Home UpAgra 4, Vrindaban Govind Deo Temple

Vrindaban (formerly Brindaban) is along the Yamuna River upstream from Agra. Here Man Singh of Amber (Jaipur) built a remarkable temple to Govind Deo, an avatar of Krishna. Man Singh was a contemporary of the Emperor Akbar, and the shape of the building echoes Akbar's own works at the same time as it embodies an utterly foreign tradition.

Front view. There may, or may not, have been a tower, possibly destroyed by order of Aurangzeb.

We're walked around to the west side. Here's Fergusson, still surprisingly serviceable a century after the publication of his History of Indian and Eastern Architecture: "It is, however, the combination of vertical with horizontal lines, covering the whole surface, that forms the great merit of the design. This is, indeed, not peculiar to this temple; but at Bhuvaneswar, Halebid, and elsewhere, the whole surface is so overloaded with ornament as to verge on bad taste."

Balcony on the south facade.

Almost a joke, that trace of figurative decoration.

The shrine may be a make-do adaptation, if as many think the temple was supposed to continue farther est.

The striking thing about the temple is its cruciform vaulting, which amounts to a nave extending to an altar. Vaulting in Hindu temples is almost unknown, and Fergusson called this exception "internally nearly quite perfect."

The crossing. Fergusson again: "Over the four arms of the cross the vault is plain, and of 23 1/2 ft. span, but in the centre it expands to 35 ft., and is quite equal in design to the best Gothic vaulting known."

Lintel over the shrine; the monkey belongs to a troop that can be a nuisance.

Aisle pillars.

Compare this with the very similar work done for Akbar at about the same time at Fatehpur Sikri.

The context you'd rather not see; buildings immediately south of the temple.