16.03.24

We visited Mamallapuram yesterday.  Excuse me if I’m not overly coherent or particularly eloquent (even had to ask Rod for that word).  I’m running on less than 5 hours sleep.  Anyway, the tour was excellent.  We first visited one of Hinduism’s holiest cities, Kanchipuram.  The seven holy cities of Hinduism are:

1- Varanasi (associated with Shiva)
2- Haridwar (where the Ganges River enters the plains from the Himalayas)
3- Ayodhya (birthplace of Rama… but interesting that Ayutthaya in Thailand makes the same claim?)
4- Mathura (birthplace of Krisna)
5- Dwarka (legendary capital of Krisna, thought to be off the Gujarat coast)
6- Kanchipuram (the great Shiva temple)
7- Ujjain (site, every 12 years, of the Kumbh Mela)

In Kanchipuram, only Hindus were allowed to enter the main worship area of most temples, but there were plenty of wall carvings for us to view in the outer hall.  The tour included breakfast and lunch which were both enormous Tamil thalis.
 
The tour also featured a (commissioned) stop at a sari-making shop, actually located at the centre of a weaving community.  Although I didn’t intend to, I purchased a dusty-rose coloured silk sari woven with gold thread.  The cost for me seemed incredibly good-value ($35 CDN), but my extravagant purchase caused quite a stir amongst our Indian companions on the tour.  I would imagine that such a purchase, even for a middle-class family, would not be made lightly.  I feel terrible as I have no real occasion on which to wear it, though hopefully if I can get the blouse sewn in Bombay, I can wear it once in India before we go.  The (convincing) shop clerk told me that the best way to maintain a sari is to wear it often.  He also showed us a hand-made weaving loom (being operated by a young man).  His shop sources out good weavers from within the community, then has a loom built in their home and commissions them to produce patterns for saris (scarves, etc).  So far, the community’s livelihood is also being safeguarded by government funding to prevent mechanization of the traditional art.
 
We spent yesterday afternoon in Mamallapuram visiting the Five Rathas (including what is said to be the finest elephant carving in all of India), the magnificent Shore Temple which is a World Heritage Site, and a brief stop at my personal favourite carving, the largest bas relief in the world, Arjuna’s Penance.  These carvings, some enormous temples carved from a single stone, date to the Pallavas (and possibly earlier) of the 6th and 7th centuries AD.  We whisked through them briefly, which was unfortunate, to end the day boating on a narrow river.  The boatman had a reckless sense of humour and enjoyed making the children (+Sue) terrified by rocking the boat close to the tipping point.  Our final stop was at “Universal Kingdom”, Tamil Nadu’s version of Disneyland, although much more interesting as it included “The Silent Man”, a statuesque figure in full traditonal dress who lunges suddenly at anyone who tries to provoke him out of his immobile state.  From the park, we spent a little time at the seashore catching the late afternoon breeze.
 

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