The small town of Bishnupur, 120km north-west of Kolkata in West Bengal, contains a dazzling collection of temples with some of the most distinctive and unusual designs in the country. Most of the temples were constructed in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Malla dynasty ruled this part of Bengal.
Built by king Raghunath Singha in 1656 CE and situated on the south bank of Lal Bandh, the Kalachand temple is considered the earliest Eka-Ratna temple to be found in Bishnupur. The temple is square in plan, raised on a low platform with three arched openings on all four sides allowing access to a circumambulatory corridor surrounding the main shrine (now empty). The curved Bengali Chala roof (mimicking the thatched hut style of architecture) is topped by a single Shikara, raising the temple to a height to just over 9m.
The temple is decorated with low-relief carvings chiseled into the laterite stone, featuring scenes from Krishna Leela, Ramayana, and other representations of Puranic deities. These images would once have been covered with stucco, and except for a handful of images where the plaster still clings on, most of that stucco has now weathered away.
There are ten Eka-Ratna temples built in laterite stone in Bishnupur. According to their time of construction they are; Kalachand Temple (1656), Lalji Temple (1658), Patpur Temple (1658), Nandalal Temple (Not Known), three temples in Jor Mandir Complex (1726), Radha Govinda Temple (1729), Radha Madhab Temple (1737) and Radha Shyam Temple (1759).
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Categories: Bishnupur, India, Kalachand Temple - Bishnupur, West Bengal
Kevin Standage 
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