Place · brick temple cluster · India
Satmahal, Kalcha
Seven brick temples of the eighth or ninth century standing ruined together at Kalcha, among the earliest built structures surviving in Surguja.
- Date
- 8th-9th century CE
- Periods
- Regional Flourishing
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 22.954, 83.037
Worth knowing
Brick rather than stone puts them in the same constructional family as Bhitargaon and Sirpur, where the medium was fired clay and the ornament was terracotta.
Connections (3)
- Companion in the same setDeur Temple, Maharanipur
Seven brick temples of the eighth or ninth century and a stone temple of the eleventh or twelfth, forty kilometres apart. The pair date the shift from brick to stone in Surguja's building.
- Architectural modelSirpur
Brick temples in Surguja belong to the same constructional family as the Lakshmana temple at Sirpur in the Mahanadi valley: fired brick with terracotta ornament, a tradition of the eastern plains rather than of the stone-cutting south.
- Architectural modelBhītargaon temple
Bhitargaon is the earliest surviving brick temple of the north; the Kalcha group is a later provincial instance of the same technique. Both argue that fired brick, not stone, was the medium of the eastern plains.
Sources
Commissioner, Surguja Division (division-surguja.cg.gov.in), tourist-destination pages, 2026; coordinates supplied by the editor
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