Siddheshwar Temple Limpangaon,Ahmednagar,Maharasthra

December 6, 2024May 28, 2025 Murli Dev

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Around 7 km from Kashti (Srigonda Taluka, Ahmednagar District) towards the taluka HQs of Srigonda, lies the temple town/village of Limpangaon. The Siddheshwara Temple is a Hemadpanthi-Style temple.

What is Hemadpanthi style?

Named after its advocate Hemadpant (r. 1259-1274 CE), a Prime Minister in the Court of Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri, this style of architecture follows the cardinal principle of center of mass in its construction, in that, there is a total absence of mortar to hold together elements of construction. In other words, each element is placed and balanced to maintain the structural integrity without the need for adhesives. The masonry simply relied on tenon and mortise joints technique. The temples built were either in a square plan or a star-shaped-plan, and mostly of black stones and limestones, which are richly distributed throughout the state of Maharashtra.

The Siddheshwara Temple is a mid-13th century CE built temple, and is conspicuous by the absence of image sculpture on the outer walls. The carvings and decorations are confined to the interiors of the temple. The reason could either be economic, or the growing presence of Islam in the Deccan by the 13th century.

On either side of the main porch is a large perforated screen wall which is neatly designed in imitation of crossbars, and slightly ornamented. Almost all of the ancient elements are now painted in grey, with the original signature as the major casualty.

The temple consists of a garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum), an antarala (an antechamber or a foyer between the garbhagriha and the mandapa), a gudhamandapa (a type of hall enclosed by walls, and where the light and air is let in through windows and doors) and an ardhamandapa (the half-open hall). Siddheshwara Temple is an east-facing pancharatha, in that it has five rathas or facets or vertical offset projections on the plan of the structure.

The sanctum is square-shaped containing the Shivalinga in a depressed ground.

The shrine doorway has elaborately sculptured jambs or antepagments, the first and the fifth of which are pushpa sakhas, the second, third and fourth being rupa, stambha and vyala respectively. The term sakhas denote branches, and it is believed that originally a number of branches were tied together to create the doorway to the deity, and the technique was later on artistically carried on in the form of stone vertical mouldings.

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