For a traveller in India, there are umpteen places which he can visit. But the sad part of it is that these places are not given publicity all over India. For example for a person hailing form southern part of India will not know the treasure of architectural monuments which can be seen in the North and the same is the case for a North Indian. Other day I read in the net something written of my place and it is said that the said town is in Andhra Pradesh!. That is the reason why there is lot of ignorance of India’s heritage among people of this country. How many of Indians knew that Ladakh is part of India before Kargil war. Yes, it is true. I had been to Ladakh before that war and my colleagues who are well educated were asking me whether one needs Visa to go to Ladakh as “it is part of Tibetâ€. This is the height of ignorance. This happens because there is no proper publicity for these places in the south.
I have made the above sermon because I never knew that in the north there is a place like rock cut Ellora/Ajantha caves or Mahabalipuram rock cut temples. There is such a rock cut temple in the north in Kangra valley of Himachal Pradesh about 60 kms from Macleaodganj. When the taxi driver told us ( me and Elke) that there is a rock cut temple when we visited Dharmasala, I was surprised. Having gone to that part of the country, we thought it would be better to explore that temple. We drove to that place which took about 2 hours. The place is called Masrur.
Masrur has a 15 temple complex dedicated to Rama, Laxmana and Sita. The complex is situated on ahill with a rectangulat pond, which is considered auaspicious by devotees who throng this temple complex to worship Stri rama. These temples resemble the temple at Ajantha. There is stone image of Mahadev or Shiva in the middle. These protected monuments are believed to have been carved in the 7th and 8th century and represent the architectural styles of the Kailashnath Temple in Ajantha.
Kangra valley experienced an extremely powerful earthquake in 1905. Wonderful Masroor Temples suffered heavily and partly turned into ruins.
We were very much impressed by these rock cut temples standing in that far off north which is unbelievable in that part of the country. The person who accompanied us said that the rock-cut style is much more difficult than the structural one. In the latter, the artist shapes the material as he likes, whereas in the former the Material determines the way the artist should move. The limitation makes an artist creation out of a rock a most difficult task and the ability with which the remote artist of seventh and eighth centuries carried out their purpose is superhuman. That is why this is unique. It is situated in a small place but a treasure trove of architectural beauty among rock cut temples.
