Kera, Kutch

Kera કેરા
village
Shiva Temple, Kera
Kera Location in Gujarat, India
Coordinates: 23°04′44″N 69°35′49″E / 23.079°N 69.597°E / 23.079; 69.597Coordinates: 23°04′44″N 69°35′49″E / 23.079°N 69.597°E / 23.079; 69.597
Country	India
State	Gujarat
District	Kachchh
Founded by	Lakha Phulani
Languages
• Official	Gujarati, Hindi
Time zone	IST (UTC+5:30)
Nearest city	Bhuj

Kera is a village in Bhuj Taluka of Kutch district of Gujarat, India. This historical town has several places of interest; the ruins of an old fort and Shiva temple, and the shrine of a Muslim saint Ghulam Ali.

The ruins, as they are said to be the remains of the capital of Lakha Phulani, the great Cutch hero. Historically the town was known as Kapilkot. Close search among the ruins and tombstones has failed to throw any light on the much disputed point of Lakha's date. Tradition places him about the ninth century, but the more trustworthy Muslim records would, unless there was more than one famous chief of the same name, place him somewhere in tho 13th or 14th century.

Tho old Shiva temple, built perhaps at the end of the tenth century, is of hard lasting stone partly red partly yellow. Except the shrine and spire, the temple collapsed during the 1819 Rann of Kutch earthquake. The shrine measures 8 feet 6 inches square inside, with walls 2 feet 7 inches thick, surrounded by a path 2 feet 6 inches wide, lighted by two open cut-stone windows. Of the hall, which was 18 feet 9 inches wide, only a part of the north wall with one window is left. The wall sculptures, though not numerous, are well executed, and on the faces of the spire is an elaborately cut ornament representing the outlines of a chaitya window, repeated over a triangular face, with human figurines in-between. Of these triangles of sculpture there are eight on each side, gradually lessening as they rise higher one over the other. The corners of the shrine are mounted by miniature spires, and above them are other four similar, but set further inwards; above these and the sculpture, rises the massive outline of the great central spire all beautifully carved.

Southeast of Kera, a small village, on a pretty rising ground, has the well-wooded shrine of the saint Ghulam Ali. Within the enclosure are three chief buildings, a mausoleum, dargah with a tomb under a canopy, supported by twelve small Islamic styled columns. Against the pall lies the photograph of a Mughal saint, and below him Hassan and Husain, and in third frame Prophet Muhammad, the face left blank in part obedience to the orders of the Quran. In the middle of the quadrangle, in front of the mausoleum, stands a canopy, chhatra, with a flat roof and side balconies and a tombless mausoleum to Dadi Ali Shah. The doors have projecting shields between floral ornaments, like those found at Maiji Sahiba's tomb at Junagadh and on the palace at Navanagar (now Jamnagar) in Kathiawar. The windows are of pierced stone of very simple patterns.