Surang Tila Siva Temple Complex

Of late, a very big temple complex has been excavated at Surang tila. It is a spectacular complex consisting of different types of temples. The most important of them are the five small, stocky and beautiful temples on a highly raised platform. A flight of about thirty steps lead to the altar. Four of them contain lingas of various colours–white, red, brown and black meant for the worship of the four castes Brahmin, Ksatriya, Vaisya and Sudra respectively whereas the fifth one contains an image of Ganesa. The mandapa in front of the temples is totally broken, only a few broken pillars and images have been left on the altar.

A big Nandi mandapa was in front of the temple.

“While we were shuttling around Sirpur going from one site to the other, we kept passing through a humongous structure made of blocks of stone and stood as high as a five storeyed building. At first glance you might even confuse it with a Mayan step-pyramid. Later in the day, when we finally came there,I was eager to climb to the top and investigate the building for myself. The building is called Surang Tila. The last time i was in Sirpur, in July 2007, Surang Tila had not been totally excavated. I remembered that I had climbed to the top on that occassion too, only to find a heap of household junk and a modern, brick and mortar devi temple. This time the building was totally unrecognisable, all thanks to the archaeologists.

The stairs led on to an open courtyard on top of the structure, which was at one point of time covered with a roof. Supporting the roof were 32 pillars, arranged in four rows of 8 pillars. Parts of these beautifully engraved pillars have been recovered and put in their original position. Flanking the courtyard on three sides are five shrines dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is interesting to note here that while none of the 32 pillars are alike, the shivalingas in each of the five shrines are made of a stone of different colour.”

An inscription of Mahasivagupta Balarjuna^[1] was discovered in the Tila on the basis of the ruins of the Tila, Cunningham has thought that the temple has remained the grandest temple of Sirpur^[2]. According to Beglar^[3] this temple must have been of the same height as that of Nalanda constructed by Baladitya. He has thought that the temple was of the height of 145’ in consideration of the height of the altar.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

ICPB, p. 111.

[2]:

ASR, XVII, p. 27.

[3]:

ibid, VII, pp. 186-93.