The Vishnu Temple of Bishanpur
The temple is situated at the Bishanpur town. It was
built by the king Kyamba during 1507 AD. It is the oldest temple of Manipur.
The entire structure is made of good quality brick and mud plaster. The
pedestal consists of a series of five brick layers in concentric arrangement.
The lowest layer starts on 1-2 inches high platform. The brick layers
at corners towards the portico and the staircases have been oriented to
make a parallel turn in such a manner that these form a nice coherency
of brick layers in niches. The temple body over its pedestal is in two
storeys, the lower sanctum cube, lower Jangha and the upper sanctum cube,
the upper Jangha. The porch in front reaches up to a cornice in its height.
The cornice forms a beam of five layers of bricks stepping out a ascending
order from the point of the vertical alignment and similarly five
brick layers stepping back in descending order again to the point
of the vertical alignment, between the upper and the lower sanctum. All
three walls of the east, the north and the west have corbelled arch. Below
each corbelled arch is a window made to form three slits by placing two
bricks longitudinally at a parallel distance. The facade is facing south.
Above the cornice is the four-walled upper sanctum cube. There are two
false windows on each side. On the southern wall there is a single long
rectangular and half-way perforated window. The solidity of the
interior walls block the holes. Therefore the holes do not serve the purpose
of providing light to the sanctum hall. The roof above the upper Jangha
is constructed in parabolic style and formed into a domelike structure
by semicircular arches which converge at the base of the protuberance
on the top.
The sanctum
hall is square and it opens to the portico through a door opening. The Garbha Griha
is provided with three windows on east, north and west sides. Internally each
window is a square opening out through three slits to form the windows of the
corbelled arch. The walls of the sanctum hall are straight up to the point of
the neck by perpendicular stepping up of the courses of brick layers. The
entrance of the shrine is through two plasters of a rectangular opening
which carries a corbelled arch with niches and achieved through fourteen courses
of brick layers. |
