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English: Tigawa Temple – also referred to as the Kankali Devi mandir of Tigowa – is one of the oldest known stone-cut Hindu temple, dated c. 400-425 CE. It is found in the village of Tigowa (Amgawan) between Katni and Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. Now a small remote village, Tigawa is likely the ancient Jhanjhangarh city mentioned for its splendor in early Hindu texts.

The best preserved temple at Tigowa is a small mandapika-style flat roof shrine dedicated to Vishnu, but it reverentially displays Shiva and Shakti artwork. A panel within the temple shows Kankali Devi (Durga), and the temple is therefore called Kankali Devi Temple or Kankali Mandir (not to be confused with Kankali temple in other towns such as in Bhopal). The Tigawa temple is sometimes referred to as the Tigowa temple, Tigawan or Tigaon mandir.

The site has another standing structure with a torana in front. The torana is from the 5th-century, the second temple is from a later century, rebuilt with a patchwork of embedded artwork from the 5th-century. This artwork includes Surya, Vishnu statue with Dasavatara around him, Shiva, Devi (the damage makes it difficult to identify which), and others. Inside is a Durga statue with flanking lions.

The Tigawa site has a large scatter of Hindu artwork and temple ruins from the 400–500 CE period, along with minor inscriptions with scripts between the 5th and 11th-century. Alexander Cunningham during his survey in the 1870s, traced 36 temple foundations in addition to two temple remains, numerous Hindu artwork pieces and mounds. Thus, the Tigawa temple site was likely a large Gupta-era Hindu temples complex in ancient India. The ruins include amalaka and parts of more complex temples, something that suggests that many more temples were built here in later centuries.

Much of the destruction and damage of Tigawa site occurred in the 19th-century, when a colonial era railway contractor plundered the site as a quarry for material he needed to build railway tracks, breaking the temple ruins and hauling away over 200 cartloads of ready stone pieces. The site's complete destruction was stopped after local villagers protested, according to Cunningham.

In the 1970s, another Gupta era temple was discovered by Debala Mitra in Kunda – about 4 kilometers from Tigawa, confirming that Tigawa region was once a large important hub of Hindu religious activity and human settlement for the Parivrājakas and Uchchakalpa dynasties (forest ascetics, artisans-led kingdoms respectively).

The main temple

The Tigawa temple stands on a jagati (platform), has a square plan. It resembles the Sanchi temple no. 17 but has a much larger platform which in past supported other structures. The pillars, two inscriptions, the style of iconography, and the artwork found in this temple have been important benchmark to help date Hindu artwork and temples all over India. Of particular note are the sleeping Vishnu, Narasimha, Ganga and Yamuna-related artwork.

One of unusual and debated artwork panel at this site contains a Buddha-like figure in a yoga asana. It has been plastered to one side of the ancient Vishnu temple and does not belong to the original temple, but is from the 1st millennium. It is not a Jain artwork, given the crown and garments he wears. It can only be one of three – (a) crowned Buddha, (b) crowned Vishnu seated in yoga mudra, (c) Buddha as one of the avatars of Vishnu. Buddha is unlikely because of

• what he holds in his right hand and the unusual mudra,
• the Buddha with crown appeared after the 7th-century in the Vajrayana and Mahayana context – but no Buddhist remains have been found at or within 25 kilometers of the Tigawa site, and
• because of the unusual three snakes iconography above the Buddha.

The other two possibilities are consistent with the iconography of other Hindu deities found at Tigawa site. Vishnu, Surya and others found in the two Tigawa monuments and ruins wear the same style of elongated pyramidal crown, same style of garment, and those artwork are from 5th to 6th century.

The Tigawa temple number 1 – though similar to Sanchi stupa site temple 17 – has many notable features not found in the then contemporary Buddhist monuments, such as double arches, lotus in the ceiling, purna-kalasha with pillars, and Ganga-Yamuna pair with their unique iconography. Many of these features emerge as a standard and architectural elements for innovation in diverse styles in Hindu temples that followed over the next 700 years all over the Indian subcontinent and many regions of Southeast Asia.

For scholarly discussion of the Tigawa site, see:

• Alexander Cunningham, Report of a tour in the central provinces, Archaeological Survey of India
• Joanna Williams (1982), The Art of Gupta India, pp. 91–94 with plates, Princeton Univ Press