Ganiyari is a village in the Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh. The Central Province Gazetteer says the town had fifteen tanks and ponds sufficient to irrigate a considerable area. A priest family of Janardan Shastri held it free of revenue in perpetuity. The family also had other villages with them.1
Shiv Mandir: The temple faces east and has survived with its garbhagrha and partial shikhara. The garbhagrha is a 6.5-foot square chamber. Four pilasters in the corners support its domical ceiling. The walls of the garbhagrha have been mainly reconstructed. From past accounts, the temple followed the pancharatha (five offsets) pattern, and its shikhara was done in the bhumija mode.2 The garbhagrha doorway has a trishakha (three bands/jambs) design. The River goddesses Ganga and Yamuna occupy the bottom parts of the jambs with their attendants and Shaiva dvarapalas. The middle shakha has sculptural panels depicting Shiva-Vinadhara, Ardhanareeshwara and a few unidentifiable images. The lintel is carved with three niches, two on terminals and one in the middle. The terminal niches have Sarasvati and Ganesha, and the middle niche has an image of Gaja-Lakshmi. Nava-grhas occupy the space between the niches. The upper lintel has an image of Shiva-Natesha. The uppermost lintel has an image of Garuda in the middle. A shiva linga is installed inside the garbhagrha. Statues dug out from a nearby tank are also placed inside the garbhagrha.
Adhishthana is composed of multiple mouldings. A few have survived and are retained in one corner of the temple. The bottommost moulding carries images of elephants. The accounts tell that the main niches on bhadra ratha were in place. These had statues of Surya, Ganesha, and a goddess, probably Parvati. However, as the walls are remodelled, the niches are no longer in their original space but stacked over one another. The sculptural style, presence of the river goddesses and the style of dvarapalas suggest that the temple was constructed during the Kalachuri period of the 11th-12th century CE.
1 Nelson, A E (ed.) (1910). Central Districts Gazetteers – Bilaspur District, volume A – Descriptive. The Pioneer Press. Allahabad (now Prayagraj). p. 266
2 Manwani, S N (1984). The Temple Art of the Kalachuris of Ratanpur, a Ph. D. thesis submitted to Dr. Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya, Sagar. pp. 96-99
Acknowledgement: Some of the photos above are in CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain from the collection released by the Tapesh Yadav Foundation for Indian Heritage.