ANNAPURNA TEMPLE, SHATKHIRA.

Annpurna Temple, Est-1201CE

Annapurna Temple

In a compound that bears all the traces of having escaped the worst depredations that the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India raised in Bangladesh, stand a number of fine temples of ages varying from late 18^th Century to relatively recent times.

But, without doubt, the remarkably well preserved 1792 structure in white and pale blue, with its relief inserts in the finest state of preservation seen in Bangladesh, apparently untouched by, particularly, the Pakistan Army who damaged so many such places during their rampage of the Liberation War in 1971, is one of the finest examples of Temple architecture of the early post Mughal period.

Unquestionably attribute to the enormous wealth flowing through these parts at the time, from, perhaps, the notorious Indigo crops, or maybe the great trade from China, Burma, and Assam that, at the time, continued to flow through Bangladesh, as it had done for at least a thousand years before.