Article
Monuments and Monumentality in a Changing Socio-Political
Landscape: A View from Udaypura
Rafia Khan
Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad 382481, India; khanrafia.niz@gmail.com
Abstract: This work intends to explore the nature of socio-political change in historical periods
usually referred to as interregnal which, for the purposes of this paper, is defined as a period
of discontinuity or gap in political and social organization. It traces the survival of a historical
monument through two interregnal centuries of medieval Indian sub-continental history (11th–12th
and 14th) to argue that modern historiographical templates which study these periods as precursors
or remnants of succeeding and preceding centuries, respectively, do not sufficiently explore the
socio-political possibilities innate in these periods of distributed political agency. In the context of
Indian history, while historians have focused on the confrontational aspect of Hindu–Muslim polities
or communities in interregnal centuries, I suggest that these periods provided fertile ground for
political innovation and negotiation, thus breaking the confrontational stasis usually associated with
regnal centuries.
Keywords: Indian subcontinent; socio-cultural history; monuments; Delhi Sultanate and the Paramaras; interregnum centuries
Citation: Khan, R. Monuments and
1. Introduction
Monumentality in a Changing
For the modern historian of the Indian subcontinent, certain periods represent an
elusive temporality. The 8th–12th centuries CE, which could neither be aligned linearly with
the glorious kingdoms of the ancient, nor shown to have directly contributed to the advent
of Turk hordes which dominated the higher echelons of political power in medieval India,
was one such period. Being at once ‘post-ancient’ and ‘pre-medieval’, the historiography
of this period in the 1990s was subject to a critical review by B.D. Chattopadhyay, who
argued for the de-linking of the developments of this period as remnants or precursors
of preceding and succeeding centuries. He spoke of independent, local state-formation
at regional and sub-regional levels coinciding with the flourish of multiple intense but
regional economies, giving birth to a large number of widely distributed suburban centres
of religion, culture, and politics [1].
This is an important lesson for any student of ‘interregnum’ centuries, such as the
8th–12th, the 14th–15th, or the 18th centuries which are easily characterised as ‘dark
ages’, periods of dynastic gaps or decentralisation, as opposed to periods of integrated,
interconnected macro-regional empires like those of the Guptas, the Delhi Sultans, or
the Mughals. These were also identified as periods of the slow demise of classicism in
literary and architectural production to the advantage of untraceable developments from
‘below’. Yet, these historiographical templates are often challenged by the coexistence
of unintegrated local polities making competitive, universal claims of rulership within
large empires. We find cakravartins with nominal, local, and sub-regional authority and
emerging, local elite groups alluding to vastly spread inter-regional political networks
around themselves. It is also not surprising that these binaries themselves reflect a spatial
and temporal simplicity, a sort of short-circuiting of socio-political processes which seems
farcical in the face of historical realities.
Samira Sheikh and Francesca Orsini made an argument similar to Chattopadhyay’s
for the late 14th and 15th century. They questioned the characterisation of the late
Socio-Political Landscape: A View
from Udaypura. Histories 2021, 1,
289–296. https://doi.org/10.3390/
histories1040024
Academic Editor: Maurizio Peleggi
Received: 13 July 2021
Accepted: 21 October 2021
Published: 23 November 2021
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Histories 2021, 1, 289–296. https://doi.org/10.3390/histories1040024
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Histories 2021, 1
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14th and 15th century as the ‘twilight’ of the Delhi Sultanate. In their attempt to pull
this period out of the abyss of political insignificance and cultural vapidity which it had
fallen into in modern historiographical works, they highlighted the innovative cultural
and literary mediations of 15th century courts, such as the adoption of vernaculars to
courtly standards even as classical literary forms and languages continued to be patronised. Another section focusing on political diversity, drew connections between new
forms of literature and the emerging social groups which patronised them as works of
self-expression and self-identification so that they became ways of ‘producing one’s own
history or inscribing oneself in larger histories’ [2].
Yet, as Pankaj Jha correctly points out in his work A Political History of Literature,
their effort at registering the cultural and literary efflorescence of the 15th century as an
affront to the traditional historiographical template subscribed to another widely held
historiographical assumption, that of the primacy of political history vis-a-vis other spheres
of historical activity, at least in the title of their work, After Timur Left. With his own work
on Vidyapati and the copious literary production of the small kingdom of Milthila in the
15th century, Jha showed that ‘any easy correspondence between the ‘size’ of a kingdom
and the political imagination of its literary elite would be misleading’ [3]. In simple words,
tying the prosperity of socio-cultural realms of expression to the presence of a typical state
may be a historiographical condition, but not a historical one.
Such historiographical templates also find it rational to ascribe monuments and
monumental activity to political prosperity and stability. In this context, the proliferation
of cultural objects such as built monuments in ‘interregnum’ centuries has not been widely
recognised or explained. There are two reasons for this. First, the apparently direct links
between ‘political difficulties’ and the ‘little time this leaves for constructional activity’ has
led to the oblivion of the fact that constructional activity was not always a by-product or
result of political developments but rather, often a means of establishing or reinforcing
new socio-political relations. Secondly, the assumed dyad that links ‘poor construction’
to sparse financial resources does not recognise architectural reuse and reconstruction as
meaningful architectural activity. One way to address this gap as suggested by Martin
Furholt and Doris Mischka is to recognise ‘the crucial role of monuments in periods of
massive social and political change in the shaping of new, previously unprecedented
social systems’ [4]. This has significant ramifications for our understanding of heightened
constructional activity in ‘interregnum’ centuries.
2. The Udayeshwara Temple
The Udayeshwara temple which lies in the modern Udaipur village of the Ganjbasoda district of Madhya Pradesh today is one such unique example which presents in its
monumentality and inherent classicism of architectural style, a moment of architectural
and political effervescence in a period of regional fragmentation and political oblivion for
the Paramara rulers of Malwa. King Udayaditya (c. 1070–1093) attempted to restore the
glory of his dynasty years after the demise of his famed, larger than life predecessor King
Bhoja (1000–1055) by commissioning a monument equal in magnitude to the incomplete
Bhojpur group of monuments planned and commissioned by his powerful predecessor.
As Doria Tichit writes, the Udayeshwara temple artistically represented not just
architectural emulation of the 10th century sekhari mode of temple architecture, but also
gives evidence of a climate of architectural effervescence and invention by being one of
the earliest and finest examples of the bhumija mode of temple architecture. Tichit not
only attests to its royal foundation but observes that as an early example of a recently
developing architectural style, ‘some clumsiness could’ve been expected in its realisation’
but against those expectations, the Udayeshwara temple is remarkably fine in technique
and proportion and indicates a ‘mastery of the newly elaborated architectural mode’ [5].
Udayaditya (c. 1070–1093) ascended to the throne at a critical period. The Chalukyas
and the Kalchuri rulers had wreaked immense dynastic misfortune upon the Paramaras
of Malwa towards the end of Bhoja’s rule. Indeed, these developments seem to have left
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Bhoja devastated, who ultimately died leaving his empire in the throes of an inter-regional
and inter-dynastic conflict. His immediate successor regained the throne with the help of
his political allies, but it remained an uneasy political alliance and eventually, cost him his
life. In these circumstances, a Paramara inscription informs us, ‘arose king Udayaditya,
like another son, destroying the dense darkness, his powerful foes with the column of rays
issuing from the strong sword’ [6]. He backed his victories with multiple matrimonial
alliances and articulated his political and ritualistic authority over the subject population
through the religious cult of the Udaleshwar. Udayaditya was clearly the eponym for the
deity visualised in the typical cult object of the mahalingam which sits in the sanctum
sanctorum of the Udayeshwara temple. The temple and its deity’s direct association with
Udayaditya also added a political sacrality to the space, which was precisely the reason it
had to be dismantled when a new political order set in [7].
When in the 4th and 5th centuries of the second millennium, the military retinue
and political culture of the Sultanate/s came to Malwa, the Udayeshwara temple’s monumentality underwent that typical desecration, reuse, and restructuring programme, which
was a part of the Delhi Sultanate’s military conquest of a region. As the political empire
of Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325–1351) extended across the regions which constituted
the dakshinapatha, the governor of Chanderi, Izz-ud-Dı̄n Bantānı̄ had by 1338–1339 A.D.
managed to push the extent of the Chanderi province up to hundred kilometers to the
south-west of the provincial capital at Chanderi, till Udayapura. Bantani appointed a subprovincial representative in the vicinity of Udayapura and it seems to have fallen to this
sub-provincial officer to desecrate the monumentality of the Udayeshwara to indicate the
disruption of the old political order and reflect the new political realities of the region [8,9].
Political (and not religious) acts of desecration and/or restructuring built monuments
of religious-cultural and socio-political significance were undertaken in different parts of
the subcontinent in these centuries. Many sites in Central India, such as the Mattamayura
Saiva mathas at Kadwaha near Chanderi, the Nandi temple at Bhilsa (Raisen), as well as
countless consecrated Jain idol complexes in the modern parts of Bundelkhand, underwent
different degrees of desecration, indicating that this was a common political activity in
this period. Scholars have revealed the predictability of this desecration and restructuring
program, inasmuch that as a signifier of political conquest and as a platform for establishing new socio-political relations and hierarchies, it constituted fairly predictable and
oft-repeated stages. Most typically, temples considered essential to the constitution of
enemy authority were destroyed. Occasionally, these were converted into mosques [10].
More rarely, the temple deity was abducted and brought to the conqueror’s capital. The
political violence at Udayeshwara is unique when compared to these typical patterns of
temple desecration.
3. The Political Restructuring of the Udayeshwara Temple
The Udayeshwara temple comprises a heavily sculpted central temple. The temple
comprises of the shrine (mulaprasada) and the assembly hall (mandapa) with a rich and
dense iconographic program adorning the superstructure (Figure 1).
This temple is situated at the centre of a temple complex which also includes independent vedis (reading rooms) or small shrines in all cardinal directions around it. When
J.D. Berglar, assistant to the first director-general of the Archaeology Survey of India (ASI),
Alexander Cunningham, visited Udayapur in 1871–1872, he wrote about the Udayeshwara
temple complex which consisted of a mosque ‘at the back of the temple’. (Figure 2) He
also referred to the makeshift inscribed archways (Figure 3) which provided a ritual entry
into the mosque, but which could be accessed from any other place on the complex as well.
Later, Alexander Cunningham reported that ‘the north-west corner temple and the western
bedi (vedi) were knocked down in the time of Muhammad-bin-Tughluq and a masjid was
erected in their place [11,12].
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Figure 1. The central structure with the mulaprasada and the mandapa at the Udayeshwara temple
(‘Udaipur_panorama’ by Deepesh9929 is licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0).
Figure 2. The makeshift trabeate mosque at the back of the temple lies behind the barricade. (Image
from author’s personal collection).
Apart from the monument itself, two parts of a Sultanate inscription dated to
737/1336–1337 and 739/1338–1339 found at the site attest to this 14th century restructuring. The inscriptions stay silent on the matter of temple desecration but simply credit
the commission of a mosque to Azam Malik, the sarjandar-i-khass (commander of the special
forces) of the Sultanate court. In political terms, these episodes must be seen in Richard
Eaton’s words as ‘a normal means of decoupling a Hindu king’s legitimate authority from
his kingdom, and specifically, of decoupling that former king from the image of the state
deity that was publicly understood as protecting the king and his deity’ Eaton, p. 73).
Yet, this desecration-restructuring program was unconventional as it did not seem to
desire a complete annihilation of the site or the structure. It is evident that the central temple
which was the cynosure of all religious and political activities, carried all the pilgrimage
inscriptions, housed the mahalingam, and dominated the entire temple complex with its
massive iconographic programme was not under attack. The mulaprasada or the shrine,
the most sacred space of the temple which houses the cult object, opened towards the east
to let the light of the rising sun enter inside the temple and bathe the cult object, i.e., the
mahalingam. The Sultanate restructuring did not disturb this cosmological arrangement
and left the path for ingress and egress open for sunlight and devotees, so that only a
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‘minor’ temple or what was also referred to as the attendant shrine, ‘at the back of the
temple’ was brought down. A more modern reading of the present architectural plan of the
structure by Doria Tichit also confirms that ‘the design of the ensemble has been modified
by the construction of a mosque on the west part of the platform and of two arches at the
back of the temple’ (Tichit, pp. 46 and 101).
Figure 3. The inscribed archway which provided ceremonial entry to the mosque (Image from
author’s personal collection).
Was this political restructuring of a monument while keeping its monumentality intact
unique? The unconventional nature of this temple desecration becomes clearer when we
contrast it with other patterns of desecration and restructuring in medieval central or
northern India. In the mid-12th century, the Rudramahalaya Saiva complex in Siddhpur,
Northern Gujarat underwent a programme of political iconoclasm wherein ‘the complex’s
principal temple was completely dismantled, its minor shrines were left standing and
uneffaced.’ [13]. These were then reused to form parts of an Islamic religious structure.
A late 17th century example from the same region was the destruction of the Bijamandal
temple complex by Aurangzeb, considered on all accounts to have been a destructive force.
Coming back to the 14th century, Tamara Sears concludes her study of the political restructuring of the Saiva matha complex at Kadwaha with the understanding that ‘the tenth
century Siva temple built next to the monastery may have been at one point completely
covered, and that the platform upon which the mosque currently stands once possibly
extended farther east to cover the entirety of the earlier temple’ [14]. These instances
indicate that the desecration at Udayeshwara was unique for those times in preserving the
monumentality of the built object, even in the face of the complex’s destruction.
On the other hand, the desecration at Udayeshwara shared motive with other such acts
of political desecration. Most acts of temple desecration and restructuring were strategic
attempts to articulate a shift in political power. These announced the presence of new
political rulers. As these were not given to religious iconoclasm or the spread of Islam,
pre-existing patterns of religious devotion and ritual continued to survive around these
politico-religious structures. This was true for the Udayeshwara temple, too. The absence
of any intense desire to change or overpower established religious beliefs was reflected
in the continuity of pilgrimage traditions which seem to have continued in these years of
desecration as well. Thus, pilgrim inscriptions dated V.S. 1394/1338 inform us that Ratana
with his wife and son came to the temple for a visit to Udalēsvara Deva. Another of the
same year refers to the yatra festival of the god Udalēsvara. That the perpetrated ‘violence’
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on the monument complex was not a reason to drive the devotees and pilgrims away
abruptly, and that the monument was open to pilgrimage processions and related rituals,
leads one to question the assumed ‘violent’ nature of such acts of political iconoclasm.
Indeed, the inscriptions at the temple suggest that pilgrims continued to visit the temple
site for a large part of the 14th and 15th centuries and dated inscriptions till 1447 are
available to attest this [15].
This indicates that the religious and devotional structures woven around the monument or its monumentality did not alter significantly in the reign of the Delhi and the
Malwa Sultans.
4. Monumentality in Interregnum Centuries
In the context of the aforementioned events, the commissioning of the Udayeshwara
temple in the 11th century and the desecration it experienced in the 14th century are unique
developments belonging to ‘interregnum’ centuries.
The temple’s construction in a period of political discontinuity was an attempt at the
reconstruction of Paramara prestige which had undergone some degree of decline after
Bhoja’s reign. What made this enterprise different from Bhoja’s intense construction activity,
however, was that the monumentality of the Udayeshwara served not as an expression or
symbol of, but rather as a tool of establishing Paramara revival. This alone explains the fact
that the temple was completed and consecrated within the first 10 years of Udayaditya’s
long 23-year rule. At a primary level, this was achieved by commissioning a monument
of public utility. At a more complex level, the intentionality of commissioning a temple
with more non-functional elements, such as the temple’s rich and complex iconographic
program, its massive scale, or the multiplicity of its entrances, than functional elements
indicate that the purpose of commissioning the temple was more than to merely serve
the quotidian spiritual needs of the people. In fact, multiple groups of people of differing
statuses would have participated in the creation of the temple’s monumentality. Not
only that, in this period itself, the temple and the deity seem to have been at the centre
of a ritualistic programme which included pilgrimage, installation of religious objects
such as standard flags, and inscriptional scribbling as some of its more visible elements.
Participation in these ceremonies which revolved around the eponymous king and deity
shaped the identity and relation of the worshipping population as subjects vis-a-vis their
temporal and spiritual ruler. In this sense, the monument and its monumentality were an
instrument to establish and visualise the Paramara political hierarchy which emanated
in the figure of Udaleshwar, and through him, in Udayaditya in a period of massive
socio-political change.
The desecration of the Udayeshwara temple does not necessarily belong to an interregnal century. The political clout of Muhammad-bin-Tughluq and the Delhi Sultanate was
intact throughout the 14th century. Political communication was ensured through multiple
informal and formal channels. A considerable standardization of Sultanate presence in
provincial and sub-provincial settings was also ensured through a migrating administrative
bureaucracy. Tughluq’s rule, however, was marred by a spate of rebellions. There is much
to indicate that a considerable section of the rebelling Sultanate ruling elite was affecting
local and provincial state-formation across the Sultanate dominions in the 14th century [16].
Even though the administrative hierarchy of the Sultanate was visible in the mosque
inscription at Udayapur, the Sultanate representative on ground seems to have enjoyed
enough room for independent political manoeuvring. This explains the distinct desecration
pattern at Udayeshwara.
Local folklore would explain this alternative pattern of desecration by resorting
to stories of divine interference. Richard Eaton understands that desecration was only
reserved to active centre of politics in the 14th century and that this was the reason that the
temples at Khajuraho escaped desecration. This does not apply to Udayeshwara because it
was held by a local Paramara chief in the early 14th century which was precisely the reason
it could not escape desecration.
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What was unique was the pattern of desecration wherein the monumentality of the
structure is preserved even in the face of its desecration. It may have been the result of an
alternative strategy of political communication and articulation, where the monumentality
is preserved as a reminder of the benevolence and protection of the Sultanate. Considering
the Sultanate officers’ intention was never to change the devotional patterns which emerged
around the temple, and therefore, visitors and pilgrims continued to visit the temple till
mid-15th century, the monumentality of the Udayeshwara temple may have stood to these
pilgrims as proof of the protection of the Sultanate. If the local populace at Udaypura
had agreed to pay the jizyah (a religious tax on non-Muslims), then they would have
acquired the zimmi status which would have made the state the guardian of their life and
property, thus securing the temple’s monumentality. Thus, the semi-destructive state of
the temple could be a sign of negotiation between two political communities which were
confronting each other because of the changing socio-political presence of the Sultanate
from conquerors to rulers or administrators. On the other hand, the preservation of the
monumentality of the complex might also be a symbol of the Sultanate’s power in the
sense that while many other temples were desecrated at this time, this one stood as the
provincial Sultanate administration allowed it to. We do not have much insight into the
socio-political interaction between the local populace and the provincial administration at
Udayapur but it is not unreasonable to suggest that these relations may have been more
cooperative here than in some of the other Sultanate provinces.
Whatever may have been the reason for this pattern of selective desecration, the fact
that it was affected by a sub-provincial level Sultanate officer at a time when the Tughluq
Sultan’s authority was waning at the hands of his own ruling class is critical. This is not to
suggest that the Sultanate representative or local governor at Udayapur was unmoored
from the ‘Islamicate’ culture to which the Sultanate subscribed, or that the distance from the
capital, in itself, would lead to the adoption of alternative strategies of political negotiation
and communication. It is to suggest that the Sultanate and its administration was no
monolith which could be reproduced in discrete provincial and sub-provincial settings.
Alternatives or amendments to widely accepted patterns of conquest and state-formation
developed as the Sultanate’s administrative paraphernalia spread into the subcontinent
and central control weakened. It is possible that the interregnal nature of Udayapura’s
settings encouraged such political innovations.
5. Conclusions
The events at Udayeshwara change our understanding of the monolithic nature of
change and historians’ characterisation of ‘interregnum’ centuries as unstable or chaotic.
Interregnum centuries are unique because they provide insights into the interactions
between pre-existing and emerging historical elements. The persistence of pre-existing
socio-political, cultural, and religious networks in the face of a markedly visible and shifting
political paradigm suggests that any sort of direct correspondence between the two belies
the complex historical reality of these centuries. The fact that there were different versions
of the Sultanate iconoclastic program, and not one established or predictable programme of
desecration, indicates the exploratory character of socio-political activities in interregnum
centuries. This is in no way to suggest that non-interregnum centuries have a set pattern
which remains static or uniform but that the decentralisation of power and resources brings
more agency to historical actors on the ground. It is also to argue that the long-drawn
and continuing process of socio-political exploration, the ultimate shaping and establishment of political choices, and their eventual contribution to state formation is difficult to
recover from hegemonic and regime-centred historical sources. The 8th–12th centuries,
the 14th–15th centuries, and the 18th century provide novel opportunities to observe and
study these political alternations and innovations.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
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