Kantajew Temple (কান্তজিউ মন্দির)

Kantajew Temple, also called Kantanagar Temple or Kantaji Temple, stands at Kantanagar in Kaharol upazila, about 20 kilometres north of Dinajpur town in northern Bangladesh, near the Dhepa River. It is dedicated to Krishna and his consort Rukmini.

The temple was begun in 1704 by Maharaja Pran Nath of Dinajpur and completed in 1752 by his adopted son, Raja Ramnath. It was built to house an image of Krishna, known as Kanta, brought to the area by the family. The temple was originally a navaratna, with nine spires, but they were destroyed in the earthquake of 1897 and never rebuilt.

The temple is a three-storey square brick building on a raised plinth, with arched openings on all four sides of each storey. What makes it famous is its terracotta. Almost every surface, inside and out, is covered with thousands of fired clay plaques. They show scenes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the life of Krishna, and everyday life in 18th-century Bengal: hunting parties, boats, processions, musicians, soldiers and village people. The panels are among the finest examples of terracotta art in Bengal.

A smaller older temple stands nearby, and a large fair, the Rash Mela, is held in the temple grounds each year in November, drawing many visitors.

The temple is in active use. Visitors can walk around the grounds and view the panels from close by. Entry has been free, and the grounds are open in daylight hours. Remove shoes near the shrine.

Beyond the terracotta, the building follows a plan seen in late Mughal-era Bengal. Each façade has wide, multi-cusped arches, and the central opening on every side is slightly larger and set forward in a projecting frame, so the temple looks the same from all four directions. When it still had its nine spires, the lower corners carried eight towers around a central one, the arrangement called navaratna.

The Nayabad Mosque, a small eighteenth-century mosque a short distance away, was by local tradition built by the Muslim craftsmen who worked on the temple, for their own prayers. It has its own terracotta panels and pairs well with a visit to Kantajew.