Kaman, Rajasthan

Kaman, or Kamaban, is an old town with an interesting past. It is famous for having two peeths of vallabhacharyaji mahaprabhuji. Hence, it is an important place for vaishnaivas of shuddhadwait pushtimarg. Though it is located towards the north of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan,also it forms a part of the Braj Bhoomi, which is related to the childhood and pastimes of Lord Krishna.

Quotes

• In one case, that of the early thirteenth-century Cauras (or Causat) Kambha Masjid at Kaman, Rajasthan, one of the earliest Indian monuments of the Ghurids, dating from before the establishment of the Slave Kingdom by Aybak in 1206, we find elements in use which were taken not from recent Hindu structures, but rather from monuments which were built four or five centuries earlier. This appears to have been done with calculated consistency; and, possibly, the practice may have been much more widespread. Building materials for the Kaman mosque were removed from pavilions (mandapzkas) and monasteries (mathas) and a variety of other structures, including temples, which were built during the rule of the Shurasena dynasty in the seventh and eighth centuries and the Pratiharas in the ninth century. The resulting mosque still substantially expresses a Hindu sensibility, and, built by Hindu craftsmen (at least in part) under Muslim patronage, integrates Hindu architectural design with Islamic ornament and use.
  • Al-Hind-The-Making-of-the-Indo-Islamic-World-Vol-2-The-Slave-Kings-and-the-Islamic-Conquest-11th-13th-Centuries

• The Causat Kambh or Cauri Kambh mosque at Kaman, near Bharatpur, Rajasthan, is among the earliest of the Islamic monuments built in India under Ghurid occupation... The Caur Kambh mosque at Kaman, in fact, comes closest of all the surviving Islamic monuments that precede the establishment of ... Aibak’s dynasty in India preserving what R. Nath has called ‘the humble mosque which Aibak could have hastily assembled. [...]’ It does not, however, represent simple plunder, nor have its Hindu elements been thoughtlessly reassembled. It preserves for us a clear model of the elements thought essential for a mosque at the opening edge of Islamic occupation in India and gives some suggestion of the aesthetic judgement exercised by the artisans and engineers then employed... My own interest in Kaman stemmed from the extensive Hindu materials from which this mosque has been constructed.16 Building materials for the mosque were removed from a variety of structures— pavilions and monasteries (ma...has) in addition to temples—built during the rule of the early rasena dynasty. The Caur Kambh’s foundation inscription in 1204 AD as well as a later inscription of 1271 AD, in fact, repeat a claim begun in earlier Hindu inscriptions to have made or further renovated a well at Kaman. In contrast to most other early Islamic monuments in India from regions where plunder could serve both as a convenient source for building materials and as a political act, those who assembled this mosque seized elements, not from recently built Hindu structures, but rather—with what would seem to have been calculated consistency—from monuments built four or five centuries earlier. While this act may merely have represented the antiquity and sanctity of Kaman’s resources, the results produced had explicit, exploitable, aesthetic consequences... Constructed early in the thirteenth century by Hindu craftsmen under Muslim patronage, the Kaman mosque shows a coherent integration of Hindu craftsmanship and ordering with an imported Islamic modality for use. Few other monuments in this early period show so successful an adaptation of Hindu elements as at Kaman... Though the mihr¡b made for the Shah¥ Jami‘ mosque at Bari Khatu (Khatu Kalan) in Nagaur District, Rajasthan, for example—a mosque also of the early thirteenth century and made largely from plundered Hindu material—shares decorative patterns with that at Kaman, that monument, as a whole, lacks much of Kaman’s architectural and decorative integrity. Actual adaptation of an existing structure at Sari Khatu, much more so than at Kaman, seems to have been a political act, plunder becoming a means to demonstrate Islamic control... At Kaman or Ajmer, architects combined old pieces with a sense of their aesthetic coherence; by integrating them to fit a new programme, they have been able to create a new unified statement for Islam in India.
  • Meister, Michael, in Islam and Indian regions. Vol. I. pp. 445–53. Edited By Anna Libera Dallapiccola and Stephanie Zingel-Avé Lallemant. (Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, Südasien-Institut, Universität Heidelberg, Band 145.) Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1993.