Author: Dr Kailash Kumar Mishra
Publication: Organiser
Date: March 28, 2004
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=16&page=13
The red sandstone temple of Govindadeva,
constructed in the sixteenth century by Mansimha and standing on a hill
in the midst of Vrindavan, is the largest single-structure temple ever
built. A visitor gets impressed with the strength of its massive exterior
and the flying, vaulted spaces of its interior.
It has three aligned spaces: garbhagriha
(the new sanctum sanctorum), jagamohana (platform) and mandapa (hall),
but in no case have all the three sections survived destruction.
The site of Govindadeva is a mound
on which an image of Yogamaya had been found. Here Rupa Goswami discovered
the image of Govindadeva, and shortly afterwards, a simple temple was built
to house it. The mound itself has been visualised as the site of vraja
yogapitha-the meeting place of Radha and Krishna, and the pericarp of the
lotus mapped onto the land of Vraja has also been conceived as a turtle's
back. The main building faces east, its length running from east to west.
There is a small, basically square, shrine on either side, surrounding
the garbhagriha and dedicated to Vrinda Devi, and the southern one to Yogamaya.
A wall along the northern side surrounds the spacious and very comfortable
priests' quarters, toilets, and a well. In the north-west corner stood
the original temple built for Govindadeva.
On the south side of Govindadeva
temple stood two chhatris (pavilions) and a kund (tank); there was plenty
of space for gardens all around.
The temple was an enormous enterprise
that took some 14 years for completion. There is an inscription on the
north side of the temple that tells the names of some of the most important
people involved in the construction.
It was built according to the Mughal
system of masonry construction. The load-bearing piers and walls were built
of sandstone slabs that penetrated into or even all the way through the
pier or wall, alternating with carefully packed rubble and mortar, faced
with sandstone blocks. The pattern of these layers forms the external string
courses that create the chief decorative motif of this great temple.
Its plan, which consists of the
main temple and the two subsidiary shrines of Vrindadevi and Yogamaya,
reflects the need for a new type of ritual space, particularly for the
newly adopted Rasalila performances. As in other temples of the Vrindavan
group, there are three distinct sections to the main shrine. The most striking
is the large hall laid out in the form of a sarvatobhadra, or Greek cross,
about 35½ metres long and 8 metres wide, with a transverse arm of
nearly the same dimensions. The garbhagriha was probably octagonal in plan.
The great hall was defined by eight
massive piers, and the space between the piers was held in filled, non-load-
bearing walls.
The temple stands on a plinth about
five feet (1.5 metres) high. Its various courses of sandstone are accentuated
by distinctions between each level of stone, as to how far it projects
from the building face, and the way its edge is moulded. The horizontal
striations thus created, each of which is maintained for the whole circumference
of the exterior, form virtually the only embellishment of the exterior
elevation. The jagamohana has a balcony with a window facing light from
outside.
When F.S. Growse, the Joint Magistrate
of Mathura (1872-1878), undertook major repairs of Govindadeva with the
help of skilled craftsmen, he did his work without either research or documentation.
As a result, in many cases it is impossible to tell what is original and
what was 'growsed'. Besides completely repairing the roof and removing
the wall, he reconstructed the external doorways of the jagamohana and
the side shrines, and built plain stairways up to them. In addition, he
'rebuilt' a portion of the destroyed garbhagriha with a plain masonry wall
and moved a chhatri (built during Shah Jahan's rule) from the adjoining
garden to the sacred space of the original garbhagriha.
The chronological signifi-cance
of this temple is attested by the fact that the legendary Mirabai visited
Vrindavan in 1538-1539, before proceeding on a pilgrimage to Dwaraka. She
is recorded to have seen Govindadeva, and has mentioned him as the three
most important deities of Vrindavan, the other two being Sri Madanmohan
and Sri Banke Bihari. Her reference:
"O body! I am fascinated by
Vrindavan
Where, in every house, tulsi is
planted
and Thakurji (Krishna) is worshipped,
and regular darshan of Sri Govindadeva
is available."
Krishnadasa Kaviraja, a seventeenth-century
Vaishnava poet, describes the architectural beauty and devotional significance
of this temple in his following shloka:
"On the beautiful banks of the Yamuna,
on a raised mount with slopes on all four sides, like a turtleback, stands
the temple of Govinda. On that meeting place of Radha and Krishna, the
yogapitha, stands the beautiful stone temple like a pericarp, surrounded
by groves of trees like petals and rows of golden plantain-like pistles.
On the beautiful banks of the Yamuna is the thousand-petalled lotus, the
Vrindavan."
The chronological significance of
this temple is attested by the fact that the legendary Mirabai visited
Vrindavan in 1538-1539, before proceeding on a pilgrimage to Dwaraka
Govindadeva temple of Vrindavan:
Largest single- structure temple ever built
