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PLACES
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KOKAMTHAN
The village of Kokamthan is situated four miles to the south-east of Kopargaon, the head-quarters of the taluka bearing the same name on the bank of the Godavari. The village covers an area of 13.3 square miles and has, according to the Census of 1971, a total population of 4,261 souls. The village has a post office and a primary school. The river forms the main source of water-supply to the village populace.
The village contains an old temple of Mahadeva built of coarse dry stone, and probably belonging to the twelfth century. The temple is remarkable for its internal carved stone work, for the beauty of a pendant in the central dome representing a large flower hanging from a stalk, and among its external weather-worn and defaced decorations, for the beauty of a belt of wreathed snakes which in places change into a foliage pattern. The temple is of the usual double diamond ground plan minutely facetted and elaborately decorated. It is of the form common in ancient Shaiv buildings in the Chalukyan and derived styles, a shrine and hall with a dome about sixty feet round, and much like the dome of the chief Jain
temple in Belgaon fort. The spire over the shrine is of old shaped bricks and mortar apparently a restoration skilfully carried out in keeping with the rest of the dry stone building and agreeing closely with the little ornamental buttresses outside the shrine which harmonised with the original stone spire. Though the chief dome has no pillar supports, two porches, occupying the corners of the hall opposite the shrine to the west, have domes supported on pillars, but adorned internally with the same rich carving. The fourth corner is occupied by a very curious square transept which does not appear
to be a part of the original building. It is composed of rectangular panels of stone carved in geometrical and other fanciful patterns unusual in temples but much like the geometrical patterns in the great seventh century Sarnath relic mound near Banaras. The goddess of the shrine is famed for her power of curing the itch. Within the court, walls of smaller temples may be traced which were destroyed by the 1872 flood. Another old temple of Mahadeva formerly stood on a mound to the west of the village. A large linga and a Nandi still
lie on the spot. According to an old custom in the village on the bright third of Vaishakh (April-May) the village boys fight with slings and stones with the youngsters of the village of Samvatsar across the Godavari. [Ahmadnagar District Gazetteer, 1884, pp. 722-23.]
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