Mari Indus Temples I Fort of Jewels I Mountain of Kalabagh Diamonds I Salt Trails Along Indus River

#kalabagh #riverindus #saltrange
Mari Indus Temples I Fort of Jewels I Mountain of Kalabagh Diamonds I Salt Trails Along Indus River

Special Thanks: Syed Tariq Masood Kazmi, Author & Researcher
Munshi Muhammad Ramzan Ansari, Historian, Author
Syed Tayyab Hussain Naqvi
Music: Binu Kumar, Kerala, India
‪@SoundSFX‬ (Under License)

Mari Indus temples sit above the village of Mari, some 40 km north of Mianwali and overlook to the west, on the far bank of the Indus, the picturesque riverside town of Kukranwali.
The Mianwali district gazetteer of 1915 noted it was known as Maniot, corrupted from Manikot, signifying ‘Fort of Jewels’. This, the gazetteer recorded, was because the ‘Kalabagh diamonds’ were found here. Whatever these diamonds were, no one could tell.

The larger of the two temples was leaning about 15 degrees out of its true axis and it was a miracle it was still standing. In fact, even the author of the gazetteer had noted its ‘almost tottering’ state.

It is possible that even if diamond hunters were not to undermine the building, Nature certainly would do the deed but the building is still there since centuries testifies to the building skill of ancient engineers and stone masons.

Closer examination of the site shows that the surviving temples that face the rising sun did not stand alone. They were a part of a complex of several similar buildings. The remains of at least two can be seen immediately below the leaning building, and another to the north. The hill being clayey and porous and susceptible to erosion, it appears that these buildings simply subsided with the ground giving way beneath them.

On the crest of the hill is another similar temple, set on a high stone plinth. It faces west and is in an advanced stage of decay. It has lost its shikhara [steeple], whose debris lies all around the building. Its entrance, choked with thorny mesquite, is impossible to get through. The hilltop around the temples is liberally strewn with pottery shards, evidence that it was inhabited for a considerable period.

In a line across the hill region of Sindh Sagar Doab, between the rivers Jhelum and the Indus, there stretches a string of ancient temples, dating to the time of the Hindu Shahya (8th -11th century CE) rulers of Kashmir. All of these temples date to the latter Hindu Shahi dynasty.

Beyond the Indus, there are two more sites of the same period. One, not very far west of Maniot, had two almost ruined structures. The other, Bilot, in Dera Ismail Khan district is the most magnificent, with eight beautifully ornate structures enclosed in a massive defensive wall.
In all, beginning with Nandna overlooking the Jhelum floodplain, there are remains at Katas, but brutally vandalized by ‘conservators’ who knew nothing of what they were doing. Then there is nearby Malot with its stark Greek influence and Sassi da Kallara near Talagang. The latter is unique among the other stone edifices, for being a baked-brick structure. And there are the two at Amb village, one of which — at nearly 40m in height — is the tallest among these structures. Together with Maniot and the sites mentioned on the far side of the Indus, they make seven temple complexes.

The singular characteristic of all these temples is the rather busy ornamentation on their exteriors. It is as if the stone became putty in the hands of the masons.
The writer of the gazetteer says that local Hindus revered these temples as the Samadhi (where Hindu and Sikh ashes are deposited after cremation) of a fakir known either as Naga Arjun or Naga Uddhar. Ancient coins are also said to have been found on the hill, but the writer does not mention if he had them deciphered.

There seems to have been no scientific investigation at Maniot, but it should be safe to say that this complex was built in about the latter part of the ninth century. That was a hundred years before the Turks began their periodic plundering raids, when this site might have fallen into disuse for some time.

The only change that came over these temples was that, instead of the worship of Shiva and Vishnu, they became sacred to a local fakir who might have lived several hundred years after their walls first resonated to the sounds of recited scripture.

But then 75 years is a long time, time enough for three generations who have never seen a Hindu in Mari to forget what once was. Today, locals only refer to the ancient worship site as ‘place of the kafirs’.


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