Jandial

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Jandial is a town near the city of Taxila in Pakistan. It is the site of an ancient temple well known for its Ionic columns. The temple is located 630 meters north of the northern gate of Sirkap.[1] The Temple was excavated in 1912-1913 by the Archaeological Survey of India under John Marshall. It has been called "the most Hellenic structure yet found on Indian soil".[2]

Origin

Variants

History

The Temple may have been built in the 2nd century BCE under the Greeks in India (Indo-Greeks).[3] The exact alignment of the Temple with Sirkap leads some authors to think that it may have been built during the main occupation period of the Greek city,[4] and that it may have been the work of an architect from Asia Minor,[5] or from Greece or an architect trained in Greek techniques.[6]

Alternatively, it may have been built under the Indo-Parthians in the 1st century BCE in order to practice the Zoroastrian faith, possibly right after their invasion of Hellenistic lands, using Greek manpower and expertise.[7][8] Alternatively, it may be the construction of a Greek devotee of Zoroastriasm, at it known that in India the Greeks easily followed other faith, as examplified by the dedication to Garuda made by a Greek envoy on the Heliodorus pillar in Besnagar.[9]

A coin of the Indo-Scythian ruler Azes I was found in the rubbles of the Temple, which may suggest that construction occurred during his reign.[10]

The Jandial Temple may have been the one visited by Apollonius of Tyana during his visit of the subcontinent in the 1st century CE.[11]

Taxila, they tell us, is about as big as Nineveh, and was fortified fairly well after the manner of Greek cities; and here was the royal residence of the personage who then ruled the empire of Porus. And they saw a Temple, in front of the wall, which was not far short of 100 feet in size, made of stone covered with stucco, and there was constructed within it a shrine, somewhat small as compared with the great size of the Temple which is surrounded with columns, but deserving of notice. For bronze tablets were nailed into each of its walls on which were engraved the exploits of Porus and Alexander. — "Life of Appolonius of Tyana", Philostratus 2.16-20 [12]

External links

References

  1. The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India" Getzel M. Cohen, Univ of California Press, 2013, p.327 [1]
  2. "The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans", John M. Rosenfield, University of California Press, 1 janv. 1967 p.129
  3. "The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys" Rafi U. Samad, Algora Publishing, 2011 p.62
  4. "Papers on the Date of Kaniṣka" Arthur Llewellyn Basham, Brill Archive, 1969, p.23
  5. "The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys" Rafi U. Samad, Algora Publishing, 2011 p.62
  6. "Notes on Ionic Architecture in the East" Benjamin Rowland, Jr., American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 489–496 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America,
  7. "The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India" Getzel M. Cohen, Univ of California Press, 2013, p.327
  8. Rowland, p.493
  9. Rowland, p.495
  10. Rowland, 494
  11. Rowland, p.494
  12. Rowland, p.493

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