Up the East Coast, part II: Chola Empire
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
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198
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Trip End
Ongoing
Chennai, Mammalapuram, Chidambaram, and Kanchipuram,
India
Thursday, June 7, 2007
At the same time, many of the wells along the coastal areas were becoming saline and, hence, unusable. If people really think that our planet can support more people, they are correct: the planet can support more people, but at a huge cost to our quality of life and the environment. Fifteen billion people anyone?
The Chola Empire was known for its high quality irrigation systems and also its temples (such as the immense Brihadeeswara Temple I entered in Tanjore) and bronze sculpture. I went to the Chola Bronze Museum to see the ancient crafts, the most quintessential being the Nataraja Shiva (dancing Shiva).
My next stop in the temple tour happened to be the temple of dancing Shiva at Chidambaram, the Nataraja Shiva Temple. I was just in time for darshan, as the sun set. Centering on the idol of Nataraja, the brahmin priests performed the rituals of fire and sound. Some rang large bells, others smaller cymbals. The bells reverberated as the rhythm progressed with percussion.
After darshan, I ate some Jak fruit and street food before getting a bus to Pondicherry, several hours away. Near Pondicherry is the colony of Auroville, an area known for attracting people seeking simple, alternative ways of living. Later on my journey, I met John in Nepal, who was living at an organic farm in Auroville. He talked about how good it felt to work on the land and also do some carpentry too. The owner of the farm began years ago, on just 1,000 rupees per month. Now, the Frenchman had a Tamil wife, with perhaps children on the way. His attitude had changed with the times--the farm had to make a profit, for his family. Still, the farm was simple and wholesome, John said.
Walking around from full guest house to full rest house at 11 pm, I decided to continue to Madras by bus. Finally, at 3 am, after a full day of bus riding I arrived to Egmore in Chennai and settled into a hotel room.
For thousands of years now, South India has been exchanging goods and ideas from China, the Fertile Crescent, and elsewhere. No reminder of this is stronger than perhaps the millions of Christians in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This Christianity is not your typical 1500s Portugese missionary Catholicism. Instead, it's roots lie in the teachings of St. Thomas.
St. Thomas, sent by Jesus to India, became a martyr in Chennai, speared while sharing the gospel. A cathedral in town bears his name, and allegedly a crypt holds his remains and relicts here.
"The kingdom of God is within you"--one of the most famous phrases of Jesus as found in the Gospel of St. Thomas. Why is this important? Instead of requiring an inner sanctum or a cathedral, Jesus was saying that all you needed to do was look within, or "under a rock," as he also said.
Once Portugese missionaries arrived to South India, they then converted the St. Thomas Christians to Catholics.
To complete the loop, in brief, The Kingdom of God is Within You became a book by Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy, which then became one of Gandhi's favorite writings, leading to their correspondance about non-violence, which then led towards Gandhi's movement to free India. The rest is history.
I visited St. Thomas Cathedral, a respite from the persistent heat and sun, thinking about these things while sitting on a pew. A few people came in to pray, both foreigners and Indians.
At night, I went to a restaurant for chopped parotta and vegetables, knowing that I couldn't get them the same way anywhere but in southern India. For dessert, I looked at the sweets behind the glass--the burfi, the milk peda, the liddu balls, the jelebi, sonpappdi, and Mysore pak. I chose the Mysore pak, extra sweet and full of ghee.
In the morning, I joined a Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) tour. The bus was full of Indian tourists with a woman guide. Our journey would take us to Kanchipuram and Mammalapuram, two historical and holy cities.
Our first stop was Ekambareswarar Temple, with the Prithivi Lingam in the inner sanctum. Ekambareswarar is another form of Shiva. Although the sign said "No Hindus," I entered, taking the broad meaning of Hinduism to heart and giving an acknowledging nod to our respectful tour guide. We stayed for darshan, acknowledging the bond between masculine and feminine spiritual sides, then left for the goddess temple of Kamakshi.
The gopura roof at Kamakshi was created from pure gold, not just gilded gold, showing the importance of this temple as one of the most sacred in India. Here, the "No Hindus" sign was still there and this time a Brahmin forbid me to enter. "He's being stubborn," the tour guide told me.
Instead of darshan inside, I walked to visit the temple elephants. I gave one elephant a rupee and it blessed me, along with other people waiting in line. Unfortunately the elephant had a runny nose...I mean trunk, so most people, including myself got blessed in more ways than one.
In the back, I found some more elephants, unchained, and met one face to face. I looked at it and felt an immediate connection. It lumbered over a bit more and stuck out its trunk. I stuck out my hand, so we touched trunk and hand, acknowledging each other.
I remembered the elephants chained during the Thrissur Poorum over a month ago. The elephants there had a different look in their eyes that time. Indeed, in some South Indian festivals, the elephants broke their shackles and stampeded the crowds. One person told me that sixty people recently died in a stampede. The finale for the Thrissur Pooram festival I attended was delayed an hour because a few elephants were acting up and needed to be replaced.
Elephants, by the way aren't domesticated, they still need to be captured in the wild as babies and tamed. I have the feeling they are about as tame as a human slave could be called tame.
As our tour left, a sadhu walked by, dressed in dirty brown clothing and dreads. Only this sadhu was a foreigner, a westerner. "Foreigner!" many people in the tour whispered to each other in a multi-emotional tone. To the brahmin priests, this foreigner still wasn't a Hindu, despite his sadhu garb, and wasn't allowed to enter the temple either. That's a large effort to emulate a Hindu ascetic only to be rejected by the very religion you espouse (I'm assuming he does).
We ended the tour with a visit to a boating area and the VGP Universal Kingdom. I skipped the motorboating to avoid cruising around in a "very dirty" lake as the driver put it. The lake was the color of antifreeze. VGP appeared to me like a decaying rip-off of Disney World. In fact, another amusement park near Chennai is called Dizzee World. Our guide said we could also visit the VGP beach, because it's clean, unlike most other beaches here, which are used as public toilets.
Continued...
