If you drive north from Srinagar toward Baramulla and slow down near the old town of Pattan, something massive and unexpected appears on the left side of the road: tall stone pillars, broken pediments, and the ruined skeleton of a great temple standing alone in an empty field.
Most tourists speed past without knowing its name. Shepherds walk by, their flocks grazing among the fallen blocks. Yet for anyone who stops even briefly stops, the place radiates a strange mixture of majesty and sorrow — as though the monument is still trying to finish a story it will never let die.
This is the Shankaragaurishvara Temple, one of Kashmir’s earliest and finest stone temples, built more than 1,100 years ago.
Ruined today.
Never forgotten.
The Lost Capital
In the 9th century CE the Valley was ruled by the Utpala dynasty. Around 883 CE, an ambitious king named Shankaravarman shifted the royal capital from the older city of Parihaspora and founded a brand-new one: Shankarapattana — the city that became modern Pattan.
According to Kalhana’s 12th-century chronicle Rajatarangini, Shankaravarman raised several temples here in honour of Shiva. The grandest was Shankaragaurishvara, dedicated jointly to Shiva and his consort Gauri. A few hundred metres away stood its slightly smaller twin, Sugandhesha, built by his queen, Sugandha.
These were not isolated shrines. They formed the spiritual heart of a thriving royal capital filled with pilgrims, scholars, merchants, soldiers, dancers, and musicians. Today almost nothing of that city survives except these stones, still speaking across the centuries.
The Temple Structure
Kashmir’s early temples are celebrated for their distinctive architecture — a unique synthesis of north-Indian, Gandharan, Central Asian, and Himalayan elements. Shankaragaurishvara remains one of the purest surviving examples.
The sanctum is a perfect square built of enormous grey limestone blocks. Its roof collapsed long ago, leaving the garbhagriha open to the sky. Sunlight now falls directly on the spot where the deity once stood.
Standing inside feels like entering a stone womb: raw, ancient, and strangely alive.
The doorway is crowned by the classic Kashmiri triangular pediment — a form that immediately recalls Greek temples, though it evolved independently. Tall fluted columns with bracket capitals lie scattered like fallen giants; a few still stand in quiet defiance. Excavations show the temple was once encircled by a peristyle courtyard of smaller shrines, now buried beneath grass and apple orchards.
Earthquake-Resistant Genius
Kashmiri builders understood that the Valley lies on one of the planet’s most active seismic zones. Their answer was brilliant: massive monolithic blocks interlocked without mortar, joined by precisely cut rebates, iron dowels, and long “through-stones” that run the full thickness of the wall like stitches.
Look closely at any surviving wall and you will see these horizontal ties — they prevent the masonry from shearing when the earth moves. The fluted pillars themselves act as shock absorbers, flexing rather than snapping.
Recent structural analyses and laser-scanning projects on Kashmiri temples suggest their interlocking stonework and through-stones provided advanced load distribution and seismic resilience — features that some engineers compare, in general terms, to later pendentive solutions used in domes elsewhere.
Stones from Parihaspora
Many of the very blocks you touch today were quarried a century earlier for Lalitaditya Muktapida’s glorious capital at Parihaspora, five kilometres away. When Shankaravarman decided to surpass his predecessors, he dismantled the older city and reused its perfectly dressed stones. Kalhana bitterly remarks that the king “caused the very gods to weep.”
Two cities. Two dynasties. One continuous stone heritage.
Shankaravarman’s Controversy
Kalhana brands Shankaravarman “a plunderer of temples.” Modern historians are more forgiving: moving an entire capital in medieval times required speed, and Parihaspora was already half-deserted. Reusing stone was pragmatic rather than sacrilegious.
Yet the irony is exquisite: the stones Shankaravarman took to immortalise himself are now the only reason Lalitaditya’s name still echoes in the same ruins. Stand in the sanctum today and you literally stand on two centuries at once.
Sugandhesha: The Queen’s Mirror
A short walk across the fields lie the faint foundations of Sugandhesha — the queen’s deliberate mirror to the king’s temple. Together they embodied Shiva and Shakti in stone.
Two Temples, One Legend
Old men in Pattan still speak of “Do Sheher ke Mandir” — the Temples of Two Cities. A Kashmiri couplet remembers them:
“Shankaragaurishvara roared like a lion,
Sugandhesha sang like a nightingale.
When the lion fell silent, the nightingale forgot her song.”
In the early 15th century, when Sultan Sikandar Butshikan ordered the destruction of Kashmir’s remaining Hindu temples, both sites were attacked. Their sheer mass and relative isolation saved them from the total annihilation suffered by Martand, but Shankaragaurishvara was heavily quarried for later mosques while Sugandhesha was simply abandoned to the grass.
On windy evenings some villagers claim they still hear two echoes — one deep and masculine, one soft and fading.
From Flourishing Temple to Lonely Ruin
John Burke’s 1868 glass-plate photographs (British Library) show the temple still remarkably intact — elegant trefoil arches, sharp pediments, pillars standing proud. By the 1950s most arches had collapsed. Earthquakes, neglect, and gradual local stone removal did the rest.
Today the Archaeological Survey of India lists both temples as centrally protected monuments (location: 34°10′00″N 74°34′10″E, 29 km northwest of Srinagar on the Srinagar–Baramulla highway), yet active conservation remains almost non-existent. The site lies open, unguarded, and achingly beautiful.
The People Who Still Pray Among the Ruins
Every Shivaratri a handful of Kashmiri Pandit families return in silence. They light clay lamps on broken pedestals and sing ancient leelas in the old Sharada script.
In 2023 I met 73-year-old Maharaj Krishan, whose ancestors were caretakers here until 1990. He placed a tiny clay Shivling in a crack of the sanctum wall and said softly:
“The government can protect the stones, but only we can protect the soul.”
Many local Muslim families treat the same ruins as a minor pir-khana, tying coloured threads on the surviving trefoil arch for wishes. In a Valley torn by identity for decades, these stones have become one of the last places where Hindu and Muslim villagers unconsciously share the same sacred ground — without banners, without politics.
A Monument Woven Into Local Memory
The people of Pattan have always lived with these ruins — grazing cattle around them, guiding tourists, telling stories to children, or simply using the site as a place of quiet rest.
For them, the temple is not just an archaeological relic; it is part of their soil and identity.
In the morning and evening, the sun warms the stones in soft gold. Birds nest on the ledges. Children play cricket nearby. Shepherds pass silently. Occasionally, a traveler stops in awe, unable to believe that a thousand-year-old monument stands here — unguarded, unadvertised, almost forgotten.
The temple does not demand attention. It simply is.
Why This Temple Still Matters
Because its stones are masterpieces — carved with a precision that rivals the best of the subcontinent, they remind us of a Kashmir that once led in art, architecture and engineering.
Because it carries history inside its bones — repurposed stones from Lalitaditya’s 8th-century capital speak to a civilisation that evolved rather than erased.
Because its ruins are a warning — heritage does not disappear in a single earthquake or flood; it disappears when a society stops looking back.
Because its silence is rare — in a valley full of noise, this is one of the few places where time slows and the mind listens.
Because its potential is immense — with the slightest effort in conservation and interpretation, it could stand among India’s major archaeological destinations.
Because it still brings people together — villagers who visit for reflection, travellers who come for curiosity, and worshippers who light a lamp all create a quiet, shared space beyond politics.
What the Ruins Whisper
Close your eyes inside the open sanctum. Let the wind move through the broken pillars.
You may almost hear the chants that once filled this space.
The flicker of a thousand oil lamps on carved walls.
The footsteps of kings and queens who walked here long before you.
And if you listen very carefully, the ruins seem to say:
“We are still here.
Forgotten, but not gone.
Silent, but still watching.”
Shankaragaurishvara is more than a ruin.
It is a memory written in earthquake-proof stone — and one of Kashmir’s greatest untold stories.
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Jammu & Kashmir