Tigawa

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

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Kankali Devi Temple Tigawa

District map of Katni

Tigawa (तिगवा) is an ancient historical village in Bahoriband tahsil of district Katni, Madhya Pradesh.

Variants

• Tigavan (तिगवां) (जिला कटनी, म.प्र.) (p.399)
• Tigowa
• Tigoan
• Tigwan
• Tri-gawa

Origin

The name Tigawa (Tigowa, Tigoan, Tigwan) may be derived from "Tri-gawa" or "three villages", referring to the neighboring villages of Amgowa (आमगाव) and Deori (देवरी).

Location

Bahoriband - Tigwan in Katni, MP

The Tigawa temples site is in the eponymous village Tigawa, also called Tigwan, in the Katni district and 4 kms north of the town of Bahuriband. It is about 50 kms west of Katni, 70 kms north of Jabalpur.

Tigwan was located on an ancient route connecting Bharhut to Tripuri via Rupnath. Being an important trade center on this ancient route, the town was fortified at a certain period and as evidenced by the fort of Jhanjhangarh.

History

The site is located on a plateau near the Kaimur range of hills, with belts of rocks, where ancient Indians used the local geology to build numerous small dams to harvest rainwater into water reservoirs that locals call jhils. These reservoirs extend from Bahuriband to the north of Tigawa. The local tradition is that there was in the distant past a large city in that location, which would explain the numerous mounds found in their region and when excavated, these mounds have yielded broken pottery and bricks. Alexander Cunningham speculated in 1879 that the Bahuriband (also Bahulaband, about 4 kms south of Tigawa) may have been the city that Ptolemy transliterated as Tholabana.

Local tradition believes that it once had a fort and it was part of a major town named Jhanjhangarh, a suburb of ancient Bahuriband.

Tigawa is an archaeological site with a complex of about 36 Hindu temple ruins. Of these, the ancient Kankali Devi Temple is in good condition, and is dated to about 400-425 CE. Also referred to as Tigowa or Tigwan, the site is about 4 kms north of Bahuriband between Katni and Jabalpur. The Hindu temple ruins were badly damaged during a colonial era railway project when a contractor demolished and excavated the ruins as building material for the railway project.

Of the monuments, the Kankali Devi Temple is most notable and is a Gupta period temple. It is one of the oldest surviving Hindu temples, illustrating the formative stages of Hindu sacred architecture and the essential elements found in the north Indian style through the modern era.

Kankali Devi Temple

Kankali Devi Temple is the only surviving temple in the complex of around 36 temples, the rest had been demolished and materials were used for railway construction. The temple faces east and is built over a low-rising jagati (platform). It is composed of a garbha-grha and a mukha-mandapa, the latter is an open mandapa supported on four pillars. At some later point in time, the lateral open spaces of the mandapa were covered with a wall, and sculptures were installed inside. The garbha-grha is 12.75 feet square outside and about 8 feet square inside. It is covered with a flat roof. The pillars of the mukha-mandapa are heavy in appearance as their bottom part is plain octagonal. Above it is an octagonal section succeeded by a sixteen-sided section and then a circular section. Over the circular sections rests a purna-ghata (overflowing vase). Above it is a square abacus supporting a square capital. Each face of the capital is carved with two lions with a tree in the middle. In one instance the tree is a mango tree but the tree in the rest cannot be satisfactorily identified. The base of the capital has a design of two chaitya arches with a human head inside.

The doorway of the garbha-grha has four shakhas (bands). Two shakhas have floral decorations and two are left plain. The side pilasters are of the same pattern as found in the mukha-mandapa. On the top of the pilasters are placed the river goddesses, Ganga stands over a makara under a custard apple tree, and Yamuna stands over a tortoise under a mango tree. Both the river goddesses are shown plucking the fruits, thus they are a reminiscence of the earlier shala-bhanjika motif being merged with the river goddesses’ iconography. The lintel is plain and the architrave above it has thirteen plain square bosses. Inside the garbha-grha is an image of Narasimha which belongs to the same period as that of the temple. However, it does not appear to be the mula-bera (main idol) of the temple.

Dating of the temple: In the absence of a foundation inscription, the dating of the temple is attempted on the basis of its architectural style and sculpture. The regular architectural styles associated with the Gupta period, i.e. T-shaped doorways, and larger intercolumniation between the middle pillars are evident in this temple leading scholars to assign the temple to the Gupta period. Cunningham dates the temple between the fifth and third century CE stating it cannot be later than the fifth century CE and as old as the third century CE. Vincent Smith dates the temple to the reign of the Gupta king Samudragupta (350-375 CE) which is also the opinion of S K Saraswati. Percy Brown puts the temple in the first half of the fifth century CE. Joanna Williams assigns the temple to 445-470 CE stating she prefers to ascribe the temple to some unidentified small potentate, still under the waning suzerainty of the Guptas and deriving his taste from the network of imperial centers of north and central India. She does not agree with Mirashi that the latter has taken the temple as a Vakataka monument on the basis of the Nachna inscription of the Uchchhakalpa king Vyaghra.

तिगवा

विजयेन्द्र कुमार माथुर ने लिखा है.... तिगवा (AS:p399-400): एक छोटा-सा गाँव है, जो मध्य प्रदेश के जबलपुर ज़िले से लगभग 40 मील दूर स्थित है। तिगवां गुप्त काल में जैन सम्प्रदाय का केन्द्र था। एक अभिलेख से ज्ञात होता है कि कन्नौज से आए [p.400]: हुए एक जैन यात्री 'उभदेव' ने पार्श्वनाथ का एक मंदिर इस स्थान पर बनवाया था, जिसके अवशेष अभी तक यहाँ पर विद्यमान हैं। यह मंदिर अब हिन्दू मंदिर के समान दिखाई देता है। यहाँ के खंडहरों में कई जैन मूर्तियाँ भी प्राप्त हुई है।

मंदिर का वर्णन करते हुए स्वर्गीय डॉक्टर हीरालाल ने लिखा है कि "यह प्राय: डेढ़ हज़ार वर्ष प्राचीन है।" यह चपटी छतवाला पत्थर का मंदिर है। इसके गर्भगृह में नृसिंह की मूर्ति रखी हुई है। दरवाज़े की चौखट के ऊपर गंगा और यमुना की मूर्तियाँ खुदी हुई हैं। पहले ये ऊपर बनाई जाती थीं किन्तु पीछे से देहरी के निकट बनाई जाने लगीं। मंदिर के मंडप की दीवार में दशभुजी चंडी की मूर्ति खुदी है। उसके नीचे शेषशायी भगवान विष्णु की प्रतिमा उत्कीर्ण है, जिनकी नाभि से निकले हुए कमल पर ब्रह्मा विराजमान हैं।

श्री राखालदास बनर्जी के अनुसार इस मंदिर में एक वर्गाकार केन्द्रीय गर्भगृह है, जिसके सामने एक छोटा-सा मंडप है। मंडप के स्तम्भों के शीर्ष भारत-पर्सिपोलिस शैली में बने हुए हैं, जिससे यह मंदिर गुप्त काल से पूर्व का जान पड़ता है। (द एज ऑफ इंपीरियल गुप्ताज-पृ.153)

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यह कभी मन्दिरों का गाँव था, किंतु अब यहाँ लगभग सभी मन्दिर नष्ट हो गये हैं। तिगवां में पत्थर का बना विष्णु मन्दिर 12 फुट तथा 9 इंच वर्गाकार है। ऊपर सपाट छत है। इसका गर्भगृह आठ फुट व्यास का है। उसके समक्ष एक मण्डप है। इसके स्तम्भों के ऊपर सिंह तथा कलश की आकृतियाँ हैं। इस मन्दिर में काष्ठ शिल्पाकृतियों के उपकरण का पत्थर में अनुकरण, वास्तुशिल्प की शैशवावस्था की ओर संकेत करता है।

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