Mahanal Temples and Math – Menal
I visited the Mahanal Group of temples in December 2025. This Group is located at Menal in Begun tehsil of Chittorgarh district in southeastern Rajasthan, off the Kota-Chittorgarh highway on the Bundi-Chittorgarh road, about eighty kilometres from Chittorgarh, fifty kilometres from Bundi and seventy kilometres from Kota. A small road opposite the Hanuman Temple in Menal village leads down into the valley, which lies along a stream locally known as the Menali, within the Aravalli range.
The Archaeological Survey of India lists the monument as Mahanal Temple and Math, and the cluster has several temples scattered across the gorge and forested area. The structures can be broadly divided into two complexes, the Mahanaleshwar temple complex, which is the most prominent Shiva temple dating to the eleventh century, and the Suhaveshwar temple group, along with about four to five smaller shrines dedicated to Vishnu and the goddess, two monasteries and numerous architectural fragments, built over a period from the eighth to the fourteenth century CE. Because of its location halfway between Bundi and Chittorgarh, near a waterfall and close to Bijolia, it is usually visited together with the Bijolia temples.
Dedicated to Shiva, this temple of Mahanal (circa 11th century CE.) was a great centre of Shaivism during the reign of Chahamanas where this magnificent temple is built in the bhumija style. It is mentioned as a place of pilgrimage in Bijolia rock inscription (1170 CE) The temple consists of a garbhagriha, an antarala, a rangamandapa with samvarana roof and a small porch with a nandi mandapa in front. The sculptures engraved on the exterior of the temple are of high order.
The twin small shrines (circa 8th century CE) to the north-west of the main temple are dedicated to Ganesha and Gauri the hypostyle building was built to serve as a shiva math which has luxuriously embellished with ghatapallava (an ornamental motif consisting of a pot with overflowing foliage, often used as the capital and or base of pillars and pilasters) pillars.
Photo of a broken artifact showing a ghatapallava from Mahanal Temple. Photo: kjschatrath
An inscription records that this monastery was built by an ascetic Bhavabrahma in 1169 CE. During the reign of Chahamana king Prithviraj it (1164-69 CE.) The temple across the stream was built by Suhiya Devi, the wife of Chahamana king Prithviraj . (Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological Survey of India; Jodhpur Circle, 2010)
One notices a number of broken pieces of old temples lying around in the compound, crying for care. Take a look:
Photo: kjschatrath
Photo: kjschatrath
Now some details about the Bijola Rock inscription. It is dated Vikram Samvat 1226, which is 5th February 1170 CE, Falgun Krishna Tritiya. It is engraved on a large boulder lying to the north of the water reservoir attached to the Parshvanath Jain temple in the Bijolia temple complex in Bhilwara district, Rajasthan. The site is a protected monument of the Archaeological Survey of India and is listed as the Rock Inscription of the Chauhan Dynasty.
The inscription was issued during the reign of the Chahamana king Someshvara of Ajmer. It was composed in Sanskrit by Gunabhadra, a Jain scholar, and was engraved by Nanak. It was caused to be erected in 1170 AD by the Jain Shravak Lolak, a merchant from Ujjain, to commemorate the construction of the Parshvanath temple, which according to local tradition was built by Mahajan Lala after Lolak had a dream revealing an ancient idol of Parshvanath near a pond.
The record consists of thirty lines and ninety verses. It begins with praise of the Jain Tirthankaras - Rishabhanatha the first, Shantinatha the sixteenth, Parshvanatha the twenty-third and Mahavira the twenty-fourth and last. After the invocation it gives a detailed genealogy of the Chahamanas of Shakambhari and Ajmer, starting from Vasudeva, who is credited with constructing the lake at Sambhar, down to Someshvara himself. For this reason it is also known simply as the Chauhan inscription and is considered the most important source for throwing new light on the early history of the Chahamana dynasty, including the ancestors of Prithviraj Chauhan.
Besides the dynastic history, the inscription refers to political events such as the destruction of some small Chaulukya towns by Vigraharaja IV, the predecessor of Someshvara, and it preserves ancient place names like Jabalipura for Jalor, Shakambhari for Sambhar and Srimala for Bhinmal. There are in fact two rocks of the same date at Bijolia, one containing the dynastic genealogy and the other containing a Jain poem called the Uttama Sikhara Purana.
(Text with my photos and inputs from my field visit, ASI, internet and help from chat-gpt.)
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