Masroor “Unfinished Rock Cut Temple”

The history of unfamous can be explored by traveling and exploring

Life is travel, so we as travel enthusiast tries to travel as much as possible to explore life to the fullest. In a similar way this time it is a plan to travel to some unfinished architecture that is not so much explored and not so much in books.

Basically, it is said that at the time of exile of Pandavas in the Mahabharata epic, they stayed at Masroor for some duration, in which for worship they started building this temple, but due to Kauravas invasion, Pandavas have to leave the temple in an incomplete condition. So my task today is to verify what is exactly completed and what is left.

So at 7am in the morning I planned and started my ride to the Rock-cut temple of Masroor. Masroor is a small village in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. The route started from my current location in Hoshiarpur.

The morning time in the season of ending monsoon is sometimes quite tough due to the unexpected rains, but luck sometimes supports us in moving ahead and achieving the target. This time the weather was sunny, and the wind was calm, which supports the bike riding to an enjoyable level.

Soon in an hour or so, I was able to cross Gagret, Mubarakpur, and Chintapurni and was able to get to touch the Beas river. The views are getting better and better, and the excitement level is getting more fascinating. The next ride stop was through an old bridge which is a subsidiary of the Beas river.

The view was something that I have never seen earlier, the feel of an old civil construction just awakens my engineering enthusiasm, but soon I remember that I am here to travel not to check or do any benchmarking.

The feel of rusted steel ropes and the vibration of the bridge when any heavy vehicle is passing by just makes the goosebumps. I spent over 15 minutes here, just to appreciate the magnificent view of the bridge.

So now moving forward to the desired destination and in the next hour, I was at the parking of the Unfamous Masroor Rock Cut Temple.

At first glance, this felt like love at first sight with a rock, a rock that was never fully carved. As we always compare the beauty with the spots of The moon, similarly this unfinished work is a different level of beauty.

The pool in front of the temple gives a charming reflection of the architecture. The water in the pool I would never ever suggest anyone take a bath as it’s quite dirty, but the morning light pattern and the surrounding makes the view a delightful experience.

Now it’s time to check inside the temple. So it was observed very old idols of Lord Ram, Laxman, and Sita.

The temple is been governed by the priest who does the worship every morning and evening to make our Gods happy and ask them to provide goodness to humans and humanity.

There was a small Shivlinga also available on the outside of the temple, looks like it’s also incomplete.

The gates of the temple were fantabulous and looked like some fort gates. which obviously makes any photographer like me wait and click some good snaps of it.

After doing some worship and asking God to give me more opportunities to travel more and explore more about the beautiful world made by God, I started my way to the roof of the temple, which was a showcase of the temple top or Shikhara. An incomplete Shikhara. It looks like a mountain rising from the top of the temple.

After just exploring all angles of the temple, it was time to take some selfies, so that proof can be made to the public that I was really one of the people who traveled to this infamous Masroor Rock Cut Temple.

At the end of this small trip, I want to say that there are numerous amount of epic stories which connect to the architecture in India. As travelers, it is definitely our responsibility to explore and change the mental state of people from unknown to known. This Rock cut temple is such an example of some great places with great architecture and great history connectivity which need to be told. So signing off for this small trip to archeology.