Person · Karkota king · India
Lalitāditya Muktāpīḍa
Also known as Lalitaditya, Muktapida, Karkota
The Karkota king of Kashmir in the mid-eighth century, who according to Kalhana campaigned from Bengal to Central Asia and built the Martand sun temple and the city of Parihasapura. Whatever the campaigns amounted to, the architecture is real and has no close parallel anywhere else in India.
- Date
- 724–760
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 33.928, 74.641
Worth knowing
A Tang dynastic history records an embassy from a Kashmiri king generally identified with him, asking for help against Tibet — independent confirmation that Kashmir had a foreign policy reaching to Chang'an. His temples use a colonnaded peristyle and a trefoil arch found in no other Indian regional style.
About the place
Placed at Awantipora and Parihasapura's valley, where his building programme stood; the Martand temple on its plateau is his best-preserved work.
Connections (2)
- PatronageParihaspora
Parihasapura was Lalitaditya's own foundation, named after himself, with a Buddhist stupa, a monastery and Vishnu temples in one plan, and Kalhana lists the gold and silver images he installed in them. The city was abandoned within a few reigns and quarried afterwards, which is why the site is a set of plinths and colossal blocks rather than a standing town.
- PatronageMārtānd Sun Temple
The Martand temple is attributed to Lalitaditya by Kalhana and is the reference point for the whole Kashmiri style: a peristyle court, a trefoil arch inside a triangular pediment, and fluted columns that are usually traced to Gandharan and ultimately Hellenistic precedent. No other Indian regional style uses this vocabulary, which is what makes the valley's architecture a separate problem.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Lalitaditya Muktapida”. Kalhana, Rājataraṅgiṇī, book IV, trans. M.A. Stein (1900); Ronald Inden and others on the Karkota period.
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