I first saw this fabled hilltop fort in 1989. It sits above the village of Mari, some 40 kms north of Mianwali and overlooks to the west, on the far bank of the Indus, the picturesque riverside town of Kukranwali.

The Mianwali district gazetteer of 1915 noted it was known as Maniot, corrupted from Manikot, signifying ‘Fort of Jewels’. This, the gazetteer recorded, was because the ‘Kalabagh diamonds’ were found here. Whatever these diamonds were, no one could tell me then nor on a recent visit.

What did exist on the hilltop was a pair of ruinous Hindu temples. The larger of the two was leaning about 15 degrees out of its true axis and it was a miracle it was still standing. In fact, even the author of the gazetteer had noted its ‘almost tottering’ state.

All those years ago, I had feared that, even if diamond hunters were not to undermine the building, Nature certainly would do the deed. That the building is still there testifies to the building skill of ancient engineers and stone masons.

Closer examination of the site shows that the surviving temples that face the rising sun did not stand alone. They were a part of a complex of several similar buildings. The remains of at least two can be seen immediately below the leaning building, and another to the north. The hill being clayey and porous and susceptible to erosion, it appears that these buildings simply subsided with the ground giving way beneath them.

The magnificent ruins of a pair of Hindu temples near Mianwali are part of a string of temples from the 8th to the 11th centuries, stretching over 200 kilometres

On the crest of the hill is another similar temple, set on a high stone plinth. It faces west and is in an advanced stage of decay. It has lost its shikhara [steeple], whose debris lies all around the building. Its entrance, choked with thorny mesquite, is impossible to get through. The hilltop around the temples is liberally strewn with pottery shards, evidence that it was inhabited for a considerable period.

In a line across the hill region of Sindh Sagar Doab, between the rivers Jhelum and the Indus, there stretches a string of ancient temples, dating to the time of the Hindu Shahya (8th -11th century CE) rulers of Kashmir. All of these temples date to the latter Hindu Shahya period.

Beyond the Indus, there are two more sites of the same period. One, not very far west of Maniot, had two almost ruined structures in 1985. The other, Bilot, in Dera Ismail Khan district is the most magnificent, with eight beautifully ornate structures enclosed in a massive defensive wall.

In all, beginning with Nandna overlooking the Jhelum floodplain, there are remains at Ketas, but brutally vandalised by ‘conservators’ who knew nothing of what they were doing. Then there is nearby Malot with its stark Greek influence and Sassi da Kallara near Talagang. The latter is unique among the other stone edifices, for being a baked-brick structure. And there are the two at Amb village, one of which — at nearly 40m in height — is the tallest among these structures. Together with Maniot and the sites mentioned on the far side of the Indus, they make seven temple complexes.

The singular characteristic of all these temples is the rather busy ornamentation on their exteriors. It is as if the stone became putty in the hands of the masons. According to Kamil Khan Mumtaz, the well-known architect and historian, most of the motifs — including the trefoil arch of the entrance — derive from earlier Buddhist emblems. There is also a plethora of beautiful rosettes and motifs of the amalaki (Emblika officinalis), a bitter fruit native to the Subcontinent and much used in Ayurvedic medicine.

The writer of the gazetteer says that local Hindus revered these temples as the Samadhi (where Hindu and Sikh ashes are deposited after cremation) of a fakir known either as Naga Arjun or Naga Uddhar. Ancient coins are also said to have been found on the hill, but the writer does not mention if he had them deciphered. Since it had rained a day before my recent visit and because coins are mostly uncovered after a wet period, I scoured the ground, but found nothing.

Going by the template followed in the ornamentation of all these temples, the elevation was replicated in exact miniature on the three sides of the building. Therefore, even where the temple is completely ruinous, as in the case of Nandna, or has lost its steeple, as in Sassi da Kallara and Malot, one can see from the replication what the whole building would have once looked like. At Maniot, the departure from the norm is that the steeples in both surviving temples were stubby, ending in large amalaki toppings.

There seems to have been no scientific investigation at Maniot, but it should be safe to say that this complex was built in about the latter part of the ninth century. That was a hundred years before the Turks began their periodic plundering raids, when this site might have fallen into disuse for some time.

But as Manto said, religion lives in the soul and does not die with all the killing one might gloat over as having destroyed a belief; faith lives on. And here too the ancient religion lived on.

The only change that came over these temples was that, instead of the worship of Shiva and Vishnu, they became sacred to a local fakir who might have lived several hundred years after their walls first resonated to the sounds of recited scripture.

But then 74 years is a long time, time enough for three generations who have never seen a Hindu in Mari to forget what once was. Today, locals only refer to the ancient worship site as ‘place of the kafirs’.

The temple that has been leaning on its side for a long time might yet have some hope. Khurram Shehzad, the deputy commissioner at Mianwali, has asked for a study to be made if the angle can be corrected without damaging the structure. If not that, there might be something to be done to restrict further damage.

If I could have my way, there would be a 200-km trail from Nandna, winding through the Salt Range touching upon all the temples enumerated above. There are stories to tell along the way and architecture to marvel at. Magnificent Bilot, with its collection of temples, would prove a fitting grand finale for the tour.

The writer is author of several books and a fellow of The Royal Geographical Society.
He tweets @odysseuslahori

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 30th, 2022