Sun Comes Every Morning Riding A Chariot Drawn By A Thousand Horses

Where The Sun Reigns By: Sudhamahi Regunathan 

SUDHAMAHI REGUNATHAN returns from the Konark temple with lots of empathy for the Sun God

Everytime the temperature soars, we all pray for the clouds to burst forth and hide the sun a little in their thick black blankets. But a visit to the Konark Sun Temple in Orissa makes you feel empathetic towards the radiant hot sun.

According to mythology, the Sun God sets forth every day, riding a chariot drawn by a thousand horses. In Konark, the sun’s chariot is drawn by seven horses. The temple — built in the 13th century by King Narasimhadeva I — looks like a chariot. The alignment of the temple is on the East-West direction. The chariot sets out early in the morning and you can see Pravhata Surya, the morning sun, poised majestically in full control of his steeds.  

Time moves on and each quarter of the day is depicted in the three different faces of the temple. The figure in the western side is the Madhyanha Surya or the mid-day sun, standing with full vigour and personality. As you move on, you come to Astachala Surya, or the evening sun. Tired and worn out, the sun is preparing to go to bed. It is a touching sculpture for it looks so real and human!

If there is something you must do soon, it is to visit Konark, whatever the temperature. The reason is simple: the temple is falling apart due to negligence in the past.

The huge oxidised and weathered ferruginous sandstones, which make the building, were once held together by a huge magnet, weighing 52 tonnes, placed at the top making its peak. All the joints below were held in place with huge iron plates which can be seen even today. When the magnet at the top was removed, the necessary tension required to hold the pieces of stone together weakened and they started collapsing. It is said that the idol of the presiding deity used to float in air because of the unique arrangements of the magnets.

Whatever remains today is also quickly falling apart. Being close to the seashore, the iron plates that lie between the stones are corroding fast due to the salty sea breeze. And so a piece of art is crumbling even as we watch it, helplessly.

And who removed that magnet? The story goes that the effect of the magnet was so strong that it disturbed the ships’ compasses as they passed by the coast. To save their trade and their ships, the Portuguese took away the lodestone.

That vision of the floating deity can only be imagined, but even today, the first rays of the sun enters through one door in the morning and through another adjacent door in the evening.

The Konark temple has three parts: the main sanctum, the bhog mandir or the dining hall, and the natt mandir or the dance hall, where the temple dancers used to pay homage to the Sun God. All these three buildings stand in the same complex though separate from each other and all three are in varying states of ruin. The temple is listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.

Why then must you visit a temple where no worship takes place and which is in different stages of ruination? Because ruins have the taste of old wine and the mystery of the unknown. As you add the stories together, which range from naughty and raunchy expressions to exquisite tribhanga dance poses, from the highly mundane to the sacred, from the present to the past, you live another life.

A huge gate welcomes you to a long walk. The first majestic structure that you come across is the dancing hall which has sculptures of dancers and musicians all around it. Needless to say, the sculptures are intricately carved. They show characters — mainly feminine — playing different musical instruments and dancing. The Odissi dance form that we see today has borrowed heavily from these figures. It must have been a pleasure to dance in such an exquisitely designed hall.

The outer walls of the sanctum have some explicit sculptures, and even on the wheels, there is a description of the activities that take place at different times of the day and they do not stop at being suggestive. The reason for this is given differently by different people.

Many scholars say that the temple which is thrown open to everybody today was once a preserve of the royalty and the elite. The complex was a forum where artists displayed their prowess by sculpting remarkable figures. The reason for crossing over from exotic to the erotic in the sculptures, they say, is to show the futility in engaging in the pleasures of the senses.

The first tier of sculptures tends to be more erotic. The second tier of sculptures shows the arts while the third tier shows the divine persona. It is necessary to move upwards and only when you have reached that stage where your attention is focused on the divine, are you eligible to enter the sanctum.

As you stand in the precincts of the only temple where the deity is always and physically looking down at you, it becomes irrelevant why such figures were carved. What remains is an ode to beauty. And beauty, they say, lies in the eyes of the beholder; so does its understanding.

A Grateful Samba
Krishna’s handsome son Samba once ridiculed sage Narada. To teach him a lesson, Narada tricked Samba into entering the pool where his stepmothers were bathing. When Krishna heard where his son was, he cursed him with leprosy. Realising later that the boy had been tricked, Krishna asked him to worship the Sun God, the healer of all diseases. After 12 years of penance at Konark, Samba was cured of his affliction. Delighted, he erected a temple on the spot.

The Wheels
The Konark temple complex was designed as the Sun God’s huge chariot drawn by seven spirited horses on 12 pairs of exquisitely decorated wheels at its base. Each wheel has eight spokes. Of the 24 wheels, six are on either side of the main temple, four are on each side of the Mukhashala and two wheels are on each side of the steps at the eastern front. The wheels signify 24 hours of a day and the spokes signify prahars, or three-hour periods of a day.