We were told that there was the lost temple of the pashchimaugha. After the end of the gupta-s the pashchimaugha seems to have declined in public prominence over time in the north-west, but is known to have continued quietly until at least the 1500s of CE. This is not the early lineage moved towards the south-west which we alluded to earlier. The vaiShNava during his peregrinations identified this lost temple and supplied me evidence regarding the time till which it was active. The vaiShNava met a learned paNDita from the lATa country, Gopal Vyas, in the days of his youth. The paNDita had discovered an old Ashrama about 3 Km from the hamlet of Gudha named kharjUrikA in a dense forest track:
There he showed the vaiShNava the ruins of 5 temples and some settlements that once comprised an Ashrama. Most of the temples are in utter ruin and only three could be identified. One was that of ka~NkAlI, the other of a bhairava (with an image of gorAkSha-nAtha), and the third was the lost temple of the pashchimaugha of kumAra. In the kumAra temple the following inscription in nAgarI was noted by Pandit Vyas:
OM svAmI kArtikeya achaleshvara yogi prasAdat[…] sevaka [s]thiratattva yogI mUrti sthApite jAtatha[…] shubhaM bhavatu ||
This shristhiratattva yogin who installed this kumAra temple was probably the last of the great north-western adepts of the kaumAra pashchimaugha. The remnants of his Ashrama were seen by the vaiShNava in the vicinity of the above temple cluster. From another inscription of his from the vicinity of Bundi, we get a date as vikram saMvat 1561 (CE 1503?) suggesting he flourished around this period. This is consistent with the mention of the Rajput chief Rao Suraj Mal, who was around at least in the first half of the 1500s. This yogin was also an adept in the siddhAnta and bhairava tantras and gives his lineage thus: maheshvara-tattva->bhramara tattva->vichAra tattva->dharma tattva->sthiratattva. He also built at least two other temples, one to kapileshvara (rudra) and the other to kAla-bhairava with a pond with lotuses and a garden around it. He attained siddhi in the 6 rahasya kaumara mantras while performing japa in the forest of gargAraNya.
mAnasa-taraMgiNI 