Martand Sun Temple
— — the colonnade the centuries left standing.
Not only on a wall.
“Eighth-century ruin on a high plateau south of Srinagar, looking out over the whole Kashmir Valley. King Lalitaditya Muktapida of the Karkota dynasty built it around 725 to 756, a courtyard of eighty-four columns enclosing a central shrine to the sun. Most of it came down in the early fifteenth century. What remains — limestone, weathered grey, opening to the eastern light — still reads as architecture rather than rubble. — from the studio
Martand Sun Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Martand Sun Temple stands on a karewa plateau near the town of Anantnag in the Kashmir Valley, roughly 60 kilometres southeast of Srinagar. King Lalitaditya Muktapida of the Karkota dynasty commissioned it in the mid-eighth century, with construction generally dated between 725 and 756 CE. The temple was dedicated to Surya, the sun, and oriented to catch the eastern light across the valley. It sits at about 1,722 metres above sea level, on ground that looks out over the Jhelum basin to the Pir Panjal range. The site is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India as a Monument of National Importance.
The temple is built of grey limestone ashlar, locally quarried, cut and laid without mortar in the Karkota style of dressed-block masonry. The plan is a rectangular courtyard roughly 67 metres long by 43 metres wide, originally ringed by 84 fluted columns. The central shrine sat on a raised plinth at the western end, with a trefoil arch over the entrance — a Kashmiri detail that braids Gandharan, Gupta, and central-Asian influence. Sultan Sikandar Butshikan of the Shah Mir dynasty ordered the temple destroyed in the early fifteenth century, sometime between 1389 and 1413. What stands now is what could not easily be pulled down.
The site lies on the outskirts of Mattan village, about ten kilometres north of Anantnag town and a roughly two-hour drive from Srinagar by road. The Archaeological Survey of India keeps the grounds open during daylight hours with a small admission charge. May, June, and September give the most reliable weather; July and August carry monsoon risk, and the plateau holds snow from December through February. The angle that fills the colonnade with morning light — the orientation the temple was built for — comes about an hour after dawn, when the sun clears the eastern ridge across the valley.