According to Gaudiya Vaishnava literature,

Chaitanya picked six disciples who came to be called the

Goswamis and established them at Vrindavan over the
course of the sixteenth century.

At his behest, the six Goswamis,

who were the second generation of Gaudiya Vaishnava

leaders,

compiled the body of theological texts that had come to

define their religious tradition.

In the wake of Chaitanya’s demise and the waning

popularity of the Gaudiya Vaishnava movement,

the Goswamis chose Srinivasa Acharya, slated to become

the next Gaudiya Vaishnava leader,

to redeploy their energies in Bengal.

He was provided a cartload of manuscripts inscribed with

the essential principles of the tradition to help him
accomplish this task.

While travelling through Bishnupur,

Srinivas lost these precious manuscripts placed under his

charge.
On tracing them to the local chief, Bir Hambir of the
Malla dynasty,

he visited Bishnupur and electrified the court by astutely

narrating and elucidating on episodes from Krishna’s life.

The raja was so deeply moved by Srinivas’s passion for

Krishna that he fell at his feet and confessed to having
arranged the theft of the manuscripts, mistaking them for
worldly treasures.

In a bid to make amends, Bir Hambir entreated Srinivasa

and his fellow devotees to stay on and granted them the
land and resources to create a sacred centre for
Vaishnava devotion in the region.

This narrative, recovered from various Gaudiya

Vaishnava texts, draws attention to Bishnupur’s political
patronage of the Gaudiya Vaishnava faith, which helped
the order flourish in this region and establish a seat of
culture and religion based on the Vaishnava tradition.
This alliance with the political authorities of Bishnupur
meant that Gaudiya Vaishnavism would have a powerful
influence on the distinctive styles of art, craftsmanship,
and temple artistry that were on the verge of surfacing in
the region.
Structure and Design

Similar to the contouring of Vrindavan that had been

carried out in the sixteenth century by Chaitanya and the
Gaudiya Vaishnava devotees, temples burgeoned in
Bishnupur, constructed to establish the ritual worship of
images. The deities installed in these temples were named
after the icons worshipped and enshrined previously at
Vrindavan, notable examples being Madan Mohan,
Shyam Raya, Radha Raman, Keshto Raya, Madan Gopal,
Murali Mohan, Gopinath, and so forth. The narratives
surrounding their miraculous discovery and revelation are
also comparable to those of Vrindavan.

These temples were conspicuously distinct from the

Vrindavan temples—they were constructed on a new
ratna style, reoriented to face south, departing from the
nāgara custom of north India and the rekha style of facing
east in the direction of the rising sun (Ghosh 2005). They
had two storeys instead of one, with an additional shrine
stacked over the conventional sanctum on the lower level.
The shrine in the upper pavilion was reserved for special
occasions such as festivals, leaving the lower sanctum
available for daily worship. Novel also was the
presentation of the dual axes of worship—these temples
were provided with dual altars within the lower level
sanctum itself. One altar was constructed on the
traditional east-facing style of Hindu temples, and this
deity would be ministered to by the priests of the temple.
The other altar, which eventually came to hold greater
importance, faced south towards the courtyard and
nātmandir (entertainment hall), where devotees would
gather to sing praises to Krishna and his heroics, and
often spontaneously rise in dance during the ārati. This
new temple form served the various ritual needs of the
emerging Gaudiya Vaishnava community in Bengal.

Fig.3: Radha Shyaam temple. (Image by Amitabha

Gupta-  https://amitabhagupta.files.wordpress.com/2012/
08/picture101.jpg )
Fig.4: Nandalal temple

The temples and monuments of Vrindavan drew heavily

from the imperial Mughal style of the late sixteenth
century. The architectural style of the Bishnupur temples,
however, derived from the tradition that had developed
under the sultanates that had ruled Bengal for the
previous four centuries—interior vaulting, pointed arches
with cusps, sturdy pillars with many facets, curved
cornices, and terracotta decoration (McCutchion 1972).
The continuities in the design style between these
temples and the Islamic architecture of Qadam Rasul, a
shrine constructed in 1519 in dedication to the footprints
of the Prophet at Gaur, is articulated through certain
shared features like the cubical base of the sanctum in
temples such as the Madan Mohan temple (1694) (Fig.1),
Shyam Raya temple (1643) (Fig.2), Radha Shyam temple
(1658) (Fig.3), Nandalal temple (seventeenth century)
(Fig.4), Radha Madhav temple (1747) (Fig.5), and so
forth. Certain adaptations were introduced to tailor the
structure to the needs of worship, such as the low
structure with three cusped arches supported by thick
faceted pillars at the entrance, rows of thin terracotta
surface ornamentation, and the basic plan of a central
chamber enclosed by shallow doorways.

Fig.5: Radha Madhav temple. (Image by Arnab

Dutta-  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_temples_in_
Bishnupur#/media/File:Radhamadhab_Temple_Arnab_D
utta_2011.JPG )

Fig.6: Rasmancha

The temples also draw inspiration from the sloping

thatched huts of the region; the curved cornices of these
temples, a characteristic feature of this design, are
derived from the bent bamboo eaves of cottages in the
Bengali countryside. This feature occurs in combination
with a number of basic designs. There is the char-chala
design that consists of a four-sided roof coming to a point
on a square base. A similar but smaller roof may be
constructed on top of the char-chala like a tower to make
an at-chala. There is the do-chala or ek-bangla design,
which features a two-sided humped roof evocative of the
curved cornice on an elongated base. The Rasamancha in
Bishnupur is the earliest known temple in existence built
in the ‘bangla’ do-chala style (Fig.6). When two such do-
chala huts are attached one in front of the other, where
the front acts as a porch and the rear as a shrine, the
design is called jorbangla, as can be observed in the
similarly named Jor Bangla or Keshto Raya temple
(1655) (Fig.7). In the pancha ratna design, the roof is
flatter than in the do-chala or char-chala, and has a tower
in the centre which may be accompanied by four smaller
turrets at the four corners. The number of storeys may be
multiplied with the number of turrets in each corner from
one (ek-ratna) to 25 (panchabingshati-ratna)
(McCutchion 1972).
Fig. 7: Jor Bangla or Keshto Raya temple

Terracotta Decorations

Along with the innovations in form and structure, an

exceptional feature of this kind of temple architecture is
the use of terracotta facades. The temple walls are
covered with terracotta panels recounting the life and
exploits of Krishna, scenes from the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata, and stories from the Vishnupurana (Fig.8).
According to David McCutchion, the Bengal temple
terracotta art that developed from the sixteenth to the
nineteenth centuries, a development on the previous
sultanate architecture of the region, forms a self-
contained art tradition that is distinct from both the
preceding styles and the succeeding ones.  McCutchion
says that even though terracotta decoration was in itself
not a new practice, the finely chiseled carpet-like
patterning of the terracotta facades of the Bishnupur
temples was vastly different from the style of terracotta
carving found in Buddhist monuments that used boldly
carved and modeled laterite bricks. Terracotta itself
ceased to be popular in the temple-building traditions of
the later Pala and Sena periods: their broad brickwork
acted as bases for stucco decoration alone.
Fig. 8: Panels with different carvings, Jor Bangla or
Keshto Raya

Fig. 9: Krishna with Gopis

Even though scenes from Krishna’s life were most

commonly sculpted on the terracotta plaques, there are
also depictions of scenes from other Vaishnava texts and
the larger body of the Vishnupurana, as well as legends
of other gods and goddesses. The terracotta work on the
Shyam Raya temple (1643), one of the oldest terracotta
temples in Bishnupur, is a fine example of this. This
temple has been constructed in the pancha-ratna style and
is the most richly decorated of all the terracotta temples
to be found in the region—every inch of the temple from
the interiors to the archway and from the vaulting inside
to the towers on the roof are sheathed with fine terracotta
work. There are innumerable small plaques embellished
with images based on themes such as Krishna embracing
Radha or playing his flute to her, Krishna’s battle with
Indra for the parijat tree, and Krishna between two gopis
under an elaborate canopy (Fig.9). These images are
bordered by a profusion of small rhythmic figures and
floral and vegetal motifs. Above the archways are
panoramic battle scenes depicting gods, demons,
warriors, and heroes. Scenes from Puranic legends, the
Ramayana, and Krishnalila adorn the rows below, and the
plaques at the very bottom depict more contemporary
scenes of the raja going to battle or proceeding in his
palanquin.
Fig. 10: Bhishma on a bed of arrows

The terracotta on the nearby Keshto Raya temple, also

famously known as the Jor Bangla temple, built only 12
years after the Shyam Raya temple and with the
patronage of the same raja, is just as lavish as its
predecessor. The subject matter is also largely similar,
but the layout is more intrepid and systematic. The
different rows of illustrations depict a single, linear
narrative each, with entire rows being taken up by
chronological depictions of Krishna’s life from the
nursing of Krishna and Balaram to Krishna and Balaram
fighting the King’s wrestlers in Mathura, warriors
confronting each other on chariots in the battle of
Kurukshetra highlighting evocative scenes like Bhishma
lying on a bed of arrows (Fig.10), scenes from the
Ramlila, and so forth.

The stories surrounding Krishna’a life and the legends

regarding his miraculous deeds were integral to the way
the Gaudiya Vaishnava movement unfolded and
proliferated in Bengal during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The artistry displayed in the
terracotta temples is an indication that alongside
devotional songs and dramatic performances, a visual
vocabulary for communicating the episodes of Krishna’s
life also emerged. Manuscript copies of the Bhagavata
Purana, a text regarded as a revelation in the Vaishnava
tradition, were lavishly adorned with images depicting
these episodes, bringing to light the earliest efforts at
establishing pictorial conventions. These depictions
similarly came to adorn the brick surfaces of Krishna
temples in sixteenth and seventeenth century Bishnupur
—a visual narrative of the life story of the deity housed
in the temple (Ghosh 2005).

The temple imagery, by showing Krishna’s miraculous

feats, his dramatic and violent confrontations, and his
amorous encounters, created compelling visual sequences
meant for a largely illiterate audience. It may be
conjectured that the terracotta panels acted as visual aids
accompanying the narration of a priest or community
elder. The practice still exists whereby adults and guides
recount epic and Puranic tales to children and visitors,
using the panels to bring alive the scenes for the
listener’s imagination. Together with devotional music
and drama, the terracotta panels can be seen as part of a
collective artistic tradition that helped reinforce Gaudiya
Vaishnava narratives and the theological messages
embedded in them by evoking complete sensory
participation in the form of sight, sound, action, and
perhaps even smell and taste in the form of flowers and
offerings. The profusion of these images and their
selective deployment in the overall spread of the Gaudiya
Vaishnava faith reveal both an attempt to define the texts
and practices of the faith, as well as to put Bishnupur on
the map as an emerging centre for pilgrimage and
devotion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The exact period of Gwalior Fort's construction is not certain but according to some old records
we get to know that Gwalior fort was initially known as Badal garh fort which was built by
a Sakarwar Rajput king name as Maharaja Badal Dev.[5] According to a local legend, the fort was
built by a local king named Suraj Sen (Sakarwar Rajput) in 3 CE. He was cured of leprosy, when
a sage named Gwalipa offered him the water from a sacred pond, which now lies within the fort.
The grateful king constructed a fort, and named it after the sage. The sage bestowed the title Pal
("protector") upon the king, and told him that the fort would remain in his family's possession, as
long as they bear this title. 83 descendants of Suraj Sen Pal controlled the fort, but the 84th,
named Tej Karan, lost it.