With spring in our steps, we can step into the springfests of our past
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Indian poetic imagination has for centuries celebrated spring as the king of seasons: Rituraj Vasant. Our finest artists and writers have immortalised it in timeless compositions that help visualise vasantotsavas of times past. Such an eternal spring comes alive in the shape of regal couples carved in stone at the base of the early 9th c. Harshatmata temple at Abhaneri, Rajasthan (photos).
As Cynthia Packert-Atherton has discussed in her 1997 book, The Sculpture of Early Medieval Rajasthan, Harshatmata temple was originally dedicated to Vishnu in his Vaikuntha aspect. It may have been reimagined as a temple to the divine feminine Durga in later years. The iconographic details of its surviving sculptures have left scholars puzzled and divided.
Who built it? Was it the great Gurjara-Pratihara king Nagabhata II? Or, did the Chahmana ruler Guvika I patronise it? When did it fall to ruin? History leaves us with no definite answers to these questions. But its ambitious architectural expanse and unsurpassable sculptural finesse clearly suggest a royal patron of substantial power and prestige.
Defying the ravages of time, and oblivious to changes wrought by intervening centuries, the Abhaneri lovers continue to revel in an everlasting utopia of pleasure. Their regal bearing, attire, gesture and posture, the presence of dancers and musicians, assisting
