PLACES

SHINGNAPUR

Singnapur (Man T; 17° 59' N, 74° 35' E; RS Koreganv 53 m. SW; p. 1,145) in Man, thirteen miles north-east of Dahivadi, is a famous place of pilgrimage situated in a nook of the Shikhar Shingnapur hills. The hill, crowned by a temple of Mahadev to which the village owes its celebrity, appears at a distance like the points of a very obtuse-angled cone. It is the highest point for many miles and can be seen all the way from Dahivadi and from other parts of the Man taluka. It is reached by a poor local fund road unbridged and undrained. But the main difficulties, namely the negotiation. of the precipitous sides of the two valleys of the Man and one of its tributaries, are made surmountable by passes, though not of the best and the surface is passable for tongas or pony carts and country carts. The rains too are so light and intermittent in this part of the district that little difficulty would be experienced in visiting Singnapur even during the monsoon, after reaching the irrigation bungalow of Gondvale, three miles south-east of Dahivadi Nine miles north-east on the Singnapur road will be met the village of Vavarhira in one of the Man ravines and here may be visited a curious old temple of Mahadev on the right as the eastern pass is ascended. The temple on the site of a fine spring is very rude but probably old. Six miles further north-east is Singnapur. The tower and lamp-pillar of the great temple stand out distinct flashing against the glary sky. The hills look hopelessly bare and wretched. A mile from the village the road takes a turn to the south-east and then again resuming its north-east course runs through an opening of what turns out to be a cluster of hills into a space opposite the municipal bungalow. The road turns again at right angles to the westward and makes for the temple steps and a very pleasant camp is reached opposite a municipal rest-house. The neighbourhood is studded with tama-rinds on all sides, and consists of a basin of land, shut in with low round-topped hills except at the south-east where is an opening, occupied by the village itself and some more mango and tamarind trees. At the foot of the eastern hills and the lowest point of this basin lies a great pond, T-shaped, the cross stretching north and south, and the stem, which is very short, to the west. Except where there are openings the pond is completely enclosed by walls. The walls are highest and strongest at the opening before mentioned where they constitute a masonry dam to the streams which could otherwise pour their waters away from those hills in a south-easterly direction. The wall at this part was quite ten feet out of the water and therefore probably twenty feet high at least. Its breadth here as every where else, it about five feet, while nowhere does the masonry appear to have given way. The flood-mark of the water appears at four feet from the wall top; and the leakage from the pond is very great. On the south where lies the village is a set of bathing ghats or steps. These, with the solid and square built houses of the village which give it almost a fortified appearance, have a very picturesque aspect viewed from the north end of the pond. The wall is everywhere studded with projecting stones to enable bathers or others to climb up and down. At the east end is a sluice through which water is let out to garden lands, while in the north-east corner and the centre of the north bank are two water-lifts by which water is drawn from wells dug in the sides of the pond.

The pond covers an area of about forty acres, and were it made properly watertight would apparently hold a good deal of water. This is curious as the catchment area is very small indeed, and the rainfall light and capricious. There is also no side of the pond left open letting in rain torrents. Any such waters must either filter in under the wall or get in through the small openings which are placed haphazard and at intervals for the entrance of bathers and the like. Thus the pond would seem to have been formed merely to retain whatever water fell immediately over it, and from that point of view it certainly holds a surprising amount. Soil has accumulated behind the walls which block the chief water-courses and thence are formed the plots on the north and the north-east irrigated by the water-lifts, while on the west is a similar accumulation of soil which produces excellent grass till late in the hot weather. To reach the temple the way passes west of the camp along the municipal road. After about two hundred yards, the first hundred of them on a rude pavement, begin the steps very rough and varying in breadth. After the first thirty steps comes a small temple of Mahadev standing right in the centre of the causeway. It is a small modern temple about fifteen feet long by six feet broad and ornamented with a small tower. A little further on is a small shrine of Khadkeshvar Mahadev and from here an ascent of one hundred and fifteen steps, the last few of them rather steep, leads to the first gateway. This gateway was built about two hundred and thirty years ago by a Dhangar of Najhra village ten miles south-west of Sangola in Sholapur, and consists of a rectangular building forty-two feet high, forty-one feet two inches broad, and fifteen feet nine inches thick, with a single pointed arch about thirty-two feet high and fourteen feet ten inches cut through it.

The building has a flat wide roof and stone eaves, about two feet broad and resting on twenty-two brackets, project horizontally from it. In the side walls of the arch are chambers seven feet square and about six feet high vaulted and with sides open to the west and to the interior of the large archway. Each contains the image of an elephant roughly worked in stone, and from each staircases lead up to the roof. Two-thirds of the way up are arched windows looking east. The threshold is a foot high from the ground, and at the centre is cylindrical block girded with a coil of ornamental chain work raised in relief. This seems intended to receive the bolts of folding doors which should have been fitted to the archway. On each side of this block are two rough bits of carving which may be intended for the satyr-like masks usually placed at the entrance of the temples and public buildings. Water is always poured on the centre block by worshippers. On the outer or eastern side are two platforms or plinths one on each side of the entrance eleven feet two inches long and thirteen feet eight inches broad and three feet nine inches high. The whole building is made of small rectangular blocks of stone roughly cut and set in mortar. Immediately inside the arch on the left hand is a small niche containing a rough slab of black stone which is an image of Mangoba, the god of the Mangs. The steps for some sixty yards are very broad and the rise is scarcely felt. It then steepens for about another 150 steps till the second gateway is reached which forms the enhance to the court-yard of the great temple. This gate-way, the court-yard and the temple itself were built by the great Shivaji (1630-80). The lower gateway is rather larger than this but mere copy of it. This gateway is thirty-four feet wide, thirty-eight feet high, and thirteen feet thick. The arch is pointed as on the lower gateway and is about twenty-six feet high by fourteen feet two inches broad. There are windows in the front and eaves to the roof as in the lower gateway. The eaves rest on twenty brackets.

On the front, about twenty feet from the ground, four lotus-like ornaments are cut in relief, two on each side of the arch. The inside ornaments are on the left wall a relief of three knotted cobras and on the right one of Krshna riding on a five-hooded cobra. As in the lower gateway there are vaulted chambers on the sides with stone elephants, one of which is evidently an object of worship. There is also in the centre the raised threshold with a cylindrical block decorated with chain work and flanked with mask-like ornaments. Eleven more steps lead to the terrace on which the temple court is built. About ten yards to the right of these is a chamber built in the terrace which contains the footprints of Mahadev. The terrace is ascended by about twenty steps cut in the masonry, the rise of each step being about one foot. The walls on each side of this entrance are over eight feet above the level of the court-yard and were evidently intended to support another arch which however was never built. On the left of this entrance is a projection with five small lamp-pillars or dipmals. These steps lead on to the south-east end of the court. Immediately on the right is the largest and finest lamp-pillar, not less than forty feet high. It is made of cut-stones well set together and the in-numerable branches for holding the small lights are shaped each with a graceful curve upwards, while the small base and fine tape-ring of the column gives it a light and elegant appearance, which contrasts finely with the other clumsy structures round it. The court is about thirty-seven yards long east to west by twenty-seven yards broad and paved throughout with large rectangular slabs of trap. Its walls vary in height from six to eight feet.

There are four entrances, one noticed above at the south-east, another from the north at the north-west corner, a third from the west and overlooking the edge of the hills rather north of the middle of the western side, and the fourth from the south at the middle of the southern side of the court. The second of these is a mere rectangular opening in the terrace wall, not more than five feet high. It communicates directly with the temple of Bali Maha-dev. [See below] The third is an archway similar to Shivaji's archway outside the eastern entrance, and communicates with a basil altar and two small temples at the very edge of the cliff where the marriage ceremony of the God is celebrated during the fair. The courtyard wall on each side of this gateway has been made into small cloisters with a promenade on the top. The horses belonging to the God are kept in these, and other parts are used for dwelling and storing purposes by the temple establishment. The southern entrance is about ten feet broad and communicates with the tombs of Raja Sambhaji and two other celebrities and a group of buildings situated on the southern end of the ridge on which the temple stands. There is no archway here but a small rest-house was built on the right just outside this entrance, while on the left is a well about twenty feet in diameter and twenty feet deep surrounded with a wretched plaster parapet. This entrance is flanked by two large and rather ugly lamp-pillars. Between this and the eastern entrance in the south-east corner of the court-yard is the music-chamber or nagarkhana where the daily services of pipes and drums is performed.

In the centre is situated the great temple itself. In front of it is a canopy with four pillars and a flat roof about six feet square and ten feet high, in which, upon a plinth three feet high, is a stone Nandi. Two bells, with the date 1720 in Roman letters engraved on them and probably brought from some Portuguese church in the Konkan, hang from the roof. A special interest may be said to attach to this temple, at least to the whole of its stone work, as although built by the great Shivaji and therefore not much more than three and a half centuries old, the ancient Hemadpanti style has been adhered to throughout its structure and it seems likely from a comparison with the remains of the original temple which this was intended to replace, that this temple must have been in great part a restoration, though perhaps an enlarged one, of the original structure. The style seems to be exactly the cut-corner, Chalukyan both in the centre hall or mandap and shrine or gabhara and matches closely with that of the temple of Bali Maha-dev which is both said to be and evidently is Hemadpanti. The remains alluded to lie just inside the southern entrance on the way to Sambhaji's tomb. There are parts of the eaves of the pillars, brackets, the cross beams, all enormous slabs of stone evidently put together without mortar. The pillars and brackets show carvings of exactly the same pattern and in some cases decidedly superior in workmanship to that of the pillars belonging to the present structure. The designs of the eaves and roofing were evidently exactly the same. The modern workmanship however is unusually good, and very different from the imitations of Hemadpanti work in other parts of the district.

The work was carried out by a banker named Balvantrav to whom Chhatrapati Shivaji furnished the funds. The mandap is nearer cruciform than anything else, while the gabhara is almost star-shaped. The whole pile stands on a solid stone plinth with overhanging rims. The plinth projects everywhere three feet beyond the rest of the building and is three feet high. The roof of the mandap is not supported by walls, but by pillars originally eighteen, though now, owing to the numerous cracks in the roof, many small pillars of the poorest workmanship have been put up as additional props. The roof overhangs the outer pillars by some three feet with heavy stone eaves. The pillars, including the capital brackets, are nine feet six inches high. But the sides are partly filled up by a sort of balustrade, five feet two inches high. Three feet from the ground on the inside of this is a seat two feet wide and running round the mandap. The inside of the balustrade is curved so as to form a comfortable lean-back, while the whole arrangement is in solid stone. But the only support given to the roof in all this comes from the embedding of the lowest three feet of fourteen out of the eighteen pillars in the stone work of the bench. The other four pillars form a square in the middle of the mandap under which are placed three Nandis covered with brass and copper and of poor workmanship. The pillars are remarkably handsome. Excluding the brackets which support the roof the shafts are seven feet nine inches high each made out of a single block of stone. This is cut in five sections, the first section or basement being rectangular, two feet square by one and a half high. On this is another rectangular block one foot eight inches square and two feet two inches high. The third is an octagon one foot eight inches in diameter and one foot five inches high. Upon this is another rectangular block, base two feet square and height one foot three inches. Upon this is a cylinder, one foot eight inches in diameter and one foot five inches high. The carving on the fourth section consists of figures in bas relief representing a variety of subjects, dancing, eating, duelling, a great deal of hunting and fighting, but little if any of mythological subjects. In one, women are represented tiger hunting. Generally the animal used for hunting is the dog. The favourite weapon in fighting and hunting is the spear though in several the bow appears. In one fighting picture a man is shown using a gun. The other sections are carved with floral and bead patterns. Here and there the work is pierced, but all is beautifully defined and clear cut. The brackets rest on the upper section of the shaft and branch out on four sides about two feet out from the centre. They are solid blocks of stone, shaped like female torsos. The faces are fairly well carved, but without particular expression in the features. The brackets support horizontal stone beams, on which the roof consisting of flat stone slabs is placed. Inside, the space between the centre pillars has been carved into a flat dome. In the spaces between the other pillars the roofing is cut into a favourite pattern made by three slabs one below the other. Each side of the rectangular space formed by the beams is bisected by the corners of a lozenge, cut out of the centre of the first slab, while the second slab has a square, cut out of its centre similarly inscribed in the lozenge of the first. The third or top slab is ornamented with a disc in the centre florally carved in relief. The mandap roof is flat on the top and surrounded by a plain parapet about a foot high.

It has four small shikhars or spires one in the centre about six feet high of plain stone and pyramidal in shape. The other spires are of about the same height, canopy-shaped and made of painted stucco, elaborately ornamented, and situated one on each outer side and one on the front wing of the mandap. The gabhara is surmounted by the great spire of the temple which is about sixty feet high. It is a twelve-sided pyramid, with the usual kalash or urn-shaped ornament at the top, now much broken down and generally disfigured. It is in eight storeys, gradually lessening in size, and giving the effect of steps up the sides. At the four sides are a sort of arms which run up as far as the kalash. Their summits are pointed and curve inwards towards the tower, suggesting the idea of four cobras erect with their faces inward. The spire is made of brick covered with stucco. The whole is elaborately carved and painted especially in front where the structure is brought on to the roof of the gabhara vestibule. The twelve faces of the first two storeys contain niches mostly containing images of Hindu deities in relief. Above this the remainder is nearly all ornament mostly of a sort of rail pattern with various fanciful decorations. The style of the whole resembles that of the towers which crown the southern gopurs [The gopur is a large and lofty gateway. Compare the Gadag gopur in Bombay Gazetteer, XXII 716.] and it was very probably like the rest of the temple a copy of something more ancient.

To the south of the temple, about a hundred yards along the edge of the hill, lies a block of buildings which includes three mausoleums. They are in a line facing south-wards and on the east and west sides the building projects beyond the edge of the hill and is built up by strong masonry walls in places over thirty feet high. The centre mausoleum is of Shahaji the father of Shivaji. It consists of three divisions separated by plain pillars with pointed arches in front. It is eighteen feet six inches long, thirty feet broad and about eight feet high. On the west is the mausoleum of Shivaji and Hirabai of Kolhapur nine feet long by twenty-five feet broad and seven feet nine inches high with similar pillars. To the east is the chief mausoleum of Sambhaji the son of Shivaji, nearly fifty feet long by thirty six feet broad. The mandap is divided by ten pillars into five divisions and leads to a shrine with a ling in its case or Shalunkha. The court is flanked on the east by cloisters in eight pointed arches fifty-eight feet long by eight feet deep and about seven feet high. Deep windows are pierced in the walls, which are over four feet thick. Sambhaji was executed by Aurangzeb in August 1689, and this mausoleum was afterwards set up to him by Chhatrapati Shahu.

Next to the great temple, or perhaps even greater in interest, is the temple of Amrteshvar, known as Bali Mahadev. It is reached direct by a road which turns off to the right from the steps about a hundred feet below the great temple; or it can be reached from the great temple by the south-east gateway. About twenty yards further on a turn to the right leads down twenty small steps to the chief gateway, an archway of the ogee pattern about twenty-five feet high and otherwise similar to the main gateway of the great temple. The temple is in a courtyard eight feet below the level of the gateway and more or less in a pit. It may be described as a miniature of the great temple, though of far ruder and plainer workmanship. The walls of the courtyard are very large blocks of stone, here and there repaired with mortar. The central hall or mandap with the shrine vestibule, forms a rectangle from which there are three porches on the west, north and east. The sides of the mandap are open and the roof is supported by the pillars, which including the outer pillars of the porches, are sixteen in number and form thus three divisions or khans. The southern division is the vestibule to the shrine and is closed up all except a narrow door in the centre. The pillars are shaped as those in the great temple and the roofing inside is of the same pattern. The carving though well executed is much less elaborated. Affixed to the vestibule by a closed passage is the shrine or gabhara, star-shaped and much as in the great temple. The mandap and vestibule are about forty-two feet long by thirty-two feet broad, and the extreme length and breadth of the gabhara about twenty-three feet. The spire is modern and covered with stucco work in apparent imitation of the main temple though it is locally believed to be of the same age with the temple. This pattern of ornament is a sort of rail and tooth work. The tower is ten-storeyed and about forty feet high. As in the larger temple there are also arms at the four sides bending over the top of the tower like erect cobras. There is a small pyramidal stone turret in the centre of the mandap which is disfigured by an ugly urn or kalash with which it is surmounted. The towers of this temple are grossly disfigured by white washing, and the stucco painting has entirely faded. The roof and eaves are of stone slabs, adorned and worked as in the larger temple. There are special festivities during the festival of Shivratra in February-March. The great fair or jatra is held from the bright fifth to the full moon of Chaitra in March-April. The attendance varies between 90 to 95 thousand. During the fair the masks of the God are paraded in procession. The offerings at the fair are almost solely in money. Some of them are made for the benefit of the temple. These are administered by a committee appointed by Government. The worship, however, is conducted by Badve Brahmans and Guravs who receive many private contributions from the visitors. The permanent income of the temple from alienated villages and other sources is spent in establishment and the Shivratra festivities.

Great care is taken as to the sanitary arrangements during the fair. Government provides a hospital assistant at the expense of the municipality. Sweepers and trenches are provided for latrine purposes and care is taken to prevent the water from pollution. Some excel-lent wells have been dug in various parts of the locality, notably one the gift of Ahalyabai Holkar, the great temple-building princess of Indore (1735-1795). The usual small merchandise is sold at the fair. The transactions are valued at about Rs. 50,000.

The name Singnapur would seem, almost certainly, to have been derived from the Devgiri Yadav king Singhan (1210-47) whose name so often occurs in the district. In the course of his wars with Bhojaraja of Kolhapur Shinghan is said to have encamped in this place. Maloji, the grandfather of Shivaji (1630), caused a tank to be constructed here and restore the temple to its former condition by making repairs for the comfort of pilgrims (1600). The village was subsequently conferred as a hereditary possession by one of the Ghatges on Shahaji Bhonsle, the father of Shivaji, [Grant Duffs Marathas, Vol. I, 231.] whose devotion in building the Mahadev temple is thus explained. It was in this place that Jijabai, the mother of Shivaji, took the lead in bringing about the reconversion of Bajaji Nimbalkar who had embraced Islam and was subsequently made a Hindu sometime after he returned from Bijapur in 1651.[Shivaji's Souvenir Marathi Section, page 9.] The neighbourhood is some of the wildest part of the Mahadev range, named no doubt from this temple, and has been the resort of turbulent characters from the earliest times. In January 1817, after having effected his escape from the Thana jail where he was confined, Trimbakji Dengle retired to the Singnapur hills and collected 1800 men in the neighbourhood. But in April 1818 the operations of General Smith's force drove the insurgents from their haunts in Singnapur. [Grant Duff's Marathas, Vol. II, 445, 448.]

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