Kazhugumalai - Jain bas reliefs

Continued from here.

December 18, 2009

After the wonder of the Vettuvan kovil, I did not think that I would be further surprised that day. As the others hung around the temple, chatting and laughing excitedly, I got into one of my solitary wandering moods and clambered further up the rock.

An ASI guard sat chewing on a grass, smiled and pointed to a brick structure up the hill. "Ange mattu poyittu paarunga maa, Jaina murthigal irrukkum".

Oh, ok, that seemed an interesting thing to check out I thought, and so off I went up the hill. I followed the crude signs that said "Jain carvings" and soon I was much further up, looking down on the hill. I spied the top of the Vettuvan kovil, the fields and farms, but not one eagle.

Kazhugumalai - the abode of eagles, thats where I was, but there wasn't an eagle in sight. I looked up and saw a shikra circling for a while before it lost interest and zoomed off.


A rickety gate past which I stepped and this is what I saw!



I stepped a little closer, crunching through the fallen leaves, and took a closer look through the ficus branches that swept low, growing unhindered and wild up here.

What a sight it was - row upon row of seated monks!

Some of the decorative motifs were beautiful, but it made no sense to me. Why were they all lined up on the wall like this? What were those squiggly, Tamil-looking inscriptions at the bottom saying? Why were there some, more elaborate friezes and what were the stories they were recounting?

So many questions, and Prof Venkatraman was still below at the Vettuvan kovil! They would make their way up here eventually I knew, so I wandered some more.

I was horrified by this ugly white wall hiding some of the bas reliefs behind it.

Maybe its considered graffiti, the better to hide? Or maybe we just have so much around us that we just dont appreciate it?

I ruminated on this, and walked further on and above. A path beckoned, and on an impulse I climbed. It was a way used to reach the top of the hill.

Rough steps were hewn in the rock, wild grasses grew alongside, and the breeze blew cheerily in my face, threatening to send my cap soaring across the rock!

It was a silly thing to do, in retrospect, wandering off amidst uneven stones and up a path where I could so easily have twisted my ankle or lost my balance trying to hang on to cap, bag, camera and binoculars!

I was rewarded for my efforts by a line of bee eaters on the wire, swinging with the breeze. A warbler of some sort took off in alarm at my intrusion, and I had this lovely panoramic view below me.

It was time to head back and my descent down was somewhat nerve wracking given the treacherous nature of the path and the sudden dawning that I was alone! I made it back to the Jain bas-relief rock face to find the other members assembled there. I sauntered the last few metres trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, (but then everyone who knows me will realise my physical difficulty in being unobtrusive!) since I didn't want to be berated for having gone off! I almost managed - but drat it, that ASI guard (remember the grass-chewing one who had sent me on my way?) remarked rather loudly, "Amma yenna mele mattum poyittu varingala, ungalai pathen". To my relief, the others were engrossed in Prof V's explanations and I skulked back in!

I learnt that Kazhugumalai was a seat of Jain learning in centuries past, and these carvings date to around 800 AD. Did you know there are some hundred Jaina sites in Pandya country? And Kazhugumalai has probably the largest collection of inscriptions and carvings?!

The "squigglies" are called Vattezhuttu (Tamil: வட்டெழுத்து vaṭṭeḻuttu) - the precursors to modern Tamil/Malayalam.

The presence of the writing is all very helpful, I was given to understand. The writing informs us that there were jain monks called battarars who lived in the caves. It was a place of worship, but also a place of learning and a monastery. Male teachers are referred to as kuravars and the female teachers (yes, there were female nuns and teachers) as kurathi.

There are more than hundred inscriptions in Kazhugumalai. For the most part they seem to be sponsorship announcements. "This bas relief was sponsored by such and such merchant in honour of so and so who died ...",etc etc. See, capitalism, advertising and media way back then!

By far the largest donor seems to be Pandya king Maran Sadayan, who has donated towards 17 bas-reliefs. "Stories in Stone" is an interesting article, which gives more details.

The Jains believe that there are 24 tirthankaras, in the current time cycle, with Mahavira being the last.

So the bas-reliefs are of the tirthankaras, sitting on open lotuses. From what I gathered, the more elaborate ones were the more important tirthankaras.

Isn't the one on the right exquisite? If you click on the picture and zoom in, you will see there are little lions in the slab on which he is seated. There are dancing maidens in the trellis work above, and right above is Indira on Airavatham flanked by warriors on horses.

And here is Parasnatha the teerthankara with the yakshi Padmavathi by his side. He is the 23rd one and is always shown with a snake hood. Protecting him above is a yaksha Dharnendra, and bowing before him is Kamdan who had wanted to kill him. Legend goes that he saved two snakes from the fire and blessed them with the navkar mantra before they died. Those two snakes became yaksha/yakshi and watch over him.

And I thought this one was Mahavira, but I may be mistaken...in the deep fog of memory, I thought I remember some mention of the top knot and the elongated ears as being characteristic of Mahavira...

Indra on Airavatha is very prominent here.

I wonder...if the donor gave more, was there more embellishment, more adornments and more figures?

Anyway, the Kazhugumalai story would be incomplete for me without a narration of the legend of Ambika yakshi.

There was a lady called Ambika, who had prepared food for her husband's ancestors. The husband steps out on some work, and a hungry monk visits, and she gives him the food. In those days, this was definitely a no-no. So, when hubby comes back and learns about this, he is enraged and drives her out of the house.

She is despondent, seeks out the monk and goes and cries to him. Its a bit unclear as to what happens now. One version says the monk asks her to return to the husband and that she is so terrified at the prospect that she commits suicide along with her 3 kids. They all become yakshis. Ambika yakshi is the attendant to the 22nd tirthankara Nemminatha.

But Ambika pines for her husband and Indra says, alright go and live with him. Now the ungrateful man her husband on learning that she's a yakshi demands to see her powers. So she does, dazzling him with her true yakshi self, he is stunned and frozen and she converts him into a lion!