1882
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Two-Part Panorama with View of the Narmada River at Omkareshwar is a 1882 by Raja Deen Dayal, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see two long photos joined together, showing a wide bend in the Narmada River. On the left, a temple island pokes above the water; on the right, a matching temple sits on the far bank. This is one of the first times an Indian photographer made a panorama of a sacred Hindu site. The two temples are actually the same god—Shiva—split across the river. Dayal shot it in 1882, when cameras were still rare in India. Look up more photographs of India to see how the land looked through early lenses.
This stunning panorama boldly places the sacred Narmada River in the middle and foreground. Raja Deen Dayal forces the viewer’s eye to journey between the left-hand island with Omkareshwar Temple, an important pilgrimage site that is one of 12 revered Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva, and Mamleshwar, a shrine to Shiva on the river’s south bank, which is on the mainland.
The temple on the left is believed to one of 12 places—Jyotirlinga shrines—where the Hindu god Shiva appeared as a bright column of light.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Raja Lala Deen Dayal, famously known as Raja Deen Dayal) was an Indian photographer.
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