Thursday, December 24, 2009
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12:35 AM
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Once again we were driving to a new town right at sunset and in the early evening, which does not thrill me. Firstly, the best light for photography is before sunset and so I would much prefer to be in a position to take advantage of this. Secondly, India can be damn hot and so walking around in the afternoon and exploring a city is much more pleasant once the heat of the day has gone. Finally, I really like to see what is going on in the countryside, as I can learn a lot about an area but the crops or lack thereof and it is really hard to do in the pitch dark. For example, we saw numerous signs for prawn farms on the side of the road but couldn't see any of the farms themselves, which would have been interesting to me, even from the road. One thing that we did see on the drive was a new record for the number of guys in one regular sized auto rickshaw at 15. In any case, we arrived well after dark and after a very drawn out dinner hit the hay, in anticipation of a fairly long day tomorrow.
Early in the morning, in order to try and avoid the heat and crowds, the guys climbed on bikes and the girls got in a rickshaw for a tour of the stone carvings that make Mamallapuram famous. As a side note, we were all having real trouble for some reason pronouncing the name of the town and I took up calling it Mama-lama-ding-dong, which got a few laughs from the Aussies in the group. Anyhoo, back to the stone carvings. The area around Mamallapuram is dotted with large granite monoliths and outcrops and the Pallava rulers in the 7th and 8th centuries used them as the basis of their proof of piety. Over more than a hundred years stonemasons were employed to carve huge reliefs and dig temples out of the bedrock. With exotic names like Arjuna's Penance, the Ganesh Ratha, Varaha Cave, Krishna's Butter Ball and Dharmaraja Mandapam an entire hills worth of granite is dotted with magnificent carvings.
Done more than 1,400 years ago, the stone was extracted by drilling holes into the stone, placing a piece of wood into the hole and then wetting it. The wood would absorb the water, expand, and crack the stone. The entire crest of the hill shows the remnants of this technique, where the rock was removed for the carving of idols. The thing that separates the remaining sculptures and temples from other carvings is that they are done into the bedrock, from the one piece of stone. This technique leaves absolutely no room for error. It is not like carving a piece of marble for the Parthenon in Greece, where if you screwed up the frieze, you could just throw the whole thing away and start on a new piece of rock. Here you would look pretty stupid if you had excavated a temple fifteen feet into the rock and then screwed up and had one of the pillars fall down or have the arm fall of the deity you were finishing up on.
Within the main area of carvings without a doubt the most spectacular carvings is Arjuna's Penance, which is a huge array of carvings of people, gods and animals. People are running everywhere, looking faintly pharaoh-era Egyptian, elephants, deer and cats drink at the river and gods stand majestically in the middle. But the most amazing carving is of Arjuna, as an emaciated old man, stretched in a pose of penance to the gods. He has the feeling of a martyred saint that would appear in the Renaissance in Europe a thousand years later. The other carvings that I thought were especially fascinating were the three lion figures in one temple: one with the lion body and human head of the Egyptian sphinx, one with the lion body and eagle head of the Greek gryphon and one of the full lion of Rome.
As if these carvings were not amazing enough, about three hundred meters down the road stands the Five Rathas. The complex consists of five free standing temples, done in four different architectural styles. There is also a large lion and life sized carving of an elephant that is so realistic looking that I kept wanting to back away in case it turned and hit me with its trunk. So what is so amazing about a group of five temples and two animals, after all I have seen hundreds of temples and such in India? Well, in this case they are all carved out of the same single rock. Take a look at the photos below and you will see the sheer size that the rock must have been when they started. Then each temple in intricately carved, with a large hollow area inside. I can only imagine how difficult this must have been, keeping in mind that this was done 1,400 hundred years ago. This is simply one of those moments where you stand in awe of the ingenuity of man. And not of the king that typically gets all the credit and has the monument named after him, but the engineers and stonemasons that dedicated generations in the pursuit of this type of perfection.
On the back of the right-most temple is one of the funniest carvings that I have seen in India, it is a being that is half man and half woman, split right down the middle. To be fair it looks like it got just one large breast implant. As soon as we were shown this my reaction was to say that "It goes shopping all the time but hates doing it". Andrew immediately responded that it speeds while driving but yells at itself the whole time. Things kind of degenerated from there and the girls were not all that amused.
The last stop on our tour was the Shore Temple, located, not surprisingly on the beach. Unlike the other temples, this one was constructed in the typical manner, with large blocks of stone. The British actually discovered it covered in sand and have since restored it. The temple itself is quite nice, though very worn from the constant beating of sand, salt and water and looks better from a distance than close up. It is also surrounded by dozens of carved bulls. As a side note, only the Five Rathas and Shore Temple have an entrance fee and both are better visited in the afternoon. They both face west and so in the morning the light is on the back of them (though to be fair the backs of both are beautifully carved and worth a look). I also found at this point that many of the carvings are lit at night, which would have been something I would have liked to have known the night before, not on the morning that we were leaving.
After a delicious lunch of prawn curry, right on the water overlooking all the fishing boats on the beach I watched the second session of the India - Sri Lanka test match and headed back out to look at all the carvings in the afternoon sun. Several of the carvings, in particular the Varaha Cave and the Dharmaraja Lion Throne with its pillars showing the ten incarnations of Vishnu are much better viewed in the afternoon (Arjuna's Penance must be viewed in the morning). I also walked around on the south end of the complex, below the modern lighthouse, and discovered a number of different temples carved out of the rock, one of which was as good as anything we had seen on the morning tour. Unfortunately it is an east facing temple, so the photos in the afternoon are pretty terrible. I then walked down to the Five Rathas for a few happy snaps of the front facades in the soft glow of the afternoon sun (as a side note, I am not sure why we needed bikes for the tour as the entire distance between carvings and the hotel is less than a kilometer).
A few more random notes about Mama-lama-ding-dong:
- The roads in Mama are the worst I have seen in India and would even make Kathmandu embarrassed. We are told that they dug up all the roads to put in a sewer system and within the next two months, once the monsoon is long gone, they will all be repaved. I hope so, as it is pretty bad right now.
- The stone-carving skill has not been lost here over the last millennium and a half. The roads are lined with mason shops, with a vast array of statues and figurines of every size and shape imaginable. The constant tap-tap-tap of hammer and chisel on granite can be heard throughout the town as men are crouched everywhere creating new pieces of art. If you are looking to start an Indian restaurant, this is the place to come for that giant stone elephant in the doorway.
- Krishna's Butter Ball (photo below) is a huge round stone that looks as though it is about to roll right off the side of the hill. At one point the British hooked eight elephants up together to try to pull it down and failed miserably. Oddly enough, Bernd, Andrew, Anne and Georgia were unable to push it down either.
The good news from here is that I finally managed to find the natraja that I was looking for (it is the only non-fridge magnet souvenir that I have bought in India). But it was an ordeal. I saw the perfect version in a shop window (it is the only black, metal one that I have seen in India) and so went in to find out how much it was. The guy in the store had to call his brother as he didn't know the prices. As after five minutes, the brother showed up and after giving me two completely different prices withing five minutes admitted that he didn't know the prices either and he had to call his other brother. So I gave up and left and said that I would come back. So I went back an hour later and waited alone in the shop, as all the brothers were at lunch but didn't lock the shop. So I waited fifteen minutes and gave up again. As a side note here, Indians eat lunch really late, typically between 2pm and 3pm. So I went back a third time, just before we had to leave, and not surprisingly, they had to call the knowledgeable brother yet again. The funny thing here was that the guy got his mobile phone out to make the call and the picture that was on his phone was my face. I guess he snapped a picture when I was in the shop earlier. Finally the brother came in and we agreed on a good price. I am really happy with it and am sure that it will look good on my mantlepiece and I am even happier that there is a good story to go with it.
On our way out of town we stopped at an orphanage that is supported by Intrepid, to hang out with the kids for a while. Within a few minutes of arriving the cricket set was broken out and I was playing with half a dozen guys. They have the perfect area for a game of backyard cricket, with overhanging trees, a pot-holed pitch and a wood pile and well to avoid. I was amazed to find that the same rules that exist in every backyard in Australia exist in India, namely six-and-out (when it goes over the fence) and the one-hand-one-bounce rule that my dad hates. There were six of us playing, mostly the older teenagers, but also a four year old, who was by no means was the worst player. The great thing was that everyone was treated equally, having a bat and a bowl in order without a single argument. It was such a fun and rewarding experience for me.
While I was playing cricket, the others were playing with the smaller kids, skipping rope, throwing frisbees, playing board games or simply swinging them up in the air. The kids were all so well behaved and had such joy on their faces for having us there and we all had a great time. The sight of twenty kids waving to us was the perfect way to bid goodbye to Mamallapuram (I can finally say it correctly) and continue our journey onward to Mysore.
Early in the morning, in order to try and avoid the heat and crowds, the guys climbed on bikes and the girls got in a rickshaw for a tour of the stone carvings that make Mamallapuram famous. As a side note, we were all having real trouble for some reason pronouncing the name of the town and I took up calling it Mama-lama-ding-dong, which got a few laughs from the Aussies in the group. Anyhoo, back to the stone carvings. The area around Mamallapuram is dotted with large granite monoliths and outcrops and the Pallava rulers in the 7th and 8th centuries used them as the basis of their proof of piety. Over more than a hundred years stonemasons were employed to carve huge reliefs and dig temples out of the bedrock. With exotic names like Arjuna's Penance, the Ganesh Ratha, Varaha Cave, Krishna's Butter Ball and Dharmaraja Mandapam an entire hills worth of granite is dotted with magnificent carvings.
Done more than 1,400 years ago, the stone was extracted by drilling holes into the stone, placing a piece of wood into the hole and then wetting it. The wood would absorb the water, expand, and crack the stone. The entire crest of the hill shows the remnants of this technique, where the rock was removed for the carving of idols. The thing that separates the remaining sculptures and temples from other carvings is that they are done into the bedrock, from the one piece of stone. This technique leaves absolutely no room for error. It is not like carving a piece of marble for the Parthenon in Greece, where if you screwed up the frieze, you could just throw the whole thing away and start on a new piece of rock. Here you would look pretty stupid if you had excavated a temple fifteen feet into the rock and then screwed up and had one of the pillars fall down or have the arm fall of the deity you were finishing up on.
Within the main area of carvings without a doubt the most spectacular carvings is Arjuna's Penance, which is a huge array of carvings of people, gods and animals. People are running everywhere, looking faintly pharaoh-era Egyptian, elephants, deer and cats drink at the river and gods stand majestically in the middle. But the most amazing carving is of Arjuna, as an emaciated old man, stretched in a pose of penance to the gods. He has the feeling of a martyred saint that would appear in the Renaissance in Europe a thousand years later. The other carvings that I thought were especially fascinating were the three lion figures in one temple: one with the lion body and human head of the Egyptian sphinx, one with the lion body and eagle head of the Greek gryphon and one of the full lion of Rome.
As if these carvings were not amazing enough, about three hundred meters down the road stands the Five Rathas. The complex consists of five free standing temples, done in four different architectural styles. There is also a large lion and life sized carving of an elephant that is so realistic looking that I kept wanting to back away in case it turned and hit me with its trunk. So what is so amazing about a group of five temples and two animals, after all I have seen hundreds of temples and such in India? Well, in this case they are all carved out of the same single rock. Take a look at the photos below and you will see the sheer size that the rock must have been when they started. Then each temple in intricately carved, with a large hollow area inside. I can only imagine how difficult this must have been, keeping in mind that this was done 1,400 hundred years ago. This is simply one of those moments where you stand in awe of the ingenuity of man. And not of the king that typically gets all the credit and has the monument named after him, but the engineers and stonemasons that dedicated generations in the pursuit of this type of perfection.
On the back of the right-most temple is one of the funniest carvings that I have seen in India, it is a being that is half man and half woman, split right down the middle. To be fair it looks like it got just one large breast implant. As soon as we were shown this my reaction was to say that "It goes shopping all the time but hates doing it". Andrew immediately responded that it speeds while driving but yells at itself the whole time. Things kind of degenerated from there and the girls were not all that amused.
The last stop on our tour was the Shore Temple, located, not surprisingly on the beach. Unlike the other temples, this one was constructed in the typical manner, with large blocks of stone. The British actually discovered it covered in sand and have since restored it. The temple itself is quite nice, though very worn from the constant beating of sand, salt and water and looks better from a distance than close up. It is also surrounded by dozens of carved bulls. As a side note, only the Five Rathas and Shore Temple have an entrance fee and both are better visited in the afternoon. They both face west and so in the morning the light is on the back of them (though to be fair the backs of both are beautifully carved and worth a look). I also found at this point that many of the carvings are lit at night, which would have been something I would have liked to have known the night before, not on the morning that we were leaving.
After a delicious lunch of prawn curry, right on the water overlooking all the fishing boats on the beach I watched the second session of the India - Sri Lanka test match and headed back out to look at all the carvings in the afternoon sun. Several of the carvings, in particular the Varaha Cave and the Dharmaraja Lion Throne with its pillars showing the ten incarnations of Vishnu are much better viewed in the afternoon (Arjuna's Penance must be viewed in the morning). I also walked around on the south end of the complex, below the modern lighthouse, and discovered a number of different temples carved out of the rock, one of which was as good as anything we had seen on the morning tour. Unfortunately it is an east facing temple, so the photos in the afternoon are pretty terrible. I then walked down to the Five Rathas for a few happy snaps of the front facades in the soft glow of the afternoon sun (as a side note, I am not sure why we needed bikes for the tour as the entire distance between carvings and the hotel is less than a kilometer).
A few more random notes about Mama-lama-ding-dong:
- The roads in Mama are the worst I have seen in India and would even make Kathmandu embarrassed. We are told that they dug up all the roads to put in a sewer system and within the next two months, once the monsoon is long gone, they will all be repaved. I hope so, as it is pretty bad right now.
- The stone-carving skill has not been lost here over the last millennium and a half. The roads are lined with mason shops, with a vast array of statues and figurines of every size and shape imaginable. The constant tap-tap-tap of hammer and chisel on granite can be heard throughout the town as men are crouched everywhere creating new pieces of art. If you are looking to start an Indian restaurant, this is the place to come for that giant stone elephant in the doorway.
- Krishna's Butter Ball (photo below) is a huge round stone that looks as though it is about to roll right off the side of the hill. At one point the British hooked eight elephants up together to try to pull it down and failed miserably. Oddly enough, Bernd, Andrew, Anne and Georgia were unable to push it down either.
The good news from here is that I finally managed to find the natraja that I was looking for (it is the only non-fridge magnet souvenir that I have bought in India). But it was an ordeal. I saw the perfect version in a shop window (it is the only black, metal one that I have seen in India) and so went in to find out how much it was. The guy in the store had to call his brother as he didn't know the prices. As after five minutes, the brother showed up and after giving me two completely different prices withing five minutes admitted that he didn't know the prices either and he had to call his other brother. So I gave up and left and said that I would come back. So I went back an hour later and waited alone in the shop, as all the brothers were at lunch but didn't lock the shop. So I waited fifteen minutes and gave up again. As a side note here, Indians eat lunch really late, typically between 2pm and 3pm. So I went back a third time, just before we had to leave, and not surprisingly, they had to call the knowledgeable brother yet again. The funny thing here was that the guy got his mobile phone out to make the call and the picture that was on his phone was my face. I guess he snapped a picture when I was in the shop earlier. Finally the brother came in and we agreed on a good price. I am really happy with it and am sure that it will look good on my mantlepiece and I am even happier that there is a good story to go with it.
On our way out of town we stopped at an orphanage that is supported by Intrepid, to hang out with the kids for a while. Within a few minutes of arriving the cricket set was broken out and I was playing with half a dozen guys. They have the perfect area for a game of backyard cricket, with overhanging trees, a pot-holed pitch and a wood pile and well to avoid. I was amazed to find that the same rules that exist in every backyard in Australia exist in India, namely six-and-out (when it goes over the fence) and the one-hand-one-bounce rule that my dad hates. There were six of us playing, mostly the older teenagers, but also a four year old, who was by no means was the worst player. The great thing was that everyone was treated equally, having a bat and a bowl in order without a single argument. It was such a fun and rewarding experience for me.
While I was playing cricket, the others were playing with the smaller kids, skipping rope, throwing frisbees, playing board games or simply swinging them up in the air. The kids were all so well behaved and had such joy on their faces for having us there and we all had a great time. The sight of twenty kids waving to us was the perfect way to bid goodbye to Mamallapuram (I can finally say it correctly) and continue our journey onward to Mysore.
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