Category:Kevala Narasimha Temple, Ramtek

Kevala Narasimha Temple, Ramtek 

5th century Vishnu avatara temple from Vakataka era
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Instance of	Hindu temple
Location	Nagpur district, Nagpur division, Maharashtra, India
21° 23′ 46.16″ N, 79° 20′ 01.26″ E
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The Kevala Narasimha temple of Ramtek is an early 5th century Hindu temple dedicated to Narasimha – the man-lion avatar of Vishnu. It is a beautiful temple built from red sandstone, one that follows the classic Hindu architecture.

The Kevala Narasimha temple includes an important inscription dated between 425 to 450 CE, thus making an important benchmark to the exquisite 5th and 6th century Gupta-era Hindu temples found in north Madhya Pradesh and southwestern Uttar Pradesh. The temple is equally significant because the inscription states that the daughter of Rudrasena and Prabhavati Gupta built this temple to commemorate her mother – thus attesting to the significance and economic influence of Hindu women in the religious traditions of ancient India. The inscription is long, melodious yet an emotional panegyric reflecting Hindu values of its era. The inscription also helps link the relationship between the ancient Gupta Empire and the Vakataka Empire.

The temple has a mandapa and a garbhagriya under a flat roof, as with early stone temples in Hindu architectural history. The temple sits on a pitha decorated with lotus petal motifs. However, later reconstruction and restoration efforts predominantly hide the original beauty. Simple yet elegant expertly executed motifs wrap the temple's outer walls. Some of earliest known examples of a stone window draw light inside the temple. These are best compared with the Hindu temples in Bhumara and Nachna, as well as the Ajanta Buddhist caves – another Vakataka era masterpiece.

The Narasimha statue inside the sanctum is equally impressive. He is two armed, holds a chakra in his right hand. He is carved out of dark basalt stone and sits in front of red sandstone wall. This adds a perspective and medium, which combined with the details gives the statue, according to the art scholar Hans Bakker, "an honorable place in history of Indian art". The Kevala Narasimha temple attests to the extraordinary skills of Indian artisans by the late 4th century and early 5th century.