The 13th century Kartikeswar Temple is located on the corner of Giani Zail Singh Road and Moharana Lane, approximately 120m east of the main entrance to Lingaraj Temple in old Bhubaneswar.
As you can see from the first photo in this blog, this is yet another temple that has been partially swallowed up by the rising ground level over the last 800 years, but all that might be about to change.
On my visit in February 2020 work was going on at a pace to renovate the temple, with the monuments clad in scaffolding and freshly cut sandstone blocks on site ready to be shaped and inserted into the fabric of the structures.
So I was only able to observe the temple from the side of the road. It has some nicely preserved carvings on the exterior but sadly I was only able to see about 10% of what exists here.
I can only assume Kartikeswar Temple is part of the Ekamra Ksetra Redevelopment Plan, a project that has successfully freed up from encroachment the Ekamreswar Temple just 100m west from here.
My hope is that once they have stabalised the structure that is above ground, efforts are made to start excavating down to reveal the full elevation of the structures. I’m sure some new discoveries will be made as a result of removing the ~2m of soil that has accumulated over the years. I’m more than happy to help in the excavation process if the authorities are interested 🙂
If anyone visits Kartikeswar Temple in future years I’d be really interested to see the results this renovation and conservation effort.
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Categories: Bhubaneswar, India, Kartikeswar Temple, Odisha
Kevin Standage 