Bhubaneswar: An archaeological survey team of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) has claimed to have discovered an ancient submerged temple in the Mahanadi upstream from Cuttack.
According to Intach sources, the top of the submerged temple was discovered in the mid-river near Baideswar in Padmavati area near Cuttack. The 60-ft submerged temple dates back to late 15th or early 16th century, considering the construction style of the ‘Mastaka’ and the materials used for its construction. The top portion of the shrine used to be visible in summer.
According to Intach’s AB Tripathy, it is the first ‘discovery’ of the project on ‘Documentation of the Heritage of the Mahanadi Valley’ that was launched last year.
Interacting with Orissa POST, Intach project assistant Deepak Kumar Nayak, who discovered and documented the site with help of a local heritage enthusiast Rabindra Kumar Rana, said that the temple was dedicated to Gopinath Dev. “The region used to be regarded as ‘Satapatana’ in early days. However, with the river changing its course due to catastrophic flooding, its flow changed and the entire village was eroded by the river in the mid 19th century. The deities of the vulnerable temple were removed and installed in a safer as well as higher place, which is presently the Gopinath Dev temple of Padmavati village,” Nayak said.
A systemic survey of all the tangible and intangible heritage of the entire length of the Mahanadi, from the source to the sea, covering a distance of nearly 1700km is in its final stage of completion, an Intach source said.
