Here’s a bit of rock solid pep talk to rock your weekend:
Be Boulder.
hehe….
Rocks often get a bad reputation of being obstacles in one’s path, but I think rocks have a lot to their credit. They remain resilient through changing times and while they carry the weight of all the eras that they’ve witnessed, they always remain supportive and in tune with the times.
The town of Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram is an epitome of time frozen in stone architecture. The temples and bas relief were said to awe the Gods, and they’ve stood the test of time, mesmerising each generation that experiences their glory.
In the previous blog, I took ye wee rock-a-fellas to the Mahabalipuram Shore Temple. In this post, I will be talking about the monuments surrounding the Shore Temple, namely, the Five Rathas and Arjuna’s Penance.
Let’s step bould-ly!
hehe:)
The Five Rathas, meaning, “The Five Chariots”, is a group of five stone sculpted chariots, inspired by the Indian epic, Mahabharata, which is the world’s longest poem.
Indian epics have this unique feature of being written in verse form. The Mahabharata is said to be narrated by a Hindu sage Ved Vyas and written by the Hindu God Ganpati, the divine remover of obstacles and the God of scribes and authors.
The epic tells the story of five brothers, namely the Pandavas, who fought a battle ending a whole era, against their hundred cousins, the Kauravas, all for a right to the throne. The story involves battle strategy, tactics, cunning games, family feud, divine intervention, all packed in a tale of good vs. evil. If I got into the details of the Mahabharata, I’d have to start a whole new website, hehe:) So, Imma just say that these five chariots represent the five Pandavas and their consort, Draupadi.
The first of the five Rathas, is one built for Draupadi, the consort of the Pandavas. The epic of Mahabharata has a lot of interesting storylines and one of them is that five Pandava brothers shared one wife. At the time when the epic took place, brides chose their husbands by way of an event called a swayamvara(transl: choosing one’s own husband). It was usually a competition where men had to prove their valour, wit and strength in order to win the bride’s heart and hand. Draupadi, a princess, too had such an event where the five Pandava brothers competed for her hand. Their task was to shoot the eye of a golden fish, merely by looking at his reflection and one of the brothers, named Arjun, accomplished the task and won Draupadi’s hand in marriage.
Elated by the news, the brothers took Draupadi to meet their mother and told her that they’ve got a surprise. Their mother, without even looking at the surprise, announced that whatever the surprise was, the five brothers should share it among themselves.
Thus, Draupadi was married to five husbands, before kickstarting the spiral of the Mahabharata war and its build up.
And they lived happily ever after.
hehehehehe.
I love the carving on the chariot though, it’s giving minimalistic grandeur.
The second chariot, in the Five Rathas, belongs to the man who actually won Draupadi’s hand, namely Arjun. He is the superhero of Mahabharata and he’s said to be one of the greatest archers of all times.
There are two monuments dedicated to him in Mahabalipuram. One is this chariot, the other is a bas-relief called Arjuna’s Penance.
As I mentioned before, Arjun was the true begotten husband of Draupadi but since his mother had made their marriage a sibling affair, he had his share of sibling complications. Draupadi and the five brothers had made an arrangement that she was to spend a year with each brother. During that year, the other four brothers were not allowed to enter the house of the brother who was with Draupadi and if they broke this rule, they would be exiled for a year.
So, when Draupadi was spending her year with the eldest Pandava brother, Yudhistir, Arjun happened to enter their house in order to fetch his bow which he had left there. This led to him being exiled and while he spent his year away from sibling complications, he immersed himself in penance to the Hindu God Shiva. This bas relief depicts that penance because the power radiating from the penance was so terrible that it singed the entire planet and affected all the beings that lived on it.
I love the intricacy of the relief and the fact that it’s still so intact after so many centuries. This is the third monument in the Mahabalipuram group of monuments and it is a must-visit when one travels here.
If anyone’s wondering what such an intense penance did for Arjun, well, the god Shiva gave him new weapons.
Boys and their toys. A love story spanning epics and millennia.
hehe:)
The third chariot is dedicated to the Pandava brother named Bheem. It is the largest chariot because Bheem was the strongest and the most well-built Pandava. He has some very interesting stories about defeating a demon who used to loot a village’s food and leave everyone hungry.He did it by eating that demon’s share of food and then battering him with a mace. I think that’s badass and a real sigma move.
hehe….
I also loved the chariot, especially with its size and the intricacy that goes with it. It really makes one stare at it in awe as no matter how viral minimalism goes, a king size is always grander.
hehe:)
The fourth chariot belongs to Yudhistir, the eldest Pandava brother. He was said to be the epitome of righteousness. His chariot has quite a temple-like look and I like the contrast between this chariot and the others, especially since this one is the most intricate and quite adorned.
Finally, the last of the five Rathas belongs to Nakul and Sahadev, the last two Pandava brothers. They were said to have good foresight and the coolest part is that Nakul had foreseen all the endings of the Mahabharata war, much like Doctor Strange in The Infinity War, but in this case, he had seen that none of the endings would bode well for anybody.
However, the was was fought anyway and it was the most terrible massacre that ended a whole era and marked the start of a new one.
I wonder why Nakul and Sahadev were given just one chariot for the two of them. The epics say that it’s a sign of respect for older siblings, I, as an expert on sibling woes, call it sibling complications.
I am an only child.
hehe:)
Finally, this is an elephant, guarding the five Rathas. It’s my favourite part of the monument because the little Ellie looks so earnest and adorable:)
Elephants are superior beings. In Hindu culture, it is said that the Earth is held up by four elephants and earthquakes are a consequence of the elephants moving.
What can I say, I whole heartedly agree:)
And that is a wrap.
Until next time,
hehe….