Ancient bangladesh:Kantaji Temple

Kantaji Temple

Kantaji Temple, also known as the Kantanagar Temple, is located in the graceful heart of gorgeous countryside of Dinajpur. This is a stunning block of religious artwork, and is surely one of the most impressive Hindu monuments in Bangladesh.

The 52´-0´´ square ancient hindu temple stands in the center of an oblong court (240´×120´) enclosed by a pilgrim shed with a corrugated tin roof. Its main fabric pivots around a nuclear square cell (10´-3´´), shooting up to a height of about 50´ above its 3´-3´´ high plinth of stone, believed to have been quarried from the ancientDinajpur. Three other square outer shells in graded heights have been added to it, as much to variegate the plan as to strengthen the central cella which carry atop a massive tower. The other eight ornamental towers, now missing, occupied the eight roof corners of the lower two stories. The curved cornice of the ground floor, sharply drooping at the corners, rise in the middle to a height of 25´-0´´ from the plinth, while that of the first floor rises to 15´ and that of the second floor to 6´-6´´. There are small square cells at each of the four corners of the ground and first floors for supporting the heavy load of the ornate octagonal corner towers above. The temple accommodates four rectangular corridors on the ground floor around the prayer chamber measuring 30´-8´´×5´-0´´ and 15´-6´´×4´-4´´. On the ground floor, there are three multi- cusped arched entrances on each side, each separated by two richly decorated brick pillars. The number of arched doorways in the ground floor disposed in its four shells is 21; that of the first floor is 27. The reduced second floor has only three entrance doors and three windows. A narrow strip of staircase, merely 2´-3´´ wide, built into the western second corridor, winds up through its dark passage to the first, second, and third storiesit is the country’s finest example of brick and terracotta style. Its most remarkable feature, typical of late Mughal-era temples, is its superb surface decoration, with infinite panels of sculpted ruins of Bannagar near Gangarampur in terracotta plaques.

At the beginning it was 70 ft high but after reconstruction without spiresit's now 50 ft high. It's a square shape temple standing over a rectangular stone base of high 3 ft, length 240 ft and wide 120 ft

This 15-sq-meter, three-story edifice was originally crowned with nine ornamental two-story towers, which collapsed during the great earthquake of 1897 and were never replaced. The temple is built on a high platform. This is a Nava-ratna temple. The roof of the ground floor and first floor each contains four sikharas or ratnas at their corners while the roof of second floor in its middle contains the ruins of the central sikhara.

The entire outer surface of the temple is exquisitely established with terracotta plaques which depict flora and fauna, geometric motifs, mythological scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the contemporary social scenes and favorite pastime. The idol of Kantaji is kept in the garvagriha of the temple in its ground floor.

A small derelict single spired temple, now overgrown with rank vegetation, stands about one hundred yards north of the main temple beyond the pilgrim shed, which is believed to have been erected by Maharajah Prannath in 1704 where he initially installed the Krishna icon, brought from Brindaban. The icon was later transferred to the ‘nava ratna’ temple when completed. It is now an abandoned shrine. It is a 16-sided temple rising to a height of about 40´ and provided with a multi-cusped arched entrance on the south.
Terracotta Decoration Every available inch of its wall surface from the base to the crest of its three stories, both inside and out, pulsates with an amazing profusion of figured and floral art in unbroken succession. The vast array of subject matter include the stories of the Mahabharata (Mahabharata) and the ramayana (Ramayana), the exploits of Krishna, and a series of extremely fascinating contemporary social scenes depicting the favorite pastimes of the landed aristocracy.

The astonishing profusion, delicacy of modeling, and the beauty of its carefully integrated friezes have seldom been surpassed by any mural art of its kind in Bengal. However, even in its bewildering abundance of diverse motifs, one can observe a carefully arranged thematic scheme in the composition of subject matters at different levels and spaces on the temple wall.

The department of Archaeology has been performing the necessary conservation and restoration works of Kantaji Temple since it was declared a protected monument by the Government in 1960

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