The route from Lothal to Modhera goes so close to Nal Sarovar - I think it was just 12 kms away - and given what I read about the Nal corridor and the shipping routes of the Harappans, it would have been worthwhile to include that in the tour. Of course the birder in me would have been most thrilled. This may be the reason we saw so many water birds in flight and in the fields. Black-headed ibis were like cattle egrets and we even spotted Sarus cranes. Cormorants flew across the road, intermittently, and Sekar saw a Black Shouldered Kite as well.
The countryside was the usual sad Indian scenario - plastic garbage everywhere. And the invasive Prosopsis in every field and along every road.
If I am not mistaken, we stopped for lunch at one of those Honest cafe places and I made the mistake of a Gujarati thali which had oh so sweet kadhi, and that tomato sev curry which was swimming in oil. Anyways the loos were clean and we had some food in our stomachs, so nothing to complain.
The bus was soon silent as everyone had a good post prandial snooze! Around 6 in the evening, we reached the Sun Temple at Modhera. We had moved from history of 4,000 years ago to a 1,000 years ago!
It's strange to imagine that we were coming to this remote 11th century temple, again, after a gap of some 14 months.
Last time we had visited on our way from Mt Abu to Ahmedabad - 8th December 2023, it was in the midday, the sun was bright and the temple was bathed in bright light. This time we saw the temple in the evening light as also, under spot lights! So in a way, we had two different experiences.
The temple is located on the banks of the Pushpavati river and was built by the Solanki ruler Bhimadeva I in whose time the Rani Ki Val step well was also made. You come upon it, and it makes you gasp, inch upon inch of sculptures, motifs, panels, in such profusion, it confuses - should you look at it in total, at every panel, inside, outside, overhead, inside the tank? Oh goodness - and what to photograph?
In the midst of this shock, awe and confusion, you also learn that the temple was probably torn down by Ghazni, and then rebuilt by later Solanki kings, and then probably ruined again by Khilji's forces, or maybe not? The main deity is not to be seen anymore, and there are bits of broken carvings strewn all over, as the ASI put back the pieces in a systematic manner. Strangely, I was unable to find any historical pictures of how the ruined temple looked before ASI put it together.
First views - midday Dec 2023
The temple bathed in the western setting sun, Feb 2025 evening. The sandstone seemed to light up!
This is a screenshot from the ASI website. From the outside, you first see the pillared hall, and the complex at the back - that is the temple. This aerial view also shows that there must have been an outer gopuram.
The hall of pillars
This is the view from across the tank, into the pillared hall. It must have been a glorious feeling to walk down the steps to the temple tank!
That's us listening to Pankaj tell us about the toran archway and the pillars.
This "torana" - adorning the front entrance to the hall - it is quite exquisite I thought.
Every inch of this mandapa is quite jaw dropping in its intricate beautiful carvings. I wonder if anyone can reproduce this if they tried now? Or is this "maru-gurjara" style and skill lost?
In front of the torana arch and pillars, are another two bare pillars, probably they had another decorative arch atop them? If you see, there are two more pillars in the distance - which you will see in the next picture.
Probably another entry arch into the temple complex? Now its a popular photo and self point - framed by these two magnificent pillars.
From in, looking out. A 1000 years has taken its toll on the beautiful carvings- various carved elements at the base have all got rubbed off, the details of the women's faces are gone, but still it is quite a sight. There are 52 such pillars.
The four pillars seen in the previous picture come in from all the directions, create an octagonal framework. Every inch of each pillar seems carved, all the way up to the roof and the supporting beams as well! Supposedly, up there near the roof, there are some erotic carvings as well! A 1000 years ago, there was no Censor Board it seems.
This is the dome, rising from the pillars and the decorated arches. It was fabulous and made my neck ache!
Another view - this is definitely a photographer's paradise. The complex was filled with busloads of school children, which was really nice.
There was some discussion on what these holes in the pillars meant - which I now forget.
The gargoyles seemingly supporting the arches and roof. Each one different from the other.
Some historians feel that this hall was a later addition to the original temple.
The temple
In Dec 2023, after staring up and open mouthed for what seemed like an eternity, we emerged from the pillared hall and went in to the temple itself. This time, because the light was fading, Pankaj urged us to go in to the temple first so that we could "see" the inside before dark.
To me, the temple complex is more impressive outside than in - the inside seems dank and unfinished, with some Aditya/Surya images on unadorned walls. Without a central deity which was supposed to be large and imposing, the hall looked bereft. The central room was also caged off, and is supposed to be at two levels. One will read how "The position of the temple on an elevated mound facing due east is such that the rising sun at the equinoxes would shine straight through the Sabhamandapa doors into the shrine. " (From the UNESCO website). However, I have not come across any picture of this light shining through - it would make for a terrific sight - I wonder why no one has captured that moment?
And then my internet search threw up the History TV18 documentary on Modhera, Aryabhata and Bramhagupta. The screen grab from that shows how the suns streams in supposedly on March 21st - the Spring Equinox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMrX3WFyVSw&t=526s
There are 12 sculptures of Surya - as you can see on plain walls inside the temple.
The pillars here were incomplete, and the roof dome less ornate? Was this then from an earlier period? The main sanctum supposedly had an upper cell on which the main Surya deity was placed, but this has collapsed and is now locked and so one cannot see the main sanctum while the deity itself is of course missing.
What we did see on both our visits were the mouse-tailed bats!
Dec 2023
Feb 2025
Devaroon's picture of the bats - greater mouse tailed bats (Rhinopoma microphyllum)
One of the Surya carvings on the outside - much more intricate - with the seven horses, Persian boots
As the sun went down and the sandstone cooled, the squirrels were all over the carvings! It was very amusing to see them peeping out of all the various carvings and scurry up and down chasing each other.
There were dvarapalas, and empty niches as well.
A line of elephants reminded me of one of the Siem Reap temples.
The step well
Some 108 little shrines dot the steps of this step well. You are not allowed onto the steps now, but I think I would be dizzy going down this zigzag arrangement.
108 - it seems like one of those esoteric magical numbers that work as a constant to achieve many calculations. Then the 52 pillars - 52 weeks in a year, 12 Suryas, one per month, his 7 horses - one per day, and then the main temple has 24 pillars - for 24 hours! is this retro-fitting or is this for real? Sun and time, they should be related.
The shrines in the tank all face the tank, so you cannot see in to them from outside. So intricately carved and beautiful!
These were at the other side of the kund - so where was there something else here as well?
Imagine going to each of the 108 and praying... hmmm.
So many pieces of the jigsaw still not fitted, lying around. Won't they get stolen or vandalised ?
The temple under lights
At about 630pm the lights were turned on, and the temple looked beautiful and mysterious. The Sun temple complex - very appropriately is solar powered!)
I really liked these pictures from Devaroon.
Photo by Devaroon
There was a Sound and Light show. Some of us watched, while some of us went off for chai and a bio break. The schoolchildren enjoyed it. I overheard one of them declaring to her friend - no need to go back to school, let's roam like this every day! Indeed!
From here, it was a 40 minute ride to our night halt at Grand Raveta Patan. We were all quite tired having traversed across time from 4000 years ago in the morning to 1000 years ago in the evening and now to dusty, nondescript modern India. 😅. We had travelled close to 300kms across the day. Some had to stay in another hotel - so we were split up.
The hotel was quite efficient in moving our bags up and to our rooms. The lay out was strange - the reception and restaurant were on the first floor and the rooms were on the second floor. The rooms were perfectly adequate, and actually I must confess I was quite pleasantly surprised and relieved - clean sheets, running water and enough space for our luggage.
I ordered cautiously - khichdi and papad for dinner - which was very nice, hot and comforting, while Sekar had rotis I think. Anupama ordered some dish (I forget what now), that took forever to come, though her flask of ice came quickly enough! Sanjukta and Ishaan were more adventurous and ordered some paneer dish which was not bad either. We chatted about the day over our dinner, and Aravind briefed us that we had to check out by 8am tomorrow, breakfast and leave by 830!
Rani Ki Vav was on the cards for tomorrow morning!
I got an early start to the morning, making myself a cup of Sleepy Owl coffee (trying it for the first time!), in the nice spacious Hyatt room. Peeping out, the main Ashram Road that our room overlooked, was still asleep. We checked out at 8 in the morning after a hearty Hyatt breakfast.
Thanks to Sheila's tip - we caught views of the Sabarmati from our 12th floor corridor. We would come back a week later and once again catch the concrete waterfront beautification from the ashram. Is this the only way to maintain a waterfront, I mused?
Many international cities fill up their riverfronts with concrete walkways - I have seen them in Chicago, New York, Singapore and Abu Dhabi - so is this the only "model" we can adopt? The Sabarmati if I remember right, is not a perennial, and now it holds Narmada water in the stretch in downtown Ahmedabad and like every other Indian river from the Adyar in Chennai to the Yamuna in Delhi and The Hooghly in Kolkata is dying a daily death choked with effluents and sewage.
Better to use the huge monies to stop the pollutants rather than pour concrete on riverfronts one would think, but not so for most Corporations, but who's asking me?! 😜
This rather interesting mural representation of Ahmedabad at the Hyatt lobby
Anyways, back to the present and and after meeting Pankaj from the Carnelian team and a a little debrief on the Indus Valley civilisation by Meera in the very nice Chai room, we boarded our large bus - our companion for the next five days!
We motored down NH4, past drying mustard fields, drongos and kingfishers on the wires, egrets flying past and reached Lothal around 11 in the morning. Just before we turned off on to the Bagodara Road, Aravind very magically produced a box of sweets, which went up and down the bus. On alighting, even more magically, little chai cups and chai also appeared! We stood around in the parking lot as Meera showed us the excavated town plan of Lothal.
Upon returning, I have done some reading "homework" on Lothal - a great resource is harappa.com - and the more I read, the more fascinated I am about the whole civilisation, how many sites have since been discovered - more than 2,000 it seems, their seals and their great baths, their obsession with water storage and drainage, and a seeming lack of a reigning deity or "God" - and a very flat organisation structure (to use modern parlance).
Meera was quite appalled with me when I rather offhandedly mentioned that after all these years we still know only what was in my textbook of the seventies - my pet grouse is the undeciphered language - and she did point out how much more we know, now. For example, we know now that the Harappans are possibly the Meluhhans mentioned in the Mesopotamian texts - we have two names as well - Samar and Nanaza - please see this link - https://www.harappa.com/blog/only-known-meluhan-personal-names-samar-and-nanaza.
Lothal was rediscovered way back in 1954, by the team led by Dr S R Rao - as we looked hard and with focus for more IVC sites in India - and in the first season of excavation itself they struck gold - found the typical Indus weights, seals, pottery, beads etc etc! We didn't see the artefacts as they are all removed. There used to be a site museum I believe but it is closed and everyone is waiting for some Mega museum to come up - maritime museum is in the works. But it is a bit of a shame that there is no on site museum.
The Lothal settlement is dated from 2500-1900 BC and seem to be in two periods of settlement - The Harappans arrive around 2400 BC and there is a small village with mud fortifications. Urban living begins and continues and thrives until 1900 BC, so that is about 500 years. (My mind goes into a spin - Chennai/Madras is younger than that!). After this until 1600 BC, it seems to go into decline and becomes rural again and then just vanishes. Where did they go?
Meera explained the different parts that we were going to see - the dockyard, upper town, Acropolis... and so in we went.
It was pretty warm in the sun but cool under the trees, with the breeze blowing. It was a beautiful setting! I loved the meswak trees all around and the large flocks of noisy rosy starlings in the mesquite bushes. They undertook sorties along with a bunch of pelicans and there were a lot of bee eaters too!
But as we stood at the dockyard, it was the two grey wagtails at the water's edge that distracted me from what Meera and Pankaj were saying.
Sparrows were hopping around in the shade, and the white cheeked bulbuls called from the meswak trees.
In my usual distracted fashion - I decided to start a bird list for Lothal too. And here is my Ebird list for Lothal.
The Dockyard!
It is the most important and most intact structure at Lothal. Pankaj looked quite surprised to see it brimming with water, the last time they were here it was bone dry, and the guard said this was all rain/fresh water. It looked beautiful - blue skies, light winds, and the rippling clean waters.
This dockyard - "is a trapezoid baked-brick enclosure measuring on an average 214x36m and running along practically the whole length of the east city wall, it was used as dock for ships sailing during high tide. There was also a wooden gate in the southern wall to regulate and maintain the water level inside the dockyard." (From the boards on site).
Of course I had so many questions - how did they figure this was a dockyard and not a reservoir? What is a dockyard doing stuck here, in land and are those the original bricks??? (The original bricks question kept getting repeated, I have to tell you)
Meera and Pankaj pointed out the gap in the wall, where a sluice gate would have been held, and also spoke about paleo water channels that have been propounded to have surrounded Lothal, with the Gulf being much closer as also the Sabarmati following a different course.
Imagine that! Please click on this link below to read more.
These papers, authored by Ekta Gupta, V N Prabhakar and Vikrant Jain put forth the argument that the water landscape 4,000 years ago was quite different - the Sabarmati flowed closer to and just west of Lothal, there were many channels and creeks with fresh water, and the Gulf of Khambat was also more inland. I was fascinated by the theory of the Nal corridor, connecting LRK and the Gulf of Khambat.
The Warehouse
Meera, Pankaj and Aravind had a hard time moving us along in a cohesive group, as the 20 of us moved in twenty directions (well almost), and everyone had the same questions with a lag. Exasperated Lokesh tried to bring some sense of "let's move as a group", but there was so much to see and explore!!
Anyway, in this rag tag fashion we moved to the "Warehouse" mound. "There were 64 cubical mud-brick blocks, each measures 3.6m square on plan and 1 m high separated from each other by 1 m wide passage." (From the on-site board). Currently, only 12 can be seen. Meera brought it to life for us, asking us to imagine this large warehouse foundation, with possibly a wooden structure overhead, where the main import and export activities took place.
Photo by Devaroon, who was quietly clicking away, and caught one of the many House Sparrows, that flitted on and off the Warehouse blocks.
The corner of this warehouse is where a whole stash of burnt sealings were found by the SR Rao team! 70 of them - imagine! Lothal site is known for its sealings. (Source of the screenshot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12zuFb-0Fy8)
I watched this video - most of it went over my head - it is a bit technical and filled with archaeology-speak - with Dennys Frenez attempting to show what these sealing were used for, and what could have been the undersurface on which they were applied! The stuff that will put Sherlock Holmes to shame. (Source of the screenshot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12zuFb-0Fy8)
S. R. Rao, 'The fact that all terracotta sealings bear impressions of seals other than those found at Lothal establishes that the goods kept sealed here were imported' S. R. Rao, Lothal: A Harappan Port Town (1955-62), Vol. 1(New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1985), p. 114
Was Lothal a trading outpost, an import/export clearing house? The Unicorn seals were the most common at Lothal. There were sealings with elephants, but no matching seals!
Seal vs sealing -
Seals are objects with text deeply engraved on them in intaglio or reverse, while sealings are positive impressions in relief by seals or special moulds on impressible material like clay, faience or metal.
The sealings had the impressions on one side, and the other bore the impressions of the material underneath - pottery or bag or wood. I read articles showing the connection to excavation sites in Oman - Ras al-Hadd and Ras al Jinz. Global trade was well and active 4000 years ago, it would seem.
The Acropolis
We then climbed a bit to what is referred to as the Acropolis, which has what seems like large homes on high platforms.
The main residence seemed to have elaborate drainage system,
a covered drain,
and even a underground were that seemed to go all the way down and drain at the dockyard!
Was this the kitchen with the cooking stove?
Photo by Devaroon - A sparrow lark did not seem as excited as us.
The ASI has reconstructed and repaired some of the structures to give us an idea, so it is difficult to figure what is original 4000 years old and what I more recent, and the Carnelian team were very patient answering our constant queries on this!
These pottery bits were from n antique land - of that we were sure. A little goosebump moment as I thought of some Meluhhan who may have carried water in this for cooking, or to have a bath.
Was she wearing those bangles that seem to have been made here. What was their diet? They were meat eaters from the evidence of bones around - and supposedly the Lothal area they grew rice. Millets, rice, coriander, brinjal...age old crops.
But where exactly were these agricultural fields? They were considered rural Lothal is it? Coming in to the city to feed this industrial town of workers?
And there were peacocks and elephants, pig and cattle and even pet dogs. No horses as yet. But what is this fascination for the unicorn? I need to look for the lion and tiger seals.
At the far end was the cemetery. We did not go there - since it is all covered up, and there is nothing to see. But there were some 21 graves and supposedly 19 bodies. Which is now 18. I wondered about the missing skeleton for a day or so. But on a more serious note, these graves and skeletons provide important and fascinating clues on the Harappans of Lothal. They seem to have migrated in and then migrated out!
The Bead factory
It was around noon now as we wandered though the Lower Town and the bead factory. The sun was directly overhead, and I was glad that I had carried some drinking water. This area did not have any trees to hide under, and so we hurried through.
This little yellow seemed to be enjoying the sun.
"A mud-brick structure of 11 rooms with a central courtyard, served as a bead factory. Two jars containing hundred carnelian beads in various stages of manufacture were found embedded in the working platform. In proximity to the bead factory is a double-chambered circular kiln with a stoke-hole (for supply of fuel). Small bowls containing saw dust and pebbles of agate, carnelian etc. were placed on the flues of the kiln for heating the stones for easy removal of the cortex. Two big jars made of mud containing more than 600 beads of various stages found inside the structure proves that the lapidaries worked here" - From the board on site
And so it seemed quite symbolic that we pick up beads from this great bead making site of the Harappans.
That little bit in the middle is Carnelian I was told.
Another lovely photo by Devaroon of the White-eared bulbuls that watched us from the Meswak trees.
The Rosy Starlings had a lot to say about our purchases, it seemed!
It was lunch time, when we headed out of Lothal - and trundled along to Patan and the Sun temple.
