What I read this week…

A great piece on the marvel that is Kailasnatha Temple. Some excerpts from Kail?san?tha — The World’s Grandest Artistic Conception:

It is a free-standing multi-level temple structure that covers an area twice the size of the Parthenon in the Acropolis, a citadel on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens. But whereas the Parthenon was assembled, Kail?san?tha was cut from the rock, which is multifold complicated.

…Although India had a long tradition of rock-cut temples, it is hard to imagine how the drawings were made and executed for in its construction from a single rock there could be no margin of error. It has been speculated that three large trenches, two each of (270 x 50 x 100 ft) and one of (150 x 30 x 100 ft) were made in the mountain to isolate a cubic mass of rock in the middle. Roughly two million cubic feet of rock had to be excavated before the carving in the middle could proceed.

View from above (left) and from the base (below)

…The idea of fashioning an entire temple out of a rock in a mountain is so daring that it is a miracle that it was even attempted. It is the largest monolithic structure in the world and nothing like this on such a grand scale has ever been made anywhere else. It has elements that required balancing opposites at many levels of engineering; it is beautiful in its symmetry, and its artistic imagination is of the highest order.

Karkar?ja’s famous inscription speaks of how the gods were awed and amazed by the temple and the architect, Kokasa, could not believe that he was behind its creation:

On seeing the wonderful temple on the hill at El?pur?, the best of immortals who move in aerial cars are struck with astonishment and say: “This temple of ?iva is self-existent (etasya [sva]yambhu ?ivadh?ma); in a thing made by art such beauty is not seen.” The architect expressed the inability in constructing another such work, for when it was done, he was amazed and said: “Oh, how was it that I built it!

The original essay by Prof Kak also have a number of pictures. Read it in full here: Kail?san?tha — The World’s Grandest Artistic Conception

I am currently reading “India that is Bharat” by J Sai Deepak and this excerpt from Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s 1903 essay on “The History of Bharatvarsha” resonated strongly. From which a brief except:

Those histories make you feel that at that time Bharatavarsha did not exist at all; as though only the howling whirlwind of the Pathans and the Mughals holding aloft the banner of dry leaves had been moving round and round across the country from north to south and east to west.

….However, while the lands of the aliens existed, there also existed the indigenous country. Otherwise, in the midst of all the turbulence, who gave birth to the likes of Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya, and Tukaram? It was not that only Delhi and Agra existed then, there were also Kasi and Navadvipa. The current of life that was flowing then in the real Bharatavarsha, the ripples of efforts rising there and the social changes that were taking place — none of these find an account in our history textbooks.

…But, unfortunately, we are obliged to learn a brand of history that makes our children forget this very fact. It appears as if we are nobody in India; as if those who came from outside alone matter.

From which quarter can we derive our life-sustenance when we learn that our tie with our own country is so insignificant? In such a situation we feel no hitch whatsoever in installing others’ countries in place of our own. We become incapable of feeling a mortifying sense of shame at the indignity of Bharatavarsha. We effortlessly keep on saying that we did not have anything worth the name in the past and thus for everything, from food and clothing to conduct and behaviour, we now have to beg from foreigners.

Fortunate countries find the everlasting image of their land in their own history. It is history that serves as the introduction to one’s own country during one’s childhood itself. In our case it is just the opposite thing that happens: it is the history of our country that has kept our own land obscured to us. From the invasion of Mahmud to the arrogant imperial declaration of Lord Curzon, all the historical annals till yesterday, are only a mass of strange mist for Bharatavarsha. These accounts do not give clarity to our vision of our motherland. In fact, these only serve to cloud it…. 

It is worth a full read. Link here: The History of Bharatvarsha

Finally, on a tangential note, I have been reading quite a bit in Hindi over these last couple of year (although reading in English still dominates). The desire to sharpen my Hindi and refresh my memory of the language was triggered by the mild embarrassment I felt when my daughter asked me why was I not reading the Mahabharat in Hindi/Sanskrit (this was during 2020-2021 in the years of Covid-19 when I had decided to try reading the full version of the epics if possible).

The embarrassing bit was that it did not even occur to me to read the version in Hindi. I was looking for English versions – literally as a default, completely forgetting that not only would the Hindi translation be more faithful to the original but it is also the language I learnt far earlier than English.

That was the start of the journey to reconnect with Hindi. And between now and then, I try and read at least a few books in Hindi each year (mostly novels, almost all fiction). A few weeks back, I started reading “Vaishaali ki Nagarvadhu“. I hope to share my thoughts on that once I have finished.

Finally, I am planning to dig up some old draft posts from my blog that are still topical & relevant. They were gathering dust during this long 8-year hiatus. Stay tuned.