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New Year

Your continuous support and interest in my blog enthused me to show more of my Little World. Looking forward to do more of it in the New Year. Thanks to all and happy blogging.

St. Milagres Church, Mangalore

Mangalore located in Karnataka state is a small city. It is well connected by land, sea and air. There are many temples and churches in and around this place. Some of these churches are more than 100 years old and have their own history to tell.

Milagres Church was originally built by Bishop Thomas de Castro in 1680. This church is also known as Church of Our Lady of Miracles.

The church was brought down due to battles between kings in those days and it was reconstructed in 1811. The facade collapsed again in 1911 and present structure was rebuilt again in the same year.

Bhimbetka Prehistoric Art

Apart from the cave paintings of Bhimbetka which are old as 10000 B.C, that were seen in earlier post there are plenty more paintings that are very colorful and artistic.

Auditorium Cave is a spacious horizontal tunnel about 25m in length, ending in a cathedral-like hall that opens in three directions. At the center of this junction visible from all four entrances is a large rock, 2.5m high and 3.4m wide, called Chief's Rock.

On the left side wall of the East passage into Auditorium cave there are paintings on the walls. They are red in color. The prominent figures are that of cattle, goat, deer, hand prints, and double bar.

One can see another beautiful cave painting in the nearby cave. This is located in a elevated region. There are two sets of paintings in this caves. At the lower bottom they are in white color and the top are in the red color. In the above one can see figures of people riding the horse as if they are going for a war.

Hampi Bazar

This is the only post in Hampi Series that does not concentrate on architecture. Rather this focuses mainly on how the city layout was formed in terms of markets. It gives basic idea on the location of markets and how they are organized.

During the Vijayanagara rule in the 15th century, the Bazaars (markets) happened to be the centers of all the commercial activities. It is believed that these bazaars were not only just commercial regions but were also the sprawling quarters of the capital city of the empire. These bazaars are mostly situated opposite the temples. 

In Hampi there were main four bazaars of varied sizes, all of them in front of the temples. They are, the Virupaksha Bazaar opposite the Virupaksha Temple, the Soolai Bazaar opposite the Achyutapura Temple, the Krishna Bazaar opposite the Krishna Temple and the Vithala Bazaar opposite the Vithala Temple. Today, except the Virupaksha Bazaar, the other three bazaars have been deserted over a period of time and no activity can be seen.

Virupaksha Bazaar with Virupakasha Temple tower at the far end

Virupaksha Bazaar is 1 km in length and the market stretches from the doorstep of the Virupaksha Temple and extends in the western direction till the the Bull Temple. Both sides of the street are lined with a series of old pavilions, some of them are two storied. These structures were once part of a thriving market and residence of the nobles. Today here one can find everything from the coconuts and flowers to offer at Virupaksha Temple to rare coins and antiquities of great value.

Vithala Bazaar

Bhimbetka Cave Paintings

The caves of Bhimbetaka have paintings that date back to various periods during which these caves could have been inhabited. The main colors used in these paintings are red and white. Red color paintings are bright, while the white paintings look faded. The quality of the paintings is so great that the painting appear so fresh as if it has been done few days back. At lot of places, paintings have been done on top of the other, giving a feeling that the artists have used the same space to paint and re-paint. The style of paintings resembles the Worli paintings and at times the Madhubani. Most of the figures are written using geometrical shapes. Animals form the primary subject of paintings, followed by humans and occasional trees and flowers.

The rock art in these caves has been classified into various groups on the basis of the style and subject.

Upper Palaeolithic

The paintings in this period were mostly drawn using green and dark red colors as liner representations. The figures drawn were animals like bisons, boar.

Mesolithic

The paintings in this period are comparatively smaller in size. The linear representation of drawings are more stylish. Apart from animals, there are human figures. The hunting scenes clearly show the weapons like barbed spears, pointed sticks, bows and arrows used during those times.

Hunting scene

The depiction of communal dances, birds, mother and child, pregnant women, men carrying dead animal, drinking etc, are seen in this rock shelter range.

people dancing holding hands at the top and they are going for hunting at the bottom

Chalcolithic

The paintings in this period show that the cave dwellers of this area were in contact with the agricultural communities. They exchanged goods with them.

Early Historic

The paintings in this period are painted mostlty in red and white. The drawings have a schematic and decorative style. They mainly depict riders, religious symbols, tunic-like dresses, and the scripts of different periods.

Medival

The paintings in this period are geometric, linear and more schematic. The artistic style was crude when compared to earlier periods.

The picture below is taken at the first cave that you see as soon as one enters the cave complex. There are paintings of animals drawn in white color on the roof of the cave.

This place can be reached directly from Bhopal or from Bhojpur as I had done.

Bhimbetka Rock Shelters

From Bhojpur we moved to Bhimbetka to explore the rock shelters which is which is located in Vindhyan mountain range in the central India.
It is a rocky terrain of dense forest and craggy cliffs. In 1957, V S Wakanker of the Vikram University, Ujjain discovered over 1000 rock shelters belonging to the Neolithic age spread over a area of 10 x 4 Kms. In more than 500 of these caves there are paintings that depict the life of the prehistoric cave dwellers. Here there is also evidence of Stone Age habitation from the lower Palaetholic period to the late Mesolithic. It is a natural art gallery and an archaeological treasure.
In 2003, UNESCO made them part of the World Heritage List. Out of the over 1000 caves, the 15 of them are extraordinary ones. It is amazing how these caves are located in convoluted cliffs on the top of a hill.
These caves depict paintings belonging to the Paleolithic (10,000 BC), Mesolithic (5,000 BC) and the Chalcolithic (2,000 BC) periods. The paintings are mainly in red and white. There is also hint of other colors being used like green and yellow. Most of the paintings depict the scenes hunting, dancing, music, horse and elephant riders, animals fighting, honey collection, decoration of bodies, disguises, masking and household scenes. Animals such as bison’s, tigers, lions, wild boar, elephants, deers, dogs, lizards, crocodiles etc, have been abundantly depicted in some caves.
There are unobtrusive and clear passageways that have been provided, so that visitors can view the paintings at leisure but are kept sufficiently away not to cause any damage. We will explore this place in several sections in subsequent posts as:

• Bhimbetka Cave Paintings (Classification of paintings)
• Bhimbetaka Prehistoric Art (Auditorium Cave and more)
• Zoo Rock
• Turtle Rock

My First Time

I was interviewed by Devang Vibhakar for his popular site speakbindas.com.

I have never been interviewed by anyone before this. Please read the interview and let me know what you feel about it.

Bhojeshwar Temple, Bhojpur

Next day morning we started the tour of early morning by first going to Bhojpur and then Bhimbetka as we had to catch a train to Gwalior in the afternoon. The drive from Bhopal to Bhojpur pleasant.

The lesser known vibrant town of Bhojpur has a history of its own. It was founded by Raja Bhoj of Dhar in 11th century after whom the town is named as Bhojpur. The town is famous for the Lord Shiva Temple named Bhojeshwar Temple. Around this part of India, the temple is more popularly known as Somnath. Had it been completed, it would have had very few matches. As it is, even with the ravages of time Bhojeshwar temple remains one of the best examples of temple architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries. 



The temple was constructed sometime around 11th century. The incomplete temple structure in height is around 66 feet. Even though the dome is incomplete, the beauty of it is enchanting. In layout the temple is a simple square. The ornately carved dome, though incomplete, has a magnificent, towering strength of line, supported by four richly carved pillars. The dome has an astonishing elegance because of the tapering form. Divided in three sections, the lowest is an octagon with facets of 2.12 feet, from which springs a 24-faced section. The richly carved doorway is plain below, throwing into sharp relief the two exquisitely sculpted figurines that stand on either side. On the other three sides of the structure are balconies, each supported by mammoth brackets and four elaborately carved pillars.

The temple houses the largest `shiva lingam` in India, measuring 7.5 ft in height and 17.8 ft in circumference. it is set upon a massive platform 21.5 ft sq, and it is composed of three superimposed limestone blocks. The architectural harmony of the lingam and platform is marvelous.

From Bhojpur, our next destination is Archeological Treasure of Ancient India, Bhimbetka.

Distance: Bhojpur ---> Bhimbetka 26 kms