Sun in splendour

- January 14, 2021

“It has been designed to allow the first rays of sun to fall on the image of Surya, the Sun god, at the time of the equinoxes. Though partially ruined, the temple retains much of its earlier glory. Standing high on a plinth overlooking a deep tank, the Sun temple displays an amazing profusion of magnificently carved gods and goddesses, flowers and leaves, birds and animals, on both its interior and exterior.”

It is a very famous temple. Much photographed, documented and for the students of Hindu temples, archaeology, heritage, Dr. Kirit Mankodi’s work on Modhera is well known. Yet, what was I trying to do, rushing there early morning to get the pictures of the temple in the morning light, when the first rays of sun bathed the temple in the glowing orange light. I am not going to write anything new, nor are my photographs going to be published. Yet for an unskilled amateur the enthusiasm to photograph monuments in the morning light has been an obsession. More so, when it is a sun temple. I remember more than a decade ago, with great difficulty I goaded our guide and driver in Puri to start at 5 am so that we are in Konark for the sunrise at the beach. It was either the sunrise at the beach or the sunrise at the temple, I had to settle for the former. At Modhera there was no such problem. Yet, doing a day trip from Ahmadabad to cover Modhera, Patan, Siddhpur on a single day meant we left early morning which would give us morning light at Modhera as well as enough time to cover the other two places. So, here is a simple introduction, mainly from Dr.Mankodi’s work on the temple and few of my photographs.

Reaching Modera is a breeze, under an hour and half from Ahmedabad, and here is an interesting introduction to the place found in Wibke Lobo’s “monograph” on Modhera published in 1982. “Modhera, which is also known as Modherapura or Mundera, as well as Modherapoor and Modhbank Puttun in the Jaina literature, is supposed to have been an important settlement of the Modha-Brahmanas, the gurus of the Modha-Vaniyas, in medieval times. It is still considered to be an orthodox Brahman village.” The little monograph of Kirit Mankodi informs that it was an ancient township known as Dharamaranya in the Puranas. It is distressing to read what he wrote then, which is true even today that it is no longer a place of worship, but heartening to read that the place was held in “great veneration by local people” even in that state. It glows as the rising sun hits the temple built in yellow sandstone and the tank in front, and it is indeed an east facing temple.

We did not have the time to explore around the temple, but could only acquire text book knowledge that it was on the banks of river Pushmavati. Though there have been debates whether it was a Sun temple or not since the mula murti in the garbhagriha was missing, but the dwadasa Adityas around temple, and the history of sun temples in Gujarat at Prabhasa, Somnath, has given credence and name to Modhera’s temple as the Sun Temple. “In ancient Indian art, the Sun god was sometimes combined with Siva and both were represented together in one image. Therefore, it has recently been pointed out that since at the Modhera temple, the twelve forms of Siva's consort (twelve Gauris) are given equal importance as the twelve Adityas. The central block on the doorway depicts Siva and there is a prominent image of Tripada Bhairava, it is possible to view the Modhera temple as being dedicated to both Surya and Siva.”

Solankis who ruled from the nearby Patan credited to have built the Rani Ki Vav and also the Rudramahalaya at Siddhpur on the banks of river Saraswati had also built the Modhera Sun Temple, specifically attributed to King Bhimadeva I (CE 1016- 27). It is an imposing structure, and one is just awed at seeing it from a distance, with the large rectangular tank in front, the ranga mantapa and then the main temple even though the shikara of the temple is missing. Exquisite is not the word for the sculpted pillars, ceiling of the ranga mantapa as well the hall inside the temple. It is such a pity that one has to encounter time and again, be it central, north or western India temples without mula devatas, without worship. One account would state that it was an earthquake in 19^th century that devastated the area damaging the temple as well, but an Colonel Monier Williams had “reported that Modhera has been destroyed by the Mohamedan iconoclasts” – he was the first to “notice” it as Surveyor General in 1809. It may have been a record, or a conjecture based on the number of temples that came under attack be it Somnath or Siddhpur.

I have not captured all the 12 Adityas – Dhatr, Mira, Aryaman, Sakra, Varuna, Amsa, Bhaga, Vivasvat, Pusan, Savitr, Tvastr and Vishnu – neither have I captured all the 12 Gauris or the ashta dikpalas on camera. I shall post what little I could shoot, after all the early morning trip without even a breakfast was mainly intended to get the morning light. (As we got out of the temple we were extremely hungry and all we could grab was handful of moong bhajiyas from a kiosk outside). I also could not find the Bhairava picture which is discussed in detail in one of Mankodi’s papers – on Shiva being worshipped as Bhairava, which along with the Shiva on the main lintel giving room to the view that it could have been a shrine to Shiva, or Shiva-Surya.