Kotay-Bhuj

Kotay is 30 kilometers in the north of Bhuj. It has the remains of an old city and several cleaned out temples of perhaps the beginning of the tenth century. The style of construction of Shiva Temple remembers us famous Khajuraho Art looking at the structure of the temple. It seems that the temple was built in the ninth century.

The Shiva Temple is also known as Rao Lakha’s temple and attributed to Lakha Fulani exists in a rundown condition but its remains show the high order of architectural and sculptural beauty which decorated the once magnificent temple. The aisles are covered by groins like the aisles in some Chaitya caves and the central area is covered with huge slabs hollowed out in the centre. The door of the temple is carefully impressed. The nine patrons of the planets are over the lintel and the jambs are carefully sculptured. Mandap has four pillars with a tetragon block sculptured below the range and six pilasters in the entrance hall of the temple. The shrine door is richly carved with two rows of figures on the wall painting. Ganpati on the lintel and the jambs are luxuriously ornamented. The area behind the central jamb is covered with large slabs, carved with sixteen figures related in one another’s arms in a circle, the legs crossed and twisted towards the centre. Each holds a stick in either hand, the left hand being turned down and the right up, and so interlace with the arms of the figures on other side. The roofs of the three aisles at the side and in front of the central area are very prettily carved with flowered ribs, and three straight banks comprehensive of that from which they bounce.