Kosaleswar Temple Subarnapur,Odisha

Kosalesvara temple or Kosaleswara temple located at Baidyanatha of Subarnapur district, Odisha, India.[1] In the balcony of the brick-built jagamohana hall of this temple a peculiar Kirtimukha head is carved on brick. From the mouth of this kirtimukha a bunches of leaves are flowing down. Such arts are found carved on the Laksmanesvara temple located at Sirpur of the Chhattisgarh state, which was built on 8th century.

The Kosaleswar temple at Baidyanath on the bank of river Tel, situated about 14km. to the south-east of Subarnapur is now in a very bad state of preservation. The structure even in its ruins is a remarkable monument. The temple provides striking features of an earlier Buddhist shrines refurnished by the Hindus. Large sized bricks, polished and well set mortar, inter columnation and isolated niches to hold individual images, all .Buddhist structural features are met in Kosaleswar temple which has led scholars like Charls Fabri to suppose that this temple was built on the ruins of a Buddhist monument.

But, the structural details of the temple suggest that it belongs to a much later period. Here iron bars were used and the earliest use of such iron bars in the Odishan temple is noticed in the Simhanath temple of Gopinathpur in Cuttack district, which has assigned to a date not earlier than the 9th. century A.D. On the lintel of the doorway of Kosaleswar temple all the nine planets are depicted which seems to be a later development. However, the opinion of Charls Fabri that Kosaleswar temple was originally a Buddhist structure refurnished by the Hindus appears to be a conjecture.

The architecture and sculptures of this temple are the best specimens of plastic art, which can be dated to about 7th century A.D. or even earlier. Again, the two handed image of Kartikeya provides comparatively an early date to the temple. The figures of Gods and celestials are provided with haloes around their hands, which is also an early feature. But basing on the structural detail N.K.Sahu is of the opinion that the Kosaleswar temple was constructed during the reign of the Telugu -Chodas in the last part of 11th century A.D. or 12th century A.D. There is a clear reference in one copper plate record that Baidyanath (now known as Kosaleswar) was the tutelary deity of the Telugu-Choda ruling family. So the architectural and the iconographic features of the temple of Kosaleswar very often are self contradictory and do not help in arriving at a conclusion to find out the initial period of the construction of the temple.