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A Mukherjee World View | ||
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Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal
By Anamika Mukherjee Badami. Aihole. Pattadakal.
For a long time the names had rung in my ears like a cadence. The
names conjured up images of sculptures, of temples, of rock-cut caves
richly carved out of rugged red stone. Bed, Breakfast and a Morning Walk
Badami arrived at eight in
the morning. It is a small town, with a main road and a bazaar road
which gives into lots of tiny residential streets. There is an
'upmarket' hotel 5 km from town centre, and a 'deluxe' hotel right
opposite the bus stand. KSTDC runs a guest house somewhat removed
from town center (20 minutes walk) but it was so deserted and
lifeless that we opted not to spend time rousing out the
establishment. When we stopped there at 8.30 a m, the remains of the
previous night's (or some night's) revelry were richly strewn around
the hall that served as dining room. Some signs of sluggish life were
shown, when we demanded breakfast, and feeble efforts were made to
clear the mess, so we decided it would be a long time before anything
edible emerged; we left, never to return. Badami has caves and here
I am describing its hotels at length. Let's just gloss over the
breakfast and brief toilette at the 'deluxe' hotel, Mookambika, and
arrive at the caves. We chose to walk, since distances are not very
great. We assayed first the route through the village, with the help
of our Lonely Planet map, and promptly got lost in the maze of lanes.
Next we tried the more direct route via the main road, and reached
the caves without incident, bought tickets, and reluctantly engaged
the services of a guide. We are always reluctant to have a guide
tagging along, but sometimes they are informative. This one was
informative, but not always accurate, and somewhat prone to chivvying
us around, which was irritating. When he realised that chivvying us was
getting him nowhere fast, he relented and allowed us to take our
time, so we got along better after that.
The Caves
There are only four caves
at Badami, all close together. They are approached by a neat set of
steps, no clambering over rocky paths involved, which is somewhat of
a disappointment, but a great convenience. The rock soars high above
the caves, and, seen in profile, has a definite tilt forward, making
one fearful that it will one day come crashing down, or else, it will
slowly lean further and further forward, till the caves are crushed
under its weight. But the caves, excavated in the fifth and sixth
centuries are 1500 years old and still withstanding the rock, so the
ancients must have got their calculations right somehow. The very first sculpture
to greet the visitor is the spectacular 18-armed Nataraj. We had
already read that this divine fellow can be seen striking 81 dance
poses, and now the guide explained that, if you consider any one of
his left arms and combine it with any one of his right arms, it is
one pose. Hence, 9x9=81 poses. Thus explained, it loses its mystery,
but it is still a very striking sculpture. Each of the caves has huge
sculptures, with fine details. These artisans were experimenting with
the shapes of the gods, and you will find one shape which is half
Shiva half Parvati (half man, half woman), another which is half
Shiva, half Vishnu, an animal which is half elephant, half buffalo,
and a strange conglomeration of heads and bodies of two babies which
can be viewed in various permutations and combinations. The third cave is the
largest, and the most spectacular. There are remnants of colour on
the paintings on the walls. According to the guide, the oval,
footstep-sized depressions in the ground were used as the colour
palettes by the artists of old, but I am sure they would have come up
with some more ingenious method of mixing colour than sculpting their
palettes into the ground. Specially since the palettes are free of
all vestiges of colour. To stand in the pillared
corridor, with carvings at each end, daylight coming in from outside,
and darkness encroaching from inside, and the towering weight of the
rock above you always on your mind - it is quite an awesome
experience.
The first cave is
dedicated to Shiva and caves two and three are dedicated to Vishnu,
while the fourth, the highest and the latest to be excavated, is a
Jain cave. The difference in style is immediately noticeable: more
sculpture, but more plain, far less ornamented, much simpler. Above and Beyond the Caves
Between caves two and
three is a set of steps leading into a barred-off passage. Here, says
the Lonely Planet guide, is a path giving access to the fort at the
top of the rock. But our guide said that it has been permanently
barred by the authorities: too many people had taken that path as
the easy way out, heading uphill to jump off. From the caves you get a
pleasant view of the man-made lake (or tank?) below, and the low hill
beyond, both dotted with temples, and the latter topped with the
crumbling remains of a fort wall. The fort, which is only some 500
years old, is far more ruined than the temples which are so much
older. So, the residences of the kings decay and fall, while the
residences of the gods withstand the ravages of time. We headed across the lake
now, stopping briefly at the Yellamma Temple, and the two Bhutanath
temples around the lake. Then we headed uphill, following a steep but
broad, paved path. Eventually we reached a small, modern temple,
under the rock, and from here on, the path is more difficult to find.
If it had not been for our guide, we should undoubtedly have turned
back here. But he lead us on, across an open slope of rough ground,
and then on through tunnels of towering rock, over sometimes barren
sometimes dominating landscape. There is here at times an almost
indistinguishable merging of the fortifications of man and nature.
We found the Upper and Lower Shivalaya temples. There is not
much to see in them, but the walk was fascinating. For a while we
were walking alongside a deep and long chasm in the rock. There is an
island of rock, just a hop, skip and jump away, and beyond that,
another chasm, and then more rock. You wonder how you got across it,
and how you are ever going to get back, but the path meanders this
way and that through the rocks, downhill now, and emerges at length
into the Museum forecourt. |
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Comments and information welcome. Write to
anamika dot mukherjee at amukherjeeworld dot net |
Amit had never been too
eager to cover this circuit, until he saw promotional photos put out
by Karnataka Tourism. Only a few days later, we talked of going, and
did some research in the Lonely Planet Guide. The next day, Thursday,
he organised bus tickets. And Friday evening we set off to catch an
overnight bus for the 11-hour, 480-odd km journey.