Bishnupur

Bishnupur was the capital of the Malla rulers of Mallabhum in western Bengal. The town is celebrated for temples built of brick and laterite, their walls adorned with scenes modelled in fired clay. Craftsmen adapted the curved roofs of Bengali huts to sacred buildings, joining local forms to towers and arched galleries. Royal patronage also supported music and weaving, making the court an important centre of Bengali culture.

At the turn of the seventeenth century, the Malla king Bir Hambir embraced Vaishnavism under the influence of the teacher Srinivasa. Tradition tells that Hambir’s men seized devotional manuscripts carried by Srinivasa and his companions; moved by the teacher’s exposition of the Bhagavata, the king became his patron. In 1600 Hambir commissioned the Rasmancha, a brick pavilion on a laterite platform where images of Krishna were brought together for the annual Ras festival. Its pyramidal roof rises above three surrounding galleries.

Hambir’s successors continued to build. The five-towered Shyam Rai temple dates to 1643, and the Jor Bangla temple of 1655 joins two structures shaped like village huts. Their terracotta reliefs turn temple walls into intricate pictures of religious stories and life at court. The flowering of art accompanied a less secure political position: the Malla kings became tributary rulers even as their capital gained its distinctive monuments.