The Temple of Siva (Shiva) at Bhumara

The Village of Bhumra, also known as Bhumara or Bhubhara, is situated on the top of plateau, twelve miles to the west of Unchehra, a town in the State of Nagod, where the Chief of the State resides at present. The place was visited by Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1873-74, when he discovered the celebrated stupa of Bharhut, and, at that time, an inscribed boundary pillar was discovered by him. This inscription was edited by the late Dr. J. F. Fleet fourteen years later. At the time of his visit, Sir Alexander Cunningham evidently missed the fine temple of the Gupta period which was discovered by Messrs. J. P. Joglekar, Head Photographer, and Mr. N. A. Wartekar, Head Draftsman of the Archaeological Survey, Western Circle, in January 1920. These two gentlemen were sent ahead to find out what remains still existed on the plateau, on which the inscribed pillar had been discovered by Cunningham; and they reported the existence of this temple, in the heart of the jungle, close to the village of Bhumara. Many other places on the plateau also contained ruins but all of them had collapsed; except a triple-shrined temple at Deoguna, in the Jasso State, a village on the same tableland, close to Bhumara. Information was received from Munshi Hanuman Prasad, then Dewan of the Nagod State, about the existence of ancient monuments at Maharajpur and Kutrah on the same plateau : but both of these places proved failures so far as standing structures of an ancient date are concerned. At Maharajpur, the present Chief of Nagod has built a rest house for himself, and , if there was any temple at this place, the runs of it may have been utilised when this rest house was built. There is no doubt about the fact that there was a temple at Kutrahi, on the same plateau, the ruins of which can still be seen. The only temples within easy reach of Bhumara on this plateau are those at Bhumara itself and at Deoguna. The aboriginal inhabitants of the locality state that on the northern slope of the plateau there are a large number of temples, which they call Madphas. But as this term is indiscriminately applied both to modern as well as ancient structures, no reliance could be placed on their statements and the jungle on the northern slopes of the Bhumara plateau was not explored.

The boundary pillar discovered by Cunningham lies close to the village of Bhumara, which is a small hamlet consisting of about a dozen thatched huts. This pillar is still called the Thari pathar or "the upright stone". It is a boundary mark between the territories of Maharaja Hastin and the Maharaja Sarvvanatha. The latest know date of Maharaja Hastin is the year 191 of the Gupta era and corresponds to 510 A.D. The earliest known date of Sarvvanatha is the year 193 of an unspecified era, which according to the late Dr. Kielhorn is the Kalachuri-Chedi era which began in 248 A.D. According to this method of calculation, this date would correspond to 441 A.D., and the difference in the dates of these two princes, mentioned in the same inscription would become more than seventy years. It seems more probable therefore that both dates are expressed in Gupta years. According to the Indian Antiquary Vol. XIX, p. 228, the late Dr. Kielhorn calculated that the Mahamagha Samvatsara, which is the date used in the inscription on this pillar, commenced in the year 165 of the Gupta era=484 A.D. Whatever be the correct equivalent of the cyclic year used in this inscription, there is no doubt about the fact that the Parivrajaka Maharaja Hastin and Maharaja Sarvvanatha of Uchchakalpa were contemporaries.