KALINGER (illustrated)
Getting to Kalinger was a major drama. I had gone with Kalidas to Ajaigar and enjoyed the old temples on the mountain there, but the further trip to ancient ruins in Kalinger seemed much more difficult than it had first seemed. There was no public transport there at this time, so it seemed we would have to hire his friend's motorbike. Although his friend in Ajaigar was willing to do this relatively cheaply, it was still going to cost a lot more than I had expected this side-trip to, and I was running short on funds. He told me their was thick wild jungle out there, as well as the ruins, and this was something I wanted to see.
But then reports also came in from locals that it was apparently dangerous to go there lately, one of the reasons there were no longer buses. There were groups of wild bandits living like animals out in the jungle, and these had killed 11 people that year upon their visitations to the temple ruins.
I wanted to go anyway, there was potential danger everywhere in India anyway, and damn the cost, I had come this far and wanted to see some real Indian jungle, and some more ancient temple ruins.
So I agreed to fork out the extra money for the motorbike. After the usual unexplained delays and rigmaroles, it was only when we were actually preparing to depart that I discovered Kalidas' friend (not the bike-owner but another one) was also coming along. I questioned this but was told it made the trip more worhwhile, so I surrendered to the three of us squished onto the back of the motorbike. Perhaps I would have protested if I had realized what we were in for?!...
Soon we were bumping along an old road, dodging numerous potholes at a speed that seemed quite absurd in realtion to the condition of the road. I was already saddlesore by the time we hit a dirt rather than bitumen back-road, then it got worse. Because the three of us were squished into the little seat, my tailbone was bashing and grinding against the metal piece keeping me (barely) onboard at the back, as we bumped and shook along the loose gravelly road. The trip seemed to go on and on and even though the countryside was nice I got pretty sick of the pain and despite numerous adjustments and a few stops to stretch and swap positions, it was still pretty strenuous for someone not used to even normal bike-riding.
Eventually we veered off up the side of a small mountain, with stone walls like battlements lining its top edge.We turned away from these however and across the flat top of the mount, until we arrived at the ruins of an old palace in the middle of nowhere. We stopped to have a look, rested from the sun in its shade for a while...
Then we continued on, until we arrived at a larger set of ruins. They were in very bad shape, stretching around us, with a central square pool in the rocks below us. This was full of water rife with an almost flourescent green furry algae. From a sign I discovered that this place was called Kalinger not after Kali as I had thought, but after Kala, the God of Time, whose decay had quite obviously ravaged what little remained of the buildings here. I looked around for a while, as did Kalidas' friend. But Kalidas (who had been here before) stayed by the bike -he wasn't feeling so well. He stressed that we should be quick, as their were known to be murderous 'roobers' in the area...
These ruins weren't particularly impressive, similar to the ones at Ajaigar but not as good, although covering a larger area. The small shrine closest to us, although in a locked cabinet, had fresh flowers on the stone Shiva-lingam -so someone had obviously been worshipping there recently.
After a look around I returned to the bike. Kalidas was impatient, 'Come on, we have to go!'
I asked if that was it, that was all there was to see here? It hadn't seemed quite worth the strenuous and expensive trip. He said yes, and obviously just wanted to get going. He expressed anxiety about the danger of the area. I asked about the dense jungle he had promised, and he gestured vaguely around us. It was kind of scrubby and dry, no really big trees. I imagined it would have been more impressive at other times of the year when there were leaves on the trees and all, but it still wouldn't have been the thick rainforesty jungle I had been anticipating. I questioned this but apparently that was as dense as it got in this area, Kalidas had never seen thicker jungle than this so didn't understand my disappointment. I later found that the jungle only got thick further north, up in Dharamsala and other places in the Himalayas.
He just wanted to go and began to get angry when I insisted that having come all this way I wanted to see more, to at least explore the jungle a bit. I said I'd just go for a walk if they wanted to stay there. 'I told you its dangerous!' he shouted, 'There's tigers and roobers! Do you want to die?'
I said I'd take the risk, I wanted to at least have a small walk now I was here.
He obviously felt some responsability for my welfare as he begrudgingly told me to get on the back of the bike behind his friend. He took off at great speed, apparently fueled by rage and perhaps fear, and I wondered if this was a viable idea after all?
We stopped a little way along a track through the forest and he stopped, shouted, 'There! Happy?' gesturing at the dry scrub. 'Okay, so there's not much to see here,' I resigned. He took off again abruptly, really pissed off, and I thought that was it, we were going to begin the arduous three-on-a-bike trek back to Ajaigar now...
Instead we zoomed along another back-track and he pulled up only a few minutes later at a pair of stone gates. Stretching behind them was the battlement-like walls I had seen from the bottom of the mountain. We dismounted and I went in; Kalidas was feeling unwell so his friend also stayed with the motorbike and him. I went down a little cobbled path and was awed to see a whole temple complex stretch out before me, perched on the steep mountainside.
As I made my way down, I was stunned by the detailed carvings along a wall of stone. The dominant figure was akin to Kali - severe, tongue dangling, necklace of skulls, surrounded by flames and bones, holding a noose- but obviously male as most evident by a prominently erect phallus. MahaKala! Here was the Lord of Time (and thus Death) Himself, whom I had done so much work with just before leaving Australia.
Praside praside
Hrim hrim svaha!'
I walked slowly down to the main temple complex, where the cliffs-edge path widened into a large area dominated by a central structure of stone pillars. Monkeys clambered over it frenetically as I approached, some with swollen pink breasts nursing their fragile-looking young.
There were ten or so people within this pillared temple courtyard, eating and talking. They were friendly and I exchanged greetings but didn't feel like chatting. I was totally entranced with this beautiful and ancient place, and moved on into the inner sanctum, a large cavern in the side of the mountain that the pillared courtyard seemed to be the gateway to, clanging the large brass bell as I entered. It resonated eerily through the dimly-lit cavern.
Within was a stone lingam as tall as me, that appeared to be a natural stalacmite rising up from the cave floor. Mineral-laden drops were still dripping down onto in from a smaller stalactite above, and chrystalizing on its tip. Carved into the side of this mighty ling was a rudimentary face, with a gaping mouth-hole that from the residue around its round opening seemed to have been stuffed with sweets and other offerings.
Touching the cold damp surface of the stone, I prayed to Shiva and to Mahakala, His ultimate form as Lord of Time and Eternity.
A narrow passageway at the edge of the cavern led up to another, smaller chamber a little further along the mountainside. Therein, as my eyes slowly adjusted to the dense darkness, I was totally awed by the larger-than-life stone statue that was slowly revealed to me. Like the near-flat stone relief I had seen on first arriving at this place, but in full three-dimensional form and impressive scale: MahaKala, eyes staring, pointed tongue protruding slightly amidst sharp teeth, necklace of skulls, various weapons in His many hands, and a stone lingam arcing vigorousy upwards from between His great legs. This was no abstracted featureless lingam but a fully-rendered realistic member, so unusual in modern India and obviously from a time when the intensities of life and death were not veiled but expressed in all their raw and primal splendour.
I performed a short puja in the cave, realizing as I did so the wonderful ironies of being here now: I had wanted to visit another Kala temple in the next state over, an apparently impressive though relatively modern one Yamunagiri had told me about. I had wanted to go there and had almost cut short my explorations of this state of Madya Pradesh so I could go there; then had relaxed, decided to take my time with my travels, see fewer places more thoroughly rather than just darting over the surface of many. ...And so instead I now found myself here, not even having known there was a temple of Mahakala here -the Lord of Time itself- and one far older and probably more magical than the one I had 'missed'...
And then there was all the drama around coming here -Kalidas' anxiety, his fear of murderous robbers. The journey to the shrine of Death deified, the Great lover of Kali the black mother -the very cycles of timemit engraved in ancient stone. A shiver shot up my rippling spine. I had no doubt that my obsession with this God and His domains of mortality and immortality, so deeply delved into just before I came to His mythic homeland, had led me here...
Here is a drawing I recently completed (upon return to Australia) that I began later in my Indian travels, in Dharamsala. In it I have combined the Tibetan form of MahaKala with the HIndu form, three-legged as He traditionally has one foot in the world, one in space, and one in the underworld. Rather than just wearing and bearing skulls and the skull-cap bowl of the Aghora, I have combined him somewhat with the Vodoun Lord of Sex and Death, Ghuede, and depicted His entire form as a skeleton, yet dancing with all the vigour of short stark life, his phallus releasing the elixir which is MahaKala, the great Kala or emission from the yoni of Kali, and with-which to Her dark embrace he reTurns only to be begotten anew...
Orryelle's Travel Journals
Text and Images (c)05 Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule