in ancient and medieval south Asia’.11

Taking into account two episodes in the history of ‘conservation’ and ‘preservation’ of ‘protected monuments’ — one over the Barabhuji cave and Padukamath temple in the ‘Jaina’ Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex, and the other over the Lingaraja temple, both in Bhubaneswar — the essay critiques the colonial state’s role in classification, conservation and preservation of shrines as ‘protected monuments’; the distortions such classification made in the nature of religious centres with multilayered

8 Himanshu Prabha Ray, ‘Archaeology and Empire: Buddhist Monuments in Monsoon Asia’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2008, 45(3): 417–49; A. Trevithick, ‘British Archaeologists, Hindu Abbots, and Burmese Buddhists: The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya, 1811–1877’, Modern Asian Studies, 1999, 33(3): 635–56.

9 B. McCoy Owens, ‘Monumentality, Identity, and the State: Local Practice, World Heritage, and Heterotopia at Swayambhu, Nepal’, Anthropological Quarterly, 2002, 75(2): 269–313.

10 David N. Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

11 Himanshu Prabha Ray, ‘The Apsidal Shrine in Early Hinduism: Origins, Cultic Affiliation, Patronage’, World Archaeology, 2004, 36(3): 343–59.

pc4-hp

Highlight

pc4-hp

Sticky Note

Pl superscript 'th'

244 Umakanta Mishra

history and meaning; and the conflict it caused among religious groups on the one hand and between local communities and the ASI on the other. Further, the essay explores the issue of ownership as defined in the AMPA and earlier legislations. Varied interpretations of the mean-ing and scope of ‘ownership’ in different colonial legislations resulted in conflicts between local temple committees and the ASI. The issue came to head when the Lingaraja temple was excluded from the List of Protected Monuments in 1913. The third issue the essay deals with is how the conservation ethics and aesthetics, as had been formulated by John Marshall in 1923, conflicted with the traditional notion of jirnoddharana (restoration) and religious behaviour of the devotees.

Episode 1: Padukamath Episode in the ‘Jaina’ Khandagiri–Udayagiri Complex

The twin hills, Khandagiri and Udayagiri, in Bhubaneswar are described by the ASI as one of the earliest ‘Jaina’ shelters.12 The complex was ‘discovered’ first by Andrew Stirling13 and then by Lieutenant M. Kittoe.14 Later, James Fergusson wrote on the religion, architecture, the Hathigumpha inscription and other inscriptions in the complex. Fergusson went beyond this ‘discovery’ and started classifying the religious complex. The early historians were not clear about the religious affiliation of the complex and some considered Udayagiri to be a Buddhist site.15 The caves of Udayagiri, according to Fergusson, ‘are entirely Buddhist and of a very early and pure type; those on the other hill, the Khandagiri are much later and principally Jaina’.16 Further, the Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex was drawn

12 Debala Mitra, Udayagiri and Khandagiri, Delhi: Director General, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), 1960, p. 30.

13 Andrew Stirling referred to the Jina monument of Khandagiri and modern constructions made by the Jainas on the crest of the Khandagiri hill (‘Account, Geographical, Statistical and Historical, of Orissa proper, or Cuttack, 1825, Asiatic Researches 15: 311–15).

14 M. Kittoe, ‘Ruins and Pillar at Jajipur’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1838, 7: 53–56.

15 K. K. Basa and P. Mohanty, Archaeology of Orissa, Delhi: Pratbha Prakashan, 2000, p. 26.

16 James Fergusson, Illustration of Rock-cut Temples of India, London: John Weale, 1845, p. 11.


into the whirlpool of colonialist versus nationalist arguments over the ‘authenticity’ of Indian monuments. While Fergusson believed that the pillar and boots of the rock-cut figures in the Udayagiri hill reveal distinct foreign influence, nationalist historian Rajendra Lal Mitra stressed on the ‘authenticity’ of the architecture and sculpture of Orissa.17

Conservation/preservation and custody of monuments under AMPAExercising its exclusive rights over the protection of monuments, the ASI took necessary steps for the preservation and protection of monu-ments and began to claim that it was the sole custodian of the pro-tected monuments. The conservation work at Udayagiri–Khandagiri complex started in 1898 and continued for about half a century. The Public Works Department of Cuttack division started repairing and conserving the monuments. The work included clearance of sand debris, conservation of broken pillars and collapsed façades, and restoration of missing architectural components. Such conservation of monuments generated great controversy, as John Marshall, after becoming Director General of the ASI in 1902, was furious with the methods of ‘restoration’ of old temples of Bhubaneswar.18

17 Rajendra Lal Mitra, Antiquities of Orissa, Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1875. The argument between Fergusson and Babu Rajendra Lal Mitra over the issue of foreign influence over or ‘authenticity’ of the Indian architecture made the former write a book in 1884 pouring venom on the latter, relating it with the contemporary issue of the Illbert bill (1881) controversy, which was enacted to allow the trial of the whites by the native Indian judges. Fergusson wrote: ‘If after reading the following pages any European feels that he would like to be subjected to his jurisdiction in criminal cases, he must have courage possessed by few; or he thinks he could depend on his knowledge or impartiality to do him justice, as he could on one of his countrymen, he must be strongly constituted in mind, Body and estate’ (Archaeology in India with Special Reference to the Works of Babu Rajendra Lal Mitra, Delhi: K. K. Publications, 1974 [1884], p. vii).

18 Marshall was particularly furious with the use of stones in the process of preservation. Since his first tour of India, including Bhubaneswar, after becoming DG, he, in a series of letters and notes, especially a note of 1905, criticized the use of white-coloured sandstones in the Bhubaneswar group

246 Umakanta Mishra

The AMPA was enacted in 1904, and the Government of Bihar and Orissa, notified Khandagiri and Udayagiri to be protected under Notification no. 1865 E, 25 June 1912.19 On 12 July 1915, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council of the Government of Bihar and Orissa notified that the Commissioner of Orissa was the sole guard-ian of these protected monuments.20 The transformation of religious establishments and complexes into ‘monuments’ and the transfer of their custody to the government provoked protest from other impor-tant stakeholders. When the Public Works Department (PWD) started removing pillars, clearing sand debris and excavating at Udayagiri, both Jainas and Hindus objected to such actions by the state.21 This issue of the custody of the monuments and the manner of their

of temples and suggested staining it with various formula (‘Archaeological remains in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa: Notes by DG, ASI’, p. 23, file no. lot 31, 1909, bundle no. 6A., ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, National Archives, Regional Record Centre, Bhubaneswar). The efforts to stain the white sandstone continued unsuccessfully till 1911, when the then acting DG Jean Philippe Vogel directed the discontinuation of the practice in a letter to the Superintendent of Archaeology, Eastern Circle (letter no. 90, dated 20 February 1911, file no. 26, serial no. 483, bundle no. 24, sub.: ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar, 1911’, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

19 File no. VIIIE/14 of 1912, ‘Declaration of Khandagiri and Udayagiri Caves, etc. in the district of Puri as Protected Monuments’, file no. 2672 B & O, original no. 1-14, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), May 2013, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.

20 Letter no. 1577, dated 26 August 1915, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), Government of Bihar and Orissa, file no. 26, serial no. 483, bundle no. 24, sub.: ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar, 1911’, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

21 The Jainas objected to the demolition of certain pillars as well as to the entry of officials with their shoes on to the caves. The government recognised that this action violated Section 13 of the AMPA. See file no. 2690, Bihar and Orissa, original file no. 10-18, sub.: ‘Objections to the removal of stones, and excavation of Jaina temple in the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves’, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), January 1915, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar; file no. 2692 B & O, original file no. 8–9, sub.: ‘Guardianship of the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves’, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), January 1915, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.


protection continued, and in 1947 the ASI demanded the ‘portion of land adjoining the sites of ancient monuments as may be required for fencing or covering in or otherwise preserving monuments and the means of access to and convenient inspection of ancient monuments’.22 When the revenue officials and tahsildar of Khurda pointed out that the additional land could not be given, as they were not specified in the notification of 1912 when the Udayagiri–Khandagiri complex was declared ‘protected’ under the AMPA, the ASI insisted on the acquisition of more land by the government.23

This demand by the ASI officials, which historians called ‘militant conservatism’, was followed by another face-off between the ASI and local stakeholders. A ‘Hindu’ math (monastery) called Padukamath, managed by a private trust, was located to the north-west of a Jaina dharmashala (rest-house for pilgrims) on the Udayagiri hill. In May 1948, the Hindu babaji of the math started constructing a pucca building on the existing thatched structure of the math. The Hindus believed that the ASI was biased towards the Jainas and was engaged in obliterating every ‘vestige of Hinduism from this sacred complex’. There were several developments at the Khandagiri–Udayagiri com-plex, which will be alluded to later to support the view that the ASI was not impartial. The Hindus contended that the Jaina dharmasala and other Jaina establishments near the Padukamath temple were

22 Letter no. B 38/818, dated 11 April 1947, to Additional District Magistrate (ADM), Puri, from Superintendent, ASI, Central Circle, Patna, serial no. 239, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

23 ‘From the sub-overseer K. M. Pattanaik stationed at Khandagiri, I learn that the Chakla Qanungo demarcated the protected area of the caves yesterday but sufficient land in front of Bajadhara and Chhota Hathi Gumpha (Plot no 20 and 22) has not been included. The portion that is needed has already been cleared of all jungle, levelled and dressed. If any portion of the land falls within any other plots not belonging to Khas mahal, it may please be acquired and made over to the department, as it is required as a means of access to and convenient inspection of the monument under section 2 of AMPA’ (letter, dated 8 July 1947, from Archaeological Officer, Bhubaneswar, to ADM, Puri, serial no. 239, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

248 Umakanta Mishra

allowed to operate and the ASI made no objection to such establish-ments hindering the view of the Hathigumpha complex. The ASI’s objection to the construction of pucca Padukamath smacked of par-tisanship. The tahsildar of Khurda submitted an enquiry report on the issue, wherein he rejected the ASI’s contention that the ongoing construction of pucca Padukamath would in any way hinder the view of the ancient monument of Udayagiri from the roadside.24 Further, the tahsildar also did not consider the proposal of acquisition of land under the trust of Padukamath, as suggested by the Superintendent of ASI, Central Circle, Patna, as viable because any move for such acquisition would result in huge protest from the Hindus. The district administration also agreed with the findings of the tahsildar that the ongoing pucca structural work of Padukamath would in no way hinder the view of the Udayagiri monument, and the Collector proposed a joint enquiry of the Padukamath area if the ASI continued to have a different view on the issue.

The ASI continued to insist that Padukamath was hindrance to the protection of this ancient monument which was under their exclusive custody. T. N. Ramachandran, Superintendent of ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, justified his objection to the building of the pucca structure.25

24 ‘Today I visited the spot and enquired into the matter. I also contacted the persons in charge of the management of Padukamath and explained to them the views of the ASI. Their contention was that before, this there existed a kutcha thatched house of considerable height at that place where erection of a pucca building is now in progress and as this pucca building will be of lesser height than the thatch, it will not be of greater hindrance than the kutcha house. Their further contention was that when the Jaina dharmasala and other Jaina establishments near Padukamath also partly obstructed the view of the Udayagiri caves from the road, there was no move or attempt to remove all those obstacles the present move to stop the construction of the building of the only Hindu religious establishment Padukamath, there is nothing but an attempt of the Jainas to remove from there all the symbols of the Hindu religion and so they expressed resentment at such a move’ (copy of letter no. 1520, dated 7 August 1950, from Tahsildar, Bhubaneswar, to SDO, Khurda, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

25 “The Math is situated just in front of the Udayagiri caves, which is one of the most important Jaina monuments in India, protected under the AMP Act 1904. The existence of a katcha shed which was not much of a hindrance (Padukamath) to our monuments and that is why it was not objected by this


The Sub Divisional Officer (SDO) of Khurda also concurred with this point of view and was anxious to solve the problem even by acceding to land acquisition, which, he said, was not easy as the math was a place of worship. He however, promised to meet the owner of the math.

Barabhuji controversyThe controversy over Padukamath occurred in the backdrop of another controversy over ‘appropriate’ religious behaviour in Barabhuji cave of the Khandagiri complex. Cave 8 of the complex was known as Barabhuji gumpha (12-armed gumpha), so called from two 12-armed figures carved in rock on the side walls of the verandah. Inhabitants of the nearby villages of Jagaamara, Aiginia, Dumuduma, Baramunda, and Nayapalli (which today are in the heart of Bhubaneswar city) worshipped the images as grama devatas/devis (village gods/goddesses) under the name of Sri (sic) Barabhuji Thakurani, and the priests of the villages offered bhog (ritual food-offering) to them. The villagers petitioned to the Collector of Puri in October 1945 that some years ago the ASI had issued orders for taking the deities under its protection and attempted to stop their worship. Upon hearing their petition, the then Collector of Puri Dewan Bahadur Dayanidhi Das had ordered that the puja of the deities not be interrupted.26 However, Mortimer Wheeler, the DG of ASI, endorsed the decision of B. N. Puri, the

department. But the erection of a pucca building not only clashes with the surroundings but will obscure the approach and view of the monuments. It was therefore strongly objected to even by my predecessors. There is no other alternative to save the monument except to completely prohibit the erection of a pucca structure in place of the existing katcha one, even if it at the cost of acquiring the Math land for this department. If you think this is the only way out, kindly let me know the cost of the land to be acquired so as to enable me to approach the DGA’ (memo. of T. Ramachandran, Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, to ADM, Puri, memo. no. B-38/955, dated 4 April 1950, Tahsildar, Bhubaneswar, to SDO, Khurda, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

26 ASI file no. 15-H 1/145, ‘Barabhuji caves at Khandagiri Orissa: Petition’, dated 27 October 1945, from inhabitants of villages Jagamara, Aiginia, Dumuduma, Baramunda, Nayapllli in the Bhubaneswar Police Station, Central Archaeological Office Record Room, New Delhi.

250 Umakanta Mishra

Superintending Archaeologist of the ASI’s Central Circle, Patna, of not allowing worship by the locals.27

This simmering controversy between the ASI and the local com-munity backed by district officials took an interesting turn from 1949 and reached a flaring point in 1951. The Bengal, Bihar and Orissa Digambar Jaina Tirtha Kshetra Committee had been urging for a ban on the slaughter of animals by the Hindus in the precinct of the Barabhuji cave. T. Ramachandran, Superintendent of ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, informed the Secretary of the Committee in a let-ter that the district administration had already put up a signboard banning slaughter of fowl and animals within the jurisdiction of the Khandagiri complex.28 This ban on animal slaughter took place after Ramachandran conducted an enquiry about the nature of Barabhuji cave. In a classic case of ‘arbitrary classification’, Ramachandran, in no uncertain terms, proclaimed that the image was of Shasana-devi (protective deity) Chakreshvari of the first Tirthankara Rishabhadeva, and wondered how it could be worshipped as a Hindu goddess. He raised another objection: as the spokesperson of the ‘custodian of the monument’ i.e., the ASI, he contended that the Barabhuji image cannot be worshipped by the Hindus, as it was damaged. He wrote to the ADM of Puri: ‘No image whose nose and hands are broken

27 ‘As personally explained at Khandagiri, cooking of food in the caves or in front of them cannot be permitted . If the bhog is to be cooked for offering to the deities, it may be cooked at the foot of the hill near the dharmasala and offered but under no circumstances can the cooking of food on the platform in front of the Barabhuji cave be allowed’ (ASI file no. 15-H/1/145, ‘Barabhuji caves at Khandagiri Orissa: Letter from K. N. Puri, Officiating Superintendent, ASI, Central Circle, Patna’, letter no. B38/1717, Central Archaeological Office Record Room, New Delhi).

28 Letter, dated 25 June 1950, from T. Ramachandran to Chotelal Jain, Secretary, Eastern India Digambar Jaina Teertha Committee, sub.: ‘Slaughtering of animals and fowls, etc within the jurisdiction of sacred places’, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar. ‘Sir, With reference to your letter no. 363 dated 26.9.49, I have the honour to enclose herewith a copy of communication received from the Additional District Magistrate Puri on the subject Copy of ADM, Puri (Abstract) ‘A sign board with a stand has already been fixed near the foot of the Khandagiri hills prohibiting killing of animals near about Jaina temple’ (ibid.).


can be worshipped. The present case has three right hands broken in addition to its nose. Will you kindly put an end to the present tendency towards false worship?’29

The ASI was adamant about imposing its own view of protec-tion, often in a partisan manner. On the one hand, it imposed a ban on the offering of bhog by the local residents in the Barabhuji cave, and restrained the construction of pucca structure in ‘the only Hindu religious structure in the sacred Udayagiri hill’ (as the Hindus of Padukamath said). On the other hand, it allowed the construction and installation of images in the ‘protected’ Khandagiri complex. On a request by the Jaina temple management committee to allow the installation of a temporary light post on the occasion of the instal-lation of a new image in the Khandagiri temple complex in 1950 (temple and the adjoining areas were managed by the committee), the Superintendent of ASI, Eastern Circle, wrote to A. K Moitra, Conservation Assistant (CA), Bhubaneswar, that there should not be any objection from the ASI.30

29 Letter, dated 4 March 1950, from T. Ramachandran to ADM, Puri, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

30 A. K. Moitra worte to the Superintendent: ‘I beg to report that the managing committee of the Jain temple on the Khandagiri hills are [sic] going to install an image in a temple in their existing compound on the top of the hill. For this purpose they are going to perform a big Puja. They are taking electric light on the Khandagiri hills temporarily for the occasion for which they are fixing some bamboo post and light on the hill. Necessary instruction may kindly be given whether they will be allowed to fix the posts and lights on the hills’ (letter no. B/134, dated 12 March1950, from A. K. Moitra, CA, Archaeological Office, Bhubaneswar, to Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, bundle no. 12, serial no. 239, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Record centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar). The Superintendent wrote back: ‘[T]here should be no objection from our side. The watchman should be given instruction to see that our monuments premises are not encroached upon or interfered with in any way either by the Jaina temple authorities of the visiting public’ (letter no. B-38/1038 dated 15 April 1950, from Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, A. K. Moitra, Archaeological Office, Bhubaneswar, bundle no. 12, serial no. 239, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Record centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

252 Umakanta Mishra

Shortly after this incident, an important event occurred in 1950–51, which brought to fore the nature of the ‘protected’ religious shrines. A ‘Hindu’ organisation, comprising the heads of many Hindu monaster-ies of Orissa, many of whom were from untouchable and lower castes, started distributing handbills and literature exhorting the faithful to congregate on the Khandagiri hill to participate in a 45-day religious festival starting from the Baishakh purnima (full moon). The hand-bills and literature31 invoked the malikas32 (oracles of prophecies) of Acyutananda Das, Ananta Das and Arakshita Das and exhorted devo-tees to congregate at a 45-day religious festival at Khandagiri to gain merit. Acyutananda Das and other medieval Bhakti poets referred to Khandagiri as the place from where Lord Ananta would start destroy-ing the sinful at the end of the Kali yuga. Only the faithful who would congregate on the Khandagiri hill would be saved from the coming apocalypse. The handbills further said that flood and droughts (famine of 1943 and 1948 which occurred in the backdrop) and other natural calamities would soon befall on Orissa, and called upon the people not to miss this opportunity to gain religious merit or else calamity would surely follow. The handbills claimed that Sri Barabhuji (Chakreshvari) was a form of Durga (the Mother Goddess) and the male deity under the canopy of a seven-hooded serpent, prominently carved on the back wall of the cave, was Ananta (the organisers, in fact, identified Tirthankara Parshvanatha with Ananta, a form of Vishnu).

The organisers, therefore, believed that the Kali yuga was about to end and Lord Ananta from Barabhuji cave would emerge to destroy the sinful. This, again, foregrounds the multivalent nature of shrines and reinforces the fact that classifying the Khandagiri–Udayagiri com-plex as one of the ‘oldest Jaina monuments’, as the ASI did, resulted in a distortion of its multireligious character and generated conflicts between the ASI and the local Hindu communities on the one hand and between Jains and Hindus on the other. Before the history of the

31 File no. Nil, sub: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

32 Malikas (oracles of prophecies) of medieval Bhakti saints, especially of Acyutananda Das, are very popular in Orissa. Composed between 16th and 17th centuries CE, they describe in detail what would happen in various parts of Orissa at the end of the Kali yuga, the last epoch/era/age in the Brahmanical four-age cosmic time-cycle).


sacred complex of Khandagiri–Udayagiri is dealt with in the following section, it is important to highlight what happened to the call for the 45-day festival in this ‘ASI protected monument’.

In April 1951, an umbrella organisation of sadhus and Hindu maths, mostly of lower castes, printed a handbill titled ‘Sarbajanina (public) Ananta mela in front of the Barabhuji image of the Khandagiri cave 8, known as Barabhuji cave’. The handbill printed on the occasion of the mela (fair), exhorted the devotees to congregate in order to witness the self-emanation of Lord Ananta.33 They claimed that the murtis (idols) of Barabhuji and Ananta were glories of the Kesari dynasty, mentioned in the Madala Panji (temple chronicle of the Jagannatha temple, Puri) and the malikas of Acyutananda Das and Ananta Das. They forwarded the programme to the Chief Minister and printed handbills in Oriya and Bengali. They even advertised the festival in local dailies like Samaj. In April, they applied to the District Magistrate and police officer, Khasmahal officer, of Khurda for permission and forwarded the copies of the handbills to the Chief Minister. However, they bemoaned the fact that despite these proclamations of their inten-tions to hold the mela, none of these officers informed them about AMPA and the restrictions it put on any construction near it.

The organisers wanted to put a temporary shed in front of the cave verandah as well as construct a yajna kunda (sacrificial pit). The ASI objected to this and the local administration restrained it just before the commencement of the mela on 16 May 1951. The CA reported that sadhus from all over Orissa had assembled at the complex and started taking shelter in the caves as they had been doing throughout centuries. In 1909, John Marshall had considered yogis to be the

33 The handbill contains the names of the mahants of various mathas, most of whom were from lower caste as suggested by their titles. In addition to Khirod Chandra Dev Verma and Kanhu Charan Das (founder of the Harijan Satsang), these mahants included: Maharshi Biasnabandana Dev Goswami, in-charge of Viraja Mandal of Jajpur; Babaji Digambar Das of Ghatakia Ashram, Khandagiri; Babaji Arjun Chandra Das of Palakiri Ashram; Dhamnagar, Bhadrak; Babaji Ramprasad Das of Raigad, Chhattisgarh; Shri Govinda Chandra Das of Padmapur Ashram; Shri Fakir Mallik of Ragadi Ashram; Shri Kumar Prasad Mallik of Tangi Ashram; Shri Dhokei Jena of Teruan Ashram; Govinda Mallick of Ghantimunda Ashram; Sanatan Jena of Jenapur Ashram, Cuttack district; Jatha Jena of Charana Ashram; Rajan Majhi of Ghatakia Ashram; and Baraju Bhoi of Andharuan Ashram.

254 Umakanta Mishra

34 Note no. 91, by John Marshall, DG, ASI, file no. Lot 31 (‘Archaeological remains in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa’), bundle no. 6A, 1909, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

35 Letter no. B/137, dated 19 May 1951, from A. K. Moitra, CA, ASI, to Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, bundle no. 12, serial no. 239, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

36 Letter, dated 17 May 1951, from Dharmaraj Shriman Khirod Chandra Dev Verma, to CA, ASI, bundle no. 12, serial no. 239, file no. Nil, sub.: ‘Antiquities in Koraput District, 1947’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

principal violators of the AMPA provisions, and opined that along with mosses, lichens, bats and the peepal tree, the presence of yogis in the caves and temples of Orissa were threats to the protection of monuments and must be ‘excluded from occupying the monument’.34 A. K. Moitra, in a letter to Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, reported that the sadhus and yogis who had taken shelter in the Navamuni and Barabhuji caves, on being asked by the tahsildar to vacate them, went down to the foot of the hill.35 Reacting to such restrictions placed the ASI, the head of the umbrella organisation of the mela wrote to Moitra, asserting

that the monument having 12 hands in the shape of a Devi is called Barabhuji Durga and the monument having seven snake heads over, is called Ananta Murti in the Hindu Mythology . . . No matter archaeological department named them other ways, but we deserve our truth in the name mentioned above, and declared in the history of Orissa and named by the people of the locality.36

On the permission of the tahsildar, the organisers started constructing sheds on the foot of the hill and held the mela.

Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex as a multivalent sacred complexThe exclusion of the yogis and sadhus from the caves of Khandagiri and Udayagiri, ban on the worship of Barabhuji by locals and on animal sacrifices in deference to Jaina sentiments, and restraint on the construction of a pucca structure of Padukamath, raise the issue of the multivalent nature of the religious centre and how the ASI’s


conservation norms and classification of religious shrines as ‘Jaina/Hindu/Buddhist’ were in conflict with local perceptions and local history of the shrine. Khandagiri–Udayagiri has been a living sacred centre for the Jainas since the early historical period. In fact, taking into account various kinds of evidence from different historical periods, it can be called one of the oldest living religious complexes of India. Notwithstanding the claim of its ‘discovery’ by the British historians, the complex has continued as a religious centre throughout history. The Hathigumpha inscription (lines 14–16) of king Kharavela refers to the excavation of caves for Jaina ascetics at an enormous cost, on the pragbhara (mountain slope) in the neighbourhood of the monas-tic retreats of the Kumari hill (Udayagiri), a certain structure with hundreds of stones collected from different quarries and pillars with the core of cat’s eye gem.37 The inscription also refers to Kharavela’s feat of bringing back Kalinga jina image which had been taken away by Nanda King (namdaraja nitam) and installed it in Kalinganagari (line 12). Even if Kharavela was a Jaina, he respected all sects and repaired all temples (line 17). In the time of the Mahameghavahana family to which Kharavela belonged to, the Khandagiri and Udayagiri complex were honeycombed with caves, which were excavated by various members of the royal family. A Brahmi inscription in the upper storey of the Manchapuri cave in the Udayagiri hill refers to the construction of a temple of arhats (arhamta pasayadaya) and the excavation of a cave for the Shramanas of Kalinga by the chief queen of the illustrious Kharavela. Similarly, excavation of lenas (caves) for arhats in the Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex was commissioned by Mahameghavahana Kudepasiri, prince Vadhukha, Chulakama, Kamma and Halakshina, town judge Sabhuti, wife of Mahamada, Agikha, and Kusuma.38 On palaeographic ground, it can be said that these caves were excavated in the 1st century BCE.

Jainism seemed to have thrived thereafter as well in the com-plex. At a time when the Lingaraja temple was constructed by the Somavamshis, king Udyotakesari (11th century CE) of the same dynasty also made many renovations in the Khandagiri complex. The

37 K. P. Jayaswal and R. D. Banerji, ‘Hatigumpha Inscription of Kharavela’, Epigraphia Indica, 1929–30, 20(7): 80.

38 R. D. Banerji, ‘Inscriptions in the Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves’, Epigraphica Indica, 1915–16, Epigraphica Indica, 13(7): 159–66.

256 Umakanta Mishra

Navamuni cave (cave 9) was renovated during this period. Originally, the cave consisted of two residential cells with a common verandah in front. But later on, it was converted into a shrine chamber (sanctuary) by excavating the floor to a greater depth and carving the figures of nine Tirthankaras. In the case, there are five inscriptions, the last of which records the work of Jaina monk Khalla Shubhachandra, disciple of Kulachandra, who was an acarya (teacher) of the Deshi gana, derived from the graham kula belonging to the Arya samgha in the eighth regnal year of Udyotakesari.39 In the back wall of this cell, which was converted into a sanctuary of Navamuni cave, seven Tirthankaras are carved in high relief. Below the figures of the Tirthankaras are carved their Shasana-devis. What is more important to note is that the image of Ganesha is also carved along with those of the Shasana-devis which, thus, resemble the Saptamatrika images of the same period in the Hindu temples. It is also important to highlight that the images of Hindu deities, viz., Ganesha in the Navamuni cave and Abhisekaha Lakshmi in the Udayagiri cave, are found along with the relief figures of Jaina Tirthankaras and Shasana-devis. It was perhaps during this period that along with the Navamuni cave, the Barabhuji cave was converted into shrine chamber as well. The Trishula and Mahavira caves were converted into sanctuaries later, during the rule of Ganga and Gajapati dynasties. The Lalatendukesari cave (cave 11) has an inscription which records the restoration of a well and a dilapidated temple in the fifth regnal year of Udyotakesari, as also the setting up of the images of 24 Tirthankaras there. The find of detached images, coupled with a large number of fragments of architectural compo-nents, such as amalaka and khapuris (structural parts of the top of the Orissan temples), of a stone temple attests to the existence of an earlier temple on the crest of the Khandagiri hill, on which now stands a temple constructed in late 18th or early 19th century.40 Thus, the

39 Mitra, Udayagiri and Khandagiri, p. 59.40 The present temple located on the terraced crest of the Khandagiri hill is

dedicated to Rishabhadeva, the first Jaina Tirthankara. The main image, made of white marble, was installed in 1920, but the temple consisting of a sanctum and audience hall is older. According to Rajendra Lal Mitra (Antiquities of Orissa), the temple was built in the first quarter of 19th century by Manju Chowdhury and his nephew Bhabvani Dau of Cuttack. Kittoe, who visited the place in 1837, says: ‘There is a Jaina temple of modern construction, it having


present temple was constructed on an earlier temple, built in 11th century CE. The steady flow of devotees to this temple throughout the history of its existence is ascertained from more than 100 mono-lithic votive miniature shrines on the terrace near the temple, called the Deva Sabha (‘assembly of gods’) with figures of Tirthankaras in their niches. Stirling mentions that the temple was frequented by the Jaina or Parwar merchants of Cuttack, who assembled at Khandagiri in large numbers, once every year, to hold a festival of their religion.41

Thus, historical evidence attests to continuous Jaina presence from the early historical period to the 15th century and even later, in the 18th–19th century. However, it was also considered to be a sacred centre by the Hindus. The local practice of worshipping Buddhist and Jaina gods and goddesses as Hindu deities is found in many parts of Orissa, but it is also important to ascertain the larger textual basis of the Ananta mela in the Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex. The handbills circulated by the organisers of the mela proclaimed the Khandagiri complex as the ‘eternal abode (nitya sthali) of Lord Ananta Gopala (Lord Vishnu), as described in the writings of the Panchasakhas (five Saints) (handbill no. 2). The handbill no. 3, printed in both Oriya and Bengali, refers to the ‘lion seat of Void’ at the secret Ganges of Amaravati of Khandagiri as the place where the bold proclamations of the malikas (prophecies) would be decided (nirghanta).

The Pancasakhas very frequently associated Khandagiri with the Kalki avatara (last incarnation of lord Vishnu/Krishna). The Panchasakhas were Bhakti saints of medieval Orissa, considered to be the disciples of Chaitanya, the famous 16th-century Gaudiya Vaishnava saint. The Panchasakhas were Jagannataha Das, Balaram Das, Acyutananda Das, Jasobanta Das, and Ananta Das. Jagannatha Das’ Oriya rendition of Shrimad Bhagavatam has been immensely popular since medieval times. Balaram Das wrote the Ramayana in Oriya. In addition, as mentioned earlier, their malikas or books of prophecies have been quite popular in Orissa. They were written

been built during the Maharatta rule’. Stirling, in his report of 1825, simply notes the temples as a modern construction. The original image, according to him, was of Parshvanatha, but Debala Mitra (Udayagiri and Khandagiri, p. 71) mentions that it was of Mahavira.

41 Stirling, ‘Account, Geographical, Statistical and Historical, of Orissa’, pp. 311–12.

258 Umakanta Mishra

between 16th and 18th centuries CE. Malikas, such as Yugabdha Gita, Kaliyuga Malika, Bhabisyata Parabhda, and Padmakalpa of Acyutananda Das, and Bhabisyata Purana of Ananta Das predicted a catacylsmic turn of events at the end of the Kali yuga. This genre of prophetic-cum-apocalyptic literature is a regional adaptation of the depiction of Kali yuga in the Brahmanical Puranas. All of them speak of decadence in dharma and socio-cultural order, as also the impend-ing apocalypse at the end of the Kali yuga to be brought about by the divine incarnation of Lord Jagannatha.

What is important in the context of Khandagiri is that the afore-mentioned Malikas refer to the complex as the place where the Lord will take his human form and proceed to destroy the world. Only the righteous will be spared, and these righteous will include the saints who would congregate at the holy complex of Khandagiri–Udayagiri. For instance, the Bhabisyata Purana prophesies that Hari (a form of Vishnu) will manifest himself in Kalki form at Khandagiri.42 The Agata Bhabisya Malika foretells that the 12 rishis (‘seers’) of the Brahmanical tradition and 60,000 saints (santhas) will congregate at Khandagiri to witness the manifestation of Kalki.43 These saints will be engaged in the meditation of Lord Ananta in the caves of Khandagiri. The text further alludes to the glory of Khandagiri which even the great gods like Brahma and Shiva cannot describe.44 The Yugabdha Gita, too, prophesies that Lord Janardana will stay at Khandagiri with a turban on his head and from here he will manifest his Kalki form. Devotees will congregate at different places and the sky will look bright.45 Further, as the Terajanmasarana predicts, at the time of the end of this yuga, the five saints or Panchasakahas will teach the king of Utkala (Orissa) the five knowledges on the crest of Khandagiri.46 The Agata Bhabisya Malika further states: ‘The sadhus in their dis-guised form are residing at Amaravati in the crest of the Khandagiri

42 Ananta Das, Bhabisyata Purana, in Mahagupta Padmakalpa, compiled by Brajaraja Barik, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d., p. 96.

43 Hadi Das, Agata Bhabisya Malika, in Acyutananda Malika, compiled by Babaji Paramananda Das, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d., p. 75.

44 Ibid.45 Acyutananda Das, Yugabdha Gita, in Acyutananda Malika, compiled by

Babaji Paramananda Das, Dharmagrantha Store: Cuttack, n.d., p. 37.46 Acyutananda Das, Terajanmasarana, compiled by Babaji Paramananda

Das, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d., p. 28.


hill where the secret Ganges flows. Prayers continue throughout day and night and the lord will play the secret game (guapata khela) in that secret place’.47 In the Padmakalpatika, it is stated that at the time of apocalypse when cyclone and flood will engulf Orissa, the Lord will protect his devotees and give shelter to them in the Ananta gumpha (Anantagumpha cave of Khandagiri).48

Two important points emerge out of these textual prophecies with regard to Khandagiri. First, Lord Jagannatha, conceived by the Vaishnava saints as the primordial Lord, will manifest himself in his Kalki form in Khandagiri. Second, the caves of the complex are the abode of saints and devotees throughout and even at the time of the manifestation of Kali incarnation, the devotees and saints who con-gregated there would be spared from the impending destruction. It is important to note that there is a cave in Udayagiri complex known as Jagannatha Gumpha, evidently named after Lord Jagannatha of Puri, who was declared as the rashtra devata (state deity) of Utkala (Orissa) in the 13th century CE.49 The organisers of the 1951 mela, thus, invoked this long-standing tradition to stake their claim to this sacred place. This long tradition ran in conflict with the ASI’s new conservation norms and classification of the complex exclusively as a Jaina monument.

Second Episode: Lingaraja Temple: Issues of Conservation and Custody

Soon after the annexation of Orissa, the colonial government by Regulation XIX of 1810 assumed charge of temples and mosques

47 Kalki rupare janama hebe Srichakradhara. Khiradhara bahi jauchi stana Amarabati, Khandagiri stana gupate siddha sadhu achanti. Gumphare bhajana lagichi ratra dina madhyare, Gupate khela se khelibe prabhu sehi thabara (Das, Agata Bhabisya Malika, p. 60).

48 Prabhu dayakari thibe bhakatamananku, ajnya debe mundatekibaku basukiku. Mo bhktathiba stanare pahada hoiba, jala pabana kichi hi kari na pariba. Anantagumpha madhyare mo bhkta rahibe, se belare sarakar khadya pakaeibi (Acyutananda Das, Padmakalpatika,in Bhabisyata Parardha, compiled by Narayana Chandra Das of Siddhagiri Matha, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d., p. 73).

49 Hermann Kulke, Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia, Delhi: Manohar, 1993, p. 17.

pc4-hp

Sticky Note

in 1803

260 Umakanta Mishra

endowed with property, and made arrangements for the manage-ment, maintenance and repair of such shrines. The conservation and ownership of Lingaraja temple and ‘appropriate’ religious behaviour in this ‘protected’ monument brought the ASI in conflict with the Bhubaneswar Temple Committee, which was endowed with the right to manage the temple vide the Religious Endowment Act of 1863. Both the Temple Committee and the ASI questioned each other’s legislative claims and actions. This conflict resulted in the stoppage of funds for the conservation of the temple by the government in 1903, and led to the exclusion of the temple from the list of protected monu-ments of Bhubaneswar in 1913. Further, the conservation norms, as enunciated by Marshall from 1905 to 1923, sharply questioned the restorations of the Bhubaneswar group of temples made by the PWD under the supervision of the Superintendent of ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta. Marshall’s notes on the conservation of the Bhubaneswar group of temples, criticising the use of new architraves and stone, brought the issue of aesthetics into conservation. These new conser-vation norms, legitimated by the AMPA, led to differences between between Marshall and T. Bloch, the Superintendent of ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta. Further, the issue of custody and control of the monu-ment raised the issue of the nature of the monument, i.e., whether the monument would be a ‘public resort’, as Marshall wanted them, or a shrine accessed by contemporary religious groups.

The old part of Bhubaneswar has a series of temples, which docu-ment the complete evolution of Orissa- or Kalinga-style of temple architecture. This old part of Bhubaneswar, known as Ekamra Kshetra in the medieval texts, developed into a classic Shaiva pilgrimage spot. In the Ekamra Kshetra, Shaiva temples were constructed from 6th century to 13th century CE. The chief deity of the Ekamra Kshetra is Lingaraja. The Lingaraja temple was built in the 11th century CE, and represents the culmination of the evolution of Orissa-style temple architecture. It is described by Fergusson as the ‘finest example of a purely Hindu temple in India’.50

The temples of Bhubaneswar began to decay after one of the gener-als of Shah Jahan, Baki Khan desecrated and destroyed them in 1640s. When the British came in 1803, they hesitated to involve themselves

50 James Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, vol. 2, London: John Murray, 1910, p. 99.


in the religious affairs of the ‘natives’. But soon this state of affairs changed as the British took control of the Jagannatha temple in Puri in 1817. The crumbling temples of Bhubaneswar provided material evi-dence for ‘the trajectory of decline which was rectified by the imperial government by discovery, repair and protection. The “discovery” and classification of antique grandeur was both indicative of, and neces-sitated by, the cultural nadir to which the dependent territory had now sunk’.51 And as part of this colonial policy, the Bhubaneswar group of temples were repaired and protected. The repair work was started by the PWD under the supervision of the ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta.

Many temples of Bhubaneswar, including the Lingaraja temple, were subjected to extensive repair, restoration and conservation. In 1900, John Woodburn, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, granted an annual allowance of ̀ 400 to the Lingaraja Temple for its maintenance. The grant was, however, withdrawn three years later, when the temple authorities refused to allow European officers to enter the temple compound to inspect it.52 The issue of ownership and maintenance of the Lingaraja temple simmered in the next two decades. The issue of ownership and access resurfaced in 1911 when both the ASI and the Bhubaneswar Temple Committee accused each other of neglect and destruction of the temple. Priyanath Chaterjee, a lawyer and the Secretary of the Committee,53 wrote to the Collector of Puri, as well as to the ASI, complaining about the demolition of a subsidiary shrine during the repair work in Ananta Vasudeva temple. On the other hand, the ASI took a serious view of the destruction of Padeshvari temple just

51 Deborah Sutton, ‘Devotion, Antiquity and Colonial Custody of the Hindu Temple in British India’, Modern Asian Studies, 2013, 47(1): 137.

52 Draft letter to Chief Secretary of Government of Bihar and Orissa and to DG, ASI, 1918, sub.: ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar, Orissa’, file no. 26, ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar’, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

53 The Bhubaneswar Temple Committee was created by the government on the basis of Religious Endowment Act. It was clearly in charge of the management of all temples of Bhubaneswar, including the Lingaraja temple; the members of the Lingaraja Temple Committee, also created as per the Religious Endowment Act, were members of the Bhubaneswar Temple Committee as well. However, the revenue officials confused management with ownership and wrongly assumed that Bhubaneswar Temple Committee was the owner of the Lingaraja temple lands.

pc4-hp

Highlight

p. 137. pl. delete ':'

262 Umakanta Mishra

outside the enclosure of the Lingaraja temple and the use of debris and stones of the Padeshvari temple by the Temple Committee in the repair of Gauri temple within the Lingaraja temple without the knowledge of the government and the ASI.54 The Temple Committee, on its part, lamented and criticised the ASI and the government for not being able to allocate funds, as a result of which many temples, including a subsidiary temple within the precinct of the Ananta Vasudeva temple, had already been ravaged and demolished. Chaterjee complained that the shrine had been mythologically connected to the Ananta Vasudeva temple and its removal had marred the temple’s beauty and congru-ity.55 He asserted that if the government was selective in restoring and repairing some temples to the neglect of others, the Temple Committee may be allowed to do the necessary repair and restoration of the temples.56 The ASI claimed that the destroyed subsidiary shrine

54 ‘In the recent case of Padesvari temple, whose stones were being used for repairs of Parvati temple . . . without even notifying the Collector . . . in the process of which the Parvati/ Gauri temple, which is undergoing extensive repair; as I am told at the private cost of a gentleman in Calcutta. In regard to this latter case, I wish to explain that I do not for [a] moment advise any action which would discourage private interest or private generosity. But at the same time it ought to be made legally impossible for anyone to tamper with the Bhubaneswar temples without the full knowledge and express permission of Government’ (letter no. 55, dated 30 January 1911, to Secretary, Government of Bengal, General Department, from T. Bloch, Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, file no. 26, bundle no. 24, serial no. 483, sub.: ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

55 Letter, dated 29 January 1911, from Babu Priyanath Chaterjee, Member, Bhubaneswar Temple Committee, to D. B. Spooner, Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, file no. VIII E/5 of 193, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.

56 ‘Bhubaneswar is described to have been a place of several thousand temples, many of these have gone and many are going out and now only some of the important and picturesque ones are cared for. If funds are not forthcoming either from the benign government or from the general public to cope with the ravages of time by necessary repairs in view of archaeological or historical or mythological interest, and if the benign government having graciously repaired some of the temples allowed others to remain dilapidated and neglected, I submit, the Committee may be allowed a little discretion to use in the matter by being left free to make use of the stone of the dilapidated temples for the resuscitation and reparation of some of the more important


within the Ananta Vasudeva temple was in such a condition that it was a ‘menace to those passing in the courtyard’.57

The ASI’s position on the Temple Committee’s claim over the right to ‘selective destruction and restoration’ of temples, as it did exercise in case of the Gauri temple within the Lingaraja temple complex, was that such acts ought to be made legally impossible. D. B. Spooner, Superintendent of ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, asserted that it ought to be made legally impossible for anyone to tamper with the Bhubaneswar temple without the full knowledge and express per-mission of the ASI. Spooner brought to fore the issue that since the government had already spent a lot of money on the conservation and restoration of Bhubaneswar group of temples without first ‘establish-ing the rights of the government’, it was therefore, important to settle the ‘issue of ownership and control’ first by declaring such conserved monuments as ‘protected’ under the AMPA. He further highlighted that the Temple Committee’s claim over the right to restoration and conservation was derived from a legal ambiguity which had not clearly established the ownership and custody of the conserved temples. Spooner, invoking Marshall’s 1905 note on the archaeological remains in Bengal and his 1909 notes58 that raise the issue of ownership and

and picturesque ones’ (letter no. 2580, dated 8 December 1910, from Babu Priyanath Chaterjee to Collector, Puri, file no. 26, bundle no. 24, serial no. 483, sub.: ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

57 ‘Its demolition appears to me the only alternative to the rebuilding, which latter course was hardly advisable from the archaeological point of view as far as the individual monument was concerned, nor in my opinion feasible without the introduction of new material to such an extent as to destroy in large measure the authenticity of the building. I consider, therefore, that Mr Longhurst was thoroughly justified in making the recommendation. And the PWD was entirely justified in undertaking the demolition as they were merely carrying out the orders of the Govt’ (letter no. 55, dated 30 January 1911, to Secretary, Government of Bengal, General Department, from T. Bloch, Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, file no. 26, bundle no. 24, serial no. 483, sub.: ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).

58 ‘What is needed at Bhubaneswar is a carefully thought out programme of work, so that we may know just how many monuments are to be maintained at public or private expense, and what the limits of our expenditure are to be.

264 Umakanta Mishra

custody, again highlighted the need to take government control of the monuments which had been so far conserved by the PWD. Spooner proposed that a list of temples on which the government had already expended money be prepared, and that out of these, those that were to be ownerless be straightway declared as ‘protected monuments’ under the AMPA. He further recommended that steps be taken to protect the government’s rights over these monuments and close them to public use. Thus, in essence, the ASI advocated restrictions on religious activities in the ownerless monuments protected under the AMPA. Those that were under private possession but conserved

We must also decide on a definite policy as to the preservation of temples still in use for religious purposes, as distinct from those where worship is no longer performed. Hitherto a certain number of temples have been selected, and I may add, very judiciously selected, for repair according to their architectural merits, but of these some appear to be still frequented by worshippers and might be closed to the public at any moment, just as the great Lingaraja temple has been closed; some are said to belong to private owners, and no arrangements regarding their upkeeps have been entered into, and some which are government’s property, are in the actual occupation of private persons. The first thing then to be done is to ascertain 1. Which temples now belong to or can be permanently acquired by the government; 2. Which are to remain in private ownership; and 3. Which are now being used for worship. It is rarely expedient to spend money on monuments which are still in use for religious purposes, unless their architecture is of very exceptional merits, and a permanent right of entry can be secured for the public and for officers charged with the duty of keeping them in repair. At Bhubaneswar, the group of temples is so large, and there is generally so little to choose between the architecture of those in use and of those which are not, that, with one or two possible exceptions, we might decide to exclude the former class from our list. As regards to those which are in private possession, but are not used for religious purposes, the terms on which they are to be maintained will be regulated by Ancient Monument Act. If their owners can be induced in any instance to provide for their upkeep, so much better, the Government will be saved from unnecessary expenses. If they cannot, and personally I doubt if there is much likelihood of the owners being able to assist), then the practical control over them will pass into the hands of government’ (note no. 89–90: Bhubaneswar, by John Marshall, dated 28 February 1905, file: Archaeological remains in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, p. 23; notes by John Marshall, DG, ASI, file no. lot 31, 1909, bundle no. 6A, p. 22, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar).


by the PWD should also be brought under the AMPA, but the gov-ernment should enter into a legal agreement with the owner of such monuments beforehand, promising neither to sell nor to lease the monument without first notifying the Collector and obtaining his written permission. If these privately owned protected monuments were still under active worship, as was the Lingaraja temple, and the owners refused to sign an agreement allowing the European conserv-ers entry into them, their repair and conservation should no longer be continued by the PWD.59

The ASI and PWD’s allegation that the Bhubaneswar Temple Committee destroyed the Padeshvari temple and used its debris to repair the Gauri temple, and the Committee’s counter-allegation that the ASI and PWD destroyed a subsidiary shrine within the Ananta Vasudeva temple brings back the issue of the custody, ownership and repair of the Lingaraja temple. As mentioned earlier, the annual maintenance grant to the Lingaraja temple was discontinued in 1903 over the issue of the Temple Committee not allowing the European officer to enter into the temple. Marshall, in his conservation note (footnote 30) of 1909 clearly recommended that the government not spend money on the conservation of shrines in cases where they were privately owned, or in cases where agreement had not been reached about the permanent right of the Europeans to enter the temples. With the conflict between the ASI and the Temple Committee intensifying in 1911, Spooner recommended that 14 monuments of Bhubaneswar be declared as protected monuments, excluding the Lingaraja temple. The ground for such exclusion was the well-stated policy that shrines that were under active worship, under private possession and not open to the entry of Europeans were to be excluded from the list of protected monuments.60

59 Letter no. 55, dated 30 January 1911, to Secretary, Government of Bengal, General Department, from T. Bloch, Superintendent, ASI, Eastern Circle, Calcutta, file no. 26, bundle no. 24, serial no. 483, sub.: ‘Temples of Bhubaneswar’, Regional Record Centre, National Archives, Bhubaneswar.

60 The 14 monuments recommended by the ASI, Eastern Circle, for protection under the AMPA were: Mukteshvara temple, Rajarani temple, Brahmeshvara temple, Parashurameshvara temple, Nriteshvara temple, Sari Deul temple, Ananta Vasudeva temple, Siddheshvara temple, Sahasralinga tank, Megheshvara temple, Chitrakarini temple, Bhaskareshvara temple, Vaitala temple, and Yameshvara temple. The government notified these

pc4-hp

Highlight

delete underline.

pc4-hp

Highlight

pc4-hp

Sticky Note

Fourteen. Pl. delete 14.

266 Umakanta Mishra

However, this being the stand, the ASI decided to put the onus of maintenance and repair of the temple on the Temple Committee. However, when inspection showed urgent need for repair,61 the ASI decided to change its policy of non-interference in ‘living’ religious monuments to a proposal that either a grant-in-aid be provided to the Temple Committee for repair and restoration, or the government bear the cost of initial repair and restoration and the Temple Committee guarantee that it would keep the temple in good condition by bearing the cost of future repairs. However, the Temple Committee, while asserting its management rights over the temples of Bhubaneswar, refused to take the responsibility for initial repair/ restoration or future repairs. It wanted the government to bear all costs of repair, as also assign the repair work to Hindu officials of the ASI only. It agreed to limit the cost of maintenance (to be borne by it) to `400 annually, and further demanded that ‘the repairs . . . not be restricted to the Lingaraja temple only but be extended to the Parvati temple and the group of 60 minor temples situated in the complex’. Further, it put a rider on its promise to give `400 annually for the maintenance of the temple by stating that it would not bind itself to such financial commitment as long as the ‘amount of the cost of the repairs and the conditions of adequate guarantees which is required of them was not made public’. The government, frustrated with the Committee not making any promise of undertaking repair work in future, thought of replacing its existing members with a new set of more ‘pliable’ members. This issue of repair and ownership got interrupted in 1920 when, under the Reform scheme, introduced to reduce imperial expen-diture, the Committee’s financial commitment to the maintenance of

monuments as protected monuments, excluding the Lingaraja (notification no. 2488 E, dated 1 November 1913, Government of Bihar and Orissa, file no. VIIIE/5 of 1913, file no. 2680, B & O, sub.: ‘Declaration of certain temples of Bhubaneswar as protected monuments’, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar). Further, the Commissioner of Orissa Division assumed the guardianship of these monuments in 1915 (letter no. 1577 from J. C. B. Drake, Under Secretary to Government of Bihar and Orissa , Education Department, Education Branch, to Commissioner, Orissa Division, in ERC 26).

61 Letter no. 33, dated 7 July 1919, file no. XIE/25 of 1919/2730 B & O, sub.: ‘Repair of Lingaraja temple’, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.


the monument under the care of the ASI was greatly curtailed and the protection of all non-notified monuments, including the Lingaraja temple, became the responsibility of provincial governments.62

The issue of Lingaraja temple, the destruction of temples by the PWD and the Temple Committee in the process of repair, and the claims and counter-claims by both the ASI and the Committee raise three important questions, namely: the issue of ‘category’ of monuments to be conserved and declared as protected monuments under the AMPA; the issue of the onus of ‘ownership’ of these pro-tected monument, under section 3 of the AMPA; and the issue of ‘conservation ethics’ and how it conflicted with the traditional norm of jirnoddharana (restoration) and with the ‘appropriate’ religious behaviour of the devotees.

As in the case of Lingaraja temple, where the government withdrew from the repair of the temple in 1903, Marshall’s stated position (as in note no. 89 of 1909) was that the government had no business to repair temples that were still sites of worship. However, if the temple was of great architectural merit, as was the case of Lingaraja temple, the government should have permanent right of entry, otherwise, it should not involve itself in its conservation. Therefore, even if 15 odd temples were repaired, restored and conserved by the PWD between 1898 and 1903, it was important to ascertain the ownership, and those which were still under private ownership should be regulated by clauses 4 and 5 of the AMPA. Further, since they were still places of worship, their conservation should be guided by clause 13 of the Act.63

62 In 1922, the colonial government sanctioned `2410 for repairs to be carried out in the Lingaraja temple; the amount was a fraction of the total cost (`73,000) for the repair work, estimated by Dayaram Sahni (D. B. Spooner, Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1922–1923, Simla: Government of India, 1922, p. 41.

63 Clause 13, ‘Protection of place of worship from misuse, pollution or desecration’: ‘(1) A place of worship or shrine maintained by the Government under this Act shall not be used for any purpose inconsistent with its character. (2) Where the Collector has, under section 4, purchased or taken a lease of any protected monument or has accepted a gift or bequest, or the Commissioner has, under the same section accepted the guardianship thereof, and such monument, or any part thereof, is periodically used for religious worship or observances by any community, the Collector shall make due provision for the protection such monument, or such part thereof, from pollution or

268 Umakanta Mishra

The report of the tahsildar on the question whether these temples were being used for religious purposes or not, shows that Bhaskareshvara, Megheshvara, Brahmeshvara, Parashurameshvara, Maitreshvara, Sari deula, Chitrakarini deul, and Rajarani temples were not used for religious purposes. However, in Bhaskareshvara, Megheshvara and Brahmeshvara, even though no bhog was offered daily, the sevaks (temple priests) poured waters daily, and in Parsurameshwar and Maitreshvara the same ritual took place. There were no idols in the Rajarani and Chitrakarini temples.64 Ananta Vasudeva, Jameshwar or Yameshvara, Vaitala, Mukteshvara, and Siddheshvara temples were under active worship, and so were the Kedaragauri and the Lingaraja temples. Therefore, many of the repaired temples were actively under worship and even though Marshall did not want the places of worship to be brought under the AMPA, there was no way this could have been followed, as all great specimens of Orissa-style temple architecture were under active wor-ship. However, clause 13 of the AMPA and Marshall’s manual gave overarching powers to the ASI and government officials to intervene in the religious activities by invoking the clause of desecration and pollution. The curated temple was always under the threat of being defiled by colonial subjects who ‘were intent on destroying, altering, misplacing or at the least, misunderstanding the antiquity’. Marshall’s conservation manual gives detailed instructions for dealing with the issue of temples under active worship: it recommends the removal of modern and undesirable accessories, such as sindoor (vermilion), ghee, lamp, pictures, coloured rags, etc., in a manner that did not ‘offend the religious sensibilities of people who have acknowledged interest

desecration — (a) by prohibiting the entry therein, except in accordance with condition prescribed with the concurrence of the persons in religious charge of the said monument or part thereof, of any person not entitled so to enter by the religious usages of the community by which the monument or part thereof is used, or (b) by taking such other action as he may think necessary in this behalf’ (http://asi.nic.in/pdf_data/5.pdf).

64 Report of B. S. Mardaraj, Tahsildar, Khurda, dated 8 September, file no. VIIIE/5, 1919, No-3-25, sub.: ‘Declaration of certain temples at Bhubaneswar as protected monuments under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act VII of 1904’, p. 6., Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.


in the building’.65 There were two concerns of Marshall regarding the continued use of conserved temples as places of worship. First, he was very anxious about religiosity creeping in the conserved temples. For Marshall, once the temples were conserved, they became monuments. Second, he was concerned about the possibility that the resumption of religious use of a structure would result in the closure of the structure that had become a public monument on which public money had been spent. To this end, a clause was added in 1922 which required that any funds expended by the government be returned in case of the closure of the public monument. This clause was applicable to those cases where the monument could not be acquired compulsorily by the government.66 However, despite Marshall’s anxiety, divinity and antiquity coexisted together, and the ASI’s claim of custody was shared with the range of claims made by the Temple Committee, temple servitors, endowments and local people.

Another anxiety in the minds of the ASI officials was about the growing spurious religiosity at these sites following conservation. The temples of Bhubaneswar and Konark were considered to be at particular risk in Orissa. The navagraha panel, a huge 24-ton lintel, was discovered in the debris of Konark and could not be fitted to the original position, as the deul (main temple) was completely destroyed. Hence, it was placed some distance away from the temple. The ASI built a shed over it to protect it from weathering and soon it began to attract worship by local people. After the Sun temple was notified as a protected monument in 1915, a complaint was received from sevaks who attended to the navagraha stone. The sevaks claimed a continuity of tradition with the use of the principal temple and complained that their access to the stone was impeded by the ASI’s control over the structure which housed the stone. The colonial documents, on the

65 J. H. Marshall, Conservation Manual: A Handbook for the Use of Archaeological Officers and Others Entrusted with the Care of Ancient Monuments, Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1923, p. 11.

66 Letter from DG, ASI, to all Superintendents of Archaeology, 10 January 1922, Education Department, Misc., file no. 9A-28, July 1922, nos B 51-53, sub.: Insertion of a new clause in agreements for the preservation of religious building, State Archives of Bengal, Kolkata.

270 Umakanta Mishra

other hand, stated that in 1896 the temple of Konark had been listed as entirely deserted, i.e., not in the custody of anybody.67

The Collector of Puri and other district authorities rejected the sevaks’ claim over the navagraha stone, stating that such a claim is an absurd one: ‘The Navagraha images are no more worshipped than outrageously obscene images on the wall of the temple . . . they are not thakurs but evil spirits and are never worshipped by the Hindus’.68 However, as things turned out, this claim of the state was not heeded. On the contrary, the claim of the sevaks or sevayats that application of ghee would keep the panel in good state of preservation could not be challenged by the state. The only option available to the ASI was the closure of the temple to worshippers; this remained a temporary measure, and the puja was instituted again and the authority could do little to prevent it.

Issue of ownershipThe issue of ownership of sacred shrines came up sharply during the destruction of the Padeshvari temple and use of its stone for the repair of the Parvati temple. In the run up to the inclusion of 14 shrines, except the Lingaraja temple, in the list of protected monuments, the Bhubaneswar Temple Committee objected to the definition of owner-ship under sections 2 and 3 of the AMPA, and argued that there was no need for such a notification of inclusion. Priyanath Chaterjee, a prominent member of the Committee, argued that section 3 of the AMPA imposed on the owners of privately held temples the onus of bearing the cost of repair and maintenance, but the Committee could not bear the cost, as the endowments of 10 villages given to the Committee in 1863 was only for the performance of daily rituals at the Lingaraja temple. However, the Committee took two different views

67 R. E. Russell, officiating Collector, Puri, to Commissioner, Orissa Division, 8 February 1921, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), B process, December 1921, nos 50–71, sub.: ‘Conservation of Black Pagoda at Konark in Puri District’, accession no. 2731 B & O, Education (Archaeology) Department, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.

68 Letter from Magistrate, Puri, to Commissioner, Orissa Division, dated 4 March 1915, file no. 1-61, September 1915, sub.: ‘Preservation of monuments which are property of Government’, accession no. 2697 B & O, Education Department (Archaeology Branch), Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.


on the issue of ownership. While in the case of the Padeshvari temple, it argued that it had every right to carry out selective destruction and repair, a right that came within the ambit of the Religious Endowment Act of 1863 by which it was created. On the other hand, when the issue of bearing the cost of repair by private owners of temples came up, the Committee held the view that it was merely the custodian and manager of the temple and its power was derived from the sovereign government; therefore, the latter should bear the cost of repair as it had been doing when the temples were under the local Boards and Board of Revenue. On the other hand, the ASI and the government claimed that bearing the cost of repair was the responsibility of the private owner, as per sections 3 and 5 of the AMP A that defined an owner as one who was also the manager of the monument. The ASI, thus, acquired control over the repair work of all privately owned temples, but such control did not entail the financial responsibility of the government.

The Committee did not accept the AMPA’s definition of owner-ship and custody, invoking the provisions of the earlier acts, such as the Bengal Regulation XIX of 1810 and Act XX of 1863, and wanted the government not to invoke any provisions of the AMPA in any agreement with the Committee. More specifically, the Committee laid down three arguments: (a) that it was the representative of the government under the Act XX of 1863; (b) that the responsibility of the preservation of temples managed by it rests with the government by virtue of several provisions of the Bengal Regulation XIX of 1810, and sections 3, 6 and 23 of the Act XX of 1863; and (c) that since the provisions of these legislations had not been repealed by the AMPA, the Committee was still governed by the older acts and the AMPA should not apply to temples that were under the management of the Committee.

A report from the tahilsidar of Khurda shows that out of the 13 temples of Bhubaneswar that were being considered to be brought under the AMPA, the settlement records show 11 to be under the control of the Temple Committee, the Bhaskareshvara temple to be under the control of the government and the Megheshvara temple to be under the controlof Raghu Panda and Bhabani Naik.69 The

69 Letter no. 656, Puri Collectorate, dated 13 March 1912, from Collector, Puri, to Commissioner, Orissa Division, file no. VIIIE/5 of 1913, no. 3–25, accession no. 2680 B & O, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.

272 Umakanta Mishra

Sahasralinga tank, according to the ASI and the Committee, did not constitute a monument, and it was subsequently delisted from the list.

The records of 1864 at the time of the creation of the Temple Committee in 1864 on the basis of 1863 Act, show that the endowment (debottar) land belonging to the Lingaraja Thakur at Bhubaneswar had been managed by puracha or paricha (superinten-dent), appointed by the Collector, on behalf of the government, at least from 1823. The puracha submitted the annual account of the Lingaraj temple to the government. By the Regulation XIX of 1810 the general superintendence of all lands granted for the support of the temples vested with the Board of Commissions and the Board of Revenue. Section 3 of the Regulation provided that the two Boards ensure that the ‘endowments were duly appropriated for their proper purpose’.70 However, the Regulation XVII of 1816 (section 6) took away the task of maintenance and repair from the Boards. And there-fore, the position in 1863, when the Endowment Act was enacted, was that the Boards exercised a general superintendence through the Collector but did not interfere with the general management of the temple. Therefore, by the Act XX of 1863, a temple committee was formed for Bhubaneswar (Lingaraja) under section 8 and this com-mittee was under that section vested with the power to perform all duties previously exercised by the Boards and local agents, i.e., the job of the temple is that of superintendence.71

Therefore, while both the government and the Temple Committee took the position that the Committee was merely a superintendent of the temple, the government took the view that it had merely transferred the task of superintendence to the Committee from the Local Body in 1863, thereby rejecting Chaterjee’s position that the Committee represented the sovereign government, but simultaneously advocating that for the purposes of the Act VII of 1904 the ‘owner’ includes ‘a joint owner invested with powers of management on behalf of himself or other joint owners, and any managers or trustee exercising pow-ers of management’, and therefore, the committee was the owner as per the definition of the AMPA. and should bear the cost of future repair. Bibhuti Bhusan Mukherji, Government Pleader of Puri, took the position that the Committee took over the superintendence of the

70 Ibid., p. 12.71 Ibid., p. 12–13.


temple from the Board and hence, the Committee was appointed once for all by the local government which becomes functus officio there-after. Citing the judgement of a case in the District Court of Puri in 1909 between Mahant Gadadhar Das and Jagannatha Bullubh Muth Committee, Mukherji argued:

[T]he members of the committee have not a bare authority; they can grant leases and create interest in the endowed property consistent with the purpose of endowments and have therefore an interest coupled with that of authority. Their position may be likened to that of guardians of the deity or institution placed in their behalf.72

The government’s position was that neither the government nor the Committee was the owner of the temple. It was the general public who was the real owner of the temple.

G. C. Paharaj, the Government Pleader of Puri and one of the three members of the Bhubaneswar Temple Committee, took a different view and located the ownership of the temple in the god Lingaraja.73 The former governments (i.e., Hindu Rajas) built the temples and created the endowments and God Lingaraja is the beneficent owner or ceste que trust of the properties and the government is the trustee, the Government has delegated this power to the committee to super-intendent and appoint a manager (paricha), without any member managing the property. ‘There is no necessity for taking any agreement from the committee as there is no endowment set apart for the repair, and there is no fund at the disposal of the committee which they can

72 Bibhuti Bhusan Mukherji, Government Pleader, Puri, 11 March 1913, pp. 12–13, file no. VIIIE/5 of 1913, no 3-25, accession no. 280 B & O, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.

73 In a recent judgment, the Orissa High Court gave a verdict that the sevayats, who have been enjoying the property of Lingaraja over centuries and have got pattas (record of rights) from revenue officials, are not the legal owners of the property and therefore, cannot alienate this property. They are in possession of this property in lieu of their services to Lord Lingaraja. Thakur Lingaraja is, thus, the owner of the property of the Lingaraja temple (‘W. P. (C) nos 13689 of 2009 and 1770 of 2012 Chittaranjan Sahoo & Smt. Bimala Kabi Satapathy versus Collector, Khurda and others, High Court of Orissa, http://lobis.nic.in/ori/BMP/judgement/08-01-2014/BMP09012014WP(C)17702012.pdf, dated 9 January 2014).

274 Umakanta Mishra

spare for the repair’.74 Thus, Praharaj placed the issue of ownership in the larger tradition of Orissa wherein there was a symbiotic relation between the temporal and sacred power, between temple and royalty, and the sovereign government had inherited it from this long tradition. Thus, while the Committee invoked colonial legislations, Praharaj’s argument was built up by bringing together the long tradition and colonial legislations. Praharaj’s contention was accepted by the govern-ment, and in November 1913, the Commissioner of Orissa province assumed the guardianship of the 13 temples of Bhubaneswar. The Government of Bihar and Orissa, thus, worked out a solution. It rec-ommended that the Collector assume guardianship of all the temples, and a division of custody be introduced between the Collector and the Temple Committee, whereby the structure of temples would be controlled and repaired by the PWD under the supervision of ASI and the Temple Committee would continue to oversee the worship. But this separation of the custody of deity and the custody of structure was not neat, as it involved a lot of overlap. However, the Government Pleader’s stand had greater significance: the more credible will be one’s claim of ownership, if it is backed up both by law and ‘cultural norm of antiquity’.75

ConclusionThe essay has argued that the colonial project of ‘discovery’, conser-vation and protection of monuments failed to take into account the complex nature of sacred centres in Orissa. Many of the sacred centres, indeed, conveyed multiple meanings for different religious groups. Being multivalent in nature, they attracted the followers of different religions. As has been delineated, the Khandagiri–Udayagiri complex was as much important to the Jainas as to the Hindus who believed that Lord Jagannatha would take the final form there at the end of the Kali yuga. The ASI’s apparent failure to recognise the multivalent nature of the complex led, very often, to sharpening claims and counterclaims

74 Letter. no 179, dated 13 September 1913, from G. C. Paharaj, Government Pleader, Puri, to Collector, Puri, pp. 19–23, file no. VIIIE/5 of 1913, nos 3–25, accession no. 280 B & O, Orissa State Archives, Bhubaneswar.

75 Arjun Appadurai, ‘The Past as a Scarce Resource’, Man (New Series), 1981, 16(2): 201–19.


by local groups who believed that the government was favouring one group to the exclusion of the other, and hence, generated conflict.

The norms of conservation of the ‘protected’ religious shrines very often brought the ASI in conflict with local communities. The ASI wanted to showcase these monuments as museum-ised pieces, whereas the local communities asserted their right to worship there. The colonial conservation norms, as established by the ASI under Marshall, included norms of ‘appropriate’ behaviour in these ‘pro-tected’ monuments and these norms of ‘appropriate’ behaviour were in conflict with the religious practices of people.

The other crucial issue addressed in the essay is the ownership of temples. The dispute over the ownership of the Lingaraja temple between the ASI and the Bhubaneswar Temple Committee underscores the problematics of the sources of legitimation. Both the Committee and the government sought to justify their actions as by basing their claims on some past legislations, such as the Act of 1810, the Act of 1863 and the AMPA. But when the clauses of these colonial legislations are differently interpreted by both to justify their competing claims, the Government Pleader G. C. Praharaj invoked the cultural norm of ‘antiquity’ to resolve the issue of ownership. Praharaj argued that the former Rajas of Orissa built the temple and created the endowments and therefore, Lord Lingaraja was the beneficent owner of the ceste que trust of the properties and the government was the trustee. Thus, he located the ownership of the temple beyond the colonial legal framework. This merely underlies the power of the cultural norm of ‘antiquity’, which was invoked when the existing laws were not sufficient to establish the claim of ownership by competing parties.

Select ReferencesAppadurai, Arjun, ‘The Past as a Scarce Resource’, Man (New Series), 1981,

16(2 ): 201–19.Banerji, R. D., ‘Inscriptions in the Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves,

Epigraphica Indica, 1915–16, 13(7): 159–66.Basa, K. K. and P. Mohanty, Archaeology of Orissa, Delhi: Pratbha Prakashan,

2000.Chakrabarti, D. K., India: An Archaeological History: Palaeolithic Beginnings

to Early Historical Foundations, Oxford University Press: Delhi, 1999.Cunningham, A., Inscriptions of Asoka, Varanasi: Indological Book House,

1961 [1877].

276 Umakanta Mishra

Das, Acyutananda, Padmakalpatika, in Bhabisyata Parardha, compiled by Narayana Chandra Das of Siddhagiri Matha, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d.

———, Terajanmasarana, compiled by Babaji Paramananda Das, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d.

———, Yugabdha Gita, in Acyutananda Malika, compiled by Babaji Paramananda Das, Dharmagrantha Store: Cuttack, n.d.

Das, Ananta, Bhabisyata Purana, in Mahagupta Padmakalpa, compiled by Brajaraja Barik, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d.

Das, Hadi, Agata Bhabisya Malika, in Acyutananda Malika, compiled by Babaji Paramananda Das, Cuttack: Dharmagrantha Store, n.d.

Eliade, Mircea, Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, trans. Philip Mairet, Princeton, NJ: Princeton: University Press, 1991.

Fergusson, James, Illustration of Rock-cut Temples of India, London: John Weale, 1845.

———, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, vol. 2, London: John Murray, 1910.

———, Archaeology in India with Special Reference to the Works of Babu Rajendra Lal Mitra, Delhi: K. K. Publications, 1974 [1884].

Gellner, D. N., Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996.

Jayaswal, K. P. and R. D. Banerji, ‘Hatigumpha Inscription of Kharavela’, Epigraphia Indica, 1929–30, 20(7): 71–89.

King, Richard, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘the Mystic East’, Routledge: London, 1999.

Kittoe, M., ‘Ruins and Pillar at Jajipur’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1838, 7: 53–56.

Kulke, Hermann, Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia, Delhi: Manohar, 1993.

Lahiri, N., ‘Bodh Gaya: An Ancient Buddhist Shrine and Its Modern History (1891–1904)’, in Timothy Insoll (ed.), Case Studies in Archaeology and World Religion: The Proceedings of the Cambridge Conference, BAR International Series, 755, Oxford: Archaeopress, 1999, pp. 33–43.

Marshall, J. H., Conservation Manual: A Handbook for the Use of Archaeological Officers and Others Entrusted with the Care of Ancient Monuments, Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1923.

Mitra, Debala, Udayagiri and Khandagiri, Delhi: Director General, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), 1960.

Mitra, Rajendra Lal, Antiquities of Orissa, Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1875.

Mitter, P., Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850–1922: Occidental Orientations. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1994.

Mubayi, Y., Altar of Power: The Temple and the State in the Land of Jagannatha, Delhi: Manohar, 2005.


Owens, B. McCoy, ‘Monumentality, Identity, and the State: Local Practice, World Heritage, and Heterotopia at Swayambhu, Nepal’, Anthropological Quarterly, 2002, 75(2): 269–316.

Prinsep, James, ‘Note on Inscriptions of Udayagiri and Khandagiri in Cuttack, in the Lát Character’, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1837, 6: 1072–91.

Ray, Himanshu Prabha, ‘The Apsidal Shrine in Early Hinduism: Origins, Cultic Affiliation, Patronage’, World Archaeology, 2004, 36(3): 343–59.

———, ‘Archaeology and Empire: Buddhist Monuments in Monsoon Asia’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2008, 45(3): 417–49.

———, Colonial Archaeology in South Asia: The Legacy of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Delhi: Oxford University Press (OUP), 2008.

Singh, Upinder, Discovery of Ancient India: Early Archaeologists and the Beginnings of Archaeology, Delhi: Manohar, 2004.

Spooner, D. B., Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1922–1923, Simla: Government of India, 1922.

Stirling, Andrew, ‘Account, Geographical, Statistical and Historical, of Orissa Proper, or Cuttack’, 1825, Asiatic Researches, 15: 163–338.

Sutton, Deborah, ‘Devotion, Antiquity and Colonial Custody of the Hindu Temple in British India’, Modern Asian Studies, 2013, 47(1): 135–66.

Thompson, E. P., William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, New York: Pantheon, 1976.

Trevithick, A., ‘British Archaeologists, Hindu Abbots, and Burmese Buddhists: The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya, 1811–1877’, Modern Asian Studies, 1999, 33(3): 635–56.

Wedemeyer, C. K., ‘Tropes, Typologies, and Turnarounds: A Brief Genealogy of the Historiography of Tantric Buddhism’, History of Religions, 2001, 40(3): 223–59.

pc4-hp

Highlight

pc4-hp

Sticky Note

Permanent Black

Shrines as monuments: Issues of classification, custody and conflict in Orissa in H.P Ray (ed)...

Documents

Transcript of Shrines as monuments: Issues of classification, custody and conflict in Orissa in H.P Ray (ed)...