KHAJURAHO OF MAHARASHTRA

Just like any other tourists who had taken a break from daily routine, we (i.e my husband, daughter, niece n my parents in law) set out for a five days holiday to nearby Kolhapur and surrounding areas. As was my routine I wasn’t satisfied with the usual places and started surfing the net and while surfing came across Khidrapur. What attracted my attention was that it had a lot of similarities to our own Tambdi Surla temple. Thus this became one of the important must see sight in my itinerary.

We left early in the morning the day after Diwali. Going via Belgaum, our first halt was the Kaneri math or Siddhagiri (this I will be dealing separately).
 Later on we visited the famous Ambabai temple and it was about four in the evening that we set out for Khidrapur. Now one thing I would like to mention is that this was the tour wherein my main intention was visiting Akkalkot. Since Kolhapur was on the way, I wanted to see all the places in between (that’s the advantage of going in your own vehicle J). According to the Google maps which were our constant companion throughout this tour, we headed towards Khidrapur.

Before I proceed further let me share one funny incident. I am not sure whether to call it funny but whatever.... when I decided to go on this tour and Akkalkot in specific, Narsobawadi, another famous temple belonging to Dattatreya incarnation was not on the list. I had already been there two three times before and once with my husband and I was sure he would not be too keen on going there again. So even though it was somewhere back in my mind I had not mentioned about it openly to my family particularly to my husband.

So here we were searching for a route to go to Khidrapur, check out the temple and proceed further in our journey. After much driving on the route shown by Google maps we still did not come across any signs or signboard which would take us on the correct route. Driving further for about a five to six kms we came across the signboard which said “NARSOBAWADI 11 KMS”. It was about six in the evening and was getting really dark. So suddenly my husband asked “shall we halt at Narsobawadi? It’s getting dark and there’s no signboard showing Khidrapur as such” I did not think even for a second of saying no. It was as if God (or was it travel Goddess?)was silently giving me what I actually needed....to be at Narsobawadi for a short period.” Yes, yes we can halt there and since its Thursday we would be also lucky to witness the aarti over there. “I replied. And thus it was decided to take a night halt at Narsobawadi and we moved in the direction of Wadi. Barely had we gone some two kms further, we came across the signboard “KHIDRAPUR KOPESWAR TEMPLE 8 KMS”. This incident left me wondering..... Was it Gods will that we be there in Narsobawadi for the night? Whatever it was, this was how we landed up in Narsobawadi which was never there in our list to begin with.

Now that we knew that Khidrapur was few kilometres away from Narsobawadi, we decided to visit it next morning. So next morning after having an early breakfast we left for the place. When we were travelling to this place I realized why it was necessary for me to see the temple early in the morning and not in the dim light of evening.

The road to the temple is very narrow and on the both sides covered with fields. In the early morning the atmosphere is quiet, calm and serene with the chirping of the birds. The road gets so narrow sometimes that it’s barely enough for one vehicle. If you were not careful the danger was that you could go off the road (Was this why we could not come here in the evening? I wondered).

We reached the temple at about 8.30 or so. The temple is situated on the banks of Krishna river on the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka. It depicts the Shilahara style of architecture.

At the first sight the temple gateway looks very simple as if it was a part of some old mansion. The ASI has put up a board describing the temple and proclaiming it as heritage architecture. Once you cross the threshold even then you find the temple very simple and start wondering what’s so special about this. It’s just like some ordinary carved temple. And then you go inside and see the carvings and slowly you realize what actually you had missed while forming the opinion.

We went in directly to the sanctum sanctorium. In the interior we first come across Vishnu in the linga form and then the shivalinga which faces north. Among all of us only I knew the story behind this temple and why we were seeing two shivalingas instead of one.

So now I decided to play the part of guide and started to tell the story of the temple to my husband. Suddenly a man came in front of us and asked” Tai, hya mandira baddalachi mahiti saangu ka mi? Chalel tumhala? ”(sister, is it okay with you if I tell you the story of this temple?). I had seen this person sitting in the courtyard of the temple while we were entering. He looked a local person and I was very happy to get to know the history from the local man himself(this is why I consider myself very lucky to have been blessed by travel goddess if there’s one. This has happened to me many times in my travels that some unknown person out of nowhere has come and explained the whole structure.). I readily agreed and this man showed us all the intricacies of the temple architecture which we would otherwise have missed.

 He started with the temple legend which is as follows:

When DakshaPrajapati, the father of Sati conducted a Yagna (fire sacrifice), he did not invite either Sati, his daughter or her husband Shiva to attend it. Nonetheless Sati decided to attend it and visited the house of her father on Shiva’s Nandi. Seeing her at the venue Daksha started insulting her as well as Shiva. Unable to bear the insults of her husband Sati jumped into the fire. When lord Shiva came to know about this, he was furious. In his anger he ordered Virabhadra to punish Daksha for his misdeeds. Virbhadra followed the orders of his master and cut the head of Daksha and brought the severed head before Shiva. Even then Shiva wasn’t pacified. He left the Kailash and with Sati’s corpse started roaming here and there. Lord Vishnu with his Sudarshan Chakra cut the body into many pieces. The pieces fell on earth and they became the Shaktipeethas. When Shiva realized that Sati was no more he, still in his angry form came to Khidrapur. It is said that Lord Vishnu then came to pacify him and was successful in doing so. Since Shiva was still furious when he came to this place, the temple is known as Kopeshwar Mahadev Temple. It has shivalinga and before the linga there is another linga which is worshipped as Vishnu, who came to pacify Shiva. Here Vishnu is known as Dhopeshwar.

This is probably the only temple where there is no Nandi, the vehicle of Shiva before the temple. (I am not sure though) The legend is he is still waiting for Sati in the nearby village of Yedur (some 5/6 km away from Khidrapur) to take her back to Kailash.

After narrating the legend he (his name was Ramesh) started showing us around the temple. The work of this temple started in 7^th Century A.D. but could not be completed because of the constant battles and invasions in this area. The temple was completed only in the 12^th Century by the Shilaharas and later on the Yadava kings who ruled over this part of Maharashtra. He first showed us the pillars and the carvings of various deities on them. There were not only the figurines of Ganesh and Parvati and Kartikeya but also of Vishnu, Indra, Brahma, Rama, Laxmana. Even Narada with his veena was present on the pillars.” Ikde ye ga choti” he suddenly said pointing to my niece” tula mi na ek gammat dakhavto” (I will show you something). The ‘Choti’ in question suddenly felt nervous. He took all of us to a corner pillar. There he pointed to a particular carving and asked ‘Choti, mala saang hi konti gosht aahe?”(Tell me which story is this?). Along with my niece we too looked at the carving with great interest. The carvings looked like that of a crocodile and a monkey on a tree. Suddenly I remembered, hey, it’s the story from Panchatantra that of monkey and crocodile’ “yes you are right” Ramesh said “and see here” He took us to the adjacent pillar “here’s the story of talking tortoise and the two birds.”Looking at the stories carved in the pillars I was really amazed. If not for Ramesh giving us a guided tour we would have surely missed that.

He then took us to the outer hall which is called as the swargamandap. There the architecture is simply superb. The swargamandap is round in shape and is constructed with the support of 48 carved stone pillars. Each of these pillars has different shapes. They are round,square, hexagon and octagon. Swargamandap is known so because of its unique ceiling. The circular ceiling in the middle is open to the sky. This area was probably used for the fire rituals and the smoke went directly out in the sky.

Coming out of the temple he continued, “The whole temple rests on the statues of 99 elephants. Some of them are now in distorted (bhagna) shape due to the invasions that took place. Still the temple survived. He took us around the temple. The windows of the temple were intricately carved with the flower design. “Look closely”, he said, “none of the flowers is similar to one another”.

        

                           

 The statues of Yaksha, Yakshinis, Gandhrvas, Shiv Parvati, Vishnu and Laxmi,Brahma and Saraswati adorn the outer sides of the temple. The dashavataras of Lord Vishnu is also seen carved among them. The female statues in the position of beautifying themselves for eg. Lady combing her hair, another lady looking in the mirror also can be seen.There is also a unique concept of Vishakanya carved throughout. (Vishkanya was the concept in ancient India where beautiful girls from the tender age were given some portion of poison to drink. By the time they grew up in beautiful ladies, they themselves became immune to the poison but were deadly for the enemies of the king. Their small bite could result in the instant death.)

 

 “How do you know which of the figurines are Vishakanya?”, my father in law asked. This question had also puzzled me. How did Ramesh identify Vishakanyas from so many female statues carved on the wall? “Look carefully,” he said “they are all carved nude.” Yes that was the thing. All other female statues be it the statues of goddesses or other female carvings all had either ornaments or a shawl like clothes carved on their body whereas Vishkanyas were carved bare.

Outside the temple there is also a stone inscription written in devnagri. However the state of this inscription is not good. The letters are faded and cannot be read probably because of many people touched it again and again without knowing its importance. This stone inscription needs to be preserved in a proper way.

There is also a ‘Veergal’ or Hero stone lying around in the temple courtyard. (Hero stone is a stone which has three parts; the bottom one depicts the battle in which the hero participates, the middle portion talks about his death and the upper portion shows him in worshiping position thereby depicting that he has reached heaven because of his brave deeds.) 

A broken statue was seen lying too. “This is the statue which was inside the temple first. He is one of the Dwarpals(gatekeepers) of Vishnu, ‘Jai-Vijay. Since the statue is mutilated it is kept over here.” Ramesh explained. It is said that the temple got partially destroyed during Aurangzeb’s invasion on Deccan. Our tour of the temple was coming to an end. We thanked Ramesh for his wonderful guidance about the temple. While back on the way I was left wondering, if it wasn’t for him we would have taken some 15 minutes or so to see this temple and would not have seen all the intricate details that were there to see. What was it that made us halt at Narsobawadi at night and come to this temple early in the morning? What was it that made Ramesh tell us the story behind the temple? Was it destiny? Till now I have not found the answers to these questions of mine.....But yes, looking at the intricately carved statues and ornamental pillars the temple is rightly called as the Khajuraho of Maharashtra.

HOW TO GO TO KHIDRAPUR;

Distance from Kolhapur to Khidrapur is approximately 58 kms.

Distance from Kolahapur to Narsobawadi  is approximately 48 Kms.

Distance from Narsobawadi to Khidrapur is approximately 18 kms.

It is better that you take a private vehicle to see the place.

There is no lodging or hotels in the vicinity of the temple.

If you reach there in the evening it is better to take halt at Narsobawadi which is about 18 kms from the place.

It is better to see the temple in the broad daylight instead of in the evening.