By Ines Keane
Bengal has plenty of mud and very little rock. Bishnupur’s builders worked with that. Their temples are brick and laterite, covered with fired clay, and the clay is carved like a picture book.
Where it is
Bishnupur is a city and municipality in Bankura district, West Bengal, according to Wikipedia. Curly Tales, a travel-news site, calls it the former capital of the Malla kings and puts it about 138 km from Kolkata.
The temples
UNESCO’s Tentative List entry says the Temples at Bishnupur comprise a large number of 17th-century Hindu temples, crafted from local laterite and brick. It says they are mostly of the eka-ratna type, with a single tower on a sloping roof, and that a few have several towers. It names the Shyam Rai temple of 1643 as a five-tower pancha ratna temple. It gives 1655 for the Jor Bangla temple, which it calls distinctive for two hut-roofed structures joined by a four-roofed tower at the top. Curly Tales says tales from Krishna’s life are carved into the walls.
The Archaeological Survey of India submitted the temples to UNESCO, and the National Monuments Authority lists the Bishnupur group among the survey’s protected monuments.
One temple, closely
Outlook Traveller, a travel magazine, describes the Shyam Rai temple in detail. It lists carved scenes of the Ram and Ravana story, glimpses of Krishna’s life and a hunting scene. It says the walls are clay bricks coated in burnt-clay tiles, and that terracotta in Bengal was a craft that peaked in the seventeenth century.
The sources do not match on why clay was used. Outlook Traveller says Bengal lacked stone. UNESCO says the temples were crafted from local laterite and brick. Our reading: both can be partly right, since laterite is a stone but a crumbly one, and no source says why the carved faces were done in clay instead.
Not on the World Heritage List
UNESCO’s page shows the temples on India’s Tentative List, submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India on 3 July 1998. A tentative listing is a country’s intention to nominate a site. We found no source saying they have since been inscribed. Some web pages give 1997 for the tentative listing; UNESCO’s own page gives 1998.
Dates in order
- 1643: Shyam Rai temple, according to UNESCO.
- 1655: Jor Bangla temple, according to UNESCO.
- 3 July 1998: temples submitted to UNESCO’s Tentative List, according to UNESCO.
What kind of sources these are
UNESCO’s Tentative List page and the National Monuments Authority list for the status and dates; Outlook Traveller for the Shyam Rai carvings; Curly Tales for the distance and the Krishna carvings; Wikipedia for the town’s location. Opening hours, entry rules and transport are not covered here.
Quick answers
Why are the Bishnupur temples red? According to UNESCO, they are built of brick and laterite and covered with terracotta tiles. Outlook Traveller says the Shyam Rai temple is clay brick coated in burnt-clay tiles.
Are the temples a World Heritage site? Not so far as we could confirm. UNESCO lists them on India’s Tentative List, submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India on 3 July 1998.
What is the Shyam Rai temple? UNESCO describes it as a five-tower pancha ratna temple of 1643.
Related on this site: kashmir-saffron-pampore-grades-harvest, sanganeri-block-print-sanganer-jaipur, nagpur-orange-gi-ambia-mrig-bahar
Roam first. Shop later.