The Lost City Of Sirpur

Priyanka Rout

The Lost City Of Sirpur

Hidden in the jungles of Raipur, Sirpur exudes a mysterious and ineffable aura. An abandoned city or an abundant city, the city of Sirpur unveils its magic only sparingly. Like the Lost City of Atlantis, Sirpur too has many secrets buried underneath its stones.

A city hidden in the jungles of Raipur; Image Source: Memorable India

Mahanadi lived true to its name as viewed from the courtyard of the Gandheshwar temple. The river was so vast that the other side was only a tiny line on the horizon. The setting sun hung huge and bright over the sandbanks, reflecting in the few thin streams of fluid that lingered on an otherwise dry riverbed. That was a Sunday, and the people of Sirpur had flocked to the temple, the shops outside, or simply to sit by the river. The Sirpur Music and Dance Festival were in full swing, bringing crowds from as far away as Raipur, Chhattisgarh's capital.

Only an hour's drive away, Sirpur, bounded to the west by the Mahanadi and to the east and north by the mountains and thick sal woods of the Eastern Ghats, may well have been centuries distant, stuck in place, still rocking to an old melody.

I'd been longing to go to Sirpur for a long time. For at least the last 60 years, this city has been renowned as an archaeological treasure trove. Nonetheless, with the exception of a series of examinations in the 1950s and 1960s (which uncovered two notable Buddhist viharas and several Saiva shrines), much of it had stayed underground, succumbing to the lustre of Madhya Pradesh's better-known ruins. However, after Chhattisgarh has become a state in 2000, a substantial chunk of excavation work has been conducted, and while these finds may only represent the tip of the iceberg, what has been found is breathtaking.

This town served as the capital of the kingdom of Dakshina Kosala for roughly 200 years, from the late sixth century until the middle of the eighth century. Sirpur was a pre-eminent metropolis in central India throughout the consecutive periods of the nomadic empires of the Sarabhapuriyas and the Somavamsis, controlling the trade networks from the Gangetic plains to the eastern shore and the Vindhyas. Today, it hosts some of the most remarkable archaeological evidence in the country.

An older market is situated a kilometre to the northeast of the temple, just outside the hubbub of the market. Lines upon lines of masonry pedestals and wall remnants extended into the distance, sandwiched between two Buddhist viharas. It used to be a marketplace with a well-planned sewage system, granaries, trading areas, and smithies.

Subhakarasimha's trip to China was not a one-time encounter between the two civilizations. During the period, India and China had robust economic and cultural contacts, which were bolstered by Chinese admiration for Indian Buddhism, particularly the Mahayana.

Renowned preachers such as Xuan-zang (Hiuentsang) and Wu-xing were just a handful of the thousands of Chinese monks who visited India since the Christian Era began. There was even a Chinese Royal Ambassador in Nalanda at the time. Subhakarasimha resided in the court of Dakshina Kosala's most famous ruler, Somavamsi king Tivradeva. When Xuan-Zang came to Dakshina Kosala in the early seventh century, he most likely stopped in Sirpur. He describes witnessing over a hundred monasteries in the country, as well as 10,000 Mahayanist monks and laypeople committed to Buddha worship. Buddhism was clearly growing in the realm, particularly at Sirpur.

Nobody knows when Sirpur's fame waned. A descendant of the Kalachuri dynasty drove the Somavamsins out of Sirpur probably in the 9th century, and the former reestablished their empire with tremendous results in the neighbouring Bolangir district of Odisha. Sirpur appears to have been a significant cultural and political centre until the 12th century.

However, local mythology claims that this imperial metropolis was destroyed by a natural calamity. To discover more about this, I went to Surang Tila, the finest Saivite structure in town. The large brick-and-stone construction is noteworthy for just a sharp and broad concrete set of stairs that goes up 30 feet off the ground to an increased courtyard embellished with sculpted pillars and bordered by three Shiva linga shrines as well as a Ganesha temple. These gigantic steps give a sense of the horrific earthquake that is claimed to have wrecked lovely Sirpur, igniting flames and destroying temples and viharas equally.

The staircase's two ends fold up weirdly as if some uncontrollable force attempted to crush the entire building. Although the strength of the stones provided some resistance, the steps were permanently damaged and distorted. Sirpur's brilliant era ended in disaster, but its legacy lives on in its magnificent viharas and temples. In the coming night, a chilly air began to blow across Surang Tila, and I shivered uncontrollably.

The Gandheshwar temple was a prime example. Its antiquity is buried beneath a flamboyant entryway with comical Shivas and a layer of whitewash on the temple, which was built in the early part of the eighth century CE. Step within the courtyard, though, and the tone shifts even as the visual quality of the place improve a thousandfold. A gigantic black granite Buddha in bhumisparsha mudra rested underneath a pipal tree, encircled by over thousand-year-old tiny engravings of Hara-Parvatis, Mahishasuramardinis, Vishnus, and Chandis.

A pillar within the garbhagriha has carvings in a box-headed central Indian script dating back 1300 years. Another lovely Buddha, Akshobhya, the esoteric Buddha of the east, sat in a reclining position, smiling and touching the dirt, opposite the Shiva linga inside the temple.

The esoteric traditions of Bauddha Vajrayana and Saiva Mantramarga emerged at the same time, in the middle of the first century CE, and progressed in lockstep, substantially influencing each other. In the meantime, they evolved into the most complex manifestations of their own religions. In Sirpur, the ruins of huge Buddhist monasteries coexist with Saiva temples, both of which are strongly tantric in tone.