Raghunath Temple, Jammu

Raghunath Temple is a famous temple  in the city of Jammu . The temple complex is located in the old part of the Jammu city, north of River Tawi. 

During the reign of the rulers of Jammu Shivaliks, after 1765, there was a spurt in temple building activity in Jammu area, which continued during the early period of the 19th century. The rulers built spiral shaped temples with brick and crowned each tower with bright Kalashas in the shape of shikhara (rising tower).

The construction of the Raghunath Temple was initiated by the first Dogra ruler Maharaja Gulab Singh in the year 1835 and later his son Maharaja Ranbir Singh got it completed in the year 1860. The temple complex consists of seven Hindu shrines but the presiding deity is Rama – also known as Raghunath, an Avatar of Vishnu. The entrance has a Surya icon, another manifestation of Vishnu. It is built over a raised platform of 5 feet (1.5 m) height in an octagonal shape. The front fascia is 40 feet (12 m) in width while the main shrine is set 50 feet (15 m) away from the entrance.

The front fascia of the temple has three entry doors  The main shrine which is 20 feet (6.1 m) x 20 feet (6.1 m) in size, is surrounded by a circumambulatory passage (pradakshina path) of 10 feet (3.0 m) width. The entrance door, set on one side of this octagonal chamber of the shrine, faces east. The interior of the inner chamber is gold plated. The main walls of the outer chamber have 15 panels, each of 9 feet (2.7 m) height. These interior panels have a surfeit of paintings of the Jammu School of painting consisting of images from the Hindu epics Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Bhagavad Gita, represented by gods such as Ganesha, Krishna, reclining Vishnu and also a large painting depicting the Sita Swayamvara  Apart from the mythology related themes, some paintings relate to great men, like Kabir, a saint, and army personnel of  Dogra and Sikh communities. The paintings also reveal the type of attire and the weaponry prevalent during the period of temple building.

In the main shrine, the idol of Lord Rama resides, who is the family deity of the then king and the Dogra people. The shrine has a dome instead of the normal shikhara in a pyramidal shape, which is in the Sikh architectural style. All the seven shrines have gold plated spires. Gods and Goddesses enshrined in the seven shrines are all related to the epic Ramayana. The temple is also enshrined with a very large number of Saligrams which are, specially obtained from the Gandaki river, in Nepal.

A distinct feature noted in the entire temple complex is the stucco style embellishments built with brick masonry and finished with plaster. The motifs crafted are of floral and geometric designs, on the walls, in the niches and on arches. Apart from paintings on the walls, the niches in the interior parts of the shrines have 300 well crafted images of deities. The profusion of paintings and images on the internal and external faces of the temple was considered an auspicious feature, instead of leaving the wall surfaces blank. However, the images and murals on the outer walls of the temple have since been demolished.

All the spiral-shaped towers have gold plated spires. The niches in the walls of the shrines are decorated with 300 well-crafted icons of gods and goddesses including those of Surya and Shiva, but most are particularly related to the life stories of Rama and Krishna. The paintings in the 15 panels of the main shrine are based on themes from Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Bhagavad Gita. During the reign of Maharaja Ranbir Singh, the temple complex started a pathshala (school) which welcomed students from all castes and classes. The temple premises include a school and a library that preserves over 6,000 manuscripts in many Indian languages, with a notable collection of Sarada script and Sanskrit manuscripts.

These are mostly copies made from manuscripts not available for sale, in Devanagari from Sarada originals, by scribes employed by the library in the nineteenth century. The library added to its collection, in the 19th century, a dozen rare Sanskrit books in the Sarada script as an object of curiosity. The collection as indexed by Stein, included Sanskrit manuscripts (predominantly Devanagari) of Vedic literature, grammar, lexicography, prosody, music, rhetoric, Kavya, drama, fables, dharmasutras, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Jyotisha, Architecture, Medicine, Epics, Puranas, Bhakti and Tantra.

Maharaja Ranbir Singh funded a translation centre and initiated an effort to translate texts in Arabic and Persian languages . According to Zutshi, this inter-religious initiative was praised by his contemporaries.

The Raghunath temple remains a significant scholarly source of Sarada script manuscripts and one of the largest collections of Hindu and Buddhist texts of the Kashmir tradition. The Raghunath temple has been an early promoter of digitization initiative of the manuscripts it houses, and has started the eGangotri initiative to digitize ancient manuscripts from other parts of India.

Within the enclosed space of the yard there are residential buildings and open cattle yards on its eastern and northern directions.