As I see myself

Pattadakal is an enchanting name in the history of Indian temple architecture. With Badami & Aihole, both equally great centres of art & culture, provide significant cultural relics and an unbroken cultural sequence dating from the early paleolithic period have been traced to this region! The Badami-Pattadakal-Aihole area was such a busy place during its hey-day that it is even mentioned in Ptolemy's "A guide to geography".

Surrounded by hill ranges of soft pinkish red sandstones with sparse scattered forests, the original settlement here was called "Kisuvolal" (red valley city). As per kannada inscriptions from 1162, the most important kings of Puranic lore (Nriga, Nahusa, Nala, Vasu etc) came down to the red valley city to celebrate their coronation known as "Pattada bandha mahotsava". Thus the celebration & the place name merged to give the existing name of the site "Pattadakal". Vatapi & Ilvala were two evil wealthy brothers  who were subjugated and refined by Agastya Mahamuni, allegedly in this region. The elder brother gave his name to Aihole (Illavala, Ayyavole etc) and the younger one gave his name to Badami which was the capital of the 1st major south central kingdom of India, Badami Chalukyas.

We stayed in the still-renovating KSTDC guest house in Badami (which is the nearest big town) and hired a nice comfy auto-rickshaw to get around the three sites (which took us 2 days, 3 if you are slow, 1 if you just want the highlights). Our first stop was the Banashankari Amman temple which is quite popular in Karnataka. The picture above shows the deepa stambha of the temple! We then proceeded towards Mahkoota, a shiva temple! But what managed to keep us there were the large banyan trees and a nice little water tank that thankfully helped us beat the heat.
Next stop was Pattadakal, the highlight itself. The chalukyas started their temple experiments in Aihole, later in Badami and then perfected the style in Pattadakal. The temples of two distinct styles (the Indo-Aryan & the Dravidian) styles found in their earliest stages of development in a single place in Pattadakal. Thus, this site then forms the basis of temple architecture development, both in the south & north of the country. Considering the vast temple heritage that we in India have, it is only deserving that this site is declared as UNESCO world heritage.

After a good 4-5 hours in Pattadakal we moved towards Aihole, a wierd yet lovely ride in an auto along a route completely devoid of any traffic but strewn on both sides with temples, caves and other historical mini sites. When we reached Aihole, that's when we realised why this was the first experimental site for chalukyan temple architecture. After visting about 20 temples, each different from the other, we really got an idea how determined the Chalukyan kings were in getting their style perfected.
In the Durga Temple at Aihole I came across this local family. The man brought his wife, son, mother-in-law and a bunch of children fron his village ~40kms away to show them around the temples of Aihole. The old lady was patiently explaining mythical stories to the kids all the while pointing them to various sculptures in the temple. If we have such kind of families passing on stories across generations, we can be rest assured that our heritage is well & intact! Needless to say, they were thrilled to get a family picture :-)


The last site to visit was ofcourse our base city of Badami. The historical city of Badami is almost mythical, built completely into the huge rocks that now sit in the centre of the existing city. Huge, Tall, Imposing!

And into these rocks are cut some of the most delicate cave temples, and the delicacy of the work almost makes you think the rocks could be woven like a fabric back in the days of the Chalukyas. To satisfy the telugu film fan, these huge rocks form the location where Vikram Rathore hunts down the goons in the movie Vikramarkudu!


I could go on and on writing about how wonderful the site is, how delicate the carving is and how the stories are briliantly portrayed in rock. But that wouldn't be doing any justice to the legacy of the Chalukyas. The only worthy tribute to them would be to visit the Badami-Aihole-Pattadakal circuit. Do it atleast once in your life!

A wedding visit to Patna gave us the best excuse to go visit the Mahabodhi temple complex in Gaya, Bihar.
About 125 Kms from Patna (but a good 3-4hr bumpy car ride), one needs to travel through all the ravages of Laloo-land and check out whatever the new Nitish govermnet could salvage to reach Gaya. The entrance gate to Bodh Gaya promises to transport you to a heavnly new land and indeed it does! Metaled roads, clean side walks, tourists & pilgrims of a hundred nationalities or more and Buddhist temples & Pagodas of every conceivable oriental architecture. After the horrendous drive from Patna, this is indeed heavenly & new!

The Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya marks the place where Siddhārtha Gautama sat under a Bodhi tree for 49 days of meditation. Not content with having just attained enlightenment, the Buddha then spent a week in front of the tree, gazing with unblinking eyes in gratitude.

We were there in winter and thankfully very few tourists. Most of the crowd around the temple were calm & serious monks who probably lived in Gaya for a long time. The temple itself is a wonderful almost monolith tower. It is believed that Ashoka the great built the first temple at the site of the Mahabodhi tree about 250 years after Buddha attained enlightenment. Later in the 5th century Kushan king renovated the temple complex and brought it to its current size. The original railings and tower material from this period are now housed in the museum. After the decline of Buddhism in India the temple fell into ruins buried in sand and soil.


It was only in the 19th century that the father of Archeological restorations in India and founder of ASI, Sir Alexander Cunningham renovated the entire complex and what all of us see today is largely as a result of his efforts. During the initial years Sir Cunningham had to station security guards around the area to ensure that locals who had little value for a buddhist relic come and loot the site! (A bit of side trivia, Sir Alexander Cunningham's younger brother was Francis Cunningham who was an officer in the Madras Army and after whom the Cunningham road in Bangalore is named after!)

The Maha Bodhi tree also has a story of its own. The original tree under which the Buddha gained enlightenment fell during the years of ruin of the temple complex. A sapling from the original tree that fell off was taken to Pataliputra to Ashoka's court. Later it was placed on a ship and sent to Jambuloka (present day Sri Lanka) across the sea. Ashoka's daughter Sanghamitra planted it in Anuraddhapura. This was in 288 BC and is the oldest verified specimen of a flowering plant. Years later a sapling from this descendant was brought back to Bodh Gaya. The current tree is the 7th generation Maha Bodhi tree.

It is quite a feeling to sit in front of the this very tree and imagine that a man sat under it 2500 years ago to understand the very meaning of our lives! The man came as a prince & left as the enlightened Buddha.

Around the main temple complex lie a maze of other Buddhist temples & Pagodas built by various buddhist countries. The one by Thai & Burmese people is the most striking one. Visitors can spend the whole day walking around these temples including a huge 80ft status of the Buddha. For eating and sleeping one can imagine similar kind of options that are found in Hampi or in Pondicherry, wierd village shacks making the very best Italian & French food!

A trip to Bodh Gaya can be clubbed with short day trip to the legendary Nalanda university ruins &  the hot springs of Rajgir. Nalanda is the first greatest university in recorded history and flourished during the Gupta empire. It definetly was the first residential university ever in the world. Almost 2000 years ago close to 10000 students from various parts of the world came to Nalanda to learn various arts from the 2000 best teachers of its time. The ruins remain now and one can still make out the hostel blocks, the rooms with beds, plumbing work and even a Hindu temple.

Bihar is often neglected part of the country, economically backward & tourstically uninteresting, but the state was home to some of the greatest events that shaped this country including the 1st time that India as we know today geographically was united under one banner with a capital at Pataliputra more than 2500 years ago. Go visit Bihar!...and say with pride "I am a Bihari" :P

So, what is this heritage?
 It refers to something inherited from the past; natural heritage, cultural heritage, heredity, ancestry etc etc.

Why is it important to conserve it? 
Heritage defines what we are today, why we do things in a certain way, why something are the way they are. If we do not conserve it, preserve it in some form then we lose meaning of what we are, we lose the ability to understand how things came about to be. If it were not for ancient temple carvings, we would have no idea that our ancestors were skilled sculptors and loved their art. If it were not for billion year old rain forests, we would have no clue what kind of food chain prevailed and what leads to the current food patterns.

What am I doing to ensure that our heritage is intact? 
I visit sites responsibly and tell people around me how fantastic they are. Also, I try to educate the value of the heritage and what it means to us. This year I am doing the GoUnesco challenge to visit all 26 UNESCO World Heritage listed sites in India.