Endangered Malot
Since the temple is threatened not only by mining activity but by natural tectonic movement as well, an action similar to the one undertaken for the Indus Valley School of Art is necessary if the site is to be saved for eternity
By Salman Rashid
The Salt Range of Punjab is home to a series of temples dating back a full 1000 years. Stretching from the banks of the Jhelum, they are situated in a meandering line through the rugged hills to the banks of the Sindhu River. Because of their great age, these buildings are in various stages of decay. All of these religious buildings were raised between 950 to 1050 CE by the kings of Kashmir when they held sway in this area.
While every single one of them is a visual treat because of the fine artistry that went into their construction, surely the most breathtaking one is Malot. And for two reasons: for one, it is situated on the very verge of a sheer fall of some 200 metres. Secondly, it is the only one of the Salt Range temples, which exhibits very strong Greek influence.
Now, Malot was built when Greek Taxila had decayed into the dust. Though the buildings of that ancient city were forgotten, by some abstruse mechanism, the stonemasons of the Potohar plateau had retained through dozens of generations the architectural vocabulary their ancestors had learned from the Greeks. Malot was built, as Kipling wrote in Kim, “…by workmen whose hands were feeling, and not unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch.”
Despite the unkindness of nature and the passage of time, not to mention man’s malicious hand, Malot stands majestic on a low hill to the south of the village that takes its name. It retains its fluted pillars with their Doric capitals so starkly reminiscent of Greek influence. There are, of course, architectural embellishments that are of purely local inspiration. The porous red sandstone used in its construction has eroded in wind, rain, and none of Malot’s ancient iconography is now clearly discernible, but experts tell us that this temple was consecrated in the name of Lord Shiva.
The passage of centuries deprived Malot temple of its spire, the shikhara – perhaps in an ancient and now forgotten earthquake. The gateway to the temple that sits some metres to the eastward of the main building has lost its roof and the walkway connecting the two is also gone. Yet, Malot continues to enthral and captivate with its aesthetic refinement.
If nature was unkind to Malot in the past, it continues to be so. The low outcrop of limestone on which Malot is situated is, in the words of an expert geologist, a miniature of the entire Salt Range. In that, it is slowly being pushed upward by tectonic movement. As it rises, the Malot outcrop is splitting apart. Consequently, just by the foundation of the temple building, the ground is riven by a narrow but deep cleft.
Back in 1994 Azmat Ranjha, the Deputy Commissioner of Chakwal, a man of good sense, ordered the cleft to be filled in with concrete in order to arrest its further widening. Even then he knew the measure was desperate and of little avail over the long term. Nonetheless, some little good was done under his instructions.
Back in the mid-1990s, after the work initiated by Azmat Ranjha, I wrote a piece in this paper about emulating the work done by the Indus Valley School of Art. The more than a hundred year-old building that houses the school in Clifton, Karachi was originally situated in Kharadar where it had been abandoned for some years and was awaiting demolition for being dangerous.
Some minds worked and the building was purchased. It was then dismantled, block by block, each block numbered and the whole was re-assembled in Clifton. Since Malot is threatened not only by mining activity but by natural tectonic movement, a similar action is necessary if Malot is to be saved for eternity.
Recently my friend Raheal Siddiqui came back from a visit to Malot with bad news. Just below the temple, a new coalmine has been opened. Now, coalmines in this region are not unknown, but we had not seen one immediately below the temple building. If that was bad enough, the worst was that a fat and ugly diesel generator powers the working. Pounding away the livelong day, and sometimes through the night, the generator sends dangerous vibrations through the hill and into the foundations of Malot temple. Little do the owners of the mine know and even less do they care of the great danger in which they put this priceless historical building.
Fortunately, there are stalwarts in this country who care for the cultural heritage of our sorry land. One such good man, a lawyer from the Salt Range, has filed a case in the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court,. Taking cognisance of the grave danger the 1000-year-old building is in, the honourable judge has stayed work on the coalmine. He has also scheduled a visit to the site to ascertain the correct position for himself. Even as you read these lines, the visit has perhaps taken place.
I do not think much good came of the last blighted dictatorship that we suffered, but one thing certainly did: judicial activism. In his foolishness, the dictator messed with the higher judiciary and unwittingly gifted our nation with this activism. The happy result is that My Lords of the higher benches now take notice of all irregularities.
Whatever is the court decision, one hopes that in the process, the historical and cultural heritage of Pakistan will be preserved for the future, especially the most beautiful of all the Salt Range temples.