My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
It is impossible to
miss the Tungabhadra, especially at Anegundi. The shortest way to get there is
to cross the river by a boat or coracle, and most of the places there are
located somewhere along the river. The last place we visited at Anegundi was on
our way back to Hampi after visiting the Pampa Sarovar. We crossed a makeshift
bridge made of fallen pillars laid across a stream merging into the
Tungabhadra, and climbed up a hillock which would take us to a point right
opposite the ghats of Hampi. On the way, we were told, was the cave where the
monkey king Sugriva lived. We briefly entered the cave through the temple-like
structure built at the entrance before moving on to other, more interesting
things….
As we walked towards
the river from the hill, we saw many more temples along the route. They were
being renovated, so we couldn’t enter any. I wonder what they will look like
once the renovation is completed!
The river was visible
from a distance all the time… especially the huge stone pillars which once held
the only bridge to have spanned this river. (Recently, efforts were made to
build a new bridge, but environmental and heritage activists opposed it on the
grounds that since the entire city was a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a modern
bridge would mar the ancient beauty. Work went on, regardless, till a part of
it fell into the river. That put an end to the bridge, at least for now!)
Incidentally, the makeshift
bridge we had walked across earlier was made of some of these pillars; thankfully,
they at least didn’t have any carvings on them!
We crossed the river by
a coracle, but had to walk some more to get to the ghats where our driver was
waiting. Here are some sights from the path along the Tungabhadra….
We finally reached the
ghats, and walked towards the road…. Here, the path was paved by more stones…
many of them found here... it is not uncommon to walk on rocks with markings, and
we wondered what these were…..
Our guide pointed
towards one of the stones on the floor and said, “Look, it’s a stone dagger!”
Indeed, it did resemble one! It was fun to look for shapes on the flooring!
The path would lead us
to the road, and thence on to the other places on our itinerary.
It was time to
bid goodbye to Hampi and Anegundi, and this was probably the best place for it!
As we stood facing the river, on one side, we could see the spire of the
Virupkasha temple, and on the other, the boulder covered hills of Anegundi.
The
river had flown quietly for years while kingdoms had come and gone, as an empire
lay forgotten under rubble, and as time went past! The river continued to flow
as people came from all over the world to see what was left of one of the
greatest empires in India, and indeed, I wondered what the river would see in
the future after we were all gone! This brings me a full circle. I began this
series with a post on the rocks and boulders – Stones do speak – and I complete
the series with this post on the river. These rocks and the river are, after
all, the constants through the passage of time! What a story it would be, if
only they could speak, or rather, if only we could hear them!
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Very detailed Info.. Nice posts. I had recently been to Hampi, loved the place...
ReplyDeleteBelow blog is on my Experience in Hampi..
http://relivingmyfavouritemoments.blogspot.com/search/label/HAMPI-ANEGUNDI-KUDALASANGAMA-BADAMI-AIHOLE-PATTADKAL