The unknown Tanjore temple

Tanjore: When one thinks of Tanjore it would be the Brihadeshwara temple that comes to mind. Now coming to think of it, there is more to Tanjore that exists beyond the fort walls that guard the temple. For one, we have old buildings and palaces that dot the landscape which most often go unnoticed.

There is something about the Tanjore palace that is of real interest. It is the only surviving example that clearly depicts that large pyramidal towers like the one in this picture were actually used as residential complexes. This means that every floor was occupied by people of the royal family. Adding to this, the top most chamber, at the peak of the tower which houses at the most one room with a path of circum-ambulation to get access to it was probably made exclusively for the king.

Pyramidal towers were nor just constructed, they have been depicted across panels across the south and where do you find them? Well, on relief sculptures of Vaikuntaperumal temple of Kanchipuram, at the shiva temple as well as the amman shrine at Darasuram to mention a few. So how did the ancients even go about something like this and what has it got to do with tanjore temple?

Well, the palace is a residence, which means every level depicts smaller house like structures and when put on one another sequentially make up the whole pyramid so people lived on all the floors. This has a strange background. As most of south indian art owes its past to Buddhist art in the northwest, we need to travel there to see how that affected a temple palace in Tanjore. If we take the buddhist caves of Bedsa and say Karla, we can very clearly see that they tried to depict a village or a group of houses on one single vertical wall. Of course keeping the maturity fo engineering through the ages, the original idea of wanting to live one over the other in a pyramidal structure started here, the pyramid being part of their discovery of architecture. When depicting a whole village on a vertical wall, without perspective in consideration, they tended to pile up all the structures, farthest house coming to the top of the compostion. Series of these smaller houses, architecturally were called shalakutas(broader houses) and karna kutas(narrow houses).

The shalakuta in indian architecture, and more so in the brihadeshwara temple occupy the central area of the main temple tower. all those smaller sturctures you see up there dotting it are shalakutas. the corner structures which are narrower are the karnakutas. Hence Tanjore temple is a depiction, of what a pyramidal palace would have looked like, and tanjore palace of course isthe residential quarters in those days.

Looking further into the tanjore temple itself, it houses the iconography of Shiva profusely on all its walls. Things that we will never get to know or see are the deep dark passages of circum-ambulation this temple hides on its two gigantic floors, and an underground chamber this temple stands on which hosts a world of ancient murals very vulnerable to daylight. So there is really much more than what meets the eye which we just seem to miss no matter how many times we go there. The passages that led up to the higher floors from inside the temple have been blocked with cement for good. The original garbha griha was hollow right through such that if you shood at the shrine and looked up, you could see the top of the tower, way above from inside. This has been blocked by floors constructed over the linga in the Nayaka period. Surely tanjore temple has seen a lot and Tanjore pallace even more.

These are the only surviving examples that show that "rich" people lived in multi-storied buildings, not rectangular but pyramidal in nature. There probably were more of this all around in wood, just the stone structures survive today.

Kali amman - the real mother!

Kali amman shrines: South Indian temples profusely depict a simple standing amman(mother goddess) shrine inside most Shiva and Vishnu temples. It is interesting however to see the presence of the cult of Kali in the historical temples across the Tamil Nadu region. This is seconded by the strong presence of the Naga cult, but for now lets stick to Kali.

Its not just a madness in Bengal, today's Durga puja would have seen a lot more versions in the South in earlier days. Here are a few examples. Lets start with Mahabalipuram. It was an interesting discovery i made when i was reading yet another book on the Goddess. Mahishasuramardhini or Durga, is supposed to have destroyed the demons Madhu and Kaitaba who attempted killing Vishnu while he slept on Ananta. This story has confusing parts to it. References to the same are made in dance where Vishnu is supposed to have woken up and faced them. In the amman cult, durga is supposed to have destroyed them. None the less, in this particular cave, all you get to see are Vishnu and Mother goddess, the actors of this particular drama, being carved out of the rocky walls. Apart from this, the goddess is profusely carved in the Draupadi ratha, with a scene of decapitation happening right next to her. This imagery finds place even in the Varaha cave.

Moving on, it was particularly interesting to note the presence of Kaliamman at wayside village temples near Samayapuram, enroute to Trichy. Here the shrine is known to be extremely potent and can be visited only on Mondays and Fridays. Further down at trichy she resides again near the Rackfort temple. In Tanjore, amman does not occupy a seat within the walls of the Brihadeshwara temple complex but is found 3kms away. Moving on as one takes the road to Kumbhakonam, we cross two places called Nellur and Papanasam. Who would believe that a small village like Nellur, would even host a fantastic shrine for the Goddess and how many people would be privileged enough to get off the beaten track to go and see this form of the Goddess! Here she has a shrine all to herself, on the outside of a Shiva temple, which lies among very calm and peaceful fields of south indian countryside.

Moving on, as one leaves Kumbhakonam and heads for Chidambaram, the tamil countryside lies dotten with fields interspaced with temples and minor shrines of village deities. At Chidambaram, and not within the great temple, but behind it is a shrine to be seen. This is by far one of the most amazing Kaliamman shrines i have ever set my eyes on. She is not in the main shrine but on the side. The walls around her are decorated with scenes of a king in the act of decapitation while his army watches on. He holds his hair up and attempts cutting his head with a sword, sacrificing himself to the Goddess. Such was the faith those days. Inside the shrine sits the goddess, in true beauty. The first sight of her of course is breathtaking as she is dressed in a white dress, bathed in kumkum. Oh! that vision of the Goddess is something i will never forget. Its one of the few shrines i stood in front of, it was just timeless. I could have stayed there all my life. She was carved in stone, looked fierce and coy at the same time, in the same pose as shown above. Then came the moment of true beauty. They undressed the Mother and bathed her in oil. I have never seen a more beautiful form of the Goddess. She sat there eight handed getting bathed first in oil and then in kumkum. She was red and totally amazing. She bore weapons in her various hands and sat on her seat flexing her body most gracefully. Whats also amazing is a strange sculpture i have not seen anywhere else. A sculpture of a five hooded serpent with two and a half coils. It looked deadly, as if the snakes almost came to life as i took the courage to touch the stone they were carved out of. In the darkness, it looked out of the world with the small ghee lamps burning in its lap as it shielded them from the rain. Your heart skips a beat, and you lose your breath when you see the five hooded serpent and the Goddess in complete red, against the lamplight. You just realize how hopelessly small you really are.

The next shrine of the Goddess was at Gangaikondacholapuram. Another extremely gorgeous temple built by Rajendra Chola, but not half as dynamic and that at Tanjore, this temple originally hosted just Shiva. The sub shrines around the temple hosted devi in her various forms. One such shrine within the compound hosts a fierce form of the Goddess in attack. Its so strange, the silence and peace of Gangaikoncholapuram echoes with the presence of cults that were radiant and fiercely potent and well rooted into the indian traditional mind. It just leaves you with goose pimples as you think about the proliferation of the mother goddess shrines not as a gentle form in Parvati or the well known amman shrine but as Kali amman, radiant and energetic within her very potent self.

Finally this picture, not a stone sculpture of the ancient days but a modern remake of the splendor of the Goddess. Some how, though i do not take to sculptures made these day, this particular one caught my attention, she looks simply fantastic, gorgeous as a Mother and seductive at the same time. She fits the perfect description i have read across books. Her face, has warmth and fierceness at the same time. Oh she is something that needs to be first discovered, appreciated, loved, and respected to even start scratching the surface to know her true form. For all that, this is one of her forms as the ten Mahavidhyas that rule ancient Tantrik practices.

Truely She is the mother, ever creative, ever fertile, in permanent intercourse with Lord Shiva as she gives birth to us every life.

Inside the Rockfort - Trichy

Trichy, Tamil Nadu: one of the most amazing pieces of architecture can be found at the rockfort in Trichy. Now what makes it so amazing? Its not just a temple, its not just a fort, but a set of monolithic rocks that make room for both.

Yes. Getting into the rockfort can be through a very unassuming entrance with all the known Gods smiling down at you till you reach the shrine of Ganesha. This is probably the only shrine which is laiden with turmeric giving it the yellow look and making Ganesha almost come to life from his otherwise rocky exterior! Here Ganesha looks at you and smiles. After darshan and having bought the ticket one begins to ascend one of the most amazing peices of architecture in the south. Staircases lined up, one after the other, are punctuated with smaller shrines of Shiva and Ganesha along the way up. Its just fantastic.

The walk is for a short while and a little tiring. Along the way are dark mandapas with ghostly characters from past mythology peeping out at you through the darkness in lavish colors. Though the way up looks narrow, steep and reasonably secretive, such that you cant see who is really far above or far below, there is enough and more ventilation to bring in the air you might think you never got. Deep grilled windows carved into the rocky wall provide all the cool breeze you want interspaced with small images of Ganesha and other lesser deities along the way. The steps are all painted red and white adding to the ambience of a rock temple fort. There comes a point when you need to turn right for the Ganesha temple way above and left to the Shiva temple way inside.

Lets take right! Here is a surprize, just as you enter the exterior of the fort, not having known till now how much you have actually climbed, you are welcomed by a Pallava cave which jumps at you from the left. It hosts the sculptures of Shiva Gangadhara and appears to be an incomplete cave. It looks like the artists of that period chose to write on the walls instead of carve down the pillars. There are elaborate scripts on the wall but the pillars stay unfinished. Walking further up, you are welcomed by the beautiful view of the city scape with the Caveri flowing along one side. Its just breath taking as the strong breeze just sweeps through your hair making you want to camp there for a while.

The walk up to the Ganesha temple atop the rocky hill is tough but beautifully managed by carving steps into the very rock itself. Its very clear, originally this was a plain mandapa which hosts ganesha within its four walls, and had a pillared corridor around it without any parapet wall, and what you have now is a granite floored, walled interior which completele destroys what the original mandapa would have looked like. Anyway indians are known to destroy what ever little they have from past glory. The view is amazing and gives a complete picture of not just Trichy in all its expance but the beautiful gopuram of the island temple of srirangam and tiruvanaikkaval in the middle of the dry Caveri.

Lets come back and walk to the left. This is something that really took my imagination by storm. it leads through a series of winding staircases so much so that keeping an eye on the direction of north gets to be quite difficult. It takes you from one mandapa to another, with the feel of having walked into a temple, looks like a palace but has the relevant shrines for the navagraha, smaller shiva lingas and ganesha with towering dwarapalas as you go into the heart of the very fort.

This is best described as follows. It feels like its a palace fort with the commanders and the king coming to perform a great puja and probably getting their armies ready for attack. The halls are richly decorated and the sounds of the drums and trumpets announce the arrival of the king. Richly decorated mandapas host a colourful spectacle of an even more richly dressed king and his battalion with dancers and queens adding to the glow of the show.

Fire torches light up the interiors and the whole place wakes up with the rhythmic banging of drums. Through out the path up the steps are small triangular holes in the walls for oil lamps to light up the passageway. Wow what a sight! Anyway walking further up and having crossed the Amman shrine one takes a sharp turn again and rises into a colorfully decorated hall of pillars which has a hole in its floor to accomodate for the roof of the amman shrine a floor below. Freaking awesome.

Finally the most breath taking of them all, is what lies at the top end on the other side. The grand finale is the Great Shiva shrine that rises out of a Swayambhuva linga. It is hosted within a garbha griha with no circum-ambulation within itself, though the outside has coloruful walls with all the bronzes that speak every story from Shiva iconography known to us. I stood there gaping at the Shiva idol, massive, black, silent and only viewed in oil lamp lights, my heart just swelled up with reverence. Lots of oil lamps decorate the room, and people outside light innumerable ghee lamps adding to the sanctity of the place. I sat and stared as the priests went about their business, and people sang songs and lamps got lit and fire was the path to the deity.

Then suddenly in walks this man with a mountain of rudraksha on his neck and an even larger moutain of ego on his head. He comes in taking the scene by storm, and as the last and final arti for the Lord rises into the air declaring the temple closed, the man goes into a trance and sits on the floor with another authoritaive man guarding him and the temple and the deity from the rest of us lesser mortals. Finally the drums begin to thunder through the roof, resonating through the walls clearing every passer by out of the rockfort temple.

Suddenly the kings are gone, the color, the dancers, the decorated halls, the music, the fire torches, the lit interiors, the war cries... everything vanishes into thin air and the curtain drops. Rockfort trichy closes for the night.

A pilgrimage to Lord Shiva

This was a trip to remember, a trip i have made across to shrines of Lord Shiva. The first stop i drove down to was Thiruvannamallai. The place for the agni linga, the place where the ashtadikpala lingas surround the main hill. The place where i first found peace. The place where i met my Guru.

Thiruvannamallai speaks for itself. The hill is collared by a road leading into forests hosting a lot of shrines. The road, girivalam, hosts promises to all who live along its path. Sanyasas dot its various parts, around the miniature shrines that surround the main hill. I went around with a handycam, with a hope to catch a glimpse of the lord himself in his aniconic symbol.

This was remarkable, but contradicting. I managed to get a few shots of seven shiva lingas. the 8th was simply not possible. This was interesting because i wondered what was wrong with shooting the garbha griha. Why is it not allowed? There are mixed opinions on it. Some priests are not game since they think its disrespecting the idol, other just love to throw rules around the place to assert them selves, a play of ego may i call it. Still others were completely open to it and infact performed doubly well since they were being photographed.

The reverence with which one comes to temples, to connect with the deity and to gain some peace in their lives is simply getting killed in the process. I was very disappointed with the levels of corruption i saw across the temples. It almost made me cry. But do i say that i was plain lucky when i realized that i had managed to shoot at least twenty odd lingas out 25 that i have visited in my life.

I had climbed the main hill of Tiruvannamallai, twice in my life. The view from up there is simply breath taking. Not to miss the feeling of accomplishment for having reached the top, for the hill is so forbidding, its a revelation if one makes it up there. The first part is to climb a smaller hill, whose steep sides give no hint of the mammoth hill standing behind. And just when you stand exhausted you figure out you have covered only one third of the entire height. The climb is a little dangerous as there are no steps made to just walk up. In fact one just manages to go up the beaten track and not lose their way. Once on top, the breeze and the view is completely worth it. I climbed to the farthest point where at the tip of the rock were the feet of the Lord himself carved into the rock. The say lord Arunachala leaped from one hill to the other, leaving a foot print here behind. Well that is anybody's guess but it just felt good for having made it to the top of the hill.

Descending down took another hour and an half. The slopes getting even steeper as i could feel my weight in my knees. Coming down was tough but when i reached the ground, it felt good to be back on earth. The hill itself is Lord Shiva some say, othere say it is the next Kailasa. What ever it is, there is a mixed opinion that nobody should climb it. There used to be the presence of Sidhdhas along the Girivalam road. When i walked around the hill the first time, i was one among few who did get to have an introduction to these celestial beings.

Yes i know it sounds wierd but trust me its true. When i walked the first time, i tasted vibhuti in my mouth, as i crossed the Goddess's shrine. Oh she is a piece to marvel, just a head with fantastic eyes and power just rolling out of her very form. Another companion smelt jasmine flowers. These were incidents that happened among us in the middle of the night as we walked around the hill.

The main hill too hosted a whole range of herbal plants on itself as one got near the peak. The air i remember was fresh and smelt of all sorts of herbs though the second trip up the hill didnt prove as fruitful. Tiruvannamallai is dying, with the increased wishlist of the people in the Kaliyuga. This is what you get to hear from the Sadhus when you ask them about the possiblities of meeting a Sidhdha in the spirit world. Sidhdhas dont inhabit the place anymore. Change for the worst is underway and the slow death of Thiruvannamallai is very visible.

It will take a devotee persistence, sincerity, and love to see the true grace of the Lord.

The gatekeeper - dvarapalas in temple architecture

Going back into history, we can take this ancient tradition of temple gatekeepers to village guardians in ancient indian times which goes straight to the Yaksha cult. They have been through a couple of political cult changes along the way both buddhist as well as shaivite before they entered into a phase where they were finally defined as "Dvarapalas" in temple architecture.

The earliest creative examples of a decent dvarapala as we know it were carved by Baladeva, a chalukyan sculptor who belonged to a guild or artists who indulged in temple architecture around Aihole Badami and Pattadakkal. These artists did various things, for example, one sculptor was responsible for just the jali windows that adorn closed mandapas in temples. Another sculptor just carved ceiling panels for the great rulers depending on which cult the temple was to be dedicated. Yet another carved only lintels and assisted in planning on how all this was going to be put together and hoisted up to form the final structure - a temple in dravida or nagara style.

Lets take Baladeva. He specialised in dvarapalas, making them lean on the pillar and hold a club during his time. So if he were to dedicate a dvarapala to a shaivite temple he would give the dvarapala the same pose, but add a club to his hand and a third eye to his forehead. During his time, dvarapalas were incidentally human size and normal, soldier like. What happened with his contemporaries in the south was a little different. The pallavas also made them, some fierce, some gentle holding lotuses in their hands and inviting you home, for a cup of tea maybe. They were slender in true Pallava style.



Now came the big imperial guys, the Cholas who wanted to really show they are BIG. Their dwarapalas were giant size, snarled down at you making you feel real small when you entered the Brihadeshwara temple for example, or even larger and fierce when you tried to enter Gangaikondacholapuram temple. The are true giants, massive with fangs towering up and leaning on the walls leading up to already high cielings showing true Chola imperialism in their art. They also had a yali accompanying them at the bottom.

Back again during the late chola early vijayanagara time they became shade smaller, but more ornate, didnt lean on anything but stood kinda cross legged, this time with sharp fangs. Now they were demons for all practical purposes with a "dare not enter" look to their faces. The nayakas had learnt the art of chiseling stone very well and got the dvarapalas their muscles in better shape with more ornate jewellery to suit their rich exterior.

Finally, Marunthiswar Shiva temple at Thiruvanmiyur, brought about a drastic shift in the thought process of the generation of people who learnt temple architecture in their time. The same dvarapala, never shall die, the same pose, the same club, the same fangs but without any sign of the lost Chola imperialism in their form. They cover all of 10 by 10 inches of the gateway that leads into this temple. Crisp sculpture i should say, just so small that you have almost missed the dvarapala in the act of guarding the temple gate.

So much for a dying practise of guarding the diety. The dying of not just the dvarapala himself, but the very idea with which he even took birth in the Indian architects mind. He will always remain there, just ignored, unwanted, and forgotten...

Kumkum - the great indian bindi

A lot of foreigners think its style and a lot of Indian women don't know why they wear this Bindi. It is an age old tradition prevalent among Indian women to wear a red dot between their eyebrows. Of course with the passing of time, this has taken various forms and shapes and somewhere in this evolution, it has lost its original meaning or function.

Well I myself have experimented a lot, painting tiny stick figures on my forehead, occasionally of a mythological story representing Shiva Nataraja or Tripurantaka for that matter. Its interesting how much that little sketch on my forehead can convey. Yes all this with a backdrop of red smeared on my forehead.

This is kumkum, the original red powder made from turmeric, religiously everytime and taken to temples to dress the Goddess within its walls. It is first offered to the Mother Goddess, covering her sacred feet with mantras, it also dresses her forehead before it is given out to us, who take every particle of dust on her feet as sacred (Soundarya Lahari).

But what is this kumkum all about. Its not about the color red alone. Well infact the sticker bindis have gone way off the mark. Its not for beauty and vanity either. It was meant to ward off any evil intending soul who could hypnotise the woman, that is if she was all that vulnerable. The red dot made of kumkum, worn by both men and women, is powerful and keeps maleficent forces at bay.

But there is more to this. The purity of women could be seen in their eyes, pure love for the Gods they worshiped and the power of their worship glistened in their eyes. Very few got to really see the power in these eyes, and those who did experienced something totally different. This was when they looked up to her face without a kumkum. When she wore it, it brought power between her eyes, to ward off all evil lookers so that they would just bow to her in humility.

This power does not let any man stare her in the eyes for too long with wrong intentions in his mind. That is the power in her eyes, enhanced by the presence of vermillion between her brow. It doesn't let a man stare at her too long for she radiates the Goddess herself in all purity.

So much in so less, a red dot can carry such power and now it has been reduced to a mere sticker. Such is the power of kumkum, that needs to be understood by every woman and not be reduced to mere convenience.

Jagannathpur temple - Ranchi - anything but Juggernaut.

This is a fortified temple built on a hill in the 17th century, hosting Krishna, Balabhadra and Subhadra as the main shrines. It is a miniature version of Jagannath temple are Puri. A lot has changed in this temple since I last saw it. It was gorgeous when I was a young girl, in school, fascinated with anything that remotely looked like a fort with chambers and gardens, and temples with idols and flags.



We used to regularly visit this temple, every Sunday, without fail. For me it was an outing, always fresh in the mind, always beautiful and full of surprises, much as i always knew what to expect of this temple. We used to drive down every morning, around 9.30 to the temple and park the car way down near a Hanuman shrine at the bottom of the hill.

Climbing this hill was more exciting than tough. Coming to think of it, the hill was pretty small, but the climb was worth all the fun. A mud road led up to a part of the main hill which is rocky and has two kinds of staircases leading up to the main fort. Walking up the mud road was easy, and one always got to see the same old beggars lined up every morning with hope for a meal that morning from a devotee passing by. Most of them were really beggars, with leprosy and all the worlds deseases known to mankind. Apart from the road dotted with these guys, there always stood one very ancient car, the Rath of the Gods.



Painted green, I always wondered whether there was any life left in it. It definitely was not the juggernaut one would expect to see. It permanently stood inclined along its own axis, trying to maintain its center of gravity well within its frame, for it titled so badly, that I really wondered, how the pujari even dared to sit on it while they pulled it up the same hill during the mela (the only time we never visited the temple). This was a task to pull the Rath, in one piece hoping it would not fall apart like a pack of cards, leave alone moving and crushing anything on its way. It gave me no hope that it would withstand the passing of time, the pull of the ropes during the mela, forcing it to climb the inclination of the hill a few feet forward, and of course its own misplaced weight which fell on wheels that inclined a good 45 degrees, making it purely miraculous that the Rath, still stands for another mela, surely making it up the hill once again next year.



We always climbed by the rocky way, thought there was a good staircase in cement on the other side. Rocks always looked more appealing. The climb was always 10 minutes up when one came upto a courtyard, with the wind in the trees, and a stairway leading up to the main gate(picture above). This opened into a courtyard that hosted a small temple, with the shrines inside it. Cant remember too much but I remember having seen, Hanuman inside on one of the niches, and I think Garuda was the vahana outside. Brick walled and whitewashed, the interiors were bare, and dark as one walked into the main shrine lit up in lamp lights revealing the big eyes of the Gods smiling broadly at us every time. Later of course, the main temple tower got the wrath of the Gods, no it was not a canon ball that blew the roof off, but lightening that destroyed the main temple vimana, leaving a smaller one to replace it(below).



Whats interesting about this fort is the subshrines within each of the towers that protrude out of the main fort wall. These housed shrines of Hanuman, Kali and other deities all smeared with vermillion, withstanding the test of time, lightning or otherwise. This temple was worth it all, my introduction to architecture, introduction to fortification, and a remote location that just dreams can bring alive. It had everything, gods, forts, the view of the plains from the rocky hillside to see the oncoming armies march up to the hill and the main tower with the red flag for ever victorious, for ever flying... truly breathtaking!

Cult of Yakshas and Yakshis

When you look up a reference book, they call it the Yaksha cult. A very cold blooded approach to emotions that rule faith so strong. As per art historical text, yakshas were fertility gods as well as village guardians. They played a very strong role in Grama shilpa, and didnt get much attention from the ruling kings. their female counter parts are yakshis associated with the fertility cult and mother goddess worship.

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They largely take up demi god status. They are not human, not Super gods but somewhere in between.They join others of a similar nature who would be the likes of gandharvas, apsaras, mithuna couples, ganas, siddhas?, kinnaras, river goddesses, and maybe nagas if i am thinking right.

But who are these guys and why did they interest the local audience so much?



Well lets get started with their name. Why call them Yaksha? It seems that Brahma uttered a phrase for them which calls them "Yakshamam" or those who protect. Hence Kubera being the Guardian of the northern quadrant is not surprizing. Yakshas can be divided into those who attained God status and those who didnt make it to the top. Those who didnt make it to the top ended up being the attendants of Kubera Yaksha, the protector of wealth, not necessarily gold and precious stones, but all minerals of the earth. But those who did were the likes of Ganesha, Lakshmi, Hanuman, Kali and kubera himself apart from the sapta Matrika.

So tomorrow if you go to a temple and see the seven mothers flanked by two men it would largely be ganesha and Kubera indicating yaksha cult origins. Of course there are some places in northwest india where they also include Buddha. Caves at Ellora and aurangabad display such sculptures to empahsize the same. It is interesting though to note that the greater Gods needed to be flanked or "protected" by the lesser gods.

So whats with them? Yakshas are mortals in terms of the fact that they are full of passion and do not escape the cycle of birth and death. But they are magical beings enough to change form and take on any threat with their supernatural powers. They are largely the good guys and inoffencive, hence they are refered to as "punyajanas".

They are known to ask too many riddles, the wrong answers for which might land you in trouble. The right answer of course gets you their favour. For eg. Yudhistira is known to have lost all his brothers when the Yaksha asked them questions. But his right answer got them all back to life. For anyone who is curious, the so called riddle was "What is the greatest wonder of life?" and the right answer was "That every man must one day die, yet every man lives as if they were immortal."

Those men must have been really evolved if they called a question like that a "riddle".

But there are bad guys too, not all Yakhas are good guys. They are semi demon too. Anyway coming back to the point, they have been taken over by various religions to join their respective pantheons. Not that they really belonged there, but the need was high enough to get the attention of the masses. Lets say each religion Buddhist, Jaina or Brahmanical had to add to their CUG (closed user groups) and an increase in community figures mattered. Hence the Yakhas most common to the masses than the kings were brought in as either being replaced by a buddha in a similar pose (i always wondered why the laughing buddha of feng shui was a short stout guy, with a belly, so unlike the Buddha we know), or as protectors of thirtankaras or guardians for villages or as fertility images or flanking the sapta matrikas.

Interesting guys none the less, but very much to the background. So tomorrow when you see a Buddha looking really short and fat with plump legs, he might just have been a Yaksha some centuries ago.

So much for faith. I wonder sometimes whether we were any better than the church when it came to preservation and marketing of religion. It seems so political. Such is life.

Enlightenment: serpent stellae in south India

Gingee fort, enroute Thiruvannamallai:

I happened to stop by at Gingee fort, before i drove on to Thriuvannamallai. This time i chose not to climb the hill, but walk around the ruins lying scattered between the three hills. Gingee fort holds a lot of secrets, from the Vijayanagar period down to the Nayakas and later.

It is a fabulous place which was brimming with life at some point it time, having a solid fort that guards all the monuments within its walls, while one can see watch towers and mandapas along the boulder laiden hillside. I drove on along a muddy road, towards what they called Anjaneyar(hanuman) temple. The beauty of the place is just amazing, I still wondered why people in office just laughed out when i said i wanted to see this fort. They all swore that it was not a great place, at least not to spend a weekend, and now i feel, i really feel they missed out plenty.

The main fort is a days attraction, saps your energy and you are really not enthusiastic enough to explore the ruins below it. But what lies around it is an amazing piece of nature, yet untouched by mankind. I stopped the car, near the "Kaliamman" (goddess kali) temple. Whats starts to look like 3 temples deviod of shrines inside, hosts a pond behind it, the water still fresh and clean urging any passerby to take a dive. The pond, is along the road on one side, on the other it washes huge boulders that stand along its sides. The view is simply spectacular. The main fort is along a hill with very steep cliffs on one side, and the other is a pile of gigantic boulders with a fort wall running along it very abruptly. Below this stands an oasis with a lot of trees which give the sudden burst of greenery around the pond. I parked and walked along the mud road leading around the pond. It took me straight to Kaliamman temple.



I removed my slippers, and walked up to see the entrance lined up with stallae, and lots of them. The priest later told me, that the snakes indicate various functions. Most often these serpents are depicted as a pair, entwined to house a greater deity or remain plain facing each other. Often they are depicted with multiple hoods. Deities typically housed within them are, Krishna, Muruga, Shiva, Naga kanni as far as I can remember. Those snakes that house Krishna, Muruga and Naga Kanni are Nagas, who protect and guard these deities. The plain snakes looking at each other are stellae that guard the main Mother Goddess, in this case its Kaliamman. Interestingly these snakes stand as a seperate stellae next to the main Goddess Herself. Snakes surrounding Naga Kannis would probably be six individual snakes around her, while she is depicted with human head and torso, and snake body.

The most interesting to my eyes, of course were the snakes surrounding Shiva. No they are not plain snakes to guard him. The are Rahu and Ketu holding him in the center and facing each other. Now of course this representation quite beats my logic of Kundalini which i have discussed in "Coiled serpents on a wayside stelae", so i would leave that logic, to Multiple hooded snakes covering the Shiva Linga like an unbrella. There again is another story. Shiva is supposed to have blessed the Naga Kingdom and gifted them with more importance than the mortal world. Hence in reverence, they are always depicted as covering his Linga. The depiction of course continues to be that of two and a half coiled serpents, i might just be right about kindalini.

The whole picture of course looks out of the world. With these stellae lined up, one with krishna, one with Shiva, one with rahu and ketu surrounding shiva, a linga and a few other guardian rocks, under a tree hosting a world of flowers, bees, and monkeys, it also held 4 to 5 trishuls in the ground below it, each decorated with flowers and bangles. And when you look up, its the rocks and boulders of the fort above and when you look back its the pond and the trees with rocky hills in the background with scattered mandapas - vijayanagar style. It almost looks like a mini Hampi.

A truely amazing site.

Ashwamedha Yagnya - Indian Horse sacrifice.

I remember the first time I heard of this ritual. It was a glorified act of a Great king flaunting his superiority by letting loose a well bred horse which was free to go where ever it wanted. When it enetered the territory of another ruling king, the king there either challenged the Great king which resulted in war or submitted and paid tribute to him. This defined the Great kings superiority and if in the condition he had performed the Ashwamedha yagnya more than 10 times, he was as good as Indra. It is believed that Indra jealously guarded his position and kept an eye on all those Kings who performed this grand ritual.

Sounds fantastic, leaves a feeling of deep respect in the mind of the reader wondering how great those days might have been. Moving on, the next occasion i came across the Ashwamedha yagnya, was when i was in college, going through a book on manuscript painting, and to my shock i found a whole new twist to this ritual. The manuscript painting clearly indicated an act of possible copulation of the Head Queen with the sacrificial horse after it returned. This was to be performed in the presence of priests and other royal members of the family.

Shaken with the posibility that there could be more than this, the imagery of the manuscript painting stayed etched in my mind. It didnt go, purely on the grounds of disbelief. How could someone do something like that?@?@?

Well, if that was not all, last night i was reading about the sakta cult and the worship of the Mother Goddess when i came upon yet another reference of the ashwamedha yagnya. By this time it was bordering on barbarousness. This is what it was all about!!

There were clear rules to the ritualistic performance of the ashwamedha yagnya. Human sacrifice was a must in those sacrifices that involved the worship of the Mother Goddess, largely being Durga, Kali, Varahi, Chamunda, Chandi or the like. The initial offering included flowers, bark and sandal wood paste with recitation of mantras during the performance of the ritual. further to this the worshipper brought in the victim of the sacrifice. The victim cannot be a priest or a slave, hence he had to be from the kshatriya or the vaishya class (trader or warrior clan).

The worshipper recites the relevant mantra, places the victim on the sacrificial altar head facing east, worshipper standing north and recites a mantra which would state that the victim has been granted this birth to be the sacrificial meat for the goddess and with the performance of this sacrifice this shall not be taken as murder. After reciting the mantra, the worshipper tosses a flower over the victim and holds a sword up into the air which has already been concecrated and....... chop!

Its very possible that the victims were prisoners of war. Its also possible that the tradition of human sacrifice was converted to ritual and might essentially been a barbarous act in the initial stages of civilization. Or maybe all this is faith. Killing one self as a sacrifice to the divine Mother is one thing, taking someone else's life is another. How much of this is tradition, how much of it is primitive practise, and how much of it is faith... is well anybody's guess. End of the day ashwamedha yagnya included, the horse sacrifice which does not explicitly indicate that the horse was killed at the end of it, a copulation act with the head queen if that were ever possible and a human sacrifice which looks more digestable though ugly.

The only point it brings home is that our ancestors were a completely different breed from what we are today. And as my friend put it buddhism did our ancestors a lot of good with the introduction of ahimsa - live and let live.

Rahu Ketu - Party time folks.

Rahu and Ketu appear to be the most unwanted souls in anyones life. They are neither here nor there, neither alive nor dead or maybe they are both alive and dead at the same time(complicated, i know). Rahu represents the living head and ketu represents the dead body. Rahu appears to be the problem area while ketu, doesnt seem to have a choice at all. Another soul in this realm so not figured out is Shani or saturn who shows up in our lives in a cyclic pattern.

I do not know much about these guys/energies/whatever, but i do know that they have been causing havoc in my life. So while i go through hell, they have fun, partying at my expense, taking every pleasure of mine while i writhe in worry. I tell you they are a handful. Infact while i used to recite prayers (sanskrit shlokas), i often used to wonder, who is it that these prayers go to?

Today in a rather offbeat conversation i stumbled upon a startling discovery. Of course it needed a few inputs from a very close friend of mine, but what he unwittingly put down were a few pearls of wisdom. It was a collective realization later on for both of us. We come from a non astrological background, hence trying to understand the stars and planets is of great effort to us. He just said that it is believed that all 9 planets, rahu, ketu, sun and moon included, surround us all the time. This means that they are always there in a form we as mortals will never percieve. They decide what we will say and what we wont, what we do, what ever. In short they rule us. Trust me that doesnt feel good.

Interestingly the position of these guys is diagrammatically represented as jadagams or kundali or horoscopes in grids of 12, keeping the human being in the center. I would love to believe i am thinking right, i might be miserably wrong. Now, i am not questioning the process of learning these charts and predicting future based on it. I am just visualizing me walking down the road with 12 celestial bodies around me, arguing around me deciding how i will behave by the hour, with respect to anything else that governs my movements.

Now does that feel like chaos! a bunch of guys tearing each other apart and I get to have a miserable life as the result. Feels so good. Now the recitation of the mantra, deliberately and with complete devotion can counter what these guys decide for me, or appease them. So the result is that shit will happen, but not half as painful as expected.

End result, some jackass will scratch my car, and scribble all over it, hurting me right in my heart, but I will just about be happy they didnt break the glass, or take the brakes off which is a nightmare.

Coming back to the fact that there is a so called imaginary grid around me each square ruled by a celestial being with certain attributes makes me feel like i am a walking talking yantra, completely unaware of my capabilities. With this i hope i destroyed any sense of Maya around me, for the bottom lying truth is I am something of value and i myself dont know it.

Hell.. it took me 30 years to know it, now it will take another 30 to understand it, another 30 to realize it if i am lucky and another 30 to live with it in ecstacy... i would be dead by then!

What a life!

Dayakattai - Shakuni at work

Lakshmi and I had a serious conversation today. It was about the game of dice and the state our mind is in when we play the game. This is not all about strategy or luck, this is about destiny. Lakshmi is a person who does not take to random theory very easily but knowing the game and having played it, we had this errie feeling that there was more to the game than just playing it.

So we sat down to analyze. Why is it that some guys always win, why is it that some guys always get dayam, why is it that some guys just never ever get it. The probability of getting dayam is reasonably high given that in 30 rounds of trial each with a few extra rounds thrown in there is a good chance. But this not resulting in a dayam even to the middle of the game leaving the person a dummy and starting to play yet, was a little too much to believe. End of the day there are only 7 numbers to play with, yet the number One never comes.

So we broke it down further, bordering on something way beyond our existing logical thinking. The diagram of the dayakattai, looks like a yantra with a lot of squares or "kattams". The four offshoots from the epicenter are in the four cardinal directions. Coins used here in the game are largely dry fruits or edible stuff. The players have a role to play as well, their nature has an impact on the game. The sticks (brass, steel or iron) also have a role to play in the destiny of the game, including even the choice of partners.

The dayakattai board didnt look any different from the horoscope charts they scribble on back home. Each kattam seems to have a value named after some star or force, houses some sort of energy and the probability of winning the game is high if a person knows how to play it right. Now taking the most renound player history has ever known, Shakuni, was very aware of how to play the game, maybe which direction to sit, the kind of coins to pick and the very dice to roll to win. He had it all very figured out, there was no room for error, the kauravas would never have lost the game.

As for the pandavas, they seemed to be the most willing goats to fall into the trap. Dayakattai is not just a game, it is a science I would begin to believe and to get it right would probably be a break through all that western science has tried to prove. I seriously think this game is quite something else.

Sembiyan Mahadevi goofed! Shiva is incomplete without Parvati.

Tanjore, Tamil Nadu:

Sembiyan Mahadevi: A chola queen, widowed but enterprising, wanted to make the temple a prime center in everyone's life even with the rising pro-brahmin drift in the society. The chola period witnessed a vast change in temple architecture, for the good or bad is still debatable. But the change indeed was brought about for political reasons and by that time, the dilution in cult principles had already set in.

The two earlier temples were built purely for Shiva, with no hint of the mother goddess except for her presence in outer niches. She was not depicted on her own, but always in the presence of Shiva as Ardhanarishwara. Through this period, the shiva cult was flaunted with building the Brihadeshwara temple at Tanjore and Gangai konda cholapuram. It also witnessed the initial move towards building the Chidambaram temple where the focus shifted.



The flaw at chidambaram

For the first time in the Shiva cult history, Chidambaram temple witnessed the construction of a seperate shrine for the Mother Goddess. This was to give the Mother Goddess worshippers a fair share of the pie, and perform their rituals within the temple, therefore keeping the attention centered around the temple.

In which case the arguement can run that they could have housed all the deities of other cults in the temple, to make it a single place of worship; this doesnt seem to have happened. This shows that there was definitely a rift between vaishnavites and shaivites. Politics has played a role in india, not in kingdoms alone but in religion as well. Vishnu never found a place of honour in Shiva temples. This seems to be evident from the Pallava period itself. The shore temple in Mahabalipuram itself shows that a Vishnu shrine had already existed, with a Shiva temple built around it. With this we conclude that there was enough diplomacy between the two cults to retain the reclining Vishnu in the shore temple.

Where the focus should have remained

Lets leave Vishnu out of this for now. The root concept of Shiva, that he is incomplete without Parvati (Mother goddess) seems to have escaped everyone's eyes. The Shiva linga itself is composed of the linga pitha which is the yoni housed in every Shiva temple establishes the presence of the female form in Shiva temples well within the garbha griha. The building of the Mother goddess shrine in big temples should not have been encouraged in the first place as she is already part of the Shiva temple. Although this move may have been feministic on Sembiyan Mahadevi's part, it was also to keep the focus on the temple.

Male egoism?

Well, that makes us think of another thing. Obviously, Sembiyan Mahadevi didn't go about building temples without the advice of the court astrologers and architects who followed the shastras to every word. Which would mean that in the entire ritual, for the worship of Lord Shiva, the shlokas recited worship Ganesha(Lord of the Ganas) first and then Lord Shiva. The Shiva mantras are very Shiva centric with no reference to the Yoni, which is a depiction of the Mother Goddess.

Why has it been eliminated? Why build a temple for Parvati next to shiva? What then, is the true meaning of Ardhanrishwara? We have forgotten the potent female form which has always accompanied shiva everywhere.

Why has the Mother goddess cult been supressed through the centuries? For that matter why have women been supressed through the ages? I do not plan to end this post in the feminist tone stating that women are superior or otherwise. I will stick to the temple.

The temple seems to have been the seat of all learning, community activities and ritual. Yet, the main point that Shiva is incomplete without Parvati was lost somewhere along the way. The temples added to the dillution by eliminating Parvati from the mantra recitals as well as from the niches of the main temple. Later, She was brought back as a seperate identity, with a niche exclusively for Her apart from Ganesha, Karthikeya and Lingodhbhava. This is not consistent.

In staunch shiva temples, the niches are occupied by Dakshinamurti, someone who looks perhaps like Trimurti or Brahma among other Shiva forms. Shiva in his various forms might be flaunted around, but the elimination of the Mother Goddess from prime worship in the garbha griha is a serious offence to the root principles of Shaivism.

Courtesy: Original photos©2002 Michael D. Gunther.

Vilvam and I

Thiruvannamallai, 3 hours from Chennai:

Its a bright sunny morning, the air fresh as ever as i walked up the stairs to a wayside Shiva shrine along Girivalam. My thoughts entertain me as i ascend up the steps looking at all the other people going about their business. A deep breath, wondering what the gods have in store for me today, still choosing to believe that i am the One, God's favourite child the world around me just does not seem to see it.

This is a small temple located on the Girivalam road dotted with saffron clad sanyasas. a pretty picture actually, bringing in a feeling that there is more to life than what really meets our eye. this temple hosts a Shiva linga, well decorated and silent, with oil lamps lighting up the little room it is placed in. i walked up the steps into the small chamber before the main sanctum sanctorum and closed my eyes while the priest recited the pearls of sanskrit words falling out with his well modulated breath, the sound reverberating within the inner walls of the room enhancing the ambience, his voice still ringing in my mind well after his prayers are through.

I opened my eyes to see the beauty of the linga as the flames danced in front of it revealing every aspect of its beauty in the light. He walked out and showed us the brass plate as we received the holy flames and took the holy ash, a blessing of Lord Shiva. I sat at the temple a good while, observing the puja in action, the decorations and all the little things scattered on the linga pitha.

Rudraksha beads lay scattered along the rim of the linga pitha, while sets of rudhrakha necklaces crown the linga, alternating with jasmine flowers and vilvam leaves. The vertical center of the linga is decorated with vermillion and turmeric paste enhancing itself in a silver plated background. Straight down in front of it lay few fruits all looking pretty similar. I asked in curiosity, to know that lord Shiva is associated strictly with Vilvam. After a long discussion on Shiva, temples, pujas, philosophy, life, faith, truth, action, karma, he finally gave me a Vilvam fruit as part and parcel of a larger paraphernalia to keep with me.

There on started my journey, to know Vilvam. It just didnt stop with being a fruit. it took on a position far superior that i tended to respect its very presence in my life. A support of sorts, that took away all the "dristy" or evil eyes from me. I sat every day watching it, wondering when it would get spoilt, if it ever would. I assumed it to be like any other fruit, a life, short life...before it got rotten. But strangely as he had rightly said, Vilvam never got spoilt.

Day after day, i watched, prayed and watched Vilvam, it turnes shades. It was a bright green when it showed up, looking fresh as ever. Now it had taken on a faint brown overcoat, yet not spoilt. It changes color, color that indicated how my life had gone by, it felt like i was surrounded by evil eyes all the time. It cleansed me, of all the gore in my life, as it turned brown every minute. My heart began to melt, watching it take on the load, that i had put myself through so thoughtlessly. Slowly i began to notice a thin coat of fungus form along its head. In desperation i gave it a coat of turmeric thinking Vilvam would not survive the attack. Interestingly Vilvam stayed on strong, brown with all my sins, but rid off the fungus that had managed to take root on its surface.

I still look at it every day, admiring the vermillion on its brow as i dress it, collared in fresh jasmine flowers. I walked to the shop to buy fresh flowers asking the flower seller which flowers were the best for Shiva puja. She was so confident "Shivan ku mallipuu than poduva, Vilvam venuma" (they put only jasmine flowers for Lord Shiva, would you like some Vilvam). I stopped to think. this lady is illiterate to the best of my knowledge, yet she knows a lot more than i do living in the same place. I chose not to take my faith for granted, infact question it and find out. What good use is my education if i am not taught every aspect of my life, religion and ritual included.

Maybe Vilvam is there for me in more ways than one. I just dont know it...

The seed of potency, the grid of power.

This is the journey of the seeker, the seeker in me. I have been going from pillar to post, trying to dig up my roots, understand my past, figure out "ME" the person, and answer the deep restlessness within my very being.

Its a journey that is still on, going places, teaching me things i just dreamt of and never even thought it would come true as a burning inner desire. I have been doing television serials with the UGC, which forced me to prepare and therefore read up. These things brought me to the books. I studied for a while, for long hours on end to find a few strange discoveries.

The first for me to stumble over was the ground plan of the Elephanta caves. Stangely interesting, its a ground plan, following the buddhist cave temples at ajanta, but very strictly a yantra in design. The pillared hall forms the various points within the yantra, while the Shiva shrine and the Trimurti take up the cardinal points adding to the growing enigma that surrounds these caves.



Moving on, shaken by the discovery a little, i had to prepare for Khajuraho temples as well. I was not too keen on these Chandela temples for their well sold out erotic sculptures, but the tantric practices that surrounded them intrigued me. Shrines dedicated to the "chausat(64) yoginis" added to the haze surrounding the mother goddess cult. This turned into a fury for information as the under currents of this mother goddess cult were felt all around shiva shrines. If not for yoginis one is bound to find the sapta matrikas around shiva shrines.

Khajuraho temples ended up being more breath taking than mere erotica. After going through Devangana Desai's book on Khajuraho, it was a complete eye opener that the erotic images that arouse the delight of the non-initiated, are actually yantras or hidden geometrical patterns that protect the temples. These are grosely misunderstood to have remote connections with the kama sutra or the like. I could have shouted out to the world that moment! What they actually indicate are the various points on the composition of the erotic sculpture that behave as points on the yantras that guard the temples from evil spirits. The interesting part is that the non-initiated will never know which erotic sculpture is a yantra and which sculpture joins the batch-processing lot.



Hmm... so we close in on these mysterious diagrams which get yelled out in all these ancient shrines. Further reading confirmed that all ancient temples kept yantras in the central sanctum sanctorum of the temples dedicated to the divinity being housed there and a ritual is performed with respect to the ruling king's "gotram" and "nakshatram". After this, interestingly, his angula or finger is used as the basic system of measurement for the temple construction. (will give more dope on that in another post).

But well lets come back to these geometrical patterns. A diagram, housing a syllable, sounds like nothing to the un-initiated but means a whole new world to someone well versed with it, or trying to know it at least. A single bija mantra at the bindu or center, and that is the summary of potency well beyond our imagination. Its a crazy world beyond logic as we understand it. It could be chance, it could be an equation of which i still have not managed to understand anything, but i know it certainly works.

Yantras are to be understood, to be felt, to be respected and worshipped. They are not toys for a greater future, with an easier life, more wealth, better health etc. Yes, those things will come in, but its interesting to see how the recital of a mantra, sitting on a grass mat, with a yantra in a brass plate with a few offerings and an oil lamp can make all the difference. It requires persistence and complete dedication.

Truely amazing. I can tell you this much, most people stop with faith to a certain extent, but getting into the depths of it is a challenge. Its about putting yourself on the line to find out and see the result which might not necessarily be as expected, but is an enlightenment anyway. Its about risk, into the unknown world, where things can go really well or drastically wrong and all that you cling onto is love and faith. Yantras wake you out of mundane reality, uplift you from a suffering called life and make you look at problems as if they are nothing.

Its a world which you enter just once and never leave. Its what lies just beyond human ignorance.

Kalahasti - the land where Vayu is felt

Kalahasti, 43 kms from Thirupati: Abode of Shiva

The Lord has strange ways of displaying his presence, here he does it with wind. I will not go into the depths of what Kalahasti is about for i didnt completely understand it to my own satisfaction. I used to believe it was a Linga I saw back in there, now it has additions when I went up close. A spider, an elephant and a snake make up the Linga.



View Location Map of Vayu Linga at Kalahasti

There is a difference though, the place has power, a strange magnetic attraction which has succeeded in engraving that image in my mind for good. A simple but potent garbha griha, its something i had always dreamt of... the perfect image of the central shrine of a potent ambiguous cult, with the cult icon silhouetted against the oil lamps, with the air smelling of camphor. The minor snake elements just intrigue me towards the supporting serpent cults. There is a strong undercurrent of potency and ambiguity that surrounds this place, giving a feeling of desperation to want to know and so complicating that it leaves you in a haze.

Kalahasti is a place reaking in corruption like all other south indian temples. The temple priests are lethargic as hell and doing an "archanai" can be the most painful task. They ask you to put money into the brass plate for every move of their finger. Or worse still they dont even go up to the deity to do the arthi, they stop at the door step. If that was not all there are electric lights in all the garbha grihas. These priests are pretty shameless and it can end up in a depressnig experience. So lets forget about that.

Coming back to the inner sanctum sanctorum of Kalahasti, somethings have remained unchanged. When i walked into the mandapa the ambience quite got me. The air is cool (because of the air coolers) and as you are taken through the endless queues (another sign of corruption and population control),you go right round along the path of circum-ambulation. The exterior walls depict dakshinamurti, lingodbhava murty and someone who is a trimurti look alike. the facade is silver plated and when you look inside, its dark and just oil lamps glow in there revealing the potent presence inside. There you see, clearly the presence of the vayu linga, the flames of the oil lamp dancing in a very channelised wind that seems to be present inside the garbha griha and doesnt shake any other flame in there.

The walls are white, rocky and all encompassing, the floor shimmers in the lamp light, the cult icon, unlike other lingas is vertically long and dressed in gold which displays various elements in the dim light. This sits on a yoni pitha, but the lighting inside just melts anyone's heart. I felt drawn towards it, like nothing else mattered, drawn so close that the world looked small... that problems disappeared, they simply didnt matter anymore... they were redundant in front of what stood ahead of me. I could have left my soul back there, never to return, to teach me all that it hid from my naked eyes, to elevate me away from my mundane existance...

It brings me back to Shiva, silent, potent, who waits for you to accept him. Feared for no reason at all. I walked out in a trance, for what had just happened was beyond my imagination. I was told to come here, to receive thirtham, during the hours of the afternoon and sure enough I had driven down from chennai to get there on time. I was told to light the lamp at the gaja stambha and I had already done so, but I was nervous about the thirtham. I had taken the general queue, not paid a penny for the darshan and now I stood at the entrance of the garbha griha. I had walked in promptly only to be stopped by two security guards, so i stepped back. I stared inside and the sight just over whelmed me.

For some strange reason, the guards told me to go back in... right inside (upto the antarala or vestibule that seperates the inner most sanctum sanctorum from the mandapa outside). I couldnt believe my ears. I was told to enter the 500 buck queue for paying nothing at all. I gasped, and walked in savouring every moment I had in there, I couldnt think, I just observed the room and thanked god for granting me this view - Up Close.. real Up Close. When I went closer, the priest gave me the most sort after thirtham, I savoured the mouthful as it trickled down my hand. I felt so small and so blessed, it was like the lord has invited me inside himself. I walked out silent, smiling, shell shocked, shaken, blessed, protected, accepted, enlightened.. leaving my melting heart back in there for good.

A Glimpse of the Lord - Govinda Gooooovinda!

Tirupati: This is the richest temple in the Indian subcontinent, and truly, you know it when you are there. Getting a glimpse of Lord Venkateshwara at this temple is not easy and it calls for immense faith to get that rare glimpse.

People across the country travel miles to get here, wait endless days for accommodation and boarding till that final glimpse is achieved. It’s a long trek to paradise to see Lord Venkateshwara who silently waits testing the devotee in every step he takes.



Getting to Thirupati, the harder way is a long drawn process. The shortest entitles you to be either a politician or the like to get the "instant glimpse" but if you are common man, guess you struggle harder. People come to thirupati from all walks of life. It depends on how rich you are and how much you are willing to blow up for an easier darshan, as the lord waits there patiently for your arrival. You can zoom up crossing the seven hills by car or bus taking 45 minutes to get there, make sure you start the climb before 10 pm, they shut the entrance after that. Or you decide to walk the stretch on seven hills in four hours with occasional breaks.

Lets take the walk up with Srinivasan, an ardent devotee of the Lord. The first is a climb, where flights of steps staring at Srinivasan as he makes a slow trek up to kali gopuram (the glowing gopuram you see from a distance indicating the hill after sunset. It has nothing to do with goddess Kali). These are steep flight of steps testing him as he puffs his way up looking up every time to see the never-ending steps leading to the top, while the hillside bakes in the sunlight. Along the way as he is taken by fatigue, he can see that the devotion of the people is etched into the stone steps. Fresh coats of turmeric and vermilion adorn these steps screaming out the back pain of all the aspirants who tried to make it up the hill, bending over to add their bit, saying "Govinda Gooooovinda" along the way.

The echoes of this sacred name "Govinda Gooooovinda", brings in the inspiration to reach the top of the first hill. People yell out the Lords name as they ascend up the hill, taking occasional breaks to catch their breath. Once Srinivasan reaches the top of the first hill, there are enough refreshments to take him up the climb. Well at least he has now covered the first climb.

Now it gets a shade easier. The walk along the hillside displays deer sanctuaries; vegetation and forests with wild life add ons. Now the crossing of 7 hills is more like a cruise as the maximum height of a flight of steps is about 7 to 8 at best, still bright with the glowing fresh coat of vermilion on turmeric paste. People chat along the way, families make friends with other families, people tend to know each other, bonding and talking about themselves or the divinity and spiritualism. They make the climb slightly more entertaining with occasional outbursts of "Govinda Gooooovinda" along the way, making it even more pleasurable spiritually as every one along the stretch shouts along adding to the common community spirit, enhancing the feeling of devotion. Srinivasan adds his bit of "Govinda Gooooovinda" as he continues his climb up the hills.

This is a two-way passage, which also has people coming down the hill, most often tonsured as they have offered their hair to the Lord. Tonsured heads are easy to find along this stretch, it’s not for style, its sacrifice. As the hours crawl by and even the conversation take a toll on the mind, Srinivasan now walks in silence thinking to himself... about life, family, god, spiritualism, or what ever is lined up to do when he goes back home with occasional "Govinda Gooooovinda" echoing along the way. There is a point when the walk up meets the road to drive up.

This is a beautiful stretch along a now lonely hillside, with occasional vehicles zooming up the steep slope along the cliffside. This stretch has a few interesting things to offer. Two places along the cliff for a view of the valley below, which Srinivasan looks over to get a fair idea of the height he is at which until now was not visible. Steep cliffs, drenched in monsoon clouds at the right time of the year, displaying beautiful waterfalls in the very lap of nature. Among the wet rocky cliff sides is a shrine of Ganesha,carved into the cliff. Srinivasan stops by to pay his respects to the deity and carries on with his walk up. The walk goes on, it bridges the way from one hill to another and finally leads Srinivasan to the last climb. This is the last and final climb up, steep, intimidating and exhaustive along a steep cliff edge, all for that one glimpse of the Lord. Oh! What a beautiful sight.

Once on the top, it doesn't feel like Srinivasan climbed the hill at all. It feels like flat ground, with Lodges and hotels in all shapes and sizes advertising themselves to Srinivasan to take refuge and rest his tired feet, and the worst - people, people, people everywhere. It feels like the entire Indian population is parked here. Having tested his capacity to walk up seven hills and walk to the temple is not the end of the test, what lies ahead is even tougher. The three-hour wait, two if he is lucky, one if he really pays his way through, it’s no joke. Most people who show up here are very aware of this fact.

Srinivasan now finds himself waiting in claustrophobic passages, getting narrower by the minute, there is no chance of going to the loo if he gets into these queues, and he has to wait for hours for the queues to move. It feels like animals in cages and the long winding passages are to be seen to be believed. Yet the devotion is so strong that Srinivasan will wait for hours to see that one glimpse of God.

Along these long narrow passages are inscriptions along the stonewalls, relating to the time of Krishnadevaraya, of the Vijayanagar empire. Finally the crowd heads towards the shrine and Srinivasan moves frantically with it in anticipation of that one glimpse. For that one glimpse, he has traveled so long, for that one glimpse that he has longed for, has dreamt of in his sleep for, has been restless about and has come to Tirupati to fulfill this one desire, that glimpse! That one glimpse he longs for, which attracts a million Indians to this temple every year. He enters craning his neck to see the Lord standing in silence at the far end of the inner sanctum.

Finally the moment comes, when Srinivasan is now nearing the most wanted place to see the Lord completely, eye to eye, standing right in front of the deity, its this moment when he thinks about all that he did to see this one glimpse of The Lord, the restlessness, those claustrophobic queues and waiting for hours in dingy rooms to get this one glimpse, that long walk and those miserable energy sapping climbs to see this one glimpse, seems to have finally paid off. Finally the crowd moves in, the sound of "govinda goooovinda" fill the air which has "om namah narayanaya" humming in the background, oh the air, the smell of incense and finally the last walk into the sanctum.

Srinivasan enters, being pushed through the crowd, as if in a trance, speechless with a blank mind forgetting his entire wish lists when he comes face to face with the Lord. Its the moment of that one last glimpse, which he is so over whelmed with that he bows to the Lord in complete humility and prays for those few seconds he has been granted - with Eyes Shut!!!

A wholesome brahmin meal!

Declared as the most hygienic meal in the world, this is a spread to be seen, tasted and enjoyed. Authentically speaking, the dishes are served in a banana leaf, which is cut and washed and laid out in a line, narrow side to the left of the person. All the family members sit on the floor and get served. Big leaves for the male adults, small leaves for the children, women eat later - standard practise! (interestingly the men dont even bother to ask if the women had a filling meal.)

A typical practise is to start serving with the payasam(or sweet) at the bottom right of the leaf. Next to follow is the main course. No body starts the meal before the side dishes are served first. This would include two curries, typically beans in coconut, and dry potato if you got lucky, typically rationed...all good things are rationed. Along with it is "pollangai kuutu" which has turned yellow showing the turmeric presense in it. A pickle is a must and so is the apalam/ papadam(the greatest invention of man, something that is jealously guarded and unfortunately rationed - i never understood that though). These kuutus and curries are assigned places on the banana leaf. The occupy the upper section of the leaf beyond the midriff away from you. The dal, of course is at the bottom right next to the payasam. By now the payasam would be meandering to the center of the leaf or probably out, so your fight to keep the food within the boundaries of the leaf has begun. Ha! wait till the rasam comes!!!

Once these are served, the big guys show up, hot steaming rice served from a plate and not from a vessel, and the ghee and the sambar! A few faces would fall if what fell out with the sambar were healthy drumsticks laughing at you on the descent to the leaf when you hoped to see small onions (man nothing like onion sambar with potato and apalam). The ritual begins, the older respected men folk pick up their steel tumblers and perform a small ritual, i would assume was offering the food to the Gods, who by now would have wondered whether the menu was all that great! ;)

This ritual (if i remember seeing it right) entails the person to put some water into his right palm, circle it around the banana leaf thrice, guiding the right hand with the left, the ring finger of which touches the elbow of the right hand along the way, dropping water into the kuutu, mumbling something(which i cant remember) and finally consuming what ever is left of it and sprinkling the remaining over their heads. there is a way of holding the palm... well what ever.. we discriminated women never got to learn it...will ask dad and come back.

Well by now, the meal begins, the payasam goes in first, then the dal gets mixed with the rice which now is soaked in sambar and all you can see is a bunch of drumsticks partying above it. They are promptly picked and left to the top right corner of the leaf, to be dealt with later. Why not consume it right away? well there is a reason!! if you consume any thing you dont like, you get served again and the pain of consuming it the second time is a pain you just dont want to go through. The avaraikaays and the drumsticks belong to the category of perennial vegetables in the leaf that just dont go down your throat till the end of the meal - hence the party!

The apalams and the potatoes invariably get over and a second helping is doubtful, increasing your psychological state that your hunger has just not died. This is a problem in brahmin households where we kids are always hungry because the good food is never enough while the brinjals and the less interesting vegetables always seem to come in for even a third helping. Post sambar rice, is rasam! A watery soup delicious to taste but hard to handle on a banana leaf if you are not accustomed to it. Its not a simple meandering stream in your leaf, its a flood!

Its an art to lift off watery soups with rice vigorously off your plate and not have it dripping along the way. Of course you would not want to see a few adults almost lick up to the end of the palms to stop the rasam from flowing down to their elbows. Its a sight!!! When you think the war with liquids is over in comes the second round of payasam which is served after the first two courses just before the grand finale - curd rice. The entry of curd rice into your leaf indicates you are at the end of your meal. Curd is an amazing creation and with rice its just simply out of the world. Its one of the coolest, simplest most healthy foods. Curd declares closure of the meal, by now all those drumsticks and kuutus have to get cleared if not done already. Every thing gets cleared leaving the leaf empty for the cows.

Meanwhile, handling boring veggies and fat drumsticks is an art. Either you have them to the end, to avoid being served again, which is the case when a painful uncle decides to chew your happiness and says in loud heehaws "hey serve her some more drumstick..." or the ever so generous women of the house decide to feed you well with the wrong things. So how do you hide these guys when you really dont want to eat them?

There are a few prerequisites for this. To start with you need to be served in steel plates, so that you can guide the drumsticks to the dust bin and not have a health concious aunt say " hey why did you leave it, dont you like it" very emotionally that makes you squirm on the way, worse mom hears it and makes you eat it, standing where ever you are, while the other cousins laugh triumphantly on the way declaring they have completed their meal, showing fairly clean plates.

But well if you DO manage to get to the sink, you simply take the less fortunate drumsticks and tuck them into a plate which was ideally used by another cousin so that he gets caught and you dont. Dont put in adult plates, they normally chew the drumstick so bad that you feel sad... "party is over guys", for what remains of the drumstick is a sad fibrous mass, from which every shred of life has been sucked out by extremely powerful set of teeth. They leave nothing to doubt. The drumsticks are now truly dead. If you dont get another plate to tuck the drumstick into, then put it in the dustbin, but be careful, hide it under something, for example, mango skin cleaned out, or an aavin/heritage milk packet, or coconut fibre which is on the top layer of the dustbin so that the wastage is not clearly visible. If it is there is a cry from the kitchen, "who wasted the drumstick" and all the kids end up pointing to each other. Its judgement time and all of us chose to avoid the confrontation.

Finishing a less interesting meal, is a task, where you psychologically read the mind of the elderly lady serving so that you dont call attention to yourself and hence dont have more drumsticks falling into your banana leaf. It used to be a lot of brain work to get those veggies into a very rebellious throat which would simply not approve of it.

And now when i look back after hostel and eating all over the place... i cant wait to just sink my teeth into drumstick and chew the last bit of life out of it!!!

I miss a truly amazing brahmin meal when i dont get one!

A game of dice - dayakattai

Excuse my attempts at Tamil here but i shall try to make it sound as authentic as Iyer athu tamil.

Strategy, fun and one of the few things that really brings an iyer house hold together is the amazing game of dice. Its one of the most entertaining games i have ever played, with as much noise thrown in as linguistical enhancements to one of the ancient dialects of tamil. Yes, its entertainment for the next two hours from when the family gathers to play this deadly game of strategy, slaughter, war and victory.

Post brunch, after a filling 'sapadu'(meal) at 10.30 am, the family gathers together, mainly the men folk, the kids stricktly above the age of 4 (i guess) and of course our very famous pati(post madi business and puja) while thatha, the man of the house continues to snore in his easy chair hoping for silence. Yeah, so much for a peace in the house. haha


The number of people in the game mounts up to a good number like 12 odd people and trust me there is room for all as long as we end up in an even figure. To get this count right few strong attempts are made on the daughter in laws of the house to please join in to at least roll the brass sticks if not think strategy.

There is someone assigned to every position, two adults to think of strategy with pati in the lead, one uncle to play shakuni and invariably get those unattainable daayams (number one on the brass sticks) no matter how much you bid against it. The kids of course, being all equal get to roll the dice and hope to meet the expectations of all the adults around them. There are other beliefs too that surround this traditional game. Its normally played by the women of the house hold after the father-in-law has left and interestingly wiped off before he returns. Interestingly, the women folk take to this game more often where they send all the kids to schools, hubbys to work and sit back and play after all the house hold activities are over. My house, was a slightly diluted affair to the orthodox brahmin culture. The main players were MEN.

Daayam, or the count of 'one' on the ancient brass sticks, is your ticket to enter the game. This of course is hard to get. Its a mind set that takes a toll if the game has already begun and you still have not put your daayam, to open your innings and hence participate. It can be highly frustrating for you might just never get it till about half the game is over, your team has quite learnt to live without you but you are the irritant the other team is cashing on keeping their coins bravely on the "ambalam" or passage since they are so sure you will not be able to kill them.

The concepts pretty simple. Both teams have 6 coins each - traditionally represented by almonds, kishmish, "paaku", ground nut or the like. We move to stones, buttons, and plastic "ludo" coins when we cant lay hands on the appropriate "kaay". Kaay as they are typically called since they are the raw fruit yet to ripen which will happen only when the coin exits the board after covering the long journey back home through the "kattam" - the board.

Lots could happen along the way home, for one, your kaay can simply get killed when the opponent numbering 6 people by now, aggressively looking down into the game making calculations in not just the massacre of your single "kaay", but killing a few other less fortunate "kaays" that found themselves on the "ambalam" in the course of the game. That apart the calculations end in protecting their own kaays when they safely move them to a "malai" or home along the way. Interestingly when the opponent occupies a malai, there is no room for your coin, in short its called "malai manga".

By now the perssure is mounting furiously, while the opponent gets excess points or"pandyam" by putting - eer aaru, muu anji, iru panandu, iru daayam, naalu - translates to two sixes, three fives, two twelves, two ones and one four. Now this is a phenomenal "pandyam" where you can move any kaay anywhere, and kill any one you wish and still move your kaay to a home on the way if you got lucky. Pati is behind you with strategy that never met your eyes and when you see at least three of the opponents "kaays" go back in, to start the round again, well its a loud uproar piercing the air drowning thatha's snore into the din.

But well now, they will come back, the horror of massacre hits first, then the anger, the then aggression and the opponent comes back double, killing with a bigger blow, shooting as many kaays of your way back home as they possibly can. By now, even the most bored daughter in law sits up to view the game, the kattam, half wiped out by the deft hands that just flew across moving the coins so swift, that you dont even know what just went by. Every thing settles, the game goes on, one verses one coin - now in the ripe stage of "pazham". Killing a pazham is another thrill altogether.

The pain that the opponent need to go through to take the kaay across the kattam to bring it home without having it killed and elevating it to a pazham is a joy for anybody but him. Once the pazham has reached the ripe stage and has come home, there is the last lap.

Its a murderous position called "dokkai" where its the last step to "ripe fruit", and yet it can be killed. This hurts, being killed at this stage really hurts, and its over whelming joy for the opponent who by now are raising themselves very sure that its the end of the game. getting that single daayam, can take a minute or a century, but every one, just everyone waits for it. Its the defining moment or victory or failure, the anticipation is so high that tiffin and caapi can seriously wait.

finally the last roll of the dice, and "dddddddaaaaaaaaaaaayyyaaaaaaaaaaammmm". Six guys jump up, cant belive their eyes, jump around in ecstasy while 6 others sit silent looking into each others faces. The winning team of course takes the final pazham and consume it literally - and what a fine fruit that was!!!

The joy of having that particular kishmish/ almond/groundnut is different. It tastes as good as any fruit of victory will. Nobody even considers that the kishmish has been rolling along the floor for the last one hour, No, its the most delicious fruit one could have. This is crowned with the victory dance, the grand finale - i think its only at my house - where the team gathers, old and young, tall and short, male and female, hopping on the floor holding each others shoulders!!! And what a dance that was! you dont need to be intoxicated for this, just the trill of winning dayakattai is more than enough to send you on the high!

Great ancient game. Truely worth while.

Coiled serpents on a wayside stelae

On the roads, Tamil Nadu country side: Coiled serpents on a stelae, sounds like something out of a fantasy in the middle ages. Well, not exactly, because its something you would invariably pass without taking notice of, every time you went to work.



If you looked closer, you would notice various version of coiled serpent stelae, but one of the most prominent is that of two serpents in two and half coils facing each other, housing a shiva linga in between. Maybe they are some naga cult icons under a tree, smeared with vermillion and turmeric.

Why is there so much of importance given to these icons, what do they signify and why are they all over the place? Well, someone had pointed out to me earlier that faith cannot be compared with language since its not logical. There is nothing more logical than the school of thought the surrounds these naga cult icons. Its all about energy... of course you need to believe in it.

Its a school of thought, that the energy of Shiva stays dormant as the potential energy while the mother godess represents the active kinetic energy that flows through the passages along the spinal chord. These are typically called the Nadis, you might have heard this before... but i will keep this one short. It is believed that when the female energy, also called the kundalini energy, is awakened in the aspirant, it sits up like a two and a half coiled serpent ready to rise up the nadis, crossing each chakra or energy center along the way till it finally meets the male potential energy and unites with it. This has been represented as the soma skanda panel depicting the union of shiva and parvati resulting in the birth of soma skanda.

Soma skanda is a debatable person. He could be karthikeya or a concept without a form. The idea behind soma skanda is to depict the union of the male and female energy which results in the flow of self generated amrita or soma which sustains the aspirant, hence forth eliminating his dependency on the external world around him. This subtle concept is depicted as a family panel for the understanding of the masses.



Now coming back to the cult icons, its interesting to see that this school of thought is plastered all over the place, and we simply dont seem to take notice of it. We do have the naga cults, but they were subordinate to the cult of Shiva and had a lot to do with him. The shore temple at Mahabalipuram clearly depicts cult icons of Nagas on the outer walls, resonably eroded, but clear enough to indicate the practices during the Pallava ages. This practise definitely has not died since, its very much alive getting a fresh coat of vermillion every morning, apart from flowers from passerbys who dont even knwo what its meant to depict.

Bottom line, our culture is all around us, its under the trees, in the temples, potent schools of thought scattered all around reminding us of what our forefathers have figured out well before the white man even started to think!

All we need to do is just open our eyes!

The real Hinduism

The real Hinduism, is something of much debate. What is our culture, our real culture i mean. Culture is a good word, sounds great, everyone knows indian culture goes way back into several centuries, but sitting right here what do you or i know of it?

We were having a heated discussion on why women were being discriminated in temples, why women were not allowed into a few temples, whether the restrictions are male chauvinistic, or whether the rule is there with a scientific reason. Of course, the participants were two extremely opinionated women, including myself, and the discussion soared into the air, loud as ever drowning all the other conversations in the little room. Yes, no body would have seen two heated women like this in that room for a while.

We were mad, plain and simple, wondering why men got more privileges than us, just because they were born men, which honestly was not an accomplishment of their own! Why women are put down, seems to be a simple answer, they are just way way stronger in the head and sadly they themselves dont know it!

Anyway the conversation drifted into why we have good days and bad, does it have a logic at all. Why do we have this thing called rahu kalam, does it make sense, or is it plain superstition?

Well honestly, hinduism is a way of life, its not simple and its extremely potent which is why it has lasted all these centuries. It has depth, depth that we (a section of society) are unable to see and hence think its all bull shit. I dont understand when people say there is no logic, its all bogus. Its not, we are ignorant, period, and in our ignorance we end up making judgement when we are not even capable of it. Do you question language, No, you just simply learn it with all its idiosyncrasies, then why question faith??

Faith grows on you, through your life, gives you direction if you are strong and persistent enough to want it, just going to a temple is NOT good enough. You want answers... then go look for it, a Buddha did not get it easy, and neither did Christ. In fact they were sent through more grind than you think. Its simple, if you want to be God be ready to get stoned first. What a line!!

Coming back to us lesser mortals, since we are not planning to be Gods, but think its good enough to just get to understand Him/ Her/ It, let me assure you, its not an easy road and you are going to end up questioning it more than you think. Dismissing it off just becaue you do not get your answers in the next 20 minutes only goes to show how superficial you are and how much you are not willing to put in effort. If you want to know, you HAVE got to be passionate about it and dig dig dig till you think you get somewhere. End of the day, you are the loser if you dont get to know. NO body else suffers. SIMPLE.

I just know this much, real Hinduism is beyond your current way of life, you need to want to give yo materialism and greed, you need to want to be passionate with a single point focus, you need to want to control your emotions and not have them control you. You need to understand your emotions and appreciate them for what they are worth, they deliver the experience to you, they should NOT overwhelm you. if you get past all this, then you are somewhere near ready to take on the true nature of hinduism. The way of life, brings in routine and discipline to your otherwise haphazard life style. Its not simple, but well who said it was?

There is potency in this way of life and the only way to get it is to get your self neck deep in it. Next time you dont know something about Hinduism, probably you should accept your ignorance instead of ruling out the faith to be all bull shit. Remember this is one of the oldest religions, so what meets your eye is not the reality of it, its superficiality, the reality, is for you to find out.