Hyderabad Diaries – Discovering a forgotten temple

Sometimes thinking like a tourist can reveal amazing places right in our backyard. The last time I was in Hyderabad I read about this supposedly 2000-year-old Jain temple in the city’s outskirts which felt exactly like the treasure in the backyard.  Two thousand years is decent amount of history even for India, and Jain temples are renowned for their architecture, so obviously we had to visit this place.

Unfortunately, I was too busy fixing repairs in my parent’s flat. I consider myself a passionate DIYer but quite often I realise early-on that I need expert help. Expert help is easily ‘available’ in India, getting it is another matter. My daily routine involved finalising workers for the repairs, congratulating myself for completing my part of the project (outsourcing), expecting the workers to turn up on the day, yelling into the phone when they don’t, calling them an hour later and pleading them to come, becoming their assistant upon their divine arrival, and so on. This was my ‘holiday’. At some point everyone at home was sufficiently annoyed with me for wasting all holiday time, and as part of the consequent peace-treaty discussions a daytrip to the Jain temple was finalised. As per the T&Cs of the contract it could only be vetoed by rain-gods.

There were 8 of us – 5 adults and 3 kids, and the tin-box my Dad calls his car could only accommodate 5. We briefly considered different options – hiring another taxi, some of us taking a bus etc – but common sense prevailed at last and we decided to cram ourselves in. Usually in these circumstances kids are re-categorised as extra fat on thighs, so technically we were now 5 adults with inflated thighs. As the tin-box had some room in the back (hatch) we carried a small stool just in case one of the kids wanted to tear himself away from an adult’s lap. This proved prophetic, after 40 mins of drive two kids volunteered to sit in the back(hatch). I suppose they wanted to unpack their limbs, air their lungs and check all five senses were still working. When we finally reached the temple the kids were the most ecstatic. Their joy had nothing to do with the temple I think.

So here we were at the 2000-year-old Kolanupaka Jain temple. I think I must quickly introduce Jainism for some of my readers. India practices hundreds of religions, a few of which, like Jainism, were actually born here. It is one of India’s oldest religions, predating even Buddhism. If you have read about Buddha, then you might know that after he renounced his kingdom and became an ascetic, he sought spiritual refuge in a few belief systems – Jainism was one of them. I won’t go into technical details of the religion (because I don’t know, you can find it here), but for an average Indian Jainism rings two bells in our  minds – 1) Jains build magnificent temples 2) they are ultra-Vegetarian, and top it up with additional dietary restrictions. Suffice it to say that if I ever renounce my kingdom and try Jainism, I’ll fail in the first hour.

Back to Kolanupaka.  The temple compound is entered through an arched gateway. Once inside, at the far end behind a garden, one can see an elaborate Jain temple in the middle and two smaller temples flanking it on either side. Cameras were not permitted past the main entrance, so we had to make do with a photo at the entrance. As everyone wanted to be in the group-photo we handed the camera to a bystander, and as they always do, without ever failing once, they screwed up the photo. So I took this picture where you can at least see the temple in the background.

I know what you are thinking – How did all those guys, plus the photographer, fit in one car?

The next half-hour was spent admiring the temple structures and ambling in the gardens with me reading out aloud the Wiki page of this temple. There were hardly any visitors, it was very peaceful. Unfortunately, as we were not Jains, we weren’t allowed to enter the temple’s main shrine (sanctum sanctorum) nor could we partake in the meals normally offered to pilgrims. That was a bit of a disappointment for all of us. Personally, I was also experiencing another familiar let-down. Several old monuments get built, and then rebuilt, and then rebuilt again over time, so what you end up seeing is a pretty modern structure, only its roots are ancient. While this is a common practice around the world, as a history-lover it sometimes disappoints me. I want see, touch and feel the old, not just imagine it in my head.

Before coming to this place, I had read that there was a small museum containing the sculptures found around this place. On enquiring its whereabouts, I learnt it was about 15 min walk away, near a Shiva temple. We could have walked but a far more tempting option  was available.

It’s hard to describe the first impressions I felt after getting off the tonga (horse-cart). A stone arch next to an old Banyan tree, presumably it was the entrance to the Shiva temple, a few beggars, a small ramshackled tea-shop nearby, an old lady running it. The setting was so uncommon, yet faintly familiar, there was a sense of mystique to the place. I walked up to the archway and what my caught my eyes blew me; I was shocked, stunned, my jaws dropped (ok, figuratively). Imagine you are digging in your backyard hoping to find a gold-coin and you hit upon an old treasure chest. It’s that sort of feeling, full adrenaline stuff.

I saw a Jain statue in the middle of a courtyard, covered walkway on all sides, and extremely old statues all along the walkway. This was not a few-sculptures-in-a-room museum I was expecting, it was an open-air museum under the remit of ASI (Archaeological Survey of India). The sculptures were of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist deities from 600 – 1000 AD. Incidentally, I was at the Indian Museum in Kolkata just the week before where sculptures of that era are displayed, sometimes in a glass case. And here I was surrounded by pretty much similar stuff in a nearly abandoned state. I don’t suggest you do it, but technically one could come here when India plays Pakistan (meaning everyone is at home glued to the TV) and take home one of the sculptures in a car as long as the car is not my Dad’s tin-box which I think might just give up.

Anyway, we spent the next few hours exploring the rest of the Shiva temple. It was the most intriguing temple I had ever been to; parts of it could be used to film the next Indiana Jones movie. Adjacent to the crumbling parts, there are newer structures where the main shrine is based. A display-board prohibited taking photos inside the main shrine, so I unfortunately cannot show a very interesting contraption I saw there – a machine used to play a traditional Indian drum (or was it a trumpet, I can’t remember) and simultaneously ring a temple-bell.  There are far simpler ways (MP3 player + loudspeaker) to achieve the same end-result, but by trying to play the actual instruments as opposed to blaring their recorded sound, that machine won my heart. I’d like to go back one day and see it in action.

I won’t describe the temple any more, there are pictures at the end which will give you an idea of the place and save me two days of typing. However, there is one last sub-plot in this story. The pictures at the end, all taken by my perfect-frame-obsessed photographer wife, cut out some unwanted bits/noise. Amongst the noise was a JCB (like in this picture) at one corner of the temple surrounded by a small group of curious onlookers.

It wasn’t clear what they were trying to do, but after a bit of commotion the JCB pulled down a portion of the compound wall and the commotion ended, people dispersed. I asked a lady what was going on and she told me that some high priests were trying to correct the temple’s Vaastu (similar to Chinese Feng Shui). Apparently, the priesthood was concerned that despite the temple’s historic importance it lacked popularity, nobody visited this place. They believed a Vaastu correction would turn around its fortunes. Quizzing on the importance I learnt that a very long time ago a pupil from this temple had wandered off to spread the message and he established sects in other places in Karnataka where millions of pilgrims now throng each year, all while the original place lay here largely forgotten. This story was conveyed to me in tiny bits hidden within a heavy dose on the moral deficit amongst today’s younger generation who do not visit temples anymore. I could not tease out more information without the risk of choking on the moral dosage, but the bits I gathered looked interesting.

The next day at home I sat down to piece together the bits. There are a lot of conflicting versions on complex religious technicalities, I’ll try to explain what I understood without hopefully stepping on any minefield. The sect the lady was referring to was Veerasaiva (also called Lingayats) founded sometime around the 11^th century. Lingayats are a very big and powerful community today. A few years back they were at the heart of a political debate on whether they were a sub-sect or a separate religion; that debate had the weight to swing an impending election in Karnataka.  The followers of this sect regard five gurus (pancha-acharyas) as the propagators of their religion, with each guru having established one of their five holy seats (pancha-peetas) - Rambhapuri (Karnataka), Ujjain, Kedarnath, Sreesailam and Kashi (also known as Benaras or Varanasi). These holy places are visited by tens of millions of people every year. The first panchpeeta, Rambhapuri, was established by their very first guru Renukacharya who originated from the Someshwara Temple in Kolanupaka – the temple where I was the day before. Which means that the semi-ruined temple we visited stood tall much before some of the biggest and most famous temples of today’s India, and in some ways, is their parent.

Imagine digging your backyard hoping to find a gold coin, but you find a treasure chest. You lift this chest up and are excited to break it open, but your gaze falls back into the pit to what appears like a faint outline of a brick. Curios, you brush aside the mud and dig further, and lo and behold, there’s an old buried temple underneath. Dear friends, this is not an Indiana Jones script, this is the story of my journey to Kolanupaka.

//End

PS: If this story inspires you, please go to the Indian Museum in Kolkata, stand in a long queue, pay entrance fee and see the old sculptures. A part of me hopes Kolanupaka doesn't become a very famous place (sorry high priests). Its charm lies in its obscurity.