Lepakshi temple : An unfinished dream

I am not a big fan of temples, but there are a few which catch my eye. The Veerabhadra temple of Lepakshi is one such wonder. Apart from having a hanging pillar (yes, you heard me.. it has a pillar which does not have any support at the base) in its 'ardhamandapam', the carvings and paintings vividly describe the artistic genius of its time. It is situated in Lepakshi which is a small town in Andhra Pradesh. The nearest railway station is Hindupur (about 15 km) and a bus or a shared auto can take you to Lepakshi in 10 bucks. There is only one APTDC guest house in the vicinity which only accepts online booking. Apart from that you can try your luck for staying in the nearby Saibaba mandir or the Anjaneya swami mandir (you cannot stay in the main Veerbhadra temple as it is a protected monument). Where I had stayed, is a completely different story!

We reached Lepakshi at 6 pm which is when the gates of the Veerbhadra temple close! We tried our luck at the APTDC guest house, but the bookings were full. There was no lodge or other accommodation apart from that. Dejected, we thought of returning to Hindupur where we could find some accommodation facilities. However, on total instinct, we just asked in a nearby house whether we could stay for the night and they let us in! The house was small, but they made arrangements for us to sleep on their terrace. And because we had sleeping bags and tents, that was not a problem at all! So out of nowhere, we suddenly had a place to stay very close to the temple which enabled us to visit the temple at daybreak.. and what a sight it was!

The temple gates open at 7 in the morning and let me tell you that is the best time to visit it. Very few or no people will be present at that hour and you will get a nice one hour to explore it and make good pictures without people photo-bombing your frames! 

History of the temple
The temple was built in 1530 AD by two brothers - Viranna and Virupanna of Penukonda who were governors under the reign of King Achyutaraya of the Vijayanagara dynasty. Penukonda, a small town which is approximately 40 km away, was the second capital of the Vijayanagara empire (after Hampi). 

Architecture
The temple is built on a huge rock called Kurmasila (tortoise hill) owing to the shape of the rock similar to a tortoise shell. It displays the Vijayanagara style of architecture, the same type of structures we find in Hampi. The entire area of the temple is prominently divided into three portions - Mukhya Mandapam, Ardha Mandapam and Garbhagriham. Mukhya Mandapam is the place where activities like festivals, dance and other programs were held. Ardha Mandapam or the ante chamber is the assembly hall inside and has a large chamber at the centre. The Garbhagriham is the place where the idol of the residing deity - Sri Veerbhadra (a fierce incarnation of Lord Shiva) is placed.

Carvings and paintings
The walls and the pillars exhibit intrinsic carvings on them. Almost all the pillars have carvings of different deities, saints, dancers, musicians and people with different shastras. The pillars in the Ardha Mandapam have the sculptures of the fourteen avatars of Lord Shiva. There are also some three sided pillars which have images of three different people carved on them - nartaki (a female dancer), pakwaz wadak (a man playing a drum) and taal wadak (a man playing the chimes) thus depicting an entire mehfil (a musical performance) on one pillar. In the Mukhya Mandapam there is a large seven-headed serpent carved in stone with a shivalinga in front of it, an idol of Ganapati and some ruins of pillars and doors which look like an unfinished ceremonial hall. Virupanna had used money from the kingdom's treasury while the king was away. Upon the return of the king, he found that the treasury was emptied without his permission which made him furious and he ordered to blind Virupanna and the construction of the temple was stopped. Hence we can see the remains of this unfinished hall which would have been a grandeur had it been finished. The outer walls have inscriptions written on stone in some ancient languages. The ceilings of the temple have beautiful paintings depicting scenes from the Puranas, the incarnations of Vishnu, and the pictures of Viranna and Virupanna. The attention to detail of the costumes and the expression of the characters in the paintings is quite striking. A large monolithic structure of Nandi (Lord Shiva's bull) is located about 200 meters from the temple. It is adorned with bells and garlands and is said to be the largest one-stone-carvation of Nandi in India.

The hanging pillar
One of the pillars inside the Ardha Mandapam is completely hanging, i.e. there is no support at the base! You can slide a piece of paper or cloth straight under it and pull it out from the other end. 

Here is a short video which will give you a gist of the place:

https://youtu.be/_3BmaWkBxPg

Lepakshi is 15 km from Hindupur (the nearest rail head) and 12 km from Kodikonda (a town on the Bengaluru - Hyderabad highway). The nearest airport is Bengaluru which is about 100 km away. Lepakshi is considered as one of the wonders of India and is a must visit place if you are going to be in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.

The Sanskrit speaking village

We all know Sanskrit is one of the oldest language in the world and it is known as the mother of most of the languages spoken in the southern and south eastern part of the continent today. But such is the reality that its use has been reduced to a mere few chants during some ceremony or puja. But have you heard of a village that speaks Sanskrit in their day-to-day life? Yes, even I was interested when I heard this for the first time. So I decided to pay this village a visit.

Firstly, Mattur is not the only village that speaks Sanskrit. It is one amongst a few others like Jhiri, Baghat and Mahad (MP), Sasana (Orissa), Ganoda (Rajasthan) and
Hosahalli (Karnataka). In fact Hosahalli is just across the river to Mattur and is often referred as a twin village to Mattur.

In ancient India, Sanskrit was known as Devawani (Language of the Gods) and the script was known as Devnagari (In the city of Gods). However usage of this language has been reduced over the years and today a lot of linguists and philologists argue that it is a dying language. I felt the same when I visited the village of Mattur. This is a small hamlet about 7 km from Shimoga city in Karnataka and it uses Sanskrit in their day to day communication. Sadly there are very few folks left who do so. My visit to this village was particularly a very enriching one on the origins and history of Sanskrit. Here, I pen down some of the knowledge I gained from certain learned gurus during my visit to Mattur.

Sir William Jones had once said 'The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than couldn't​ have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.'

It is believed that Sanskrit, Latin and other Germanic languages, all emerged from one Proto-Indo-European parent language that is long lost today. While Sanskrit evolved to Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and Punjabi; Latin (also a dead language now) evolved to Spanish, Italian and French. But all of them have an eerie resemblance and have come from that same Proto-Indo-European root.

In olden times, Sanskrit was considered to be a sign of social prestige and was taught only to the higher class people like Brahmins. If we take a look at history, we understand that Sanskrit speaking people were always well educated and multilingual. It was often used in rituals and scholarly communication and high class Sanskrit was maintained until the British period. Many Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages have borrowed a lot of words directly or indirectly from Sanskrit. Directly borrowed - tatsama words, indirectly borrowed - tadbhava words. Sanskrit has a major influence on Latin, Spanish and English too. For example, 'matr' in Sanskrit becomes 'mother' in English and 'madre' in Spanish. Similarly, 'pitr' becomes 'father' in English and 'padre' in Spanish.  and 'bhrata' becomes 'brother' in English and 'frater' in Latin.

However today, excluding a few towns like Mattur, the use of this ancient language has diminished.
I had the opportunity to interact with some kids in the local school and their proficiency with Sanskrit amazed me. They learn Sanskrit as a first language, Kannada as second and English/Hindi as third. Many of their parents are Sanskrit scholars who have traveled far and wide for lectures and sessions. The principal too is a highly respected man in the village and is a very learned and humble person. After our session with the kids, he offered us to join the students for lunch. In rural India, parents are not much keen on sending their students to school. Hence, this ritual of offering mid-day meals to students evolved to encourage the parents to send their kids to school. We had a simple but delicious meal of sambar-rice and curd, thanked the staff and kids and left for our journey ahead.
These close conversations with the kids, teachers, headmaster, Sanskrit scholars and gurus gave me a deep and enriching experience and I also learnt a lot about our country and its historical importance related to the ancient languages and their evolution.

With a bunch of memories in my pensieve and the satisfaction of seeing a different place and meeting some really interesting folks, I picked up my sack and moved toward my next destination.