𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲- 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲'𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝘁 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 (2013)

𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝘁 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲

Visited on April 14, 2013

Malot in the Salt Range, seven miles downstream from Katas, architects built a temple in the tenth century seemingly mimicking the plan and pyramidal bi-level typology of Kashmir. Marriage alliances may explain this, but local architects built temples, and scholars have largely misinterpreted the result.  This temple can neither demonstrate Kashmiri hegemony in this region nor define temples in the Salt range.

Architectural History

The temple was visited in 1848 by General James Abbott, whose account was accompanied by two sketches of the temple. He poignantly reported that “ I write at a great disadvantage so many hundreds of miles from any books of reference, and with a memory almost unrefreshed by study during five and twenty years

Cunningham 1875 speculated that Malot was the site of Xuanzang’s Simhapura. Stein 1937 perhaps more accurately associated Simhapura with the valley of Murti, southwest of Malot where a great stupa once stood. According to the Cunning report, which he accompanied with plans of both the temple and the fort it stands nearby.

The only remains of any antiquity at Malot are a temple and gateway in the Kashmirian style of architecture. They are built of coarse sandstone of various shades of ochreous red and yellow, and many parts have suffered severely from the action of the weather, the surface having altogether crumbled away. The exterior pyramidal roof of the structure has long ago disappeared.

Cunningham remarked, without observing the Nagara shrines inside, that the large trefoil ‘vaults’ on the cardinal faces of the temple have a T-shaped key-stone two courses in depth, similar to those in the temples of Kashmir

The Malot temple consisted of a central shrine and a gateway to the east but lacks the enclosing compound of cells common to many temples in Kashmir. It was built of sandstone from the Salt range at nearby Murti. On each wall, gigantic fluted pillars, topped by an Amalaka, block capital, and entablature, support a high trefoil arch. Within these are sub-shrine models with recessed cellos, their entries also framed by fluted pillars and trefoil vaults. Both the larger fluted frame and the sub-shrine entries mimic the entry and vestibule on the east. The smaller fluted column that flanked these sub-shrines chambers support a kind of head house above a multi-lobbed Torana and crowning face-of-glory that frames the central vault of trefoil entry. Above this is a brand of now much-abraded image. The superstructure above is a representative of large Nagara tower with flanking Latina turrets.

The double-high attached column and trefoil arches that frame these Nagara sub-shrines representations have shallow quarters columns within that support an additional echoing layer of trefoil framing. The temple is presumed to have been capped by a pyramidal roof with peaked dormers_ now largely lost and replaces is a watchtower- a form common to Kashmir and suggested by shrine models in the entry gateway.

Both scale and siting make this temple dominant in its region. But its eclectic nature marked more the diversity of Udi-Sahi patronage late in their rule, not Kashmiri control of Punjab. Stein 1937 captured its preeminent position well: It stands in impressive isolation on a bare rocky spur close to where the southern edge of the Salt Range, here nearly 3000 feet above sea level, falls off with precipitous cliffs toward the plain. Stein also noted that, two and a half miles north, a little hollow filled with luxuriant vegetation holds the small Hindu Sanctuary of Shivganga by the side of a pool fed by springs. The temple is constructed in the Kashmirian style. But it has been so heavily covered with plasters that none of the original decoration of the walls is now visible.

Most crucial to our understanding of the architectural originality of the temple of the Malot, and of architects in Punjab in the period, the least commented-on aspect of this remarkable monument, the large curvilinear models of shrines that fill the central projections on walls, of these, while describing in detail the tall fluted attached with pillars of the wall, Cunningham 1875 mentioned only that in “the recess between the pilasters is a highly ornamented niche with trefoiled arch, flanked by small fluted pilasters. The roof of the niche first narrows by regular steps, and then widens into a bold projecting balcony, which supports three miniature temples, the middle one reaching up in the top of the great trefoiled recess.”

He does not describe these three miniature temples. At all. That these are curvilinear, following the Nagara conventions of Northern India, and together they suggest the multi-spired forms of the tower- both anekandaka (with not one tower for a temple with circumambulatory walls) and sekhari (multi-deserted sikhara designed for temples without an ambulatory)- which architects had developed by the tenth century, none of those scholars who have advocated a ‘Kashmiri style’ in Punjab seems to have observed.

What I have called the ‘ Gandharan-Nagara’ typology for temples in Punjab from the sixth through the tenth centuries represents a particular and original variation of Latina formation for the Nagara superstructure. In the tenth century- a multi-spired form of Nagra tower set new standards across northern  India-images that suggest these appeared as models on the walls at Malot, signaling both this temple's local and trans-local connections and its architects’ knowing and creative originality.

If the overall form of the temple at Malot does consciously mimic the architectonic massing and pent roof model of Kashmir, it is almost unique in doing so in the Salt Range. Only the now ruinous and remade structure at the grove of shiv-Ganga nearby also seems perhaps to have a had a pyramidal roof. Built probably at a time in the tenth century when a strong matrimonial and political link did exist between the Udi-Sahi Kings and Kashmir, the temples at Malot and Shiv-Ganga were constructed in distinctive sandstone by architects who chose to make a rhetorical point by framing Nagra models over the temple’s cardinal niches by the fluted pillars, trefoil arches and attic pediments typical of Kashmiri Shrines.

History 

Malot Temples, built of local red sandstones of salt range mountains, are located located on the road leading to Malot village near Choi village. The road is linked with main Kalar kahar road from where it turns from Karuli Chawk towards Malot via Pakistan cement factory and Choi village along with coal mines. It is nine miles away in the south of Katas and same distance from Kalar kahar in the east. It is at the height of 3000 feet and the original spread of the fort was 2000 feet from east to west and 1500 feet from north to south. The inner most spread is 1000 by 500 feet. Gen Cunningham estimated the radius of 2.5 miles. The Malot was also called Namrod and Ramrod. Gen Abbot has mentioned its name as Shah Garh or Shai Garh but Janjuas name d it Raj Garh. The name is after the King of MalDev or Malu. The Rajput history claims its name Malot from the word Malik-Kot as they believed that the title of Malik was given to the one who accepted annexation to the Muslim King of Delhi although in reward the Malik enjoyed the autonomous status with full sovereignty in the assigned area. The Mughal King Babur’s travelogue “Tuzkai-Babree” attests to the corollary of Malik-Kot, Mal-Kot and then Malot. According to Ghadholak Rajput archives the city of Delhi was built around 994 AD and Malot was built around 980 AD. Gen Cunningham found the Malot Fort and Temples in a very bad shape even in 1848. The two present temples were looked after by the Brahman Bali Hindus till 1947. The Guru of Bali Hindus, Guru Tarlok Nath shrines were frequently visited by them. In the year 1527 Daulat khan Lodhi was forced by the royal forces of Mughal king Babur, to surrender. Mahan Singh, father of Maharaja Rangeet singh, also built a small fort here at Malot in early 19th century.