Professor Mohit Manohar, “The Case of the Buried Temple at Solapur”
Department of Art History Colloquium
October 11, 2024
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM America/Chicago
In 1919–20, the archaeologist Rakhaldas Banerji excavated a surprisingly well-preserved temple from underneath a rampart at the Solapur Fort in Maharashtra, India. There are very few known instances of temple burial in South Asia. The political history of Solapur suggests that prior to the temple’s burial, some columns from it were used to make a nearby mosque, and more unusually, some more columns were taken from it and installed at another temple in Solapur town. After these series of events, the entire temple was carefully buried underneath a wall, likely during the reign of the Adil Shahi sultans of Bijapur (1490–1686). Why was a medieval temple so carefully buried by a Muslim king? Was it because of an ostensible enmity between “Hindu” and “Muslim” communities? Or was the reason something else? In the talk, I analyze the case of the buried temple by moving away from the limiting narratives of the “temple-mosque” debate. I hope to show that the case of the temple burial at Solapur is more unusual and surprising than what first meets the eye.
Mohit Manohar is an assistant professor of South Asian art history at the University of Chicago. He is primarily an architectural historian, focusing on buildings of the medieval Deccan. His articles and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Muqarnas, Archives of Asian Art, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and South Asian Studies. He is currently at work on his first book, Refracted Cities: Delhi and Daulatabad in Late Medieval India, which examines the connected architectural and urban history of medieval Delhi and Daulatabad.
Date posted
Sep 11, 2024
Date updated
Sep 22, 2024