Category:Kumra matha, Nachna

Kumra matha, Nachna 

A 15th century temple ruin with 5th to 6th century Hindu artwork
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Instance of	Hindu temple
Location	Panna district, Sagar division, Madhya Pradesh, India
24° 23′ 34.1″ N, 80° 26′ 42.2″ E
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Kumra matha, also called as Teliya math, is one of the two 15th-century brick monuments ruins on a smaller hill that is about 500 meters south of the Parvati temple complex, and about 200 meters west of the Jain monuments on Shreyansh giri. There is no road to it, just a hike trail.

The Kumra matha stands in neglect midst a yet to be fully excavated mound, with ruins scattered around as one approaches it. It has three layers of construction, which mixes 5th and 6th century lost temple and monastery parts, some 8th or 9th century parts, mixed in with a brick structure with 15th-century architecture. It is the ancient embedded artwork here that is notable and much published. According to Walter Spink, one better known for his scholarship on Ajanta Caves, this structure was rebuilt from the doorway and ruins of a four-sided Hindu temple. In contrast, Joanna Williams states that the Kumra math has parts of at least two lost ancient Hindu temples, one late 5th century, another mid 6th century. Some of the artwork that was re-discovered here in the 19th-century has been moved to the Parvati and Mahadeva temples complex in Nachna. Many others were moved to three Indian museums and many European museums during the colonial era.

The ancient stone artwork found here is primarily Vishnu-related. One doorway has one of the oldest known reliefs of Narasimha avatar of Vishnu. This site was likely much larger Vaishnava monastery and temples complex as many of the mutilated statues from this site are too big and diverse to fit in the extant ruins of the 15th-century temple.