On the morning of the 3rd I spent about three hours at the Tibetan Namdroling Monastery in Bylakuppe before leaving. About 7 I watched as the nuns made their way from their nunnery to the monastery for their morning prayers. I followed. The nuns and some of the monks, along with some Tibetan lay people, first circumambulated the central Zangdogpalri Temple several times. About 7:30 the nuns all gathered in a hall to hear a lecture. Monks and lay people all hurried to another hall, some almost running (in order to get good seats, I suppose) and then quickly doffing their shoes or sandals at the entrance. There was quite a pile of footwear outside after they all entered. In one of the small temples just a small group of monks were chanting among smoky incense to the accompaniment of drums, cymbals, horns and conch shells. I watched from outside before heading to the Golden Temple, which was deserted except for one young monk tidying up. He soon left and I had that wonderful place to myself. I left when the Indian tourists started arriving and had breakfast and then read the newspaper with the friendly Tibetans at the hotel.
About 11 I took an auto rickshaw to the bus station in Kushalnagar and almost immediately got on a bus heading north to Hassan, 40 or 45 miles away. The trip started inauspiciously as two passengers got into a heated and loud argument, one of them eventually weakly hitting the other twice. This started off a big commotion, with the women in the bus the loudest. It lasted for maybe fifteen minutes.
The road north was thin and bumpy through the dry countryside. Karnataka had a bad monsoon last year and there are water shortages. Still, I enjoyed this back road, at about 3000 feet elevation, on the edge of the Mysore Plateau, the southernmost extension of the Deccan Plateau that comprises much of central and southern India. There were lots of uncultivated rice paddies. It took about two and a half hours to reach Hassan, where I quickly got a 2 p.m. bus northwest 20 or 25 miles to Belur, arriving about 3. I've become a big fan of Indian buses. They are rickety old things (in fact, rickety even if new), but usually have plenty of leg room and almost always you can get a seat. You rarely have to wait and there are no movies or curtains so you can see the countryside go by.
In Belur I rested a bit, had a late lunch, and about 4:30 made my way to the Chennakeshava Temple in the middle of town. It dates from the 12th century and was built by the Hoysala Kingdom which ruled this part of southern India from the 11th to the 14th centuries. Belur was their first capital and the temple was built to celebrate a victory over the Chola Kingdom and the king's conversion from Jainism. The temple is inside a compound entered through a seven story gopuram, or tower, of much later date I think. The main temple, at the center of the walled enclosure, appears squat, and is without a shikara, or tower, but it is covered with amazing sculpture, both inside and outside. The sculpture is of soapstone, which is very easy to carve when first quarried but then hardens with exposure to the air. The sculpture is therefore very fine, like that of ivory or sandalwood. On the outside are rows and rows of figures, elephants at the bottom (600 to 700 of them circling the temple), lions above them, and in higher rows dancing girls, scenes from Hindu literature and the gods themselves. There are thousands of figures. Particularly beautiful are brackets attached to the eaves featuring dancing girls. Inside is more beautiful sculpture, including more of the brackets with dancing girls, polished to a very black shine. There is a spot light that you can pay to light to see the sculpture on the ceiling and elsewhere that is otherwise impossible or difficult to see well. Also, the pillars inside were made on lathes and thus have a remarkable symmetry. No two are alike. The temple is an active one, manned by several bare chested brahmin priests. The deity (an avatar of Vishnu) in the sanctuary stands about ten feet high, a polished black statue bedecked with silver and flowers.
There are other temples in the compound, also adorned with sculpture. I walked around looking at everything until dark. There were quite a few pilgrims and tourists. Most had left by dark, but there were still quite a few Indians, and me, around to see the aarti just after 7 and before the closing of the temples. The priests waved candelabras and plates of fire in front of the idol in the sanctuary while we all watched. A drum, a clanging bell, and, oddly, a saxophone, provided musical accompaniment. The priests brought out the plate of fire from the sanctuary so the crowd could bless themselves with it. A priest had first pushed back the crowd with a sort of scepter before the priest with the plate of fire appeared. Another priest came out with an urn of water and dispense small spoonfuls into the hands of the devotees, who drank a bit of it and spread the rest over their heads. Next, a priest brought out a conical gold cap which he briefly held over the head of each devotee. I left about 7:30 after the ceremony ended.
I walked back to the temple the next morning at about 7:30. It was quiet and cool, with few people. I looked at all the marvelous figures on the walls. After some time the saxophone player appeared, leading three priests around the stone floor of the compound. One priest carried a big urn, the second a scepter, and the third a fly whisk. They circled the main temple and then went in the main entrance. Just after 9 began the morning aarti, with only about fifteen of us watching and with the accompaniment of only the saxophone. It was similar to the evening before, but with less pushing by the priest with the scepter. Afterward, the saxophonist led the priests to the other temples in the compound to perform similar rites to open them up for the day. I walked around some more taking in all the sculpture and left for breakfast about 10. Two apparent sadhus, one clad in orange and the other in white, came in and walked around just before I left.
I spent the middle part of the day in an internet cafe, had a late lunch, and then went back to the temple about 5. I enjoyed seeing all the sculpture again in the late afternoon cool. Just before 7 the evening aarti commenced, followed by ceremonies closing up the other temples in the compound. The saxophonist and a drum player, playing the two sided, hand held Indian drum called a dhole (I think), sound quite like a jazz duo, very strange for a Hindu ceremony. The saxophone, of course, is hardly traditional, invented in Belgium in the early 1800's, if I remember correctly. As I left the temple compound, there were scores of people clad mostly in orange preparing to spend the night on the platform in front of the temple compound. Many others were walking up the street towards the compound.
The next morning I found out why. I headed to the temple early in the morning, arriving just after the big doors were opened. Many of the huge crowd of orange clad people entered, but most stayed outside, as did I. It turned out they were on a ten day religious pilgrimage from Bangalore to Dharmastala, a temple town over the Ghats and inland from Mangalore, about 200 miles of walking all together. Big groups lined up sitting in rows on the platform in front of the compound to have their breakfast served. First, plates made of dry leaves stitched together were placed in front of them. Then guys toting metal pails of a soupy rice and vegetable mixture, slightly orange in color, ladled big spoonfuls of the mixture onto the leaf plates. A handful of something crispy was dropped on top of each portion and the people commenced to eat rapaciously, all with only their right hands, of course. They must have been very hungry. I walked around and watched and took photos of the friendly bunch. Many invited me to partake, but I managed to restrain myself. As one large group finished, another group took its place. I was told there are 4000 or 5000 of them on their way to Dharmastala. Most were gone by 9, on the road to Dharmastala, with the Western Ghats still ahead of them. Before I left for quite a different breakfast of my own, I spotted some of the support trucks, one with a huge vat of the soupy mixture in the back. Bucketfuls were poured out of it into a smaller vat on the platform, and the servers loaded up their bucketfuls from that. Many other trucks seemed to be full of the bags containing the personal possessions of the pilgrims.
I had planned to go to Halebid, ten miles away, early that morning, but after spending so much time with the pilgrims, I decided to spend the middle part of the day in an internet cafe and then took a bus shortly after 2 northeast to Halebid. Halebid was the second capital of the Hoysalas, until it was conquered and destroyed by the Delhi Sultanate in the early 14th century. Fortunately, the magnificent 12th century Hoyasaleshvara Temple was not destroyed, although it was damaged by the Muslim iconoclasts. It, too, appears rather squat, like the temple in Belur, with no shikara, or tower, and in fact it is incomplete. But it is covered with exuberant sculpture, thousands of figures, similar but of better quality, it seems, than at Belur, and many more figures. As at Belur, the figures are in rows, something like nine of them, and there are those beautiful bracket figures. Again, there are elephants, then lions, then horses and riders rising in rows from the base. Then rows of floral designs, mythical beasts called yalis, geese, and dancing girls and musicians (and a few copulating couples). One row has scenes from the Hindu epics circling the building. The Muslims seem to have been particularly determined to decapitate the horsemen. While most of the figures are less than a foot in height, there are many, of gods and goddesses, that are about half human size, and these are wonderfully done. Some are extraordinary: Krishna holding up a mountain with trees and people and animals on the mountain, the demon Ravanna doing the same with Mount Kailash with Shiva and Parvati on top, Shiva inside a demon elephant. Inside the temple is more sculpture. The temple has two sanctuaries, with linga, and two mandapa halls leading to the sanctuaries, the two mandapas linked by a corridor. Inside are those lathed turned columns as at Belur. To the east of the temple are two pavilions, each containing a huge Nandi, the bull that is Shiva's vehicle.
I spent almost four hours looking around, with the stone very hot on the sunny west side. (You have to go barefoot on the stone platform upon which the temple sits.) Fortunately, there were ropy fabrics on the stone, although they didn't cover the whole west and south sides. The temple is in a grassy park, with purple blossoming trees, in the middle of a small town. I got a van back to Belur about 7, a trip back in the dark.
The next morning there were still orange clad pilgrims heading up Belur's main street towards the temple. A guy told me they do this every year, arriving over four days. About 9 I took a bus back to Halebid and spent most of the day there. I spent about an hour again at the Hoysaleshvara Temple. Six very polite little kids, the girls beautifully dressed, asked to be photographed and I happily did so. I walked a little south to the outskirts of the little town and explored three Jain temples, two much larger than the third. They had little sculpture, though they did have those lathe turned columns of black soapstone inside and tall, erect, naked statues of tirthankars in the sanctuaries. East, beyond a beautiful grove of coconut palms and next to a man winnowing some sort of grain, was another Hoysala temple, smaller and much more incomplete than the main one in town. The sculpture was not as prolific, but still was very interesting and the site was deserted but for the caretaker and me. I spent about an hour looking around. The figures were similar to the main temple and more horsemen were preserved, though the Muslims still did a fairly thorough job. There were several panels of a completely nude woman, except perhaps for a little jewelry, with snakes entwined around her. I hadn't seen that before. I sat under a palm tree eating some raisins I had brought and then walked back to town and had a good lunch at the state tourist hotel. Afterward, I went to the little museum, filled with great sculpture, next to the main temple and then back to the main temple itself to look around. It was cloudy, so the stone platform on which the temple sits was not too hot on the feet. I enjoyed looking all around again. There is always something you didn't see before. I took the bus back to Belur about 4:30. There were orange clad pilgrims here and there along the road heading towards Belur.
The next morning at 8 I walked up to the temple in Belur. There were only a few of the pilgrims in front of the compound. Four musicians were sitting in front of the entrance and playing, attended by a small group of singing pilgrims also sitting on the stone platform. A keyboardist using a bellows operated keyboard, a drummer with two tablas (small drums), and two guys with cymbals comprised the group. They were a friendly bunch. I listened for a while, until the pilgrims got up and set off on their journey to Dharmastala. I went into the temple compound and looked around again, staying until after the completion of the aartis that begin about 9. The priests move around from temple to temple, starting with the main one. I left about 10 and had breakfast and then caught a bus about 11 southeast to Channarayapatna, about 45 or 50 miles away, passing through Hassan again on the way. I saw small groups of orange clad pilgrims, some of them barefoot, along the road heading towards Belur. There were many coconut palms and other trees along the way, but the land was brown. After about two hours we reached Channarayapatna, where I immediately caught a bus heading southeast for another five miles or so to the little town of Sravanabelgola, with more big groves of coconut palms on the way. Approaching the little town, at about 3000 feet elevation, I could see the giant granite statue of Gomateshvara on the 400 foot high rocky hill hovering above the town. In fact, there are two rocky hills straddling the town, Vindyagiri with the statue to the south and Chandragiri, about half as high, to the north. A large tank lies between the two hills, with the town around it and between the hills.
Sravanabelgola is an important Jain pilgrimage site and I checked into the Jain pilgrim accommodation for 210 rupees, about $4, a night. I rested a bit in my room. found a newspaper to read, and had an idli snack before exploring around the town. I went into the small town's biggest temple and a smaller, much nicer one nearby, with some intricate wall painting and beautiful bronze statues of the tirthankars. About 5 I started up Chandrgiri. You can't wear shoes or sandals, but it was a cloudy afternoon so the steps cut into the rocky hill were not too hot. It didn't take long to climb up about 150 feet in elevation up the sloping granite surface to a flat part of the hill a little below the rocky summit. Here there is a compound with about fifteen Jain temples, none of them very large. Inside the compound are also towers and inscriptions on the rock face and on stelae. As I got up there the sun disappeared behind a big black cloud. There were good views, south toward Vindyagiri and the huge statue of Gomateshvara, with the tank and town below, and north down to a small village set among coconut palms, with a Hoysala temple at one end of the village.
The hill is called Chandragiri because the Jains believe that Chandragupta Maurya, the 3rd century B.C. emperor that unified much of India, with an empire centered in what is now Bihar state in the Ganges Valley, became a Jain near the end of his life and came to this hill to meditate and die. In the 10th century a Jain general (which seems a little odd, because Jains are supposed to practice complete non-violence, to the extent of wearing masks to avoid accidentally inhaling and killing insects) came here and supposedly shot an arrow across to Vindyagiri Hill, hitting a huge rock that was then carved into the statue of Gomateshvara. I looked around the compound and in the temples until they closed at 6, and then made my way down the hill. Power was out in the town from 7 to 8 and 9 to 10, a regularly scheduled outage, I was told.
The next morning about 7 I started the climb up Vindyagiri. About 20 pilgrims were with me. There are about 650 steps, most cut into the at times steeply sloping granite surface of the hill. The sun was up, but it was cool in the early morning. Again, we were walking in bare feet. The views down to the town and tank and across to Chadragiri as we ascended were great. Near the top we entered a walled compound, where there are temples, inscriptions carved onto the granite slope, and more great views. There were also more steps up to another compound with several gates finally leading to a courtyard with the 58 foot high white granite statue of Gomateshvara. The statue, carved out of a single block of granite about 980 A.D., is beautiful, but oddly proportioned, with the legs much too short for the body. As with all Jain statues, Gomateshvara is naked, with his arms held rigidly at his sides. The story is that the first Jain tirthankar renounced his kingly throne and split his kingdom between his two sons. One son went out and conquered other kingdoms before coming back and demanding that his brother Bahubali submit to him. Bahubali refused and challenged his brother to single combat, which apparently consisted of three feats of strength. I'm not sure what the first one was, but the second, believe it or not, consisted of them both standing in chest deep water and splashing each other. Sounds like something from Monty Python. Bahubali won the first two matches and was on the verge of winning the third, a wrestling match, when he realized the futility of all earthly ambitions and renounced his throne. He departed and meditated in the forest so intently that vines grew around his legs and arms and anthills and snakes gathered at his feet. The statue of Gomateshvara is Bahubali in mediation, complete with vines around his legs and arms and anthills and snakes around his feet.
I had reached the statue ahead of the twenty or so who started out with me, but there were a few others at the feet of the statue praying, and an orange clad, white turbaned priest with buck teeth was conducting a ceremony at the feet with orange clad devotees. Apparently, pilgrims come up the mountain and can take off their clothes and don orange robes, kept in a pile near the entrance to the courtyard. Soon another ceremony began, with a family of five. The orange clad father and maybe ten year old son, along with the sari clad wife, stood inside the fence at the bottom of the statue, while the two teenage daughters stood just outside taking photographs. There was bell ringing and pouring of water on the huge feet of the statue. Coconuts were offered and placed on the toes of the statue.
I walked around a bit, checking out the statues of the 24 tirthankars in a gallery behind the statue. About 9 another, bigger, ceremony began. The priest used a cordless microphone and tested it by intoning "hello, hello" several times. Besides the priest, a guy in orange with a big gold watch and at least five gold rings was joined inside the little fence at Gomateshvara's feet by five other men in orange and one woman in a sari. A drummer and a guy playing one of those long Indian horns began playing. While I was watching the musicians on the porch around the courtyard, a pot bellied sky clad Jain had appeared and was now standing next to Gomateshvara's feet. There are two schools of Jain, white clad, whose most intense devotees dress all in white, and sky clad, whose most intense devotees dress in nothing. White clad are more prevalent in north India while sky clad are more prevalent in south India. The ceremony, with the music playing throughout, was very interesting. The devotees poured urns of water, milk and some orange liquid on a small gold statue of Gomateshvara and on one of the huge feet of the monolithic statue. The sky clad guy stood nearby, occasionally dipping his fingers into the liquids poured onto the foot. (Every 12 years there is a big ceremony here. Scaffolding is built behind the statue and 108 pots of water, milk and other liquids are poured over the statue.) Flowers were also dropped over both the small statue and the foot. The priest also wielded a plate with fire on it.
Nearing the end of the ceremony the sky clad guy sat down, near the feet. He carried only a short, bushy whisk made of peacock feathers, which he used to bless the devotees who prostrated before him. Right after the ceremony ended the priest left the courtyard and conducted another short ceremony blessing an idol in a little tower shrine just outside the courtyard entrance. By now I had been up there about two hours and started to walk down, visiting some of the temples in the compound and enjoying the views over the countryside. Near the gate of the compound I paused to enjoy the view before heading down the rock cut steps in the granite slope. A group of middle aged and older French tourists were just arriving. Then the sky clad guy appeared, on his way back down. He happily posed for photographs by foreigner and Indian alike, and blessed several of the Jains who prostrated at his feet. I was sitting at the entrance gate watching it all, and taking photographs myself, when he came on down the last steps to the gate, sat down in front of me and asked me where I was from. We had a short conversation and he said he was on his way down for a meal and asked me to visit him in town later in the day. He hurried down while I walked down more leisurely, getting back about 10:30 for breakfast.
After breakfast I moved into a nice hotel above the friendly restaurant where I had been eating. The Jain accommodation had had a lot of mosquitoes the night before, and the hotel had a generator. And it was 10 rupees cheaper. Quite a good deal. I spent the hot part of the day at an internet cafe and about 3:30 or 4 went to look for the sky clad guy. I couldn't find him, though. Maybe I misunderstood his directions. Instead, I visited some of the smaller, but also very old (almost a thousand years) temples in town and then followed a path that went around the east side of Chandragiri Hill before reaching the road that led to the village I had seem from Chandragiri the evening before. The village had about 20 houses with red tile roofs. It had electricity and water pumps, but seemed very dirty. The people were friendly, though, as I walked through. A man was using a wooden mallet to open brown pods containing black seeds. He gave me part of the pod to taste and it tasted like tamarind. He called it chinchi and said it sells for 60 rupees a kilo. He had a fluffy little white dog (quite a surprising breed of dog for that village) next to him that he wanted me to include in the photograph when I took a photo of him.
There were four really quite pretty young women in that small village. Two were washing clothes, one was sitting with some other woman checking out the wares, in a big basket, of an itinerant bangle saleswoman, and one was delousing her mother's hair. The last one asked me my name, so I asked her hers and then asked if I could take a photograph. She quickly jumped up and struck a pose like a model, with her hand positioned on her hip and her head tilted. The bangle saleswoman told me a dozen bangles sold for 15 rupees. Cattle roamed the village, including two seemingly new born calves. Old women rested on verandas and carried firewood from the surrounding fields. Nothing was planted in the paddy fields, because of the drought perhaps. The village tank was pretty dry, with one woman washing clothes in it. A fairly good size Hoysala Temple, with maybe 40 or 50 statutes sculpted on its walls, stood at one end of the village, but was locked up.
I walked further, to some railroad tracks, and then turned back. I had good views of the two hills, including the statue of Gomateshvara. The bangle seller walked towards me on her way to another village and again posed for a photograph. Back at the village a grandmother opening up chinchi pods posed for me along with her grandson on a bicycle. From the village I walked to a rocky area of smooth granite outcrops and boulders. There were signs of quarrying, but whether it was recent or hundreds of years ago I couldn't tell. I came to a Muslim graveyard (there is a mosque in town) with very crudely lettered granite headstones. The place was covered with litter, including lots of little plastic straws.
Back at the outskirts of town at dusk, I had a good view of people coming down Vindyagiri Hill. There was a lot of smoke near the top of the hill. In town the drummer and horn player I'd seem in the morning atop Vindyagiri were playing just outside the Jain temple near the big one. I went inside and a young priest was conducting a ceremony with a plate of fire next to an altar in the corner. The sky clad guy was seated right in front, with maybe six other people behind him. I sat behind them all and watched. The priest later blessed them, and others who came in, with little spoonfuls of water on their heads. A man came in dressed all it white, including a shawl, and sat down. He, too, had a peacock whisk. Perhaps he was a white clad Jain. People were all quite friendly. The lights were on so I could see the intricate wall paintings. The sky clad guy left before I could talk to him.
About 11 I took an auto rickshaw to the bus station in Kushalnagar and almost immediately got on a bus heading north to Hassan, 40 or 45 miles away. The trip started inauspiciously as two passengers got into a heated and loud argument, one of them eventually weakly hitting the other twice. This started off a big commotion, with the women in the bus the loudest. It lasted for maybe fifteen minutes.
The road north was thin and bumpy through the dry countryside. Karnataka had a bad monsoon last year and there are water shortages. Still, I enjoyed this back road, at about 3000 feet elevation, on the edge of the Mysore Plateau, the southernmost extension of the Deccan Plateau that comprises much of central and southern India. There were lots of uncultivated rice paddies. It took about two and a half hours to reach Hassan, where I quickly got a 2 p.m. bus northwest 20 or 25 miles to Belur, arriving about 3. I've become a big fan of Indian buses. They are rickety old things (in fact, rickety even if new), but usually have plenty of leg room and almost always you can get a seat. You rarely have to wait and there are no movies or curtains so you can see the countryside go by.
In Belur I rested a bit, had a late lunch, and about 4:30 made my way to the Chennakeshava Temple in the middle of town. It dates from the 12th century and was built by the Hoysala Kingdom which ruled this part of southern India from the 11th to the 14th centuries. Belur was their first capital and the temple was built to celebrate a victory over the Chola Kingdom and the king's conversion from Jainism. The temple is inside a compound entered through a seven story gopuram, or tower, of much later date I think. The main temple, at the center of the walled enclosure, appears squat, and is without a shikara, or tower, but it is covered with amazing sculpture, both inside and outside. The sculpture is of soapstone, which is very easy to carve when first quarried but then hardens with exposure to the air. The sculpture is therefore very fine, like that of ivory or sandalwood. On the outside are rows and rows of figures, elephants at the bottom (600 to 700 of them circling the temple), lions above them, and in higher rows dancing girls, scenes from Hindu literature and the gods themselves. There are thousands of figures. Particularly beautiful are brackets attached to the eaves featuring dancing girls. Inside is more beautiful sculpture, including more of the brackets with dancing girls, polished to a very black shine. There is a spot light that you can pay to light to see the sculpture on the ceiling and elsewhere that is otherwise impossible or difficult to see well. Also, the pillars inside were made on lathes and thus have a remarkable symmetry. No two are alike. The temple is an active one, manned by several bare chested brahmin priests. The deity (an avatar of Vishnu) in the sanctuary stands about ten feet high, a polished black statue bedecked with silver and flowers.
There are other temples in the compound, also adorned with sculpture. I walked around looking at everything until dark. There were quite a few pilgrims and tourists. Most had left by dark, but there were still quite a few Indians, and me, around to see the aarti just after 7 and before the closing of the temples. The priests waved candelabras and plates of fire in front of the idol in the sanctuary while we all watched. A drum, a clanging bell, and, oddly, a saxophone, provided musical accompaniment. The priests brought out the plate of fire from the sanctuary so the crowd could bless themselves with it. A priest had first pushed back the crowd with a sort of scepter before the priest with the plate of fire appeared. Another priest came out with an urn of water and dispense small spoonfuls into the hands of the devotees, who drank a bit of it and spread the rest over their heads. Next, a priest brought out a conical gold cap which he briefly held over the head of each devotee. I left about 7:30 after the ceremony ended.
I walked back to the temple the next morning at about 7:30. It was quiet and cool, with few people. I looked at all the marvelous figures on the walls. After some time the saxophone player appeared, leading three priests around the stone floor of the compound. One priest carried a big urn, the second a scepter, and the third a fly whisk. They circled the main temple and then went in the main entrance. Just after 9 began the morning aarti, with only about fifteen of us watching and with the accompaniment of only the saxophone. It was similar to the evening before, but with less pushing by the priest with the scepter. Afterward, the saxophonist led the priests to the other temples in the compound to perform similar rites to open them up for the day. I walked around some more taking in all the sculpture and left for breakfast about 10. Two apparent sadhus, one clad in orange and the other in white, came in and walked around just before I left.
I spent the middle part of the day in an internet cafe, had a late lunch, and then went back to the temple about 5. I enjoyed seeing all the sculpture again in the late afternoon cool. Just before 7 the evening aarti commenced, followed by ceremonies closing up the other temples in the compound. The saxophonist and a drum player, playing the two sided, hand held Indian drum called a dhole (I think), sound quite like a jazz duo, very strange for a Hindu ceremony. The saxophone, of course, is hardly traditional, invented in Belgium in the early 1800's, if I remember correctly. As I left the temple compound, there were scores of people clad mostly in orange preparing to spend the night on the platform in front of the temple compound. Many others were walking up the street towards the compound.
The next morning I found out why. I headed to the temple early in the morning, arriving just after the big doors were opened. Many of the huge crowd of orange clad people entered, but most stayed outside, as did I. It turned out they were on a ten day religious pilgrimage from Bangalore to Dharmastala, a temple town over the Ghats and inland from Mangalore, about 200 miles of walking all together. Big groups lined up sitting in rows on the platform in front of the compound to have their breakfast served. First, plates made of dry leaves stitched together were placed in front of them. Then guys toting metal pails of a soupy rice and vegetable mixture, slightly orange in color, ladled big spoonfuls of the mixture onto the leaf plates. A handful of something crispy was dropped on top of each portion and the people commenced to eat rapaciously, all with only their right hands, of course. They must have been very hungry. I walked around and watched and took photos of the friendly bunch. Many invited me to partake, but I managed to restrain myself. As one large group finished, another group took its place. I was told there are 4000 or 5000 of them on their way to Dharmastala. Most were gone by 9, on the road to Dharmastala, with the Western Ghats still ahead of them. Before I left for quite a different breakfast of my own, I spotted some of the support trucks, one with a huge vat of the soupy mixture in the back. Bucketfuls were poured out of it into a smaller vat on the platform, and the servers loaded up their bucketfuls from that. Many other trucks seemed to be full of the bags containing the personal possessions of the pilgrims.
I had planned to go to Halebid, ten miles away, early that morning, but after spending so much time with the pilgrims, I decided to spend the middle part of the day in an internet cafe and then took a bus shortly after 2 northeast to Halebid. Halebid was the second capital of the Hoysalas, until it was conquered and destroyed by the Delhi Sultanate in the early 14th century. Fortunately, the magnificent 12th century Hoyasaleshvara Temple was not destroyed, although it was damaged by the Muslim iconoclasts. It, too, appears rather squat, like the temple in Belur, with no shikara, or tower, and in fact it is incomplete. But it is covered with exuberant sculpture, thousands of figures, similar but of better quality, it seems, than at Belur, and many more figures. As at Belur, the figures are in rows, something like nine of them, and there are those beautiful bracket figures. Again, there are elephants, then lions, then horses and riders rising in rows from the base. Then rows of floral designs, mythical beasts called yalis, geese, and dancing girls and musicians (and a few copulating couples). One row has scenes from the Hindu epics circling the building. The Muslims seem to have been particularly determined to decapitate the horsemen. While most of the figures are less than a foot in height, there are many, of gods and goddesses, that are about half human size, and these are wonderfully done. Some are extraordinary: Krishna holding up a mountain with trees and people and animals on the mountain, the demon Ravanna doing the same with Mount Kailash with Shiva and Parvati on top, Shiva inside a demon elephant. Inside the temple is more sculpture. The temple has two sanctuaries, with linga, and two mandapa halls leading to the sanctuaries, the two mandapas linked by a corridor. Inside are those lathed turned columns as at Belur. To the east of the temple are two pavilions, each containing a huge Nandi, the bull that is Shiva's vehicle.
I spent almost four hours looking around, with the stone very hot on the sunny west side. (You have to go barefoot on the stone platform upon which the temple sits.) Fortunately, there were ropy fabrics on the stone, although they didn't cover the whole west and south sides. The temple is in a grassy park, with purple blossoming trees, in the middle of a small town. I got a van back to Belur about 7, a trip back in the dark.
The next morning there were still orange clad pilgrims heading up Belur's main street towards the temple. A guy told me they do this every year, arriving over four days. About 9 I took a bus back to Halebid and spent most of the day there. I spent about an hour again at the Hoysaleshvara Temple. Six very polite little kids, the girls beautifully dressed, asked to be photographed and I happily did so. I walked a little south to the outskirts of the little town and explored three Jain temples, two much larger than the third. They had little sculpture, though they did have those lathe turned columns of black soapstone inside and tall, erect, naked statues of tirthankars in the sanctuaries. East, beyond a beautiful grove of coconut palms and next to a man winnowing some sort of grain, was another Hoysala temple, smaller and much more incomplete than the main one in town. The sculpture was not as prolific, but still was very interesting and the site was deserted but for the caretaker and me. I spent about an hour looking around. The figures were similar to the main temple and more horsemen were preserved, though the Muslims still did a fairly thorough job. There were several panels of a completely nude woman, except perhaps for a little jewelry, with snakes entwined around her. I hadn't seen that before. I sat under a palm tree eating some raisins I had brought and then walked back to town and had a good lunch at the state tourist hotel. Afterward, I went to the little museum, filled with great sculpture, next to the main temple and then back to the main temple itself to look around. It was cloudy, so the stone platform on which the temple sits was not too hot on the feet. I enjoyed looking all around again. There is always something you didn't see before. I took the bus back to Belur about 4:30. There were orange clad pilgrims here and there along the road heading towards Belur.
The next morning at 8 I walked up to the temple in Belur. There were only a few of the pilgrims in front of the compound. Four musicians were sitting in front of the entrance and playing, attended by a small group of singing pilgrims also sitting on the stone platform. A keyboardist using a bellows operated keyboard, a drummer with two tablas (small drums), and two guys with cymbals comprised the group. They were a friendly bunch. I listened for a while, until the pilgrims got up and set off on their journey to Dharmastala. I went into the temple compound and looked around again, staying until after the completion of the aartis that begin about 9. The priests move around from temple to temple, starting with the main one. I left about 10 and had breakfast and then caught a bus about 11 southeast to Channarayapatna, about 45 or 50 miles away, passing through Hassan again on the way. I saw small groups of orange clad pilgrims, some of them barefoot, along the road heading towards Belur. There were many coconut palms and other trees along the way, but the land was brown. After about two hours we reached Channarayapatna, where I immediately caught a bus heading southeast for another five miles or so to the little town of Sravanabelgola, with more big groves of coconut palms on the way. Approaching the little town, at about 3000 feet elevation, I could see the giant granite statue of Gomateshvara on the 400 foot high rocky hill hovering above the town. In fact, there are two rocky hills straddling the town, Vindyagiri with the statue to the south and Chandragiri, about half as high, to the north. A large tank lies between the two hills, with the town around it and between the hills.
Sravanabelgola is an important Jain pilgrimage site and I checked into the Jain pilgrim accommodation for 210 rupees, about $4, a night. I rested a bit in my room. found a newspaper to read, and had an idli snack before exploring around the town. I went into the small town's biggest temple and a smaller, much nicer one nearby, with some intricate wall painting and beautiful bronze statues of the tirthankars. About 5 I started up Chandrgiri. You can't wear shoes or sandals, but it was a cloudy afternoon so the steps cut into the rocky hill were not too hot. It didn't take long to climb up about 150 feet in elevation up the sloping granite surface to a flat part of the hill a little below the rocky summit. Here there is a compound with about fifteen Jain temples, none of them very large. Inside the compound are also towers and inscriptions on the rock face and on stelae. As I got up there the sun disappeared behind a big black cloud. There were good views, south toward Vindyagiri and the huge statue of Gomateshvara, with the tank and town below, and north down to a small village set among coconut palms, with a Hoysala temple at one end of the village.
The hill is called Chandragiri because the Jains believe that Chandragupta Maurya, the 3rd century B.C. emperor that unified much of India, with an empire centered in what is now Bihar state in the Ganges Valley, became a Jain near the end of his life and came to this hill to meditate and die. In the 10th century a Jain general (which seems a little odd, because Jains are supposed to practice complete non-violence, to the extent of wearing masks to avoid accidentally inhaling and killing insects) came here and supposedly shot an arrow across to Vindyagiri Hill, hitting a huge rock that was then carved into the statue of Gomateshvara. I looked around the compound and in the temples until they closed at 6, and then made my way down the hill. Power was out in the town from 7 to 8 and 9 to 10, a regularly scheduled outage, I was told.
The next morning about 7 I started the climb up Vindyagiri. About 20 pilgrims were with me. There are about 650 steps, most cut into the at times steeply sloping granite surface of the hill. The sun was up, but it was cool in the early morning. Again, we were walking in bare feet. The views down to the town and tank and across to Chadragiri as we ascended were great. Near the top we entered a walled compound, where there are temples, inscriptions carved onto the granite slope, and more great views. There were also more steps up to another compound with several gates finally leading to a courtyard with the 58 foot high white granite statue of Gomateshvara. The statue, carved out of a single block of granite about 980 A.D., is beautiful, but oddly proportioned, with the legs much too short for the body. As with all Jain statues, Gomateshvara is naked, with his arms held rigidly at his sides. The story is that the first Jain tirthankar renounced his kingly throne and split his kingdom between his two sons. One son went out and conquered other kingdoms before coming back and demanding that his brother Bahubali submit to him. Bahubali refused and challenged his brother to single combat, which apparently consisted of three feats of strength. I'm not sure what the first one was, but the second, believe it or not, consisted of them both standing in chest deep water and splashing each other. Sounds like something from Monty Python. Bahubali won the first two matches and was on the verge of winning the third, a wrestling match, when he realized the futility of all earthly ambitions and renounced his throne. He departed and meditated in the forest so intently that vines grew around his legs and arms and anthills and snakes gathered at his feet. The statue of Gomateshvara is Bahubali in mediation, complete with vines around his legs and arms and anthills and snakes around his feet.
I had reached the statue ahead of the twenty or so who started out with me, but there were a few others at the feet of the statue praying, and an orange clad, white turbaned priest with buck teeth was conducting a ceremony at the feet with orange clad devotees. Apparently, pilgrims come up the mountain and can take off their clothes and don orange robes, kept in a pile near the entrance to the courtyard. Soon another ceremony began, with a family of five. The orange clad father and maybe ten year old son, along with the sari clad wife, stood inside the fence at the bottom of the statue, while the two teenage daughters stood just outside taking photographs. There was bell ringing and pouring of water on the huge feet of the statue. Coconuts were offered and placed on the toes of the statue.
I walked around a bit, checking out the statues of the 24 tirthankars in a gallery behind the statue. About 9 another, bigger, ceremony began. The priest used a cordless microphone and tested it by intoning "hello, hello" several times. Besides the priest, a guy in orange with a big gold watch and at least five gold rings was joined inside the little fence at Gomateshvara's feet by five other men in orange and one woman in a sari. A drummer and a guy playing one of those long Indian horns began playing. While I was watching the musicians on the porch around the courtyard, a pot bellied sky clad Jain had appeared and was now standing next to Gomateshvara's feet. There are two schools of Jain, white clad, whose most intense devotees dress all in white, and sky clad, whose most intense devotees dress in nothing. White clad are more prevalent in north India while sky clad are more prevalent in south India. The ceremony, with the music playing throughout, was very interesting. The devotees poured urns of water, milk and some orange liquid on a small gold statue of Gomateshvara and on one of the huge feet of the monolithic statue. The sky clad guy stood nearby, occasionally dipping his fingers into the liquids poured onto the foot. (Every 12 years there is a big ceremony here. Scaffolding is built behind the statue and 108 pots of water, milk and other liquids are poured over the statue.) Flowers were also dropped over both the small statue and the foot. The priest also wielded a plate with fire on it.
Nearing the end of the ceremony the sky clad guy sat down, near the feet. He carried only a short, bushy whisk made of peacock feathers, which he used to bless the devotees who prostrated before him. Right after the ceremony ended the priest left the courtyard and conducted another short ceremony blessing an idol in a little tower shrine just outside the courtyard entrance. By now I had been up there about two hours and started to walk down, visiting some of the temples in the compound and enjoying the views over the countryside. Near the gate of the compound I paused to enjoy the view before heading down the rock cut steps in the granite slope. A group of middle aged and older French tourists were just arriving. Then the sky clad guy appeared, on his way back down. He happily posed for photographs by foreigner and Indian alike, and blessed several of the Jains who prostrated at his feet. I was sitting at the entrance gate watching it all, and taking photographs myself, when he came on down the last steps to the gate, sat down in front of me and asked me where I was from. We had a short conversation and he said he was on his way down for a meal and asked me to visit him in town later in the day. He hurried down while I walked down more leisurely, getting back about 10:30 for breakfast.
After breakfast I moved into a nice hotel above the friendly restaurant where I had been eating. The Jain accommodation had had a lot of mosquitoes the night before, and the hotel had a generator. And it was 10 rupees cheaper. Quite a good deal. I spent the hot part of the day at an internet cafe and about 3:30 or 4 went to look for the sky clad guy. I couldn't find him, though. Maybe I misunderstood his directions. Instead, I visited some of the smaller, but also very old (almost a thousand years) temples in town and then followed a path that went around the east side of Chandragiri Hill before reaching the road that led to the village I had seem from Chandragiri the evening before. The village had about 20 houses with red tile roofs. It had electricity and water pumps, but seemed very dirty. The people were friendly, though, as I walked through. A man was using a wooden mallet to open brown pods containing black seeds. He gave me part of the pod to taste and it tasted like tamarind. He called it chinchi and said it sells for 60 rupees a kilo. He had a fluffy little white dog (quite a surprising breed of dog for that village) next to him that he wanted me to include in the photograph when I took a photo of him.
There were four really quite pretty young women in that small village. Two were washing clothes, one was sitting with some other woman checking out the wares, in a big basket, of an itinerant bangle saleswoman, and one was delousing her mother's hair. The last one asked me my name, so I asked her hers and then asked if I could take a photograph. She quickly jumped up and struck a pose like a model, with her hand positioned on her hip and her head tilted. The bangle saleswoman told me a dozen bangles sold for 15 rupees. Cattle roamed the village, including two seemingly new born calves. Old women rested on verandas and carried firewood from the surrounding fields. Nothing was planted in the paddy fields, because of the drought perhaps. The village tank was pretty dry, with one woman washing clothes in it. A fairly good size Hoysala Temple, with maybe 40 or 50 statutes sculpted on its walls, stood at one end of the village, but was locked up.
I walked further, to some railroad tracks, and then turned back. I had good views of the two hills, including the statue of Gomateshvara. The bangle seller walked towards me on her way to another village and again posed for a photograph. Back at the village a grandmother opening up chinchi pods posed for me along with her grandson on a bicycle. From the village I walked to a rocky area of smooth granite outcrops and boulders. There were signs of quarrying, but whether it was recent or hundreds of years ago I couldn't tell. I came to a Muslim graveyard (there is a mosque in town) with very crudely lettered granite headstones. The place was covered with litter, including lots of little plastic straws.
Back at the outskirts of town at dusk, I had a good view of people coming down Vindyagiri Hill. There was a lot of smoke near the top of the hill. In town the drummer and horn player I'd seem in the morning atop Vindyagiri were playing just outside the Jain temple near the big one. I went inside and a young priest was conducting a ceremony with a plate of fire next to an altar in the corner. The sky clad guy was seated right in front, with maybe six other people behind him. I sat behind them all and watched. The priest later blessed them, and others who came in, with little spoonfuls of water on their heads. A man came in dressed all it white, including a shawl, and sat down. He, too, had a peacock whisk. Perhaps he was a white clad Jain. People were all quite friendly. The lights were on so I could see the intricate wall paintings. The sky clad guy left before I could talk to him.
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