A Persian Verse for a Hindu Shrine: Cultural Memory and the Shivala of Bhaptamau

 

The image before us is more than an illustration; it is a textual and cultural monument. At its center lies a Persian chronogram (tārīkh), composed to commemorate the construction of Lālā Jagannāth’s Shivala at Bhaptamau, near Lucknow. Such inscriptions belong to a refined Indo-Persian tradition in which poetry, numerology, and memory converge.

The Persian Couple t (Chronogram)

Inscribed prominently within the composition is the following Persian couplet, composed explicitly to record the erection of the temple:

تاریخِ تعمیرِ لالہ جگن ناتھ شِوالہ
چو شد بپا، بتِ شیوا مقامِ دل‌ها شد

(Tārīkh-e taʿmīr-e Lālā Jagan Nāth Shivālā
Cho shud bapā, but-e Shīvā maqām-e dil-hā shud)

This couplet performs a dual function. On the surface, it announces the construction of the Shivala and praises it as a place where Shiva becomes the dwelling of hearts. Beneath this poetic layer lies the chronogram itself: the numerical value (abjad) of the designated words yields the year of construction, embedding time within language.

Persian as a Shared Cultural Medium

That a Hindu temple was commemorated through Persian verse is neither accidental nor marginal. Persian, during the Mughal and post-Mughal periods, was the language of record, prestige, and remembrance—used freely by Hindu patrons, bankers, munshīs, and temple endowers. Lālā Jagannāth’s choice to memorialize his Shivala in Persian reflects not cultural submission, but cultural fluency.

Here, Persian does not speak for Islam; it speaks for civilization.

Poetic Technique and Meaning

The chronogrammatic phrase is not harsh or polemical. The poet deliberately avoids sectarian vocabulary, choosing instead:

• maqām-e dil-hā (abode of hearts),

• bapā shud (was raised / established),

phrases common in mosque, shrine, and garden inscriptions alike. The temple is thus framed as a spiritual space, not merely a ritual structure.

Image and Inscription as One

The visual program reinforces the text. The Shiva lingam is centrally placed, unmistakable. The architecture—arched, domed, symmetrical—borrows from Indo-Persian manuscript aesthetics. The figures are drawn not in Sanskritic temple relief style, but in the idiom of Persian miniature art. Text and image speak the same cultural language.

This couplet matters because it quietly dismantles modern binaries. It shows a world where:

• a Hindu patron could think in Persian,

• A Shiva temple could be praised in the idiom of Islamic courts,

• and memory itself could be encoded mathematically within poetry.

The chronogram of Lālā Jagannāth’s Shivala is not merely a date. It is a statement of coexistence, written without slogans, arguments, or apology—only beauty.