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Designed , developed & Hosted By Kishoo, Barkur |
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REFLECTIONS
– MONUMENTS AT BARKUR – CHAULI KERE
While glancing at the superb photographs caught by versatile, professional - Stephen Lewis, in our new section, ‘photo gallery’, it reminded me, (at about 20 odd years back,) a short story in Kannada language, titled ‘Kallu Helida Kathe’ written by Y. Mohan Rao or Rama Bhat, in Saptahika Udayavani (Sunday special - magazine section) wherein he has written ‘every stone lying orphan or otherwise, in the historical city of ruins, have a story of its own to narrate’. Truly so, no exaggerations!! For most of us, having little interest in history, say for that matter choose any of the photograph of, temple, lake, colossal stone pillar, Jain basadi - it might have inculcated interest and may be curious to know something more of these snaps of monuments. Since
one of the pictures is of ‘Chauli kere’, and it had a role in our
daily life in Barkur, herein try to share what I heard from my
forefathers and others: It is mentioned by Historian Bhaskara Saletore, in his popular book - ‘History of Tuluva’ that in the 10th Century A.D.the old city of Barkur was subdivided into ten keris (streets ) and each had a special deity of worship with a big temple, by the side of a huge tank, to cater the needs of the surrounding and pilgrims, as well as drinking water and irrigated agricultural fields. Even, this day we and our ancestors depended / depending on this lake water for our second crop popularly known as Suggi – October to January, every year, though this tank located about 1.75 k.m away from our fields!!. One canal is as long as 2 km in length joins tributary of Sita, near Karvalnade, (constitute the boundary line between Nagermutt and Hosala vados) and during summer one can see, as many as twenty odd small mud dams built on it to store water. [It
is appropriate to mention here that the whole of ‘ fertile Hosala
Bail’, admeasuring few hundred acres, is irrigated through these
three giant tanks viz. Arasi kere, Belthi Kere and Chauli Kere]
Historical
background: After the rule of Kadambas of Banavasi, Barkur was under the indirect control of Cholas of Tamil Nadu, through ‘Alupas’- the local satraps and the city was an important harbour of the West coast, to facilitate the import of horses from Arabia and to export agro-forest products like cereals, ivory, spices to Middle East, Egypt, etc. and during this period good number of small and big temples were built here, and to prove their presence, now stands this ‘Cholara Keri’ near Heradi. Here there is one temple very special in the whole of Canara with two sanctums (avali girbha-grihas) – one dedicated to ‘Lord Ganesha’ and the other housing ‘Shiva lingam’ and there is unanimity among historians that this was built with Chola influence only. Though the Barkur had the legend of harbouring 365 temples, there were 12 big temples and equal number of huge tanks; most of them still in use and one in good condition is ‘Chauli Kere’, double the size of a football ground!! ? In the vicinity of this complex, one can see artistic stone pillars, steps to get into the water from all sides, and canals linked to irrigate, with fired bricks etc. reminds one, of Indus valley culture. One more startling attraction is the ‘Large stone slab Hall’ as many as eight layers of metre in width and three to four metre long, equal size stone sheets, with decorated ceiling from inside, standing on beautifully carved pillars. Vision
for tomorrow: In other words, this place has all the ingredients of making it a beautiful tourist / picnic spot – say with lake boating facilities and a quality restaurant, - ideally located, fairly away from town limits, i.e. 2 km east of Kalchapra bus stand, on the state highway to Shimogga, (near Heradi - close to Barkur Railway station,) - provided, the Govt. authorities take steps to remove mud accumulated for years, to open the eyes of springs and hidden fountains to allow more natural water to flow and the Department of Tourism and Culture and the local political leaders and enterprising investors, wake up and show determination to conserve / preserve this legacy..!. We the Barkurians, boast of rich and rare ancient monuments, in some places there is nothing except inner structure, and may be the presiding deity that can be regarded age old. Therefore it is difficult, to showcase the real picture of ancient face of few temples. Moreover we may be having ‘problems of plenty’ to maintain or renovate, all historical structures especially the two forts, Jain basadis and sculpture. !!. Conclusion: It is the noble effort of this ‘BARKUR WEB SITE’ – to familiarise ourselves, our rich culture to the public, and an invitation to readers and scholars, to reflect on such, and other subjects of extinction and distinction, in general, in coming days…..!!!. On
behalf of CYM - Barkur Ex-Members Committee, P.Archibald
furtado, Muscat, 4th
May, 2002.
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Barkur, located in Udupi Taluk, Karnataka, India. 576 210 |
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Copyright Kishoo, Barkur 2002. |
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