हिंदीOn this day
Ruined

Eran (Airikina)

A bend of the Bina river in Sagar district where the Guptas and their governors set up a Garuda pillar, Vishnu temples and a colossal stone Varaha covered with rishis. An inscription here of 510 CE is the earliest dated record of a sati.

Built: Gupta-age temples and pillars, 4th–6th century CEWhere: Madhya PradeshDeity: Bhagwan Vishnu as Varaha and Narasimha24.09° N, 78.16° E
  1. c. 350–375 CE
  2. 484–85 CE
  3. c. 500 CE
  4. 510 CE (Gupta year 191)
Photo: Itsmalay~commonswiki · CC BY-SA 4.0

01The great Varaha

Airikina was a town long before the Guptas; excavations by Sagar University found layers going back to the Chalcolithic, and its own copper coins carry its name in Brahmi. A broken inscription of Samudragupta calls the Airikina country his pleasure-city. In 484–85 CE, under Budhagupta, two brothers, Matrivishnu and Dhanyavishnu, raised a 13-metre pillar to Janardana with a double Garuda on top; it still stands. Dhanyavishnu later dedicated the Varaha, in the first year of the Huna king Toramana: a boar more than three metres long, carved in one block, with rows of small rishis across its body and Bhudevi hanging from its tusk. Beside them are the ruined temples of Vishnu and Narasimha.

02Goparaja’s stone

A short pillar inscription of Gupta year 191, 510 CE, from the time of Bhanugupta, records that Goparaja, a chief who followed him, fell in a great battle at Eran, and that his devoted wife went with him into the fire. It is the oldest dated record of a sati in Bharat. Taken together, the stones of Eran give a run of dated Gupta history: Samudragupta, Budhagupta in 484, the Huna Toramana soon after, Bhanugupta in 510, that is hard to find anywhere else.

The life of this place

  1. c. 350–375 CESamudragupta’s inscription names Airikina as his pleasure-city.
  2. 484–85 CEMatrivishnu and Dhanyavishnu raise the Garuda pillar under Budhagupta.
  3. c. 500 CEDhanyavishnu dedicates the great Varaha in Toramana’s first year.
  4. 510 CE (Gupta year 191)Bhanugupta’s inscription records Goparaja’s death in battle and his wife’s sati.
Visiting

Eran is about 75 km north-west of Sagar, by Bina. The site is open and unguarded; carry water.

People

SamudraguptaRuler
Reigned c. 335–375 CE

Samudragupta

Gupta conqueror, poet and vina player

Nearby

Dashavatara Temple, DeogarhRuined
The Gupta Age

Dashavatara Temple, Deogarh

A Gupta stone temple of Vishnu on the Betwa, one of the earliest Hindu temples built to the panchayatana plan. Its three relief panels are among the masterpieces of Indian sculpture.

Vidisha (Besnagar)Standing
Shungas, Satavahanas, Kharavela and the Sangam Kingdoms

Vidisha (Besnagar)

The old city on the Betwa where a Greek envoy raised a Garuda pillar to Vasudeva around 113 BCE, with Sanchi and the Udayagiri caves in sight. Its great Paramara temple, the Vijaya Mandir, was pulled down on Aurangzeb’s orders in 1682.

Udayagiri Caves, VidishaStanding
The Gupta Age

Udayagiri Caves, Vidisha

Twenty rock-cut shrines in a sandstone hill near Vidisha, the oldest securely dated Hindu cave temples. The great Varaha panel of Cave 5 shows Vishnu lifting Bhudevi out of the ocean.

SanchiStanding
The Maurya Empire

Sanchi

The Buddhist hill of Sanchi, a few km from Vidisha, with the Great Stupa begun by Ashoka and four carved gateways of the 1st century BCE. It is the most complete early Buddhist site in Bharat.