Sometimes it pays to get a little lost, as I did while exploring the narrow lanes of Sonamukhi in West Bengal. This temple was not on my itinerary of structures to explore, I just came upon it as I tried to remember where I had left the car :-).
The majority of the temples around the town were erected by prosperous cloth merchants and skilled weavers who settled here centuries ago. While a few of these temples remain steadfast in the town center, regrettably, many have succumbed to ruin or collapse over the years, a victim of prolonged neglect.
The Chandra Shiv temple lies somewhere in-between, it is clearly still in use and cared for to a degree, but the state of preservation is far from ideal, with much of the terracotta ornamentation now obscured or completely lost. The temple is a tightly ridged rekha, typical of the Birbhum-Burdwan types that can be seen in the region.
My research to try and glean any more information regarding this structure has resulted in nothing. No other documentation for it seems to exist, and sadly no old images that can show how this temple would have looked in its prime. As for dating the structure, with no foundation stone I can only place it somewhere around the mid 19th century.
This means it is broadly contemporary with the nearby Sridhar Temple, which is far better preserved and more richly decorated.
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Categories: Chandra Shiv Temple - Sonamukhi, India, Sonamukhi, West Bengal
Kevin Standage 
What beautiful captures, Kevin! The ruins shows how beautiful it must have been. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
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