Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
After a long restful sleep at the Hoysala Village Resort, we sit down to a wonderful breakfast, with our chef delivering to us fresh dosa pancakes to go along with our fresh watermelon juice, papaya, and steamed idlli rice cakes with fresh coconut chutney. We have been eating 3 large meals a day and it is always a delight although I have had some problem maintaining a vegan diet here with ghee and yogurt added to so many dishes.
We drive first today to a small hidden Hoysala temple, the Mahalakshmi Temple, tucked away down a narrow dirt road and around some boulder-filled hills behind a small village. The guardian of this site unlocks the gates and takes us through it, explaining the deities, as this is a living temple of the village. It is well worn and inside are bits and pieces of salvaged sculptures that were either from the original temple complex or found in the surrounding area. Most of them are worthy of display in a first-class museum and I think about how tempting it must be for impoverished people to sneak out a piece or two and sell it on the black market. But I think religious belief keeps them honest from sacrificing these ancient stone works.
The village itself is interesting and probably a representative sample of hundreds of other villages in the region. One main dirt road, more a path just wide enough for one car, on both sides small living quarters and animal shelters with cows and water buffalo or bulls for ploughing. A small Hindu shrine hidden by the side of a home, one or two tea stall type stores, selling some essentials, a school with beautiful uniformed children playing outside as more children walk up the road to join them, and a small building with some kind of medical facilities or offices, perhaps a pharmacy as well. A brightly painted bullock cart is in front of one house and piles of hay in another. The wealthiest home in the village is painted bright green and has a tractor in its carport and a satellite dish outside. Definitely more upscale. Many men and women sit around a colored building with painted signs on it outside and maybe it is a government place of some kind.
Halebib was as beautiful as its sister temple in Belur, with even more intricate carvings on the outside but with more sedate decorations inside, although some have obviously been looted and are gone forever. There is someone meditating in front of the main shrine, dedicated to Shiva. Shiva’s vehicle, Nandi the bull sits in royal elegance on a raised platform with a sculpture overhead covering, always facing Shiva. Many local people are here for the history and for worship so that the grey and black temple is embellished with the ever colorful saris of the visiting women.
Walking around the star shaped structure, we see the layers of friezes on the bottom rising up to delicately carved images of various incarnations of Shiva and ther deities as well as images of everyday life. There is a scene of a musical event with musicians and dancers. There are erotic scenes as well. All of life is here, the people and the Gods, immortally engraved into stone which has survived through the centuries. The Hoysala dynasty and its creative output was stilled at some point in the 1500’s with the attacks of northern Muslim armies and never recovered. It is an intense visit of great beauty.
The rest of our day is a long car drive, moving through dry landscapes with coconut groves the only apparent crops, to more verdant river-fed areas with corn and vegetable crops and a higher population. Dried out river beds remind us of the preciousness of water and its critical place in an agrarian economy. A new road is being constructed on part of our route and ancient banyan trees have been cut down and are drying out on the side of the road to widen the original path for increased commerce. I suppose this is an advance but our driver tells us that the partially built graveled and difficult to traverse roadway has been in this rough condition for many years now with no immediate end in sight as the wheels of the state government run slow at best.
At last we arrive in Hampi, choosing to stay in the small bazaar village in the center of the archeological site. All around us are ancient ruins, which some have compared to the parthenon and relics of ancient Greece. It is sunset and the rosy glow over the main temple in town is a lovely site. Although as we walk through the Hampi bazzar, I say to Beth, “And you thought you missed the 60’s -- they are still right here!”. Young people from around the world with large backpacks looking as I remember the travelers in Kathmandu in 1969.
It is hot and Beth and I are sitting at a rooftop restaurant which is playing old Bob Marley songs. Our guest house is definitely a cut below, maybe a few cuts below, where we have been staying. But then, we have the wonder of Hampi right near us to make up for any discomfort.