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Kishkindha, by Robert Turner

1: THE BABA AND THE FORT



I am a free man, I love only God, not money or anything, Money coming, going – not really gold. All life see only, don’t follow .... Shambo! Mahadev ... put fire.
– Swami Subramaniam

Vali Kila Fort, Anegondi, Karnataka, 150 miles due east of Goa, 27th June, 1991

The early weeks of monsoon have cleared the sky and the sun beats back on this ancient lakebed landscape of boulder-strewn scenery more bizarre than any I have seen before. The pale rusty granite has been split through the ice ages into huge rounded shapes which now lean precariously around hills of piled boulders and dramatic towers. The flat, black-silted land between them is thickly planted with patches of coconut palms, bananas and sugar cane, and a swollen chocolate-red river feeds a network of irrigation channels breaking the valley floor into dozens of islands. One could hardly expect a huge population ever to have been supported here, yet overgrown amongst this primeval chaos is the tumbled masonry of a long deserted city. It is here that I have found a rough room to write from, where I am hoping for a long stay as this is such a compelling area – of which the hourly wonder is how these hefty boulders came to be so patiently balancing askew. It was this rugged nature alone that seems to have attracted an early era of monkey myth, and later brought fabulous prosperity to the site. Before I can begin to people the present I must first set the stage as the vandalism of history has left it and start at the very beginning.

The granite is the bedrock of India, known as Peninsular Gneiss, the mass of which is amongst the earliest solidified rock in the world. The rounded contours and grain show it to have once been molten flowing stuff, but then came the splitting and sculpturing work of repeated ice ages. The boulders were rocked by the currents of frozen seas down onto firmer bases, as very gradually the whole mass drifted under pressure from the cooling of the earth’s crust up into the land mass of China, until the sub-continent arose from the sea as a plateau. This small area in the central South remained a lake from which a river eventually cut itself an exit to drain the basin. The rain from thousands of monsoons washed away the dross of the softer debris, and sprouted a thorny jungle from the rock pools. Of these earliest of romantic times, closer to Eden, before man had learnt to throw stones, this was prime homeland for the noble Langur monkey who had suited himself to it above most other creatures. This was his spiritual heritage and stronghold – with pathways through the trees, and small entry otherwise. The area is now set for a mythical play straight from the verses of the ancient Ramayana, in which the area is named as Kishkindha on the Pampa river, the Kingdom of the Monkeys and Bears. Then only animals and gods came here and the essence of the place still belongs to them – more than to the human puppets working in the fields today. None of whom wish to learn that earthquakes or dinosaurs scattered these piles, when it is much more willingly agreed that Vali, a colossus monkey king, commanded his army to strengthen themselves for battle by placing these pebbles as mischievously as they now so appear. The natural hill fortress from where I view it all is named Vali Kila after this monkey lord as it holds a firm reputation for being his stronghold. Within the hill are labyrinths of caves now inhabited by leopards, giant lizards and pythons, and it’s said that no one has yet found his most secret and deepest chamber where he hoarded his plunder. This was during the time the half-human monkey, Hanuman, came here to live a celibate, reflective life – but ended up as the hero of the Ramayana by leaping alone onto the devil’s island of Lanka in the war to rescue Seeta. His prancing image with long tail curved above him is carved into the rocks more than that of any other deity. His eager spirit infects the place, and today both the Langur and baser Rhesus monkeys abound in several tribes ... amidst the carvings of a city 420 years in ruin.

By 1336 the Moslem alliances were advancing yearly from their conquests in the North, so in defence the Hindus of the South envisaged a bastion city to be built here to consolidate their rich and expanding Vijayanagar Empire. The river formed a natural east-west barrier, there was a limitless supply of clean-splitting granite to build walls and fortresses, and from which to carve the palaces and temples. The greatest enticement to the site was its spiritual call. The cult of Hanuman, the god of strength, could be invoked to rally the kings and focus the determination of their armies. It also turned the city into a thriving pilgrimage destination. Near the sacred Matunga hill there were already temples built on sites identified from the epic of the Ramayana, and so the construction of a defended metropolis on the safer southern bank gathered momentum. In a staggeringly short time it became the most wondrous city the South had ever known. Vijayanagar was not merely the garrisoned outpost of an El Dorado, it became the capital city of a great empire, even though it was set in extremity on its most dangerous border. The kings poured in their money and piety in competition with each other, as armies of craftsmen and stonemasons, with batteries of elephants to haul the teak or stone, built the cathedrals and market squares. They caused the jungles to be stripped, and the weight of trade in precious articles from the abundant South turned the fledgling city into a glowing chest of treasure – defended behind seven concentric rings of walls. Their main difficulty in supporting a large population was that for much of the year the river bed was dry, but even when full, being below the city and fields, it would have been a relentless burden to raise it for irrigation. The answer lay in constructing a widespread network of dams upriver to redirect the flow into channels engineered through the jumbled rock course, one of which even crossed the river bed below over a substantial aqueduct. No other Hindu city had ever seen such intricate waterways, and in time these streams became one of its many municipal wonders.

It was a medieval boom town which required muscle and paid for it with thick little copper coins with an image of a monkey or an elephant on them, minted by melting down the coinage of rival courts. Such arrogance, and so swift a rise to wealth and power in a threatening era, is considered by historians to be astonishing. One imagines the area swarming with a hive of dark-skinned workers, to the ringing of steel on stone and shouts at their beasts of burden. Alarming rumours of their enemies’ camps would come in from the North; and regiments of the Empire’s armies would march in from the South expecting to be camped and fed. Outside the city a sea of thatched barracks with decorated tents for their captains was signposted with rows of flags, while their rabble of camp followers set up bawdy markets with arrack stills and stalls selling spicy food, cloth and all manner of exotic weaponry.

In 1509 Krishna Deva Raya the Great was coronated as supreme monarch of the coalition, under whose pious, yet militarily active reign, the Empire was expanded and the wonders of the city of Vijayanagar rose to their zenith. As the city’s fame spread Portuguese merchants and Persian emissaries came to exult Krishna Deva Raya in his court, and to chronicle the illustrious lives of his kings and priests. At the height of its glory there was no city in Europe that could be compared with its splendours, of which these 16th century letter writers left vivid first-hand accounts, a city, ‘which could not live without roses’. Their patrons in Lisbon, Venice or Baghdad wanted to hear how rich and heathen this fabled kingdom was, and how large and keen were its armies. Their eager scribes wrote of a multitude living in abundance amongst orchards and palm groves, colourfully worshipping a pantheon of gods at their grease-grimed cathedrals, with a royal court which could only be surpassed by Peking or Mughal Delhi for extravagant displays of pomp and wealth.

The fortress walls and towers, palaces and temples were all whitewashed with lime at the same time each year, but the thousands of figures carved around the pagoda spires were colourfully painted. Creating a delightful and orderly effect that lifted the living city in sharp relief away from the dun glacial debris it was founded amongst. There were stately avenues of palms beside cooling waterways, and in the squares shade trees spread their branches wide for pilgrim crowds to sit or sleep under. Every god was worshipped in temple complexes of their own, each requiring monthly and yearly festivals lasting for days. Then the streets filled with holy mendicants; some leading garlanded cows or bulls, as gaudy gypsies tugged along dusty bears or performing monkeys. Both sides of the roads leading into the city were packed with merchants’ displays of every imported commodity attracted by the rich trade of the South. After dusk the righteous painted priests would retire to their temples, spires lit with a thousand butter lamps, as performers of a different nature came out to glitter the warm evening pavements. Drummers leading dancing girls covered with jingling silver ornaments; courtesans with small harems of maids of honour to complete their favours for them; while at the darker end of the market penny harlots turned over a quicker trade. There were wild circus acts, oiled wrestlers in female as well as male pairs, archery and firework displays. But most splendid of all were the camp enclosures of the various kings who had united their wealth and armies to glorify and defend the city. Here were painted elephants draped in silk or velvet, with gem-studded harnesses holding castles on their backs from which up to nine archers could shoot. Their captains and troops competed in the outlandish uniforms and gold-plated bows they favoured: but when it came to war then the hordes of barefoot infantry were charged into battle wearing only a white loincloth and armed with a sword and shield.

Many of the temples still stand as witness to the ingenuity of their masons, with the finest and last of them to have been built being the musical Vitthala Temple. This artistic structure once vibrated with clear chimes as hundreds of columnettes have been cut in full relief from its granite pillars so that each gave a tuned note when struck. They are worn away and blackened with tourist curiosity now but one can still hear that they produce an harmonic scale. They surround a flat circular dancing stone upon which flimsily veiled girls danced on a carpet of rose petals; whilst orange-robed priests tinkled bells and wafted the sacred flame and scented smoke to the awakened idol viewing from within. Then all of the columns would have been struck with sticks in a noisy worship called arti, when the whole building could be heard ringing from its heart of stone. Whether this scene ever took place is questionable because after thirty-five years of carving the shrine was never fully completed or consecrated. But this was certainly the hour of play for which this theatre was intended.

The garrisoned city stood and served its purpose of halting the inevitable invasion coming down on the South for exactly two hundred and twenty-nine years, until in 1565 an elderly king was defeated on a battlefield thirty miles distant. The remainder of the royal family were the first to flee back in panic, to begin emptying their treasure vaults onto five hundred elephants as they retreated to re-establish their Empire further south. The local population, who were confident when they saw a million march out to battle, now saw them returning in blind disorder and realised that disaster was already upon them. In dread they buried what valuables they could not carry and fled the doomed city, as the surviving troops struggled back without the leadership or the will to man the fortifications. The first looting raids came from opportunist gangs and Lombani gypsies, until after three days of turmoil the vanguard of the invading Moslem army arrived. With a history to avenge of barbarities inflicted on them by successive Hindu kings, they were ordered to plunder and raze the stricken city for the next five months.

It was an orgy of looting in which any forceful man became as rich as the number of slaves he could capture to carry his treasure away for him. It had been a city of sin where one could buy almost anything, except a carcass of beef, now it lay broken beyond the spirit of effort required to repair it. The main demolition was targeted on the fortifications and palaces, and lastly on the dams and channels, so that thereafter the devastated site returned to the jungle and wild animals. Few dared to stay, except perhaps nomadic tribes, black hearted treasure diggers, and penniless wandering sadhus and recluses living in caves. Thus the area was left in superstitious neglect for the next three hundred and fifty years. When the British first came across the wide area they were wonderstruck as their men hacked a way further in through the thorns. They started some restoration and preservation work on the main archaeological site, and removed the remaining stone idols to their museums. To them it seemed a city that India had simply forgotten.

The Pampa river is now named after the rivers Tunga and Bhadra which join ten miles upstream where the large TB Dam has been built since Independence. Water channels have been re-cut along the previous courses and a far smaller inter-State population of settlers have built their farmsteads and fields amongst the scattered ruins. The site covers a dozen or more square miles and there are still many standing buildings, some of them turned into ready-carved wayside tea shops or cattle stalls. If they are lived in then they are whitewashed annually with thick lime, making their walls and stone beams smooth and frosty like icebergs. Others stand up like slender Greek pavilions showing themselves classically on the prehistoric skyline. The more elaborate shrines are now protected as World Heritage Monuments.

When the colonnaded Vitthala Temple was sacked a huge fire was built within which melted its copper roof and cracked its ceiling slabs. Today it is a tidy monument visited by thousands who do not hear the violence of those nights, as there is a surprisingly tranquil atmosphere amongst the prolific sculptures. Many western and local tourists come to visit, but after the cool season they find it muggy and tiring as the boulders hold the day’s heat and radiate it through to the next dawn. There are hundreds of stagnant rock pools, so that in the days of the British Raj this would have been deemed a decidedly feverish district. The majority of visitors are Hindu pilgrims from distant villages who save their money to hire a coach and fill it with as many souls as it can hold for a grand tour of the holy places of the South. With their communal cooking pots and firewood piled on the roof rack, they come mostly in monsoon when hire charges are reduced. Sometimes it is only the elders of the village who can afford the trip, having saved for years for this single pilgrimage. They have come to find Kishkindha, where the holy Pampa river swirled by enchanted groves where Ram met Hanuman, and they’ve heard little or nothing about Vijayanagar’s city which they find when they reach here.

Being semi-resident in India I knew that this inland district of Karnataka State has a reputation for a calmer monsoon. With the rains fast approaching I’d come on a third visit to Vali Kila looking for a room. The hill fort sits atop a remarkable piece of geology, where there is still a living shrine to the goddess Durga here. She is served by an energetic and eccentric Hindu sadhu who is pleased to have me work on the place and to write about him – which is the ongoing story.

The fort is on the wilder northern side of the river near the small town of Anegondi. The path up here follows along a sloping granite floor, the heights above precariously fringed with a dozen egg-shaped boulders weighing several tons each. Once the first of three castle walls is reached one must crawl through a low postern to follow a trail of arrows painted on a maze of boulders. A grassy path zigzags up to the main walls and gatehouse and inside them is a flat area surrounded by greenery of an enclosed amphitheatre tucked into the hillside. In the centre is a large old frangipani tree in front of the small temple of Durga. Doves and butterflies, the fragrant shade from the tree, and the spirit of the prettily painted temple all make this an especially peaceful place. The ‘baba’ I was about to meet sat presiding over a circle of sadhus smoking ganja in the traditional way.

I stayed an hour or two with Swami Subramaniam who lives here and daily serves the goddess. He is forty years old, of slight build, and handsomely dark skinned. He has longish black hair and beard, and is full of noise, energy and smiles. He’s always singing or shouting some of the thousand names of their gods, or making chai, chapatti, chillum – if not ordering a younger sadhu to do it. He wears only an orange waist-cloth, has few possessions and relies upon his piety, and others’ charity, to provide for everything else. All that he wants is brought up here for him, or if it isn’t then he pesters anyone available for it until it is. These babas do not mind scrounging, but will also share what they have. He speaks somewhat erratically in childish English and I will come to collect the stories of his eventful life. He’s a rogue, one can see that - he has too many scars, and the whites of his eyes have dimmed to the same shade of brown as his teeth through liver complaint and loose living.

The Swami has seen a good deal of the mountains, and of miracles too. I learn that he has been on many of the barefoot pilgrimage trails in the Himalayas, some of which I also know, and I tell him that I first came out to India twenty-one years ago and this is my seventh visit. I’ve wasted lots of time sitting with sadhus before, which pleases him as I have some understanding of their customs and language, and he is happy to have someone to help him run the place. He too has only recently arrived – the previous incumbent has gone on holy walkabout, but is due to return one day. Fortunately we can each supply what the other wants. He needs company and a caretaker to guard against ‘stealing boys’ while he is temporarily ‘out of station’, and my general work and drawings are an added bonus. Typically he enjoys the prestige of having a Westerner under his command. Whereas I need a room without enquiries, meals without the bother of running a household, and plenty of time to be left alone to write. This last necessity is certain to cause some grievance, as I have had to forfeit my usual independence. The task ahead is that I have a character full of stories, wit and improbabilities, who wishes me to write all about him. Indeed he’d be happy to allow me to paint him on canvas and sculpt him in black marble for you too. Confident vanity being his strongest point.

He assures me that all will be peaceful here. ‘No problem,’ spoken softly and alluringly is his favourite phrase for us Angrez. I have my doubts. It’s obvious that he considers I’m worth money in the bank, but my funds are much too small for his whimsical requests. He showed me an alternately baking or leaking concrete room which I can make my own, although I don’t relish creaking up from that stone floor each morning. The panorama from the door is set for a fantasia of hobgoblins in the tropics – it’s as old as anything can be, and everywhere it is inscribed with the graffiti of the gods. Right from the first two enquiring visits I felt an attraction to this beautiful hillside. Also the Goddess whose spirit roams the place at night seems happy for me to return. I feel privileged to be here and work on the place.

Finally, I must confess it for him, that the first man I have ever attempted to portray ... is a bit of a fibber. But I don’t suppose he’s a total liar as people who have done a lot with their lives don’t usually need to tell blinding stretchers to impress with. Unless they’re about miracles. Sadhus may be fakes, and I’ll tell more, but they live very real lives and the younger ones are by nature uncaringly adventurous. I’m somewhat apprehensive as I’ve had some unpleasant experiences of holy men on the roads. I usually prefer to keep faith from outside the temples, but this fort is too tempting – and this man does have his moments too.
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