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  • Markazhi

The saga of the sun god

KONARK SUN TEMPLE

Surya thought…

each and every day she gazed at the red sun with growing passion..she conjured that power of morning sun into a red bindii spot on her forehead.

EASTERN STEPS TO BHOGAMANDAPA , BACKGROUND THE CONE OF SUN TEMPLE

A girl with golden anklets festooned with sunstone laces came into the Kalahandi valley to pluck flowers..she spots the radiance of the solitary plant bursting into large yellow flowers and remained serene..she

gets herself close to the plant and also croons consolations.” shall I have your bloom? The plant smoothly bends its neck. She plucks softly one She takes a deep puff pressing on the infinite disc flowers crowded together in the middle and gazes at the blazing sun. Sun’s infinite beams flood into her eyes.” Still, I admire you, I am born for you, only for you”

BHOGA -MANDAPA

As she reached the palace, she springs towards the flat shining brass vessel placed under the Sun. She stoops elegantly and takes a handful of Neelanchana fluid that reflected the bright sun. She coos sweetly..” now you are mine, oh sun god, mine alone. you cool little sun”.Each sunrise filled her soul with the warmth of sensuous feeling.

SUN TEMPLE ( JAGAN MOHANA OR PORCH)

She was used to loving me idolatrously from her childhood. The dazzling princess was Sanjana, Viswakarmav’s treasured daughter. so dear to me, showering me upon caresses. The princess represented the conscience aspect of the whole universe. She would ecstatically expose herself to the sweet thorny hugs of my blazing hands without flinching.

KONARK WHEEL

Viswakarmavu the master architect of the world came to realise this. He blessed me with his daughter Sanjana.

The sun god goes on moving across the sky. He thought..

PRANCING HORSES THAT DRAWS THE CHARIOT

A forest emerges in the sight along with fuming memories, Kalahandi a virgin forest, on the banks of TeL river, on the western slope Niyamgiri mountains. There canopied the fragrance of Elengi flowers that had bloomed along with full moonbeams. The forest brooks licked the fallen Elengi blooms off the musk oozing rocks of the forest. Sanjana stood beside him forever in the shadow of the fruiting fig tree. Her mellow body smelt the delicate evocative smell of white bitumen. She turned to me, the current of my existence was drawn towards the intoxicating radiance of her dark-rimmed eyes and sank into their depths as if a flower had fallen into a waterfall. The bewitching eyes drew my entire being towards it with inconceivable force. White bitumen flowers never got withered on our closely entangled branches. She became infinitely desirable for me, the moonlit night lay inebriated before us.

In the wheeling of years, we have been blessed with babies. Vaivasvata, Yaman and Yami.

BROKEN REHA DUEL OF THE TEMPLE

the sun thought ,

Everything changes even love. Sanjana feels as my scorching rays embalm her slender body with fire. She cavilled at the peak of summer. She keeps her body bedaubed with sandal paste procured from Kotaku forests, keeps herself immersed in chilling Kalahandi forest streams. She found My summer fuming heat as utterly unendurable to her. One day as I got back to the palace ..I couldn’t trace the splendorous life impressions of her. I realized that she had vanished emptying the palace. Sanjana created her Shade in the sacred fire conjuring up all the material grains of her., a soulless Sanjana. a soulless body in the shape of Sanjana treated me at the palace. Her name was Chaya or shade. Sanjana had handed over the responsibilities of a wife and a mother to Chaya before leaving the palace. I left the palace soon in search of Sanjana. as I reached on the suburbs of the woods I naturally felt attracted to it.

SUN GOD

The wood was silent, still and secret in the evening drizzle of rain, full of the mystery of seeds and half-open buds, half unsheathed flowers. In the dimness of it, all trees glistened my eyes started to scan the secret of Sanjana. There stood a mare gazing me. I could easily make out her. She was the night shining white mare. I transformed myself into a brown stallion.

TEMPLE SOUTH WEST CORNER

How still everything was! The fine rain blew very softly, filmily, but the wind made no noise. Nothing made any sound. The trees stood like powerful beings, dim, silent and alive. How alive everything was ..we fused again.

Her father the great architect reduced my splendour a bit. he designed. various deadly weapons of the gods, including Vishnu’s discus wheel, Shiva’s trident, Kubera’s club, and Karttikeya’s lance. From my e blazing fragments. Sanjana felt cool under my shade. she blessed me with twins Ashwini devakal and Revanta.

TEMPLE FROM EASTRN SIDE (SLIGHTLY NORTH)

Ages passed, the horizons stretched before me with infinite mysteries the recurring death and incarnation. The days went in order and peace, futilely seeking Karma, just another story without ”dying.” the eternal imprisonment of karma… I felt depressed in the cycleless life. As I reached the Utkala region of earth.. the Chandra Bhaga river was stealthy snaking in the plains of Utkala, I gently passed over the river mouth of Chandra Bhaga where it fades into Utkala ocean.

EASTERN WAY TO BHOGAMANDAPA

The sand on the bed was eloquent. Before she lay sweep of sea windswept water down to which she stood in groin deep water. The water was completely bare-faced, I could see the sand beds from which the plant with blue lotus stemmed. I could see stretching her tender arms towards the sky.. a pristine white conch in one hand, rendering Gayathri mantra with her quivering lips.’ H noer curly hair sticks to her head after the fresh dip in the river.”’ oh sun god enlightens our intellect.” I felt a hand extend towards my mouth and

spooning a soothing theertha into my mouth as my mother did in childhood.

SUN TEMPLE SOUTH WEST VIEW

Gayathri manthra went on,

A fine powder fuming from my last golden beams filled the air and caressed the cheek with a tingle in its touch, I felt a whiff of the maiden bursting of coral jasmine. My seven colours continued to grow unplaited. My violet fingers longed to fruit her the luscious wines to the infinity. My Indigo hue has already penetrated her translucent skin beneath the slid uthareeyam and evolved ornamental work of tattoo. Blue colourised her eyes with ultramarine. My yellow flames licked on swelled gourds, and red beams set her budding more and more.,.Orange fire spread like a backdrop.

I sought refuge in her awesome cosmic self, to discover my twin hood aspect of the female.

THE 24 WHEELS OF 24 H0URS

” oh beloved I may lift you into the marvellous seventh sky, our flowers bloom there with ever-fading smell where music springs from the mellowest clouds, where the birds were all coloured in mysterious hues and the fragrances were coloured. It is a world where life moves in delicious inertia, never dull, and the skies scarcely ever grey.”

TEMPLE WALLS OF SCULPTURAL BRILLIANCE

She gazed with half-opened eyes, her blue eyes gradually grew blazed with shock and terror,” Oh, no…I would like to remain as a pure virgin, I am a sage’s daughter.”

The fire within me had seventy flames, not seven. No, not seventy, not seventy thousand. It was as if the one who performed the sacrifice desired to be offering, the fire I had a sudden desire to rush into her.

A scream penetrated into the twilight silence..

EASTERN WAY TO BHOGAMANDAPA

Chadra Bhaga shoved off and plunged into the abyss of river mouth.

She was not the wavering river water but the pure water within the pristine conch shell. The whole river of Chandra Bhaga vanished mysteriously promptly. The water shrinks into the river mouth, Thus pond of Chandra Bhaga was formed..”

The menacing dusk passed on into a many- mysteried night. I was marooned in the sin of floodwaters. The pure crystal of a sage is deliberately broken. The language of pain had no script, no phonemes only infinite pain.. the river of primordial sin set flowing.

FROM BHOGAMANDAPA VIEW OF ENTRANCE

”You came here just to sleep away the enchanting hours.”Mani reminded We got to stay in the lodge opposite to Chandra Bhaga beech ” you spoiled my dream”, I set on to narrate the dream. The guide fully immersed in the stuff of my dream awakened and said ..”chalanthu..” means you walk.

Three of us came frolicking towards Chandra Bhaga beech”.It is believed that Lord Surya, in regret, blessed the river with medicinal properties and named it as ‘Chandra Bhaga’.

TEMPLE FROM SOUTHERN SIDE

”When we take a dip in Chandra Bhaga river mouth, on the seventh day of Magha month, you may feel, cold crystals blooming all over your body. Your body and mind get rejuvenated. when devas commit sin, we humans are benefitted.”The guide exclaimed.

TEMPLE NORTH EAST VIEW

” the guide continued .” the daughter of the sage Chandra Bhaga was canonised as a martyr who preserved her chastity without yielding to the sun god, The sun in deep regret blessed the river mouth of Chandra Bhaga with rejuvenating properties..”It is believed that a dip in River Chandrabhaga can cure leprosy. Prince Shambhala, the son of Lord Krishna, was treated of leprosy by Lord Surya on the river mouth of Chandrabhaga.”

Mani procured three tickets from the ASI counter and we rushed towards the entrance counter discarding the sights in curio shops set in either rows and lottery vendors. Be quick, it closes by twilight.”

BRICK TEMPLE VAISHNAVA TEMPLE, CHHAYA TEMPLE VIEW NOTH WEST ANGLE

The architectural marvel remained moving on the twelve pairs of magnificently carved wheels on the grass floor ..pulled by seven galloping horses.we focused from the north east side…we felt that it was moving eastwards in the slightly falling mist.the wheels moved across the green pastures infinitely.a journey of many lives..the way stretched before him becoming infinite spanning sunrises and sunsets ..the best ever conceived idea that portrays a temple in a moving style !!!!

SUN TEMPLE FROM NORTH EAST ANGLE

The main characteristics of the Orissa style are primarily two: the deul or the sanctum housing the deity covered by a shikhara, and the jaganamohana or the assembly hall.the deul is broken away ,but the assembly hall is preserved, The assembly hall has a pyramidal roof built up by a secession of receding platforms known as pidhas. Both structures are squares internally and use a common platform. rekha duel is the male temple, where as pidha deul the female one, which is the main temple conceived as a moving chariot The other stuctures here’s the bhogamandapa.When we gaze them..we may get lost into the infinite cocoon of stony human beings with bathed feverish passion ..

“oh here dwells your character in dream Chhaya, guide said,though the texts describe it as mayadevi temple wife of surya lets continue tomorrow,,its the closing time.

MAYADEVI TEMPLE ( CHHAYA TEMPLE)

The deuls of sun-god seem at sunrise to be cones of pink light. At sunset they look like black triangles against the illuminated sky.

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