Vadnagar

Vadnagar

Photos Toran Gate

VADNAGAR As you wander through the streets of Vadnagar, your experience of time may no longer be linear, as eras merge and cycles connect. You may sense 4500 hundred years of history trapped in the pottery fragments, textiles, ornaments and tools left behind by the agricultural communities that had settled here. You may touch the traces of the 12th century, wedged between the interlocking stones of the step embankments around the lake or carved in the torans left behind by the Solanki dynasty. You may hear the echoes of glory of bhavai folk theater in the Government Museum, and if fortunate, even catch an impromptu performance in the streets. Also etched in Vadnagar's memory are two of Gujarat's greatest poets, Dayaram and Narsinh Mehta, famous novelists like Govardhanram Tripathi, foremost musicians like Kaumudi Munshi, and innumerable other artists and performers. Out of this soil that nurtured such creativity emerged the Tana Riri Music Festival, to pay homage to the Nagar Brahmin sisters Tana and Riri and their unforgettable sacrifice. The presence Buddhist has also got surfaced with a sand stone broken head of Buddha. This should be belonging to 2nd century AD which is depicting a scene of a monkey offering honey to Buddha, black polished ware-shreds inscribed with Brahmi legeneds like Devshririshi, Shakasya and Dhamma. These have been founded from the Monastery at Vadnagar. The Buddhist Monastery which got surfaced within the fortified area of Vadnagar, had two votive stupas and open central courtyard around which initially nine cells were constructed. This arrangement of cells around the central courtyard makes a pattern like Swastika.