A Chalukyan Pilgrimage II - Pattadakkal

Group of monuments in Pattadakkal dated back to 8th century CE. These monuments are currently considered as world heritage site by UNESCO. This former capital of Chalukyans contains a number of temples - including a Jain temple - dated back to seventh and eighth centuries. These temples are constructed in Dravidian, Nagara and Mixed styles.

My auto reached Pattadakkal in the afternoon. After paying the driver I moved towards the ticket counter, here you don’t have to pay for camera.

Main temples in Pattadakkal are,

Virupaksha Temple - Built by queen Lokadevi in 740 AD to celebrate her husband's - Vikramadithya II - victory over Pallavas. This shrine measures 224 feet east-west and 105 feet north-south with a big hall in the centre. This complex contains one central shrine, two separate shrines and one Nandi mandapa. Rangamandapa is supported by 18 rectangular pillars in four rows full of sculptures with episodes of Ramayana, Mahabharatha, and Bhagavata engraved.



Sangameshvara Temple - Built by King Vijayaditya Satyashraya in 725 AD. This huge temple has one main shrine and two subsidiary shrines. Nine lattice windows allow the light into circumambulatory path is unique in their geometrical pattern.


Mallikarjuna Temple - This temple built by Trailokadevi - younger queen of Vikramaditya II and sister of Lokadevi - is almost in the same design of Virupaksha temple but slightly smaller.


Kashivisvanatha Temple - This 8th century temple with a nagara shikhara contains a series of Chaitya windows. The front part of the Shikhara has beautiful figures of dancing Shiva and Parvati. The central ceiling also have sculptures of Shiva, Parvati, child Kartikeya and Nandi.

Kadasiddhesvara - This temple resembles Jambulingeswara in size and design has a northern rekhanagara shikhara. Above the lintel of the Garbhagriha there is a image of Shiva, Parvati, Nandi, Brahma and Vishnu. On the outer walls you can see the figures of Harihara, Lakulisha, Ardhanarishwara etc.

Jain Narayana temple, Jambulingeswara temple, Galganatha temple etc are some other temples located here.

I walked slowly around each temple. Some priests were performing poojas on a Nadimandapa and on the Shiva temple opposite to that. Apart from this area pooja's or any other rituals were not performed in any other part of this group of monuments. After going through the entire temple, I sat on a side bench and lost in thinking about the Chalukyan times.

Well, it’s already 6 'o' clock the place is about to close. I slowly walked outside and start waiting for some vehicle to reach Badami. Around 6.15pm I got a bus to Badami. This time I got down at Badami railway station and walked towards it.

Pattadakkal Group of monuments

Sajeev.

How to reach Pattadakkal: You will get private vehicles and buses from Badami bus stand or railway station

Information Courtesy: Archaeological Survey of India, Wikipedia.

A Chalukyan Pilgrimage I - Aihole

Durga Complex

From the side seat of Sholapur Express, the long flat land on both sides of the track covered with black soil represents a typical Karnataka village. A person sitting opposite told me that after taking a long vacation there was some rain on his part of Karnataka.

At Bhagalkot

I reached Bhagalkot railway station around 8.30 in the morning. My plan was to reach Aihole first, continue to Pattadakkal and in the end visit Badami. But according to many people I consulted in Bhagalkot it was better to go to Badami first and then to Aihole. After many unsuccessful attempts with a number of buses I got one direct bus to Badami. If you are coming from South the best way to visit all these places is by taking to Sholapur or Bijapur from Yeshwantpur railway station and get down at Badami.

Badami - On the way to Aihole

Around 10am I reached Badami bus stand, beautiful red sandstone decorates one side of the town. Even though it was a retracing the journey back to Badami was an interesting one. Majority of men wearing white dhoti, white kurtha and Gandhi cap. It was a unique experience to see many people in Gandhi caps. Now-a-day you can't see this much Gandhi caps even in Congress rally. On the way we overtook so many bullock carts - tractors are indeed very less in number. Many girls were pedalling their cycles to school in full school uniform. In fact in one of the school on the way - Digambareshwar High School - had a huge collection of cycles.

Houses on both sides of the road are small - many had one or two rooms only. In between many students boarded our bus using their free pass - One of the good initiatives by Karnataka RTC. I moved some years back in my memory lane - in my school days - we got concessions on almost all private buses but not in Kerala RTC. As the road was not a nationalized in that part of Kerala, government run RTC never even bothered to provide concessions for students!!!

Next direct bus to Aihole was around 1.30pm but there were so many small tempo travellers running shuttles. After checking with some people I got in one such vehicle - 20 Rs to Pattada Kallu (Pattadakkal). It took some time to start; I never imagined that that much people can travel in that small vehicle!!!

Ravana Pahadi

There were so many young and old men, women and kids. Men who were old were wearing white and white dress with Gandhi cap. Young men were wearing shirt and pant. Women appeared generally in sari; however some girls in their early twenties gave a chance to Churidar. Women had a number of jewelleries in ear as well as in neck. Apart from piercing the lower part of the ear, they were also wearing jewellery by piercing the upper part of the outer ear as well. Lady sitting opposite to me was wearing a special type of necklace, I turned around, and many women sitting behind me (except one) were wearing necklace of similar kind.

We crossed Badami railway station as we continue our journey more and more people came in. One side of the road was full of sunflower fields, after some we reached another junction. Here many people got down and the vehicle started sunning in seating capacity. But in the next stop, one farmer came with a number of Urea sacks. 1, 2, 3...7 big sacks full of Urea. Because of this extra passenger I was not even able to move my legs any more. With not so comfortable smell urea we continued our journey. Farmer also jumped in and sat opposite to me happily looking to his urea possessions, smiling....

We finally reached Pattadakkal World heritage site. As Aihole was some more kilometres away from here I had to take a shared auto to reach there.

Aihole Inscription

Aihole

Finally, I am in Aihole. Situated near Malaprabha River in Bhagalkot district, this ancient capital of Chalukyans is more than 500km away from the current capital of Karnataka - Bangalore. It was a major city and fist capital of early Chalukyas. They built over 125 temples in this area.  Later Pulakesi I moved the capital to Badami which was then known as Vatapi. Aihole has been described as one of the cradles of temple architecture in India. Some temples are dated as back as 5th century CE.

Durga Complex, Museum and Temples

After buying the ticket from the gate, I walked towards Durga Complex. This is not a temple of Durga; the name came because of its vicinity to the fort. This temple was built by 'Aatada Ale Komarasingha' during the days of Vikramaditya II. Durga temple is in the form of Gajaprishtha with exterior narrating Ramayana scenes. From here I went to museum located close to this temple (there is separate ticket for museum - 5 Rs).

After visiting other temples in the area - Suryanarayana Gudi, Gaudaragudi, Chakra Gudi, Lad khan temple, Ambigere Gudi, Shri Huchchimalli temple etc - I moved towards Ravana Pahadi cave temples.

Ravana Pahadi

This 6th century rock cut Shiva shrine has a tall dancing Shiva with ten hands and equally tall Saptamatrikas observing Shiva's dance along with rows of beautiful ganas, varaha, Mahishasuramardini and other figures. Bhoodevi's and Nandi's sculptures are also present here.

From RavanaPahadi cave temples, I walked straight to Aihole Fort. Jyotirlinga temple group and Mallikarjuna temple complex are one the sides of this road. We have to go through a number of steps to reach the top. There is nothing other than the reconstructed wall by ASI which indicates there was a fort.

Meguti Jain temple and Aihole Inscription

The famous Meguti Jain temple is here. The famous Aihole inscription - in Sanskrit language and old Kannada script - dated 634 CE, is on the walls this Jain temple. After walking in and out of the temple finally I saw the inscription on the outer side of temple wall. After spending some time there I walked towards the Aihole junction to catch a vehicle to Pattadakkal. There are some more temple complexes in this area.

Please note the frequency of buses is very low. You have to depend on hired/shared vehicle. After checking with so many people and waiting for long time I got a shared auto to Pattadakkal.

Sajeev.

How to reach: The best way to reach here is by getting down at Badami Railway Station and then using either bus/ private vehicles.

Interesting, if it was not a cruel joke - the continuing saga of Endosulphan

According to a Hindu Report, "Centre has asked the Supreme Court to allow the use of pesticide endosulfan in all States except Kerala and Karnataka, as these States are ready to use it for agricultural pest control."

I don't understand what forced central government to take such a stand on endosulphan when the sad saga of Kerala and Karnataka's experience with endosulfan already played more than enough time before the world.

The reasons are indeed ridicules. The report continues,

"the cost of disposal of live stock of endosulfan by incineration shall be more than Rs.210.82 crore, whereas phasing out would not only result in saving this huge amount on disposal but would also save the product worth Rs.31.36 lakh, which would contribute to increased crop production/productivity"

"24 countries are still using endosulfan"


"in India too use of several pesticides was banned in the past and the live stocks thereof were allowed to be disposed of by phasing out. Of the 19 States which participated in the meeting convened by the expert committee, except Kerala and Karnataka, other States were in favour of [the] continued use of endosulfan for the reasons being broad spectrum, cheaper, most popular among farmers, safe to pollinations, no reports of resistance/resurgence or ill effects on human beings, animals and environment. Thus, States other than Kerala and Karnataka are ready to use endosulfan for agricultural pest control."

For those who are not familiar with this chemical let me tell you some facts related to endosulphan. A global ban on manufacturing and use of this chemical was negotiated under Stockholm convention in 2011, more than 80 countries including EU, US, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada etc are already banned or announced phase outs. (#2)

I don’t understand how the representatives from other states agreed to the use of endosulphan there. More interesting is the fact that central government itself agrees on phasing out. If endosulphan was as good as described by central government then why we need a phase out it in the first place? Why many countries in the world already banned its use?

It may be better to spent money on disposing the existing stock instead of repeating what happened in Kerala and Karnataka on other states. For the existing stocks government can negotiate with industry and reach a compensation formula. We don’t explode bombs in populated areas as a means of disposal, do we?

Sajeev.

References

1. 'Allow use of endosulfan except in Kerala and Karnataka’-The Hindu
2. EPA Action to Terminate Endosulfan - EPA
2. Endosulfan - Wikipedia
3. India's chemical nightmare - Guardian
4. Bayer to stop selling endosulfan - ABC

Blackout or Blacked out? Another Electricity crisis in India

Today India won one bronze in 10m air rifle through Narang. Olympics is going on in UK, so I just went to see the Guardian site. Interestingly, one of the important news items which decorated their front page even in the middle of Olympics was one from India.

"India power outage hits 350m people". Which is many times more than Guardian's own country’s - UK - population. One of the worst - as of now!!! - blackout to hit India in more than a decade affected 8 North Indian states – including national capital - for more than eight hours. Somebody assumed that all the people in these states have access to electricity!!! Even though a blackout is a not a normal thing we can forgive the administration for a blackout once in a while, after all, machines too will fail.

According to International Energy Agency's report around 25% of population doesn’t have any access to electricity in 2009 (electricity consumption average was 96kWh in rural and 288 kWh in urban areas according to the report). Their projections says that the share of Indian population without access to electricity in 2030 will be 10% (In Africa it will be 42%, China 0%, Latin America 2%, Middle East 2% and other developing countries 16%)  - World Energy Outlook - 2011

Well, forget about numbers; who knows what will happen in 2030. But there are some interesting facts mentioned in the Guardian Report,

"Punjab has just banned air conditioning units in all government offices and from 1 August will cut office hours to 8am to 2pm with no lunch."


"There was outrage in June when the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, decreed that all malls were to shut at 7pm in a bid to save power."

The best one for the last,

"On Saturday, a cat leapt into a Delhi grid station and was electrocuted, causing a fire that left parts of east Delhi without power for 24 hours."

The problem is not limited to eight states in the northern grid or a cat electro ducting the grid. Electricity crisis is a country wide phenomenon and it’s affecting manufacturing, services and other industries severely. It’s a known fact that, our distribution companies are already running with debts as high as Himalayas. Supply seldom meets the demand. As of now through load shedding and reducing the amount of power to rural areas and through other non-innovative means we are trying to meet the demand. Asking industries to shut down their production in order to reduce the power demand is suicidal but we are doing that also. But how long we can sustain ourselves in this way?

If the government can't generate enough power and reduce the wastage there will be much more black-outs and each time papers will say the worst power crisis in a decade or the worst power crisis after independence.

Update on August 01, 2012


Electricity grids - Northern, Eastern, North-Eastern - collapsed again, this time it affected more than 600mn people and blacked out majority of India states.

Train services disrupted, traffic signals turned off leading to traffic jams, in NE India more than 200 miners were trapped underground because the lift were not working, and the list is endless.
Sajeev

For more information read my articles on power sector
1. Discom crisis and Indian power sector
2. Jaitapur Nuclear power plant, good for India?
3. Nuclear energy - still the way to go forward, even after Fukushima

References:

1. The Guardian: India power outage hits 350m people
2. World Energy Outlook - 2011
3. Power crisis holds up irrigation projects
4. Centre blames State for power shortage

Karnataka: Power politics and a drought hit state

It’s the third chief minister, and there is no guarantee that he will complete the term. The chair already saw many faces, at the same time another chair in the next building - Lokayukta HQ - is waiting for someone to occupy it since September, 2011. Hundreds of kilometres away from the capital – Bangalore - people are unable to sit; they are still fixing their eye on the sky looking for some traces of rain cloud. Karnataka and Andra are already facing a drought (like?) situation.

Last year in 2011, 123 taluks in 24 districts declared as drought affected. It’s only worsened this year. Just like majority of other Indian states, Karnataka's financial condition too is not strong. Court already banned the mining, which will effectively stop whatever royalty and taxes coming from there. As if the problems on the economic and water front is not enough, state already saw the exit of two chief ministers and nobody knows when she will see the exit of third one.

It will be better for the party to stop fighting and start with administration. When people supported the party by electing 120 (out of 224) MLAs they definitely expected something better. The state also has the potential to transform itself to an economic powerhouse instead of becoming a political disaster. There is not much time left - especially in this draught stricken times. Even the deeply rooted caste equations may not work in the next elections. It’s time for the political leadership to wake up and do something for the state.

Sajeev

Photo courtesy: Wikipedia (Other than Vidhan Saudha Part)