Chandori's secret
by Yogini Deshpande
Posted On: 14 Jun 2016
A little story in the local news paper about old temples on the Godavari river bed that emerged due to the severe drought in Maharashtra took me to Chandori, a small town about 40 kms from Nashik. Located on State Highway 30 towards Aurangabad, Chandori is a small quaint town on the banks of Godavari. Locals say it derives its name from the Marathi word “Chandrakor” which means the sickle shaped moon seen on 5th or 6th day of the waning/waxing phase. The Godavari bends slightly like the moon curve and hence the name “Chandori”. It wasn’t very difficult to find the village and once I reached the place, we asked the locals how we could reach the rediscovered temples in the river. It was a small winding road that took us to the river banks. Chandori is quite small, with its main road just big enough to pass one car at a time. Both sides of the lanes are dotted with houses built in the past century, some of them being in the typical vada style timber construction ubiquitous to Maharashtra.
The sight at the banks of Godavari was nothing short of mesmerizing. The river bed had dried up and as I started walking along the bed, I discovered numerous Shivalingas of various sizes made in local basaltic rock strewn across the bed. We spotted a couple of idols of Saptashringi Devi too. Most murtis and lingams were crafted from local basaltic stone but there were a few in marble too. It is said that the river changed its course when a dam was built in the early 1900s on the upstream side and as a result, the temples started getting submerged due to the increased water level. The temples have sporadically emerged in the past as well, 1936 and 1982 to be specific.
The first temple I saw was a majestic structure built in the Hemadpanthi style with typical ornate carvings on its shikhara (dome). The villagers had cleaned up the temple though the Nandi in front of the temple was still partially buried in the river silt. The architecture of the main garbagriha is reminiscent of the Yadava architecture prevalent in the 11th to 13th century while the entrance portion resembles the Maratha architecture which has Islamic influence. The pillars at the entrance and the canopies show such influence. The garbagriha is small, of about 3x3m in size and the surrounding walls have carvings of female goddesses and other murtis whose facial features are either eroded or may have been deliberately broken.
