Chauchala Chhota Govinda Mandir is a Hindu temple of the

Puthia Temple Complex The Puthia Temple Complex consists of a cluster of notable old Hindu temples in Puthia Upazila, Rajshahi District, Bangladesh. Located 23 km to the east of Rajshahi city, it has the largest number of historic temples in Bangladesh.McAdam, Ma ...

Puthia Upazila Puthia ( bn, পুঠিয়া) is an Upazila of Rajshahi District in the Division of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Geography Puthia is located at . It has 30484 households and total area 192.64 km2. This is a historical & traditional place in Ba ...

Rajshahi Division Rajshahi Division ( bn, রাজশাহী বিভাগ) is one of the eight first-level administrative divisions of Bangladesh. It has an area of and a population at the 2011 Census of 18,484,858. Rajshahi Division consists of 8 district ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. The temple is believed to date to the 1790s-1800s period. The temple is in Puthia town which is away by road from

Rajshahi Rajshahi ( bn, রাজশাহী, ) is a metropolitan city and a major urban, commercial and educational centre of Bangladesh. It is also the administrative seat of the eponymous division and district. Located on the north bank of the P ...

city; the city is also a rail head and is on the

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city i ...

Rajashahi Highway.

Features

The temple stands next to the

Bara Ahnik Mandir Bara Ahnik Mandir () is a Hindu temple of the Puthia Temple Complex in Puthia Upazila, Rajshahi Division, Bangladesh. It stands next to Chauchala Chhota Govinda Mandir and faces east. Architecturally it is exceptional for Bangladesh, the only ot ...

on a high platform, covered with a pyramid shaped vault. The temple's interior has one chamber with porches on the eastern and southern directions. The southern frontage is extensively decorated with terracotta plaques, which depict ten incarnations

Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appeara ...

s of Vishnu, Lankakanda a chapter in the epic Ramayana legend, Radha-

Krishna Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...

epic stories, flower designs and geometric art and scenes of the civic life of the period. The frontage on the west has

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

ornamentation panels some of which are in a dilapidated condition or pilfered.

Gallery

Terracotta on Chhota Govinda Mandir 10.jpg, Terracotta Terracotta on Chhota Govinda Mandir 03.jpg, Terracotta Terracotta on Chhota Govinda Mandir 02.jpg , Terracotta ছোট গোবিন্দ মন্দির, পুঠিয়া.jpg, Temple

References

Puthia Temple Complex Archaeological sites in Rajshahi District {{Bangladesh-struct-stub