Category:Thangadh, Gujarat

Thangadh, Gujarat 

A historic town with Hindu and Jain temple ruins
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Instance of	town
Location	Surendranagar district, Gujarat, India
22° 34′ 31.78″ N, 71° 12′ 12.61″ E
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Thangadh, also known as Thān (Thaan) is a name derived from Sthān – or a "place". It is an epithet for the "holy place" where devout sages lived and taught their students, where pilgrims go to visit numerous temples. Thān is ancient, as it is mentioned in Skanda Purana and other ancient Hindu texts as Thān Purana or Tarnetar Mahatmya listing numerous shrines and gadhs (forts). Most of those shrines suffered campaign of destruction during the Sultanate period after the 14th-century. Only ruins and a few heavily mutilated temples have survived into the modern age. Of these are two Surya temples, the Trinetresvara, the Munibava, and several related to Krishna legends. Some of these ruins were restored by Walojis and others between the 15th and 17th centuries, but were destroyed again with an attempt to convert it into mosques as new Sultanates formed. In the modern era, some have been restored once again, adding new complexes around the historic core.

The temples and hills in and near Thangadh have numerous ruins of 7th to 14th century Hindu and Jain temples (see, e.g., survey reports and plates of temple ruins by Henry Cousens, Somanatha and other medieval temples in Kathiawad, pp. 46–52)