I left Tiruvannamalai by bus about 9 on the 27th, heading southeast about 65 miles to Pondicherry on the coast. The crowded bus passed the forts at Gingee on the way and reached Pondicherry before noon. Pondicherry, now renamed Puducherry, though it seems everyone calls it Pondy, was a French colony until ceded to India in 1954. The French founded it in 1673 to engage in commerce with weavers in the area, cotton cloth exports being a lucrative trade at the time. The Dutch captured it in 1693, but gave it back in 1699, after which the French built a large pentagonal fort. The town grew to more than 100,000 people during the early 18th century
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During the Carnatic Wars between Britain and France, the French, under a Governor named Dupleix, who governed from Pondicherry from 1742 to 1754, conquered and occupied the English settlement at Madras (now Chennai) to the north. But the British eventually gained the upper hand, conquering Pondicherry in 1761 and destroying both the fort and the city. The British gave it back in 1765, but during the next half century whenever war broke out between Britain and France, it was occupied by the British, from 1778 to 1785 and from 1793 to 1816, except for a short interlude in 1803 during a short break in the Napoleonic Wars.
I took an auto rickshaw to a hotel right on the seafront run by an ashram and got a room. After lunch, I walked around town. Many French colonial buildings remain, some now boutique hotels. Others are restaurants, shops, and private homes, and most seem to be well cared for, except those possessed by the government. Pondicherry is a territory, not a state. The territory is small, and includes not only Pondicherry, but another small enclave about 70 miles to the south, plus two others, one along the coast of Andhra Pradesh to the north and another on the coast of Kerala to the west. These were all that was left to France after it lost the struggle for India to Britain.
One particularly nice hotel, with a lovely courtyard and wonderful maps and prints all over the walls, had "Instruction Publique" carved on its facade, so I guess it was a school at one time. Other French names remain on buildings, including the Douane and the Hotel de Ville, both in shabby condition. The French Consulate, a large colonial building on the seafront, is in beautiful condition. The city is divided by a now filthy canal about five blocks from the seafront, the former Ville Blanc for the French on the seaward side and the former Ville Noire for the Indians on the other side. West of the canal Pondicherry is a typical chaotic and dirty Indian city, but between the canal and the sea it is quieter and some streets are even comparatively litter free. I wandered around, stopping to check out some of the lovely old buildings, and eventually walked along the seafront avenue, with a wide sidewalk on the sea side. The wind was blowing strongly, with whitecaps on the sea. There isn't much of a beach, or in fact no beach at all, just a strip of red dirt maybe 20 or 30 feet wide and then a wide rock breakwater. No one was swimming and there were no boats on the water.
I walked north along the seafront, passing the Hotel de Ville, a World War I memorial, the customs house, an old lighthouse, and a statue of Gandhi. Some of the buildings along the sea were nice and some really shabby. Near the northern end, near the French Consulate, I walked a few blocks inland to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, several blocks of gray and white buildings. Sri Aurobindo, a Bengali born in 1872, came here for refuge from the British in the early 20th century. He was later joined by a French woman named Mirra Alfassa, of Turkish and Egyptian parentage. They established the ashram in 1926. Aurobindo died in 1950, but "The Mother," as Alfassa was called, ran the ashram until her death in 1973 at age 95. I entered the ashram headquarters building, where in the courtyard is the flower covered samadhi, or memorial, to the both of them. Devotees were silently sitting all around, some right next to the samadhi. I also went to the bookstore on the premises, full of books by and about the two of them. Photos of the two of them are everywhere. (In fact, in my hotel room were photos of the two of them.) Another room, the entry roped off, has old fashioned furniture, including chairs and a sofa, and a rug. I suppose this is where they spent time. Flowers filled the courtyard.
From there I walked to the nearby Alliance Francaise Library, with some interesting displays on the history of the city, and then back south to a large plaza with the colonial era mansion of the Lieutenant Governor (the head of the territory) on one side. Its an impressive, large white building, guarded by police in French style police hats, colored bright red. The plaza is fenced, with only one entrance/exit, and was full of Indians and litter. Lots of nice trees, though. This was the center of the old fort. A little further south is a pink church, built in 1855 about a block from the sea front. A statue of Joan of Arc stands in front. After checking out the church, I walked up and down the seafront, crowded with strollers at the end of the day. The avenue along the seafront is closed to vehicles from 6 in the evening until 7:30 the next morning, so that is nice. The wind was still blowing hard. I could feel the sea spray. I had dinner in a roof top French restaurant, very nice in the breeze. The weather here continues to be very nice, with highs in the high 80's and lows about 68 or 70.
I meant to get up the next morning before sunrise and watch the sun rise over the sea, but I slept until about 7. I did walk along the sea front again before breakfast. The sea was much calmer. No whitecaps and the wind much less strong than the day before. After breakfast I walked all over the old colonial part of town again, a very pleasant stroll. Eventually, I ended up at the museum just north of the plaza. It has some old French furniture and some wonderful 10th century Chola bronzes, including three Natarajas, two of them with cobras coiled around one of his right arms. I walked north again and then west, over the canal to a street full of old buildings, and then south to the cathedral, arriving there sometime after noon.
I had thought about leaving Pondicherry that afternoon, but my wanderings had taken me past the noon check out time of my hotel. So I had a long lunch and read a couple of newspapers after getting back to my hotel about 1. About 4 I did take another walk through the colonial streets and then along the crowded seafront until almost 6:30. The wind had come up again and there were whitecaps on the sea.
The next morning I got up about 7 and watched the sun rise over the clouds and the palm trees outside my room. I took a walk along the sea, had breakfast, and read the newspapers before leaving about 10:30 on a bus bound for Chidambaram about 40 miles south. The less than two hour bus trip passed over several rivers and passed rice paddies and small towns. This is the Kaveri (or Cauvery) River Delta area, a densely populated part of Tamil Nadu.
Chidambaram is a small town, with about 70,000 people. It is famous for its huge Nataraja Temple, which I went to when it opened again for the afternoon at 4. A high wall surrounds the 55 acre temple grounds, with four very colorful gopuras, one at each of the entrances at the cardinal directions. The northern and southern ones rise to 150 feet. I entered through the eastern one, which was fairly high itself. It is said to date from about 1250, while the northern gopura is said to date from the 16th century. I don't know about the others. These temples were usually added to over the centuries. There are records of this temple before the 10th century, and inscriptions on parts of the temple date from the 11th century. The gopuras' bottom two levels are made of stone, with the upper levels made of brick and plaster and painted in bright colors. The stone archway I entered under the gopura has panels supposedly illustrating the 108 positions of classical dance, though I counted a bit more than 108 dance panels. The other entrance gopuras also have these dance panels, and all seemed to vary from 108. Still, they were interesting to see. Beyond the first wall and entrance is another high wall with a pillared entrance way on the east, but I first walked around the huge courtyard between the first and second walls. Much of it is empty, with a few small temples, but on the northern side are several large ones plus a large tank of water. I went into a couple of the temples, including one with a painted ceiling said to date from the 17th century. The temple itself is earlier, though my guidebooks differ on the date. A huge pillared hall, called the Raja Sabha, in the northeast is closed.
I spent more than an hour walking around before entering the pillared entrance into the second enclosure. Beyond this point photos aren't allowed. Inside was dark, with corridors lined with pillars on plinths. I walked around through these dark corridors and eventually entered the inner courtyard, partly open to the sky, with several small temples. This temple worships Shiva in his Lord of the Dance incarnation, but one of the shrines the inner sanctum is a shrine honoring Vishnu. The main shrines in the inner sanctum honor Shiva, though. Two are side by side and you can see through the open pillared walls of one towards the inner sanctum, with Shiva as Lord of the Dance, swirling on one leg with his hair flying. I think there is a lingam nearby, too. The statue is surrounded little lamps of fire and brahmin priests seemed to be constantly conducting some sort of rites in front, often waving plates of fire. It is dark inside the inner sanctum, but supposedly behind the statue of Shiva is a curtain of leaves, behind which is a lingam of ether, the fifth element after fire, water, earth, and air. Sometimes this element is called space, as in the space between all the other elements. The ether lingam behind the curtain is invisible, or at least that is the story.
The Shiva priests in the temple are from the Dikshitar sub caste, and there are lots of them around, easily distinguishable by their white dhotis and bare chests except for the brahmin sacred thread over their left shoulders. Many have shaved part of their hair, with the remaining part done up in a top knot. There are other priests in the temple, too, the ones tending the Vishnu shrine right next to the Shiva ones. Shiva priests, and devotees, always have horizontal lines, usually one to three, on their foreheads while Vishnu priests and devotees have vertical lines, sometimes in a sort of V, on their foreheads.
In the inner courtyard, before the Shiva and Vishnu shrines, there was constant activity, with lots of pilgrims. About a quarter to 6 the Vishnu priests began a loud puja, with bell ringing. Just outside the shrine loudly played two drummers, two guys playing those long Indian type oboes, and one guy playing those small cymbals, two or three inches in diameter. It was quite a racket. Eventually, the curtain before the idol was opened and the priests waved a plate of fire in front of it while the worhsipers clasped their hands and strained to look forward. When the priests finished, worshipers were allowed to go into the shrine. I eventually went it and saw that the image of Vishnu is recumbent, with silver plates on top of his head and on his chest.
About 6 the brahmins at the Shiva shrine began a noisy puja, with plates of fire waved in front of the Shiva idol. The crowd again stood in front, straining to see. The fire plates were eventually brought by the priests to the front of the crowd so they could pass their hands over them. Some sort of prasad was passed out by the priests to the sea of open hands raised forward by the crowd. Other pujas were held around the temple and for about an hour it was very noisy with bells ringing and the musicians playing. It was all very interesting to watch. In one section of the courtyard about 20 priests sat in a sort of U and recited together. Eventually, some currency was passed out by another priest to each of them, and then they each got a single banana before they broke up and left. Other priests were sitting here and there in both the inner courtyard and the pillared corridors just outside. Every once in a while the musicians led a procession to one altar or another. At one altar in the corner of the pillared enclosure sat about five singers all by themselves. I think they may have been members of a hereditary caste of temple singers. There were several altars in this pillared area and at one I watched a priest pour some sort of thick brown liquid over an idol, completely covering it in brown before washing it off with pots of water. I walked all around and sat here and there watching it all until about 8, when I left for dinner.
The next morning I went back to the temple about 7:30 and spent about an hour and a half walking around the outer courtyard, between the first and second walls. I spent time looking at the statues on the gopuras, both the stone ones and the colorful plaster ones above. People streamed in and out. At the tank in the northern courtyard, some people were bathing in the dirty water, with garbage floating in the corners and green slime in places. It is said that a king of Kashmir bathed in this tank in the 5th century and was cured of leprosy. Now you would be more likely to get leprosy, or something worse, from the water. I then spent about an hour in the two inner parts of the temple before leaving for breakfast. The activity was much less than the evening before, but there are interesting bas reliefs to be seen.
The temple closes between noon and 4, so soon after 11, after my breakfast of puri, pongal, and vada, I took a crowded bus south about 35 miles, and an hour and a half, to Taragampadi, formerly known as Tranquebar, on the coast. In 1620 the Danes, of all people, began building a fort at Tranquebar for trading purposes with the consent of the Raja of Tanjour. A later version of the castle still exists, which the Danes held onto until 1845 when they sold out to the British East India Company. Before reaching the fort I came to two spruced up churches, both dating from the early 18th century. Lutheran priests from Germany were sent to Tranquebar by the King of Denmark and they arrived in 1706. Monuments marked the 200th and 300th anniversary of the event. The caretaker at one of the churches, containing the grave of the first Lutheran missionary, showed me a guest book with the signature of the Crown Prince of Denmark. I told him I couldn't make out the name, but was it "Hamlet," to which I got no reaction.
The fort is right on the sea, but there is no beach. There are some brick foundations at the sea front. Apparently, the sea is eroding what was part of the old Danish town. There are some nice old tile roof houses along one street and two big colonial buildings facing the fort. One was the Danish Governor's residence and one the residence of the Collector once the British took over. Both are restored and the latter is a fancy hotel, which I walked around. The fort is small and not all that impressive, with former warehouses and rooms on the first floor. On the second level, on the side facing the sea, are rooms now housing a museum. There is not much inside but there are interesting, if somewhat scattered, accounts of the history of the Danes in India. You can also read the grant from the Raja of Tanjore to the Danes and the bill of sale from the Danes to the British. The wind was blowing strongly off the sea and a river entered the sea just south of the fort.
About 4 I headed back to Chidambaram on a much less crowded bus than I'd arrived in, and so was better able to enjoy the green countryside, with lots of thatched houses. Back in Chidambaram I went into the temple about 6 and stayed for an hour or so to watch the goings on. It seemed less busy than the night before.
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During the Carnatic Wars between Britain and France, the French, under a Governor named Dupleix, who governed from Pondicherry from 1742 to 1754, conquered and occupied the English settlement at Madras (now Chennai) to the north. But the British eventually gained the upper hand, conquering Pondicherry in 1761 and destroying both the fort and the city. The British gave it back in 1765, but during the next half century whenever war broke out between Britain and France, it was occupied by the British, from 1778 to 1785 and from 1793 to 1816, except for a short interlude in 1803 during a short break in the Napoleonic Wars.
I took an auto rickshaw to a hotel right on the seafront run by an ashram and got a room. After lunch, I walked around town. Many French colonial buildings remain, some now boutique hotels. Others are restaurants, shops, and private homes, and most seem to be well cared for, except those possessed by the government. Pondicherry is a territory, not a state. The territory is small, and includes not only Pondicherry, but another small enclave about 70 miles to the south, plus two others, one along the coast of Andhra Pradesh to the north and another on the coast of Kerala to the west. These were all that was left to France after it lost the struggle for India to Britain.
One particularly nice hotel, with a lovely courtyard and wonderful maps and prints all over the walls, had "Instruction Publique" carved on its facade, so I guess it was a school at one time. Other French names remain on buildings, including the Douane and the Hotel de Ville, both in shabby condition. The French Consulate, a large colonial building on the seafront, is in beautiful condition. The city is divided by a now filthy canal about five blocks from the seafront, the former Ville Blanc for the French on the seaward side and the former Ville Noire for the Indians on the other side. West of the canal Pondicherry is a typical chaotic and dirty Indian city, but between the canal and the sea it is quieter and some streets are even comparatively litter free. I wandered around, stopping to check out some of the lovely old buildings, and eventually walked along the seafront avenue, with a wide sidewalk on the sea side. The wind was blowing strongly, with whitecaps on the sea. There isn't much of a beach, or in fact no beach at all, just a strip of red dirt maybe 20 or 30 feet wide and then a wide rock breakwater. No one was swimming and there were no boats on the water.
I walked north along the seafront, passing the Hotel de Ville, a World War I memorial, the customs house, an old lighthouse, and a statue of Gandhi. Some of the buildings along the sea were nice and some really shabby. Near the northern end, near the French Consulate, I walked a few blocks inland to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, several blocks of gray and white buildings. Sri Aurobindo, a Bengali born in 1872, came here for refuge from the British in the early 20th century. He was later joined by a French woman named Mirra Alfassa, of Turkish and Egyptian parentage. They established the ashram in 1926. Aurobindo died in 1950, but "The Mother," as Alfassa was called, ran the ashram until her death in 1973 at age 95. I entered the ashram headquarters building, where in the courtyard is the flower covered samadhi, or memorial, to the both of them. Devotees were silently sitting all around, some right next to the samadhi. I also went to the bookstore on the premises, full of books by and about the two of them. Photos of the two of them are everywhere. (In fact, in my hotel room were photos of the two of them.) Another room, the entry roped off, has old fashioned furniture, including chairs and a sofa, and a rug. I suppose this is where they spent time. Flowers filled the courtyard.
From there I walked to the nearby Alliance Francaise Library, with some interesting displays on the history of the city, and then back south to a large plaza with the colonial era mansion of the Lieutenant Governor (the head of the territory) on one side. Its an impressive, large white building, guarded by police in French style police hats, colored bright red. The plaza is fenced, with only one entrance/exit, and was full of Indians and litter. Lots of nice trees, though. This was the center of the old fort. A little further south is a pink church, built in 1855 about a block from the sea front. A statue of Joan of Arc stands in front. After checking out the church, I walked up and down the seafront, crowded with strollers at the end of the day. The avenue along the seafront is closed to vehicles from 6 in the evening until 7:30 the next morning, so that is nice. The wind was still blowing hard. I could feel the sea spray. I had dinner in a roof top French restaurant, very nice in the breeze. The weather here continues to be very nice, with highs in the high 80's and lows about 68 or 70.
I meant to get up the next morning before sunrise and watch the sun rise over the sea, but I slept until about 7. I did walk along the sea front again before breakfast. The sea was much calmer. No whitecaps and the wind much less strong than the day before. After breakfast I walked all over the old colonial part of town again, a very pleasant stroll. Eventually, I ended up at the museum just north of the plaza. It has some old French furniture and some wonderful 10th century Chola bronzes, including three Natarajas, two of them with cobras coiled around one of his right arms. I walked north again and then west, over the canal to a street full of old buildings, and then south to the cathedral, arriving there sometime after noon.
I had thought about leaving Pondicherry that afternoon, but my wanderings had taken me past the noon check out time of my hotel. So I had a long lunch and read a couple of newspapers after getting back to my hotel about 1. About 4 I did take another walk through the colonial streets and then along the crowded seafront until almost 6:30. The wind had come up again and there were whitecaps on the sea.
The next morning I got up about 7 and watched the sun rise over the clouds and the palm trees outside my room. I took a walk along the sea, had breakfast, and read the newspapers before leaving about 10:30 on a bus bound for Chidambaram about 40 miles south. The less than two hour bus trip passed over several rivers and passed rice paddies and small towns. This is the Kaveri (or Cauvery) River Delta area, a densely populated part of Tamil Nadu.
Chidambaram is a small town, with about 70,000 people. It is famous for its huge Nataraja Temple, which I went to when it opened again for the afternoon at 4. A high wall surrounds the 55 acre temple grounds, with four very colorful gopuras, one at each of the entrances at the cardinal directions. The northern and southern ones rise to 150 feet. I entered through the eastern one, which was fairly high itself. It is said to date from about 1250, while the northern gopura is said to date from the 16th century. I don't know about the others. These temples were usually added to over the centuries. There are records of this temple before the 10th century, and inscriptions on parts of the temple date from the 11th century. The gopuras' bottom two levels are made of stone, with the upper levels made of brick and plaster and painted in bright colors. The stone archway I entered under the gopura has panels supposedly illustrating the 108 positions of classical dance, though I counted a bit more than 108 dance panels. The other entrance gopuras also have these dance panels, and all seemed to vary from 108. Still, they were interesting to see. Beyond the first wall and entrance is another high wall with a pillared entrance way on the east, but I first walked around the huge courtyard between the first and second walls. Much of it is empty, with a few small temples, but on the northern side are several large ones plus a large tank of water. I went into a couple of the temples, including one with a painted ceiling said to date from the 17th century. The temple itself is earlier, though my guidebooks differ on the date. A huge pillared hall, called the Raja Sabha, in the northeast is closed.
I spent more than an hour walking around before entering the pillared entrance into the second enclosure. Beyond this point photos aren't allowed. Inside was dark, with corridors lined with pillars on plinths. I walked around through these dark corridors and eventually entered the inner courtyard, partly open to the sky, with several small temples. This temple worships Shiva in his Lord of the Dance incarnation, but one of the shrines the inner sanctum is a shrine honoring Vishnu. The main shrines in the inner sanctum honor Shiva, though. Two are side by side and you can see through the open pillared walls of one towards the inner sanctum, with Shiva as Lord of the Dance, swirling on one leg with his hair flying. I think there is a lingam nearby, too. The statue is surrounded little lamps of fire and brahmin priests seemed to be constantly conducting some sort of rites in front, often waving plates of fire. It is dark inside the inner sanctum, but supposedly behind the statue of Shiva is a curtain of leaves, behind which is a lingam of ether, the fifth element after fire, water, earth, and air. Sometimes this element is called space, as in the space between all the other elements. The ether lingam behind the curtain is invisible, or at least that is the story.
The Shiva priests in the temple are from the Dikshitar sub caste, and there are lots of them around, easily distinguishable by their white dhotis and bare chests except for the brahmin sacred thread over their left shoulders. Many have shaved part of their hair, with the remaining part done up in a top knot. There are other priests in the temple, too, the ones tending the Vishnu shrine right next to the Shiva ones. Shiva priests, and devotees, always have horizontal lines, usually one to three, on their foreheads while Vishnu priests and devotees have vertical lines, sometimes in a sort of V, on their foreheads.
In the inner courtyard, before the Shiva and Vishnu shrines, there was constant activity, with lots of pilgrims. About a quarter to 6 the Vishnu priests began a loud puja, with bell ringing. Just outside the shrine loudly played two drummers, two guys playing those long Indian type oboes, and one guy playing those small cymbals, two or three inches in diameter. It was quite a racket. Eventually, the curtain before the idol was opened and the priests waved a plate of fire in front of it while the worhsipers clasped their hands and strained to look forward. When the priests finished, worshipers were allowed to go into the shrine. I eventually went it and saw that the image of Vishnu is recumbent, with silver plates on top of his head and on his chest.
About 6 the brahmins at the Shiva shrine began a noisy puja, with plates of fire waved in front of the Shiva idol. The crowd again stood in front, straining to see. The fire plates were eventually brought by the priests to the front of the crowd so they could pass their hands over them. Some sort of prasad was passed out by the priests to the sea of open hands raised forward by the crowd. Other pujas were held around the temple and for about an hour it was very noisy with bells ringing and the musicians playing. It was all very interesting to watch. In one section of the courtyard about 20 priests sat in a sort of U and recited together. Eventually, some currency was passed out by another priest to each of them, and then they each got a single banana before they broke up and left. Other priests were sitting here and there in both the inner courtyard and the pillared corridors just outside. Every once in a while the musicians led a procession to one altar or another. At one altar in the corner of the pillared enclosure sat about five singers all by themselves. I think they may have been members of a hereditary caste of temple singers. There were several altars in this pillared area and at one I watched a priest pour some sort of thick brown liquid over an idol, completely covering it in brown before washing it off with pots of water. I walked all around and sat here and there watching it all until about 8, when I left for dinner.
The next morning I went back to the temple about 7:30 and spent about an hour and a half walking around the outer courtyard, between the first and second walls. I spent time looking at the statues on the gopuras, both the stone ones and the colorful plaster ones above. People streamed in and out. At the tank in the northern courtyard, some people were bathing in the dirty water, with garbage floating in the corners and green slime in places. It is said that a king of Kashmir bathed in this tank in the 5th century and was cured of leprosy. Now you would be more likely to get leprosy, or something worse, from the water. I then spent about an hour in the two inner parts of the temple before leaving for breakfast. The activity was much less than the evening before, but there are interesting bas reliefs to be seen.
The temple closes between noon and 4, so soon after 11, after my breakfast of puri, pongal, and vada, I took a crowded bus south about 35 miles, and an hour and a half, to Taragampadi, formerly known as Tranquebar, on the coast. In 1620 the Danes, of all people, began building a fort at Tranquebar for trading purposes with the consent of the Raja of Tanjour. A later version of the castle still exists, which the Danes held onto until 1845 when they sold out to the British East India Company. Before reaching the fort I came to two spruced up churches, both dating from the early 18th century. Lutheran priests from Germany were sent to Tranquebar by the King of Denmark and they arrived in 1706. Monuments marked the 200th and 300th anniversary of the event. The caretaker at one of the churches, containing the grave of the first Lutheran missionary, showed me a guest book with the signature of the Crown Prince of Denmark. I told him I couldn't make out the name, but was it "Hamlet," to which I got no reaction.
The fort is right on the sea, but there is no beach. There are some brick foundations at the sea front. Apparently, the sea is eroding what was part of the old Danish town. There are some nice old tile roof houses along one street and two big colonial buildings facing the fort. One was the Danish Governor's residence and one the residence of the Collector once the British took over. Both are restored and the latter is a fancy hotel, which I walked around. The fort is small and not all that impressive, with former warehouses and rooms on the first floor. On the second level, on the side facing the sea, are rooms now housing a museum. There is not much inside but there are interesting, if somewhat scattered, accounts of the history of the Danes in India. You can also read the grant from the Raja of Tanjore to the Danes and the bill of sale from the Danes to the British. The wind was blowing strongly off the sea and a river entered the sea just south of the fort.
About 4 I headed back to Chidambaram on a much less crowded bus than I'd arrived in, and so was better able to enjoy the green countryside, with lots of thatched houses. Back in Chidambaram I went into the temple about 6 and stayed for an hour or so to watch the goings on. It seemed less busy than the night before.
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