01A temple of few stones
Payar is a village of the karewa plateau about 14 km south-west of Avantipora. Its temple is barely 2.5 metres square inside, yet it is whole: walls, pediments and pyramidal roof, each section cut from a single great block, so that the whole shrine is made of only about ten stones. Each face has a trefoil-arched doorway under a triangular pediment, and the pediments carry carved figures of Shiva in his forms. Many of the valley’s grander temples, Martand and Avantiswami among them, stand roofless; this little one kept its roof because there was so little to pull apart.
02Kept by the village
Since the Kashmiri Pandit families of the area left in 1990, the temple has been looked after by the Muslim villagers of Payar, who keep the compound swept and watched. Pandits who return for a visit find the linga in its place. The temple is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.
The life of this place
- c. 10th centuryThe temple is built of a few great stone blocks.
- 1990Pandit families leave the area; the village’s Muslim families take over the temple’s care.
Reached by village road from Pulwama or Avantipora, about 40 km south of Srinagar; combine with the Avantiswami temple ruins.
