Land of Kashyapa - Page#18 - Pratapswami temple

Pratapswami temple

“Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice.” - Will Durant

Indian Historian Sita Ram Goel, though he initially had Marxist leanings, later became an outspoken anti-communist and also wrote extensively on the damage to Indian culture and heritage wrought by expansionist Islam and missionary activities of Christianity. In his chapter 'Let the Mute Witnesses Speak' from the book 'Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them' - he writes:

"We learn from literary and epigraphic sources, accounts of foreign travelers in medieval times, and modern archaeological explorations that, on the eve of the Islamic invasion, the cradle of Hindu culture was honeycombed with temples and monasteries, in many shapes and sizes. The same sources inform us that many more temples and monasteries continued to come up in places where the Islamic invasion had yet to reach or from where it was forced to retire for some time by the rallying of Hindu resistance. Hindus were great temple builders because their pantheon was prolific in Gods and Goddesses and their society rich in schools and sects, each with its own way of worship. But by the time we come to the end of the invasion, we find that almost all these Hindu places of worship had either disappeared or were left in different stages of ruination. Most of the sacred sites had come to be occupied by a variety of Muslim monuments-masjids and idgahs (mosques), dargahs and ziarats (shrines), mazars and maqbaras (tombs), madrasas and maktabs (seminaries), takiyas and qabristans (graveyards). Quite a few of the new edifices had been built from the materials of those that had been deliberately demolished in order to satisfy the demands of Islamic Theology. The same materials had been used frequently in some secular structures as well-walls and gates of forts and cities, river and tank embankments, caravanserais and stepwells, palaces and pavilions."

He goes on to mention hundreds of temples that were vandalized, razed to the ground, or wholly incorporated into Islamic sites. He lists sites in nearly every state in India and when he writes about Kashmir, documents more than 50 temples that have vanished by the frenzy of the "mleccha". A case in point is the Srinagar Ziarat named Nur Pirastan which was "originally a NarendrasaAmin Temple"

40 kilometers northwest of Srinagar and just south of the Wular lake where Jhelum turns west into Pakistan are the ruins of Pratap Swamy Temple. Situated in the village Tapar in Baramulla, this place is mentioned in Kalhana's Rajatarangini as "ancient Pratapapura, built by Pratapaditya II". The King was second to ascend in the Karkota dynasty.

Pratapaditya II's youngest son was the famous Lalitadiya Muktapita whom I wrote about on the Martand Sun Temple page. Pratapaditya II, Kalhana mentions, "was married to ‘the wife of a foreign merchant’, named Narendraprabha. Although mentioned as a random fact, it can be seen as an example of marital flexibility from a sociological perspective."

The Pratap Swami temple "resembles all other temples of Kashmir in the massiveness of the materials used and simplicity of style. This temple complex was totally buried under the ground and was excavated in 1942 The excavations which were conducted here exposed the base of the temple and its courtyard and the plinth of the enclosure wall on the rear side of the base are traces of the superstructure. The temple appears to have been of Vimana type facing East. The staircase leading to the cella proper is in the middle of the Eastern wall. Of the steps, only the lowest is in existence. The flank: walls of the staircase are adorned with niches on each inside face containing images of gods and goddesses. The excavations revealed traces of a stone platform in the courtyard. During excavations, many other significant antiquities came to light which include burnt birch leaves, stone images, stone pedestals with an image of Garuda, earthen Jars, inscriptions, and pottery. These antiquities were of Vaishnavite character"

The temple was destroyed by Sikandar and the remains were vandalized recently in 1990 as well. But for the steps in the front and the platform parts of what was once the sanctum, there are no traces of a temple. The place is looked after by the Archaeological Survey of India.

I was disheartened that I could not capture anything of worth in this ruined temple. Only a few capitals with lotus designs. I found this lady and child with striking features and with wonder I looked up to find this fact: "The rule of the Indo-Greek kingdoms began in the Second Century BC and continued until the early First Century AD, furthering the notion of a substantial ancient Greek influence in Kashmir. It is thus reasonable to hypothesize that the current Kashmiri population may possess significant Greek ancestry."

Sriram(Hari)