Bahur, seat of learning

Bahur, approximately 20 km from Pondicherry 

en route to Cuddalore, is

home to an ancient Siva temple which
is now a protected monument of national
importance under the care of the
Archaeological Survey of India. Although
many architectural changes have taken
place over the centuries inside the temple
complex, vestiges of architecture and sculpture from times bygone are still evident
here.

The ancient name of this village as given

in the inscriptions was Vagur, located in the
territorial division called Vahur Nadu and
the deity enshrined in the main sanctum
now worshipped as Mulanathaswami was
once known as Mulasthanam Udaiya Perumanadigal and Parameswara.
In all probability, the Bahur temple belongs
to the early Chola times. In the niches
of the outer walls of the main sanctum are
images of Nritta Ganesa, Dakshinamurti,
Vishnu, Brahma and Durga of the 10th century.

Below these are exquisite carvings in a

row, of dancers in various poses and musicians playing different instruments.
Many inscriptions are seen etched on the
stone walls of the Bahur temple even today.
A few belong to the reign of the Rashtrakuta
king, Krishna III, also known as Kannara-

deva of the 10th century, one of the last

great rulers of this dynasty who ruled from
Manyakheta (Gulbarga District, Karnataka).
This king invaded the Chola territory and
defeated the Chola army decisively in the
10th century and thus his inscriptions are
seen in many temples in Tamil Nadu. The
Rashtrakuta inscriptions in Bahur record
the gift of sheep and lamps to this templ 

and one even mentions the gift of stone slabs in the construction of the shrine.

 

Gifts to the temple

Chola inscriptions here date back to the
period of Aditya Chola II, the elder brother
of Rajaraja I of the 10th century A.D. They
too mention various gifts to this temple and
one donation was earmarked for annual repairs
to be carried out in the tank at Vahur.

One of the greatest discoveries at Bahur

was a copper-plate inscription, close to this
temple in the middle of a structure of bricks
in 1879. It belongs to the eighth year of the
reign of Nripatunga Varman, one the last
Pallava emperors of Kanchipuram. This bilingual record, dated c.877 A.D., consists of two portions, the first in Sanskrit etched in the Grantha script and the second in Tamil and in the Tamil script of the Pallava times.

This interesting inscription mentions an

educational endowment made to a college of
learning called Vidyasthana in Vahur. The
donation, made by the king’s Minister called
Marthandan or Nilaithangi, consisted of
three villages, the income from which was `to be enjoyed by the residents of the seat of learning at Vahur.’

The copper plates record that this exceptional centre of education had as its curriculum, the fourteen branches of learning (chaturdashavidya) which included the four Vedas, six Vedangas, Mimamsa, Nyaya, Dharma Sastra and Puranas.

This very detailed inscription mentions

that the poet Nagaya who composed the
Sanskrit verses was an employee of the Bahur college and the person who wrote it on copper sheets was a goldsmith named Nripatunga after the Pallava emperor.