Ganesh Temple at Tasgaon: Apotheosis of Maratha Temple Architecture

Abstract

Maratha temples, built between the mid-seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries in Maharashtra (Western India), were influenced by the preceding traditions of Hindu temple architecture of the Yadavas and the religious and secular buildings of Deccani Sultanates and Mughals. The Ganesh temple complex at Tasgaon in southwest Maharashtra is representative of the high point that the Maratha temple tradition had attained in the late-eighteenth century. The temple was constructed in a period that coincides with Maratha political ascendancy and economic prosperity, and its form and composition represents the fullest development of the Maratha architectural style. The roof spires over the temple's five shrine sanctuary and the gopura tower over the entrance gateway represent an interplay of preceding architectural traditions, economic prosperity, eclectic architectural influences, and the lifestyle aspirations of the patron. The temple brings to attention the hybrid sophistications of a lesser-known, understudied, and misunderstood architectural tradition, and establishes the Marathas as robust patrons of art and architecture despite the tumultuous political conditions in Maharashtra.

Keywords:

• Architecture
• Ganesh
• Hindu
• Indo-Islamic
• Maharashtra
• Maratha
• Peshva
• temple

Notes

1. At least since the days of early Buddhist rock-cut architecture at Ajanta and Ellora, the part of the Deccan that lies in present-day Maharashtra has been a centre of architectural activity. A tradition of carving from the living rock was active up to the ninth century. A prolific phase of temple building began in the eleventh century under the Yadavas and their feudatories, which was only in general terms related to the tradition of rock-cut architecture in the Deccan.

2. J. Burton-Page, ‘Daulatabad’, in Masterpieces of the Deccan Sultanates, ed. by G. Michell (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1982). John Burton-Page discusses the construction of the earliest Islamic buildings in Daulatabad, which was the former capital of Yadava dynasty (Deogiri).

3. A. Sohoni, ‘Temple Architecture of the Marathas in Maharashtra’ (doctoral thesis, De Montfort University, 1998).

4. Between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries the Deccan was ruled by various Islamic kingdoms, notable amongst which was the Bahmani dynasty founded in AD 1347 by Alladin Hasan Bahman Shah who established his capital at Gulbarga (now in Karnataka). The Bahmani kingdom disintegrated as various factions competed for control, resulting in the formation of the Baridi dynasty with their capital at Bidar, the Adil Shahi dynasty with their capital at Bijapur, the Nizam Shahi dynasty with their capital at Ahmednagar, and the Qutb Shahi dynasty with their capital at Golconda. Together these are known as the Deccani Sultanates.

5. J. Burton-Page, ‘Bijapur’, in Michell.

6. C. A. Kincaid, A History of Maratha People, Earliest Times – Death of Shivaji (Nagpur: Government of Maharashtra Publications, 1931).

7. Sohoni.

8. An overview of Deccani Sultanate architecture from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century brings to light the streams of influences acting on the building tradition during the course of tumultuous political developments, eventually settling down under the Adil Shahi and Qutb Shahi dynasties that were responsible for the creation of some of the best Islamic buildings in India.

9. B. Gokhale, ‘The Religious Complex in Eighteenth-Century Poona’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 105.4 (1985), 719–24.

10. M. G. Ranade and K. T. Telang, Rise of Maratha Power and Other Essays (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1961).

11. Pune is also surrounded by Ashtavinayakas – eight temples of Ganesh. The eight temples/idols of the Ashtavinayak in their religious sequence are: the Moreshwar temple, Moregaon; the Siddhivinayak temple, Siddhatek; the Ballaleshwar temple, Pali; the Varadavinayak temple, Mahad; the Chintamani temple, Theur; the Girijatamak temple, Lenyandri; the Vighnahar temple, Ozar; and the Mahaganapati temple, Ranjangaon.

12. Gazetteers of the Bombay Presidency (New Delhi: Government of Maharashtra Publication, 1853).

13. C. Cummings, ‘Refining the Art History of Painting in South Asia: The Place of the Maratha Tradition’ (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 2008) – presentation by Cathleen Cummings at Ohio State University in 2008.

14. The Third Anglo-Maratha War was the culmination of forty years of hostility between Marathas and the British East India Company. James Grant Duff, a soldier in the army of the East India Company, wrote the first official history of the Marathas, in which he attempted to demonstrate ‘the lowly social status and predatory nature of the Maratha powers’.

15. See the review of Duff's book: H. E. A. Cotton, ‘A History of the Mahrattas. By James Cuninghame Grant Duff’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 2.2 (1922), 321–28.