Kumbhalgarh: Where is the fort?

 Kumbhalgarh: Where is the fort?

There is always a rush of excitement at the first look of the monument that one is visiting! Kumbhalgarh makes you wait to get the first glimpse of the fort, increasing the anticipation. Depending on where you are, you might not see the fort even from a kilometer away. And then you see it !

It is a very well hidden fort with elaborate defense mechanism. It is also the highest fort in Rajasthan and amongst the largest fort complexes in the world.  The most notable feature is the thick wall surrounding the fort, next only to the Great wall of China. The wall is 36 kilometers long and 15 ft thick at the top, wide enough for patrolling the perimeter on horses. No wonder Kumbhalgarh fort is a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

 

 

Kumbhalgarh was pride of all the 32 forts built by Rana Kumbha. Since 15th century it has been attacked a number of times and most of the attempts were futile. Given that the location is so well hidden within the hills, it must have been a tough task giving the fort the reputation of being impregnable. Ironically, the unconquerable Rana Kumbha was murder in this impregnable fort by his own son Udai Singh I.

 

Kumbhalgarh was used by the Kings of Mewar as a wartime refuge. When Chittorgarh was attacked and there was a murder attempt on the infant Prince Udai Singh II,  he was smuggled to Kumbhalgarh for safe keeping by his nurse, Panna Dhai. Panna Dhai sacrificed her own infant son to save the Prince, forever mentioned as a legend of loyalty. Only once in its history was it captured by Akbar's general after a six month siege but he could hold it only for a short time before Rana Pratap reclaimed it. It later passed to British control in 1818 to be returned to Udaipur state before independence. 

The guide told us an interesting and rather strange story about a Sadhu ( a hermit called Mer baba) who had lived in the region during the construction of the fort. As the story goes, the fort walls built during the day would collapse in the night for no comprehensible reason.  Apparently, there was a curse which as per the sadhu could be warded off only by a voluntary sacrifice of a human being. Obviously no one volunteered to be sacrificed. Ultimately, Mer baba offered himself, with certain conditions to be followed for the construction of the starting point of the fort and the palace itself. And of course the fort had to be named after him, which is why it was then called as Kumbhalmer which later became Kumbhalgarh (garh means a fort). A couple of shrines are built inside the fort to commemorate Mer Baba.

Between the entrance in the perimeter wall and the Badal Mahal at the top, there are seven gates on a steep ramp. The ramp must have given a big advantage to the defenders when attacked.  Badal mahal sits about 100 meters above the perimeter wall, we measured! This is more than a 25 storey high building.  Even inside the Mahal, the stairs are very narrow with high risers, a feature seen in Udaipur Palace as well. It is was not easy to reach the top of Badal Mahal but once there, the view of both the fort and the surrounding green hills and valleys was a treat. 

 

The fort sits at the boundary of Marwar and Mewar, two not so friendly regions of Rajasthan, and it certainly helped keep an eye on any advances made by the enemy. One can see the far off hills and also the undulating perimeter wall in these pictures.

 

 

 

 The Mewar region had very strong presence of Jains and they played a big role in its history. They built multiple temples in this fort just as in Chittorgarh. Two of the most beautiful and elaborate Jain temple complexes, Dilwara. and Ranakpur are within the region of Mewar. 

 

 

 

 

Some of the Jain temples inside Kumbhalgarh are said to predate the present fort and are controlled by Archeological Survey of India. Besides these there are multiple temple dedicated to Shiva and other deities inside the fort. 

 

 

A half marathon is organized sometime in November on the thick walls of the fort. Rana Kumbha was a patron of arts and to commemorate it, Kumbhalgarh festival is held in December every year. It features  local dances, music, art exhibitions and performances by renowned artists with the lovely back drop of the old stones of the fort and its temples. 

Everyday, after sunset, there is a light and sound show which we were told is very good. But we were tired after the climb and with the added uncertainty due to possibility of rain shower, we did not stay back. Many hotels have spawned in the region because of the tourist inflow attracted by the fort. We stayed in a new property called Renest Hotel which is itself very beautiful, offered very nice views of the surrounding hills and also had excellent food.

Jains and Jain Temples Of Mewar

In my youth I was apathetic to the concept of religion and abhorrent to rituals ( was brought up in an Arya Samaj-Vaishnav family). As one grows up one becomes more tolerant and realize that world is not binary. Religion is not just the guiding light for morality and studies have shown that religion / faith boosts mental health.  At least I find it so.  I sometimes regret not bringing up my children "with faith", wondering if that would have equipped them better to deal with stress of life.  Married into a Jain family I find Jainism is probably closer to a scientific bent of mind than any other, the little that I may know about other religions.

In ancient India, Jainism was a marked contrast to the Brahminical views of Hinduism, specially creationism, it probably grew as a reaction to it. It does not try to answer the questions of the birth of the Universe nor who created it. It serves more to be the beacon for the correct path to follow in the present life with Ahimsa ( non- Violence), Kshama (forgiveness), Samyak Jeevan ( moderate life) as the basic tenets.  Live the present life correctly without worrying about where one came from and where would one go after death. There is no data for life before and after death and drawing any conclusions like creationism, concept of heaven and hell, rebirth is pointless. 

Jains revere cleanliness to the point of obsession. Jain temples are primarily made of marble available aplenty in this region of Rajasthan. A cool, clean floor is so welcoming in the heat of Rajasthan. Except for a few days of the year,  Jains worship not as a community but individually. They worship not God directly but through the Tirthankars who showed the path to God. The chief offerings are uncooked rice, coconut kernel pieces, cloves, and uncooked lotus seeds... none of which creates any mess. Besides these they offer a lamp/deepak with ghee as fuel that only adds to the peaceful atmosphere of the mandir. 

With non-violence imbued in their basic nature,  the Jain were never rulers but were more likely to be in occupations related to finance, business or finance ministers of various rulers. Most of the historical Jain religious centers are in the eastern part of India but over time they migrated all over India probably for  patronage of the ruling class and business opportunities. For last few hundred years they have been concentrated in the west part of India where they played influential role in the governance and business.  Mewar region of Rajasthan and Gujarat has seen strong influence of Jains. Consequently a number of Jain temples, built in the last 10 centuries, dot this region. So a trip to Mewar was definitely going to include some of them. Mewar boasts of two of the most beautiful ancient temples of Jains, Dilwara temple complex and Ranakpur temple complex, both were constructed by Shvetamber Jains, under the patronage of Rajput rulers, the Ranas of Mewar.

Dilwara Temple complex: This complex is situated on one of the highest mountains of Mount Abu. The beauty of the place can not be described. It can only be admired. The intricate carvings in the roof of the cloisters can be seen even from the ground.  Photography inside the temple complex is not allowed so this is a representative picture from the wiki. 

Ranakpur Temple Complex: Ranakpur lies in the middle of the Arawali mountains... not easy to get there. While the quality of marble, I am told, is not as good as that in Dilwara, the carving is as intricate. There is a vast complex of religious buildings and living quarters for the saints around the main temple. Once again the beauty of the place can only be admired. We were allowed to take pictures except that of the Tirthankars. A few pictures from visit to the temple complex during our trip are included here.

This collage  shows some of the carved roof of the innumerable cloister surrounding the main deity. Even though they are at such a height, no effort has been spared in the elaborate carvings and no two are identical.

Here is another collage showing the minutely carved pillars of the main hall and the cloisters. See how clean, light and airy the whole temple is... practically invites you to sit down to relax and maybe meditate.

The whole structure looks imposing from outside. The picture below actually shows only one side of it. The temple itself has a huge underground with the purpose of safe keeping all the statues in the event of an attack. Contingencies :). 

 A short detour on the way to Kumbhalgarh it was certainly worth it.

Egypt Day 2: The Pyramids

  

Egypt Day 2: The Pyramids

Like in many other cultures, the Egyptians believed in the existence of a soul that does not die. To provide bodies to the souls that escaped upon death, they preserved the dead body in elaborate tombs; more important the person, more elaborate the tomb. Being worshipers of the Sun, they associated the side of the rising Sun, the east of river Nile, with the living and the west side of Nile with the dead. They buried their dead alongwith many of their possessions which were used while they were alive. Pyramids served as tombs for Pharoahs of early Dynasties and are the biggest tourist attractions of Egypt. On day 2 of our itinerary, we visited various pyramids, on the west side of Nile, starting with Dahsur. 

 

During the first few dynasties, a rectangular flat roofed, multi-roomed structure above the ground called Mastaba was built over the tomb in the bedrock. Over time they started building smooth sided Pyramids. During the journey from Mastaba to Pyramid, they probably goofed somewhere, corrected, restarted and these goofed up pyramids are the Meidum and the Bent Pyramid, all attributed to Pharaoh Snefru of IV Dynasty. Pharoah Snefru also made the first pyramid with smooth sides, the Red Pyramid, which was our first stop.   

 

The Bent pyramid and the Red pyramid are at Dahsur, we stopped by the Bent Pyramid just to click some pictures, on our way to the Red Pyramid.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Climbing into the Red pyramid required a 40m climb up the side of the Pyramid to the entrance, followed by a descent by more than 60m through a tunnel into the heart of the pyramid. The entrance tunnel was rather narrow (3ft x 4ft) and low. Both Tanjul and Anshul gave up in the first few meters. I am petite and so could make it to the end of the tunnel. Inside the pyramid are two chambers made of huge granite blocks. The actual “burial chamber” was high up by the side of the second chamber and could be reached by the wooden stairs constructed for tourists. Suspicious of the stability of the stairs I did not climb up. Both lower chambers have very high corbelled roofs (12m). The huge granite blocks making up the walls have very clean straight surfaces and are placed precisely. The only writing on the walls is very old graffiti by visitors. With only one other tourist, I could admire the construction engineering (without being pushed by other tourists :-)). I have added a video taken inside the chambers at the end of this blog. 

 

Next, we visited the Stepped pyramid of Sakkara which probably predates even the Red pyramid. The Stepped pyramid is the oldest stone structure, with the mastabas of decreasing sizes stacked on top of each other to make the pyramid shape. The architect was Imhotep, who has a cult following of his own. Movie lovers might recall the character with the same name in “Mummy”, not based on actual Imhotep. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stepped Pyramid was closed for maintenance and upkeep. The pyramid was situated  in a large complex structure of funery temples, mastabas and pyramids of nobles of lesser significance, giving us enough to do. A smaller pyramid of the Pharoah Unas ( V dynasty) is one of the most elaborate and best preserved one from inside. The Pyramid of Unas has two chambers which can be approached through a short tunnel from an entrance at the surface. The chambers are made of Granite with elaborate hieroglyphs on the walls and have a pink granite sarcophagus. The walls have well preserved paintings. No other pyramid has hieroglyphs or paintings, so Unas pyramid is special . All the pyramids seem to be rising from the desert sands reinforcing the touristic image of pyramids surrounded by the desert with camels lounging around. The region was not a desert 5500 years ago when these pyramids were constructed (The pyramids were close to the Nile then, the river changed the course later). The conventionally accepted chronology of the pyramid construction is (i) stepped pyramid (ii) Meidum pyramid (iii) Bent Pyramid (iv) Red pyramid followed by the Pyramids of the Giza plateau. 

 

Onward to the great Pyramids of Giza. The sky was overcast and by the time we got to Giza, it had started raining. There is only one word for the great pyramid: HUGE. It is said to be a tomb made for Pharoah Khafre within 22 years of his reign. Unbelievable! The granite stones, some weighting 50 tonnes, were once covered by highly polished limestone making a smooth surface. The queue of the tourist wanting to enter was very long, so we skipped it. The inner architecture is said to be similar to that of Red pyramid with high corbelled roofs and chambers made with precision cut granite stones and one sarcophagus which is larger than the entrance of the chamber. There are small tunnels which go all the way from the chambers to the out surface of the pyramid. For what purpose, nobody knows. Most parts of the great pyramid remains a mystery, they are still discovering new tunnels inside the great pyramid. 

 

The amount of stone ( quarried from Aswan 500 km away)  used to make the pyramids is incredibly huge, as was the effort of making them. There seems to be a difference of opinion between engineers (who say the pyramids could not have been made with the then existing technology: no wheels, no iron tools) and Egyptologists (who continue to say that the Great Pyramid was built in 22 years with hired labour, working during the flooding period of Nile). More questions than answers here ! 

 

Our next stop was the Sphinx. The actual Sphinx enclosure was out of bounds and we were taken to a spot outside the enclosure to see the Sphinx. The Sphinx was even more impressive than the pyramids in the sheer scale. Somewhat disproportionate body, a broken nose and a very zen expression. Conventional archaeologists say it was made by Pharoah Khafre 4500 years back. Some geologists disagree and based on weathering of the stones of the enclosure walls, claim that it must be about 9000 years old. Recall the Great Pyramid is supposed to be 5500 years old but cannot be dated  scientifically.

 

 

Egyptology is like a religion, a lot is based more on faith than logic and science. So the mystery of Giza continues. Irrespective of how and when it was built, it is a wonder of the ancient world still available for all of us to admire.