World's largest single-structure temple:Vrndavan's Govinda Mandir

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An Architectural Wonder

Govindadeva temple of Vrindavan: Largest single- structure temple

ever built

 

By Dr Kailash Kumar Mishra

 

The red sandstone temple of Govindadeva, constructed in the sixteenth

century by Mansimha and standing on a hill in the midst of Vrindavan,

is the largest single-structure temple ever built. A visitor gets

impressed with the strength of its massive exterior and the flying,

vaulted spaces of its interior.

 

It has three aligned spaces: garbhagriha (the new sanctum sanctorum),

jagamohana (platform) and mandapa (hall), but in no case have all the

three sections survived destruction.

 

The site of Govindadeva is a mound on which an image of Yogamaya had

been found. Here Rupa Goswami discovered the image of Govindadeva,

and shortly afterwards, a simple temple was built to house it. The

mound itself has been visualised as the site of vraja yogapitha—the

meeting place of Radha and Krishna, and the pericarp of the lotus

mapped onto the land of Vraja has also been conceived as a turtle's

back. The main building faces east, its length running from east to

west. There is a small, basically square, shrine on either side,

surrounding the garbhagriha and dedicated to Vrinda Devi, and the

southern one to Yogamaya. A wall along the northern side surrounds

the spacious and very comfortable priests' quarters, toilets, and a

well. In the north-west corner stood the original temple built for

Govindadeva.

 

On the south side of Govindadeva temple stood two chhatris

(pavilions) and a kund (tank); there was plenty of space for gardens

all around.

 

The temple was an enormous enterprise that took some 14 years for

completion. There is an inscription on the north side of the temple

that tells the names of some of the most important people involved in

the construction.

 

It was built according to the Mughal system of masonry construction.

The load-bearing piers and walls were built of sandstone slabs that

penetrated into or even all the way through the pier or wall,

alternating with carefully packed rubble and mortar, faced with

sandstone blocks. The pattern of these layers forms the external

string courses that create the chief decorative motif of this great

temple.

 

Its plan, which consists of the main temple and the two subsidiary

shrines of Vrindadevi and Yogamaya, reflects the need for a new type

of ritual space, particularly for the newly adopted Rasalila

performances. As in other temples of the Vrindavan group, there are

three distinct sections to the main shrine. The most striking is the

large hall laid out in the form of a sarvatobhadra, or Greek cross,

about 35½ metres long and 8 metres wide, with a transverse arm of

nearly the same dimensions. The garbhagriha was probably octagonal in

plan.

 

The great hall was defined by eight massive piers, and the space

between the piers was held in filled, non-load-bearing walls.

 

The temple stands on a plinth about five feet (1.5 metres) high. Its

various courses of sandstone are accentuated by distinctions between

each level of stone, as to how far it projects from the building

face, and the way its edge is moulded. The horizontal striations thus

created, each of which is maintained for the whole circumference of

the exterior, form virtually the only embellishment of the exterior

elevation. The jagamohana has a balcony with a window facing light

from outside.

 

When F.S. Growse, the Joint Magistrate of Mathura (1872-1878),

undertook major repairs of Govindadeva with the help of skilled

craftsmen, he did his work without either research or documentation.

As a result, in many cases it is impossible to tell what is original

and what was `growsed'. Besides completely repairing the roof and

removing the wall, he reconstructed the external doorways of the

jagamohana and the side shrines, and built plain stairways up to

them. In addition, he `rebuilt' a portion of the destroyed

garbhagriha with a plain masonry wall and moved a chhatri (built

during Shah Jahan's rule) from the adjoining garden to the sacred

space of the original garbhagriha.

 

The chronological signifi-cance of this temple is attested by the

fact that the legendary Mirabai visited Vrindavan in 1538-1539,

before proceeding on a pilgrimage to Dwaraka. She is recorded to have

seen Govindadeva, and has mentioned him as the three most important

deities of Vrindavan, the other two being Sri Madanmohan and Sri

Banke Bihari. Her reference:

 

"O body! I am fascinated by

Vrindavan

Where, in every house, tulsi is

planted

and Thakurji (Krishna) is worshipped,

and regular darshan of Sri Govindadeva is available."

Krishnadasa Kaviraja, a seventeenth-century Vaishnava poet, describes

the architectural beauty and devotional significance of this temple

in his following shloka:

 

"On the beautiful banks of the Yamuna, on a raised mount with slopes

on all four sides, like a turtleback, stands the temple of Govinda.

On that meeting place of Radha and Krishna, the yogapitha, stands the

beautiful stone temple like a pericarp, surrounded by groves of trees

like petals and rows of golden plantain-like pistles. On the

beautiful banks of the Yamuna is the thousand-petalled lotus, the

Vrindavan."

 

The chronological significance of this temple is attested by the fact

that the legendary Mirabai visited Vrindavan in 1538-1539, before

proceeding on a pilgrimage to Dwaraka

 

Govindadeva temple of Vrindavan: Largest single- structure temple

ever built

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