BHOPAL: A monolith rock sculpture in MP's
Vidisha
district has turned out to be one of the biggest statues of Lord Shiva, around 1,500 years old, which was mysteriously left on the ground instead of being put upright.
A day before Mahashivratri, state convener of Intach Madan Mohan Upadhyay said, "It is the largest Nataraja sculpture in the world. The ruins have great potential of turning into a national and international tourist destination." Intach has completed documentation of the ancient site (15km from Ganjbasoda and 140km from Bhopal), and will submit a report, said Upadhyay. The Vidisha district administration,
Madhya Pradesh
tourism department and state archeological department are also working on measures to conserve this rich heritage.
The massive sculpture, 9 metres long and 4 metres wide, was created out of a single rock. It's so big that its image could never be captured in one frame until Intach used a drone, which revealed for the first time that it is a dancing Shiva, he said. For the past one year or so, Intach has been working at the site of Udaipur, a city created by Parmar king Udayayditya, around 1059AD.
Udaipur ruins have many layers of history The Nataraja sculpture predates these ruins. The village and associated infrastructure of palaces, temples, waterbodies, bastions, fortification wall and the gates to the city and innumerable monuments speak volumes about Udaipur, Upadhyay said.
The place is known all over Madhya Pradesh for the Neelkantheshwar Mahadev temple, an ASI protected monument that attracts a large number of tourists, especially on Maha Shivaratri. The story of the creation of this place along with Neelkantheshwar temple of lord Shiva is written in the inscriptions, which are now preserved in Gwalior museum.
Spread on a few thousand hectares, the ruins have many layers of history that show the domination of different dynasties, including Parmars, Gonds and Marathas, during different times. But there is mystery over why the Nataraja monolith in Udaipur could not be installed as a standing Shiva sculpture. "This needs to be researched," Upadhyay said.
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