Padharo mhare des.... The Temples at Kiradu

Padharo mhare des.... series

A'DOOR' the 'DOORWAY'

The Temples at Kiradu

The Temples at Kiradu

Deep in the Thar Desert and very close to the border with Pakistan in the state of Rajasthan lies the tiny village of Kiradu. This is an otherwise nondescript place but for the discovery of the ruins of at least 5 exquisitely carved temples. The inscriptions found there are dated to the 12th century though some archaeologists date the building of the temples themselves to the 11th century. Consensus is that they were built by the vassals of the Chalukyas. An 1178 CE inscription describes the renovation of the temples after the 'Turushkas' damaged it. Turkic invaders from the Ghurid clans led by Mohammed of Ghor came rampaging through these regions but were defeated at the battle of Kasahrada in 1178 CE. Either then or later, these outstanding works of art were mercilessly destroyed .... it pains to behold the ruthless and wanton destruction as will be evident in the pictures that follow.

A closer look at the broken shikhara...

Kiradu also boasts of a ghost story. One among the many told in Rajasthan. It went like this... After the desecration of the temples by the Ghurid invaders, the King Someshwara invited a Sage to help protect his kingdom. While the sage was away, the local villagers did not take care of his unwell disciple except a potter's wife. On his return, the livid sage cursed the village and turned everyone to stone except the lady. She was told to go away from the village and not turn back. A weak moment saw her turning around to see her village for the last time and was turned into stone at the edge of the village, where she stands to this day! So powerful is the belief in this story that no one stays the night here even today for fear of being turned to stone!

The most famous and elaborately carved of these temples is the one dedicated to the Hindu God Someshwara. Tales from the puranas and the Hindu epics as well as court scenes and scenes of war are depicted here. The quality of workmanship as well as the plentiful erotica have led it to be called the Khajuraho of Rajasthan! Some examples...

A closer look at the theatre of war scene running as a base to the larger sculptures above ...

There is even a very cute panel probably showing the vanara (monkey) army from the epic Ramayana!

And another of the famed 'Samudra Manthan' (churning of the ocean) from the Puranas...

The entrance to the sanctum is brilliantly and finely carved!

A sample inscription from the temple... there are more but they are all in varying states of decay. 

And last, but not the least, a perfectly proportioned small shrine... shunned for not being perfect, but still standing tall... bearing it's badge of courage and resilience over the ages.. Silent yet Proud!

BIRDING IN RAJASTHAN

We had been wanting to do the tour of Royal Rajasthan for a very long time. So, when we finally got down to planning our trip, we were eager not to miss out an inch of the place, little realising that Rajasthan cannot be done in 9 days... and that was all we had. Therefore, we decided to do the south and west of the place namely Mount Abu, Udaipur, Ranakpur and Jaisalmer via Kheechan all based from Jodhpur.

We reached Jodhpur by train in the afternoon, and the heat hit us immediately. So what that it was only March, it was quite hot and took us a couple of days to get used to. Our first sightseeing trip was to Jaisalmer and I insisted that we take the detour from Phalodi to Kheechan hoping to get a glimpse of the dainty Demoiselle cranes which come to this place in their thousands from as far as Southern Europe! We were not disappointed. Though there were the stragglers remaining, we were ecstatic to finally see the beautiful creatures and we spent a couple of hours there just absorbing the beauty and peace of the place.



The little pond there not only attracts the cranes, but the other wintering birds like the common and ferruginous pochards, the common teals, little grebes, the black winged stilts, spot billed ducks, northern shovellers, numerous sandpipers, marsh, green, common, etc.

The Gadsisar lake at Jaisalmer is another wonderful place for sighting waders and water birds of many kinds. These Ferruginous pochards were the first sightings in Rajasthan for us.

The lake was full of Marsh and common sandpipers, common and spotted redshanks.....

The blackwinged stilts were there in their hundreds!

The little egret in his breeding plumage made a pretty picture.

There were plenty of geese around and then we spotted these Spoonbills at the far end of the lake.

All over Rajasthan, the White eared Bulbul is perhaps the most common Bulbul to be found.

The White throated Munias are gregarious birds and quite unafraid of man, possibly due to the proximity of their habitat. These two came and were frolicking around as close as two feet from me.

The omnipresent White Wagtail....

The Brahminy Mynas were also very common as were the Indian Chat.

While driving from Jodhpur to Ranakpur (the famous Jain Temples), we saw these elegant Oriental white Ibis fly by and then perch in the tree just ahead so as to almost beg to be photographed!

There were these entire trees full of bats just short of Udaipur.. and what a racket they make!

The most common francolin... the Grey Francolin which was spotted just about every where... even crossing the road many a times.

A small reservoir along the way yielded this diminutive plover.. the Little ringed Plover. It's camoflage is so obliterative, it was invisible till we spotted movement along the bank.