The Rock that Moved to the Sea!

It all began in the early 16th century when the once mighty Majapahit empire in Indonesia was crumbling due to internal power struggles as well as the invasion by the Sultan of Demak. The Javanese Hindus fleeing from the invading armies scattered all over the Indonesian archipelago.

One of them, a revered sage Dang Hyang Nirartha or Dang Hyang DwiJendra came to the island of Bali and became the counselor to the King of Gelgel province - King Dalem Waturenggong. He was instrumental in the reformulation and entrenchment of Hindu religion in Bali as well as the founding of many temples which still stand today.

He created the three temple system - Brahma in the south, Shiva in the center and Vishnu in the north - still found in many villages. He is also credited with the dominant style of architecture (called the Padmasana architecture) that you will find in most temples of Bali. The central feature of which is an empty throne (the Padmasana) in place of the alter.

This much is history. But not surprisingly, his story is largely shrouded in myths and legends. It is said that he traveled to Bali in a pumpkin! Therefore eating of pumpkins is taboo in many families in Bali. It is said that when he came to Bali, Bali was in the grip of killer plagues. He gave his hair to the king using which the king was able to end all the plagues. It is said he sensed divine rays coming from the southern coast of Bali and when he went in search of them, it angered the local chieftain in the village of Beraban who was a follower of a monotheistic religion. But when the chieftain went to drive Dwijendra out as he sat meditating on a rock, the rock moved out to the sea, convincing the chieftain of Dwijendra's holiness.

But legends apart, Dwijendra's visit to the village of Beraban resulted in the creation of two spectacular temples on the south-western coast of Bali - Tannah Lot (the rock that moved out into the sea) and Batu Bolong.

The locations of both temples are simply breathtaking, especially Batu Bolong. Tannah Lot in fact is one the seven "Sea" temples established by Dwijendra along the coast of Bali. Tannah Lot is dedicated to Dewa Baruna (Varun in the Hiindu pantheon?) - the lord of the seas. Batu Bolong contains shrines dedicated to Lakshaman, Ram, Vali and Sugreev - clearly inspired the epic - Ramayana.

The layout and style of Tannah Lot follows the time-honored, traditional architecture reflecting the spiritual/philosophical thought at the center of Balinese Hindu beliefs. Firstly, most Balinese temples (unlike temples elsewhere like Cambodia or Thailand or even India) are not ONE huge, imposing building which houses the shrines. Balinese temples are designed mostly as open air places of worship. Most spaces inside the temple walls are courtyards open to the sky, dotted by smaller covered shrines which may contain specific deities. These smaller shrines have roofs but many will have no walls.

Even the "arches" which usually dominate the entry/exit paths are not really arches - they are more like an arch with the top part missing.

The spatial division of the area inside the temple walls follows the Tri-Mandala principle - Nista mandala: The outer/lower courtyard which is not as sacred as the rest of the area and usually will be a gathering place but where sacred rituals will not be performed, Madya Mandala: The Central courtyard, and Utama Mandala: Inner or the most holy/sacred part of the temple, entry here may be restricted to only those who wish perform specific rituals.

Where there are roofs - they all are designed in a unique style. They are usually thatched, and shaped like a 4 cornered pyramid and can be multi-layered making a tall tower. These are supposed to represent Mount Meru - the mythical mountain at the center of the universe in Hindu, Buddhist or Jain beliefs.

The Tannah Lot (and Batu Bolong as well) temple too is built adhering to these principles but with liberties taken necessitated by the limited and constrained space available on the rocks on which they have been built. It is believed that across from the temple are caves which are home to a particular species of black and white striped poisonous Sea Snakes which are the guardians of this temple. People claim to have seen these snakes in the vicinity (I did not see any when I was there!) so the first part of the sentence above may actually be true! Tannah Lot and also Batu Bolong both are practically in the middle of the sea (at rare times when the tides are at the their highest, the rocky path that connects Tannah Lot to the land gets fully submerged turning it into an inaccessible island for a short time).

And yet within both there is a fresh water spring - miracle of nature (and when you see the photos especially of Batu Bolong, you will appreciate just how much of a miracle). Naturally that is considered holy water!!! I did see this in the Tannah Lot temple but not in Batu Bolong because by the time we crossed the narrow causeway (see the photo) the sun had started setting and I wanted to get some sun-set photos of this spectacular place before it became too dark. So we turned back hurriedly to a better vantage point

All the photos are from my trip in August 2014!

The Ladies of Sigariya

Goddesses or ladies of King Kassapa's court (or perhaps members of his harem)?

What does it matter?

The the frescoes of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka are so spectacular that whether the subjects were mere mortals or divine, is really immaterial!

There is ofcourse considerable controversy about why those frescoes were created and who the beautiful ladies depicted in them might be.

There are three primary claims.

(a) These frescoes are portraits of ladies from the court or harem of King Kassapa I, who built his palace and capital city on the Sigiriya rock

(b) The frescoes are pictures of apsaras or demi-goddesses Mega-Latha and Viju-Kumari - personifications of clouds and lightening respectively. And they were painted to project King Kassapa himself as a divine being (thus commanding the services of Apsaras and demi-goddesses!)

and

(c) Sigiriya was in fact a Buddhist monastery and not King Kassapa's seat of power at all. The pictures are therefore depicting the Goddess Tara (an important deity in Buddhism) being worshiped in her various forms, moods and postures.

This is perhaps the oldest (5th Century AD) surviving example (reminiscent of the style of paintings in the Ajanta caves) of colors prepared as an oil emulsion, being used for the paintings. Prior to painting the frescoes the surface of the monolithic rock was prepared by applying multiple layers of paddy-husk, clay and lime to make is smooth as a mirror. The techniques used to prepare the surface and the mineral colors, have certainly proved to be very effective, since the paintings which survived the ravages of time and man, still retain their vibrancy and vividity of color after 1600 years.

Without actually visiting Sigiriya, it is difficult to appreciate how hazardous it must have been to do all this on the sheer wall of the Sigiriya rock. The photo below will perhaps give some idea. If you zoom in you will see on the right side of the rock face, a bit of scaffolding and a few people. That is where the paintings are.

But Sigiriya is not just an "art gallery".

Firstly, it itself is a marvel of nature, a huge rock with sheer, vertical walls abruptly rising almost a thousand feet from the surrounding dense forest!

Secondly, according to the most accepted account, it has a bloody, sinister past. King Kassapa who is supposed to have built this as the capital city of his kingdom, was not originally destined to ascend to the throne. Kassapa was the son of a lesser queen (according to some not even a queen but a concubine). His half brother Moggallana the son of King Dhatusena's senior queen was the rightful heir. However Kassapa had his father murdered and usurped the throne and Moggallana, fearful of his life fled to India. Here Kassapa was also afraid that Moggallana may gather an army and come back to take revenge. So concluding that the then capital of his kingdom Anuradhapura, was too difficult to defend against an invading army, he decided to build his capital on top of the unassailable sheer rock of Sigariya.

The ruins of the city he built are a testimony today to the grandeur, artistry and engineering prowess of 5th century Sri Lanka. The garden surrounding the rock of Sigiriya can be seen in its full majesty only from the top of the rock and will rival in its conception, scale and beauty that once was, the most famous gardens, in the richest kingdoms of historical times anywhere in the world.

There is however another theory that Sigariya was not in fact the political capital but a pleasure palace built by Kassapa who is described as a playboy in these stories. Still others claim that in fact Sigiriya was a Buddhist monastery - which is partly true but that may have happned AFTER King Kassapa's death and not before. Because the ousted brother Moggallana eventually returned with an army, and in the ensuing battle, Kassapa was killed (again multiple stories about the nature of his death including suicide, poisoning, killed in battle etc) and Moggallana moved the capital back to Anuradhapura and handed over Sigiriya to the Buddhist monks.

However, colorful as this history is the art on display on the rock face of Sigiriya and in the ruins of the city, is today far more enchanting.

Jan 2015

A Shrine to "Imprison" Spirits

As I noted in my write up on the Ananda temple in Bagan, in historical times most of the south east Asian countries e.g. Vietnam (The Cham or Champa empire), Cambodia/Laos and Thailand (First Funan and then the Khmer empire), Indonesia (Tarumanagara kingdom, later the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires), Malaysia ( Langkasuka and Old Kedah kingdoms), were influenced by or ruled by Hindu kings and emperors before Buddhism or Islam spread there. And even after all those countries became either Buddhist or Muslim, the Hindu cultural influences remained visible in the relics of ancient temples, by being woven in local myths and legends (borrowed from epics like Ramayana or Mahabharata), in arts, crafts and architecture and even in the names of people. However, although it is the closest to India, you see very little of Hindu religious or cultural after effects in Myanmar. Perhaps the most visible Hindu influence one can see is on both of the names of the country, Burma as the English called it and Myanmar both are derived "Brahma"desh named after a Hindu god.

Even in a place like Bagan - a city that has ten thousand temples in a small area - you find the remains of only one Hindu temple called Nat Hlaung Kyaung. And as we will see according to the most dominant legend, that temple seems to have been built for a specific purpose!

It is not clearly established when exactly it was built or who built it. Although it is accepted that it is among the oldest temples built in Bagan. Some claim it was built by king Nyaung-u Sawrahan (also called Taunghthugyi Min) in the middle of the 10th century. Sawrahan is the earliest king of the dynasty that was to go on to create the mighty Pagan empire, whose existence has been verified through hard evidence independent of folklore or legends. It is during his reign that the creation of the Burmese script as we see it today is also supposed to have begun.

While other experts place the construction of this temple a century later in the reign of king Anawrahta, the founder of the Pagan empire who was also instrumental in the spread of Theravada Buddhism to Myanmar.

But the more interesting part is the name of the temple, which has sprouted some interesting speculations about the reasons for its existence. Literally the name of the temple Nat-Hlaung-Kyaung means "Shrine Confining the Spirits". But it has been said that it was also called "Nat-daw-Kyaung" or "Shrine of the sacred spirit".

As I noted in an earlier article about the Shwezigon pagoda, the word "Nat" is apporximately translated as "Sacred Spirit". Strictly speaking in Buddha's teachings there are no gods or divine entities and certainly no decree or edict requiring its adherents to worship anything or anyone. But in practice you will find that local variations of Buddhist practices include such divine beings - for example, Vasundhara (the earth goddess) or Mucalinda (the king of Serpents) in Arunachal Pradesh Theravada Buddhist practices or Goddess Tara in Tibetan Buddhism.

Similarly "Nat" is a sometimes confusing "divine" entity of some kind that has most likely been borrowed in the Theravada Buddhism practiced in Myanmar, either from Hindu pantheon of gods or from some regional belief systems which pre-date the spread of Buddhism. However where "Nats" find a place in pagodas or temples, they always occupy a secondary position. Sometimes they are positioned as a guardian spirits but sometimes they also feared - i.e. something that you want to appease to so that it does not cause you any harm and not because it will do you some good!

In keeping with this (negative) view one of the most often told legend says that, King Anawrahta built the temple (or used an existing temple) to "imprison" all the non-Buddhist "spirits" ("Nat"s) inside, so that they will not be able to hinder his acts to promote Buddhism and spread it all over in Myanmar. That is why it is called Nat-Hlaung-Kyaung i.e. "Shrine Confining the Spirits"

Whereas another folktale says that the King (either Anawrahta or Sawrahan a century earlier) built it to please a section of his Hindu subjects. And that is why it is called "Nat-daw-Kyaung" i.e. "Shrine of the sacred spirit".

According to some experts, these discrepancies in "why the temple was built and what it's original name was", are perhaps indicative of a struggle for supremacy between adherents of the two religions when Buddhism came to Myanmar and found Hindu beliefs already entrenched.

Anyway, Buddhism received royal endorsement and patronage from King Anawrahta and spread everywhere. But the interesting part fact is that this struggle seems to have (a) Acknowledged the divinity of the non Buddhist "spirits" and incorporated them in its own pantheon - albeit with an inferior status (in fact one historian, Paul Strachan, translates the word "Nat" as "Deva" instead of "Spirit") and (b) Sought to confine them to a shrine rather than try to destroy them and their places of worship!

That sort of "acceptance" or "tolerance" is quite evident in fact all over south east Asia - for example in Cambodia you find that temples have changed their character from Hindu to Buddhist and back and forth according to the reigning monarch's religious allegiance but at the most such shifts resulted in the primary deity of the temple being shifted to a side chamber. The "out-of-favor" deities continued to be worshiped and managed with all the due reverence without being destroyed.

In any case for a tourist (and an atheist to boot) like me what is fascinating is the monuments and art that has been left behind by the ancients and the drama of the colorful myths surrounding their creation.

The size of the Nat Hlaung Kyaung must have been considerable. All that stands today is the main hall with only a few of the statues of Vishnu.

Once it had statues of all 10 avatars of Vishnu (interestingly, including Buddha as one of the avatars - Although the inclusion of Buddha amongst the avatars of Vishnu has always invited controversy and suspicion especially in India, it seems to have been accepted practice in the 10th century!). And even through its decrepit appearance today, the superb quality craftsmanship in its decorations and statues is unmistakable.

Here are then a few photos of this temple that is one-of-a-kind among the 10000 temples in Bagan, Myanmar taken in Dec 2017.

And the last photo is a typical skyline in Bagan where the silhouette of a row of temples is never out of sight!