Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Justpontification.

There is a song I used to hear very often a few years back and it still comes up in my audio awareness every now and then.

The song is Californication. It has a very lilting tune which you can always catch on You Tube. I liked the audacity of the title of the song for the style of “sin” that is suggested besides its association with images of California.

The song was popularized by a group with a boiling Andhra-Restaurant name “Red Hot Chilli Peppers”. Now as we all know Red chilli has Vitamin C which is good for your health even if it is sometimes so hot that its fumes clean up your ears. However, there is no lurking lip-smacking anticipatory immorality that is suggested by the group’s name.

The lyrics of this song, when I finally got to read it on the internet, are as sober as young people can get --- a tad disappointing for people looking for sin.

The first verse describes what they meant by Californication.
Psychic spies from China
Try to steal your mind's elation
Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations
And if you want these kind of dreams
It's Californication

The use of China and Sweden may be the trivial parts while “mind’s elation” and “screen quotations” form the essence of the fruitless californication.

The creators of this song (John Frusciante and Anthony Kiedis, names I have also just obtained from the internet) have personal life styles, which --- as was said for Sister Maria in “Sound of Music” records --- would “throw a whirling dervish out of whirl”. Both were extreme drug addicts and, if they were experimentalists, they must have gained considerable wisdom from the lives they led (look up Wikaepedia). They must have survived when they wrote in Californication
Marry me girl be my fairy to the world
Be my very own constellation

There may not be Beatles’ greatness in the lyrics of this song. They did, however, coin a new word, californication, and they did say what it means.

No californication is expected when you are in your ninth square-year (between 64 and 81 years). That must be a blessing, especially if you do not insist that the best part of your life is when you were californicating. You are also not expected to get any attention --- another blessing --- from californicating youngsters for whatever words of wisdom you may want to give them. Young people have to live their life to learn and they would not want to learn by proxy from eight-to-nine-squarers.

Nevertheless we must have our say. As one ripens with age one is left with a head which would seem (see image) very swollen with respect to other organs such as those of smell and hearing and sight.

When the 8-9 squarers have their say, the younger people dismiss it as gyan (implying “wisdom of our ancestors” used first as a slang “ by Sir William Grant when speaking against Sir Samuel Romilly’s proposal to make men’s real property subject to the payment of their debts” if we are to believe New York Times of 1871 Feb 26) and bhashan (sermon as in the Beatles’ song Eleanor Rigby where we have “Father Mckenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear, No one comes near…All the lonely people.”

The title of this blog might as well have been “Dena gyan aur bhashan” which is a dismissive phrase used by youngsters for advice from seniors especially when it is filled with good sense. The hindi word “dena” means “giving” which I have included for rhyming with (in sound and syllables) “californication”. “Dena gyan or bhashan” would then be “Justpontification”.

It may not come as a surprise that most times, the things that constitute Justpontification of the 8-9 squarers could as well be “minds elation” and “screen quotation” as in californication. It would be disappointing if that is actually how trivially life is played on chequer-boards, checking and mating and slaying; not even ad-spiraleum in Hofstadter’s Escher-Godel-Bach sense. But we don't give up that easily.

It is hoped that the Justpontification blogs, of which this is the first, may do things a little different from californication, even if Justpontification is suggestive of a monastery and some chilling vibrations of rattling bones and weak digestive systems. No red hot chilli peppers; only cool rice-curd-cucumber. At some stage of life that must be the ultimate blessing.

One of the nice things about getting older is that you have never been that old before. You cannot really say that I have not been younger before no matter how metaphorical you would wish to be. My mother used to say at her old age that she does not know how to judge what is going on with her because she did not experience old age before. She just said she is finding out what old age is all about.

You are still climbing your mountains even when you are old. Rigor of the mortis kind and dogmatization is avoidable in older persons. So as you grow older and look back you can always say about trespasses of youth --- as the Roman catholics would quote Jesus Christ even at the hour of death “Father forgive them their trespasses for they know not what they do”.

But can we forgive the trespasses of youth simply because they know not what they do. Repentance and mending of ways is accessible to the youth. Should they not benefit from the “wisdom of our ancestors”? Part of this wisdom is punishment for trespasses as a deterrent towards future trespasses.

Why are we deferring punishment? Should punishment be deferred simply because it helps the economy to package and sell sin by mocking at the “wisdom of our ancestors” as gyan aur bhashan? Should one overlook shortcomings when it increases profit and drives the economy? We never ask “Whose profit and economy of what?”

The reason I got personally urged into this topic is because of a very scary experience a few days back. Our car, driven as always by Lalitha, was going at a comfortable speed on a badly lit Baner road (Pune) in the night when it was rudely shaken up as it was grazed by a speeding yellow-board fat Innova Toyota car near the Mahabaleshwar Hotel. The Innova did not stop and sped away in a flash. Lalitha’s car swerved to the side. Her car grazed along a banking on the road. There were other vehicles all around. There was a pedestrian in front of the car who was urging Lalitha with two hands to stop and was confused why Lalitha’s car was not stopping. There was a young cyclist ahead. It took some time to apply the brake. For those few instants visions of things going horribly wrong floated across every body’s mind. The cyclist was hit lightly just before the car managed to stop. Fortunately no one was hurt even slightly.

Did this really have to happen. Was this a consequence of forgiving too many trespasses?

The Baner road crosses the Ram nadi (river) near Mahabaleshwar hotel. There is a narrow bridge across the river. A very inconsequential Commonwealth Youth games was held few months back. There was a huge construction contract for people who require making filthy amounts of money. The Baner road was to be widened; it was widened in a hurry (without calling for proper tenders). The widening of the bridge could not be done in the short time. So a typical Indian solution was applied. The widening of the bridge was postponed. The widened Baner road now narrowed near the bridge leading to congestion of traffic. Traffic slows down because of the congestion. Road rage increases and young minds throw caution to the winds; they curse gentle ladies driving with caution. The driver of the Innova must have tried to scare the old lady.

Does the blame fall on the rash driver or does it ultimately fall on the greedy contractors who set standards.

As a good friend pointed out to me, the word that is most impressed upon the minds of a good middle class (Bengali) Indian is to be chalaak. “My son is so chalaak!” a father would proudly say. Being chalaak is not being intelligent but being cunning just as there should be a difference between californication and justpontification. Other languages have their equivalent. The chalaak mind usually benefits from bending rules and exploiting the “forgiveness” of good behavior.

The chaalu --- as they would say in Hindi --- belongs to the same tribe as several other get-rich kinds of the world. In India they include the Gutka barons and political representatives of the most populated kinds. They make money by milking human weaknesses. They sell cheap addictions and dreams to the poor and the ordinary. The chaalu makes a little profit from the poor. Every little illegal profit makes a mighty bank account in some understanding/conniving foreign account of a non-resident Indian (NRI). In principle, there is little difference in the methods of most rapidly rich people and that of a beggar who sells his poverty and earns a little bread. Would we call a rich beggar a good entrepreneur of the same class as the Gutka baron, or the beer king, or the swimsuit calendar seller, or the politician who gets (or claims to get) a rupee each from voters in his/her constituency?

One of the personalities I love to not love is our “sports baron” Vijay Mallya. Since he is not a friend and is only a public figure with a public record he likes to flaunt I feel free to discuss him just this time. It is not because he is super rich. Its not his fault if his father left him a sound business at the age of twenty eight. It is not his fault that he became an NRI which helps rich Indians not to pay Indian taxes. He seems to have all the virtues of super-rich American companies such as AIG, or Lehmann brothers, or even a Madoff. He overspends and influences people to get better credits and also not to pay, say, fuel bills (1000 crores?), airport bills (~250 crores to Airport Authority of India) for his airlines. As somebody said Mallya is now a king of Unaffordable Good Times living of government doles that are euphemistically called bail outs.

If you make a simple calculation you may find (sometimes calculations go wrong) that Vijay Mallya owes to the people of India more than twenty rupees per every Indian, and there are a billion Indians. You can be very rich if you can afford to owe that much! If you don’t return my twenty rupees I don’t talk to you. One billion Indians would not talk to Vijay Mallya. But does he care? He does not darn his socks like Father Mckenzie in Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby. He is not one of those lonely people.

In India, as I am sure it is so elsewhere, the richest people build the biggest temples. One may not associate Mallya with praying in temples. He does something equivalent. He buys Tipu Sultan’s sword and Gandhi’s spectacles and is rewarded by waivers on his petrol bills and relaxations on debt payments.

It is perhaps unfair to single out Vijay Mallya. Poor man! There are so many other influential people like him living on forgiven trespasses! Why pick on Mallya? Simply because he reminds you of George Bush --- another spoilt rich kid who did not grow up. But then, can you imagine if there are so many filthy rich like him, how much money every Indian is owed!

I suppose all this must be reflected in some way in the economic meltdown in the world starting from the very very chalaak attitudes of investment bankers in the mortgage crisis and the very generous bailouts of the US government by “forgiving their trespasses”.

Maybe we should have listened to the “wisdom of our ancestors” or the justpontification of economists before communism was known. Did not Marx say something like big fish swallowing small fish till there was no small fish and the big fish died of starvation? Or was it in Aesop’s fables or Thurber’ morals?

Interestingly Karl Marx did californicate. He ran up debts and was wounded in a duel before his father pontificated.

No californication please. Just pontification.

Thought of Food 3: A "Mahrashtrian" Bread

When I was in Bordeaux, France in the early 1980s, I loved to take the early morning walk to the Boulangerie, bakery shop that specializes in breads and rolls, to buy the stick of the freshly baked, nearly a yard-long, French bread baguette, which fits so nicely into the palm of your hand. The baguette has all the simple and basic elements of food (water, flour, yeast and salt) in it. It is baked with steam being injected so that the crust is allowed to expand before drying. It has slits in it to allow for the escape of moisture and water vapour. It ends up with a crunchy and crisp crust. The long bread is full of sin to taste when it is fresh and can be made more sinful by cutting it into slices and stuffing it with whatever one likes --- salami, French cheese, olives, marmalade --- even if it may not be entirely approved of by the traditional French cuisine.

Slices of baguette accompany every French meal. When the baguette is fresh, these slices become important in mopping up (the best part) the plate after the meal. When the baguette becomes even a day old, it becomes very dry and inedible except for some insistent Indians and few other foreigners. They become bird food in parks and lakes much to the joy of children who feed them and much at the expense of the birds’ health since they are not suppose to eat white bread --- I suppose the temptation for basically unhealthy food is the same for all living things including the carp in the ponds of Pymatuning (see internet).

I suppose feeding slices of slightly old baguette to western guests in Indian homes (we did not keep bread in bread boxes those days) would have driven them anyway to the chappathis and phulkas on the table. But it did bring out some comments from some friends mainly from east European countries (communist at that time). One of their more frequent grouses against the French was the quality of their breads. They disliked everything the French made in their Boulangeries --- except perhaps their sinful croissants. The East Germans scientist at University of Bordeaux’s Laboratoire de Chimie du Solide were proud of their black German breads which they carried with them wherever they went. These German black breads were always soft, you felt like a saint when you ate them, and never did any harm to your health knowingly, as well as, I suspect, unknowingly. Typically, German black bread would have sugar, rye, whole wheat, bran flakes, Caraway seed, fennel, molasses, vinegar, dark chocolate.

This recipe is meant as a small exercise to highlight the many possibilities available with local or desi cereals and grains. As a rice-eating Bengali I guess I should not be talking about breads. My present blog comes from my experiences with the food habits of the Maharashtrians. The Maharashtrians themselves may have not worried about ever thinking up a recipe like this. Why should they? On the other hand ... why not?

Ingredients:

The basic ingredients for the dough are (click on pictures to expand)
• sorghum (jowar), millet (bajra), finger millet (raagi), whole wheat (from Navdanya) flour (atta), coriander seeds (dhaniya). The quantities taken are roughly equal as indicated in Fig 1 left (for this particular recipe the cups were nearly full). The jowar, bajra and raagi were ground for a short time (less than a minute) to get a coarse-grained powder.
• Fresh Baker’s yeast (in this case the yeast was kept in the deep-freeze of the refrigerator, and about a teaspoon scraped with a knife for making the dough), two table spoons of luke warm water, two teaspoons of sugar and one small table spoon of atta was mixed and allowed to rise for nearly half an hour (Fig 1 left shows the yeast mix after roughly fifteen minutes).
• The ground powder is mixed with the atta and the yeast paste along with one heaped teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon of mustard oil (olive oil or butter could be used instead)
• Some of the other additives that were used to impart some flavour were curry leaves, generous amount of coriander seeds, flax seeds (jawas), seeds of a variety of melon, dried red chillies.
• One of my favorite additives (Lalitha does not like the concept) is to use the Indian fruit, kokkam (Indian mangosteen), which grows on trees in the region of the Western Ghats in India. This fruit is very sour. It is mixed in various foods to give them its unique flavour. I have found it makes a very rich red liqueur when soaked in spirits such as brandy or vodka along with other ingredients (more of that later). After the liqueur is drained out, the soaked kokkam lasts very long (four years and still going in this case). It tastes quite ok once you have removed your prejudices. If you are still prejudiced you could add olives or some red Kashmir chilly pickles.

• All the ingredients are then mixed together and made into dough by adding water till it seems to be just a little bit too dry. Then add one more teaspoon of water. The dough is kneaded for twenty-thirty minutes by hand. A bread-maker will not work (I do not have one in any case). Then rolled into a ball (Fig 2 left) and kept aside in a covered container for at least an hour. The dough size roughly doubles (Fig 2 right).
• The dough may be made into two, kneaded again for 15-20 minutes (good time pass; it helps to imagine you are giving somebody the treatment while you are kneading) and rolled into two (three) cylindrical bits and then plaited (Fig 3 left) and kept on an oiled and floured baking tray.





• A round aluminum vessel has also been used to bake the bread (Fig 4). The vessel is oiled (mustard oil in this case; it could be any preferred oil or butter) and floured and the rolled dough placed in (Fig 4 left).
• The dough is allowed to raise for another hour or so. The size of the dough doubles again (Fig 3 and Fig 4 right). The dough is now ready for baking.
• Before baking it may be preferable to prepare a crust for the bread. For this purpose I have used caraway (nutty anise flavour) and melon seeds (almond flavour) soaked in a thickish salt solution and spread on the dough (as in Fig 5 left). I have also mixed varai (jungle rice, Echninochloa colonum) in thick salt solution along with a thick syryp (Indian gooseberry or amla syrup was available; honey or treacle can do) and spread it on the bread (as in Fig 5 right).
• The breads were baked in an oven between 200 C – 220 C for 75-60 minutes (the temperature controller on this thirty-year old Siemens electric oven still worked but the setting was not accurate.
• The breads were taken out and cooled on a tray (Fig 5)



• The breads cut well (Fig 6, the blue colour is a reflection of the blue sky from the plastic cutting board) looked good, tasted very good, and stayed good (one week easily) in a closed container (Fig 7, another bajra-jowar-raagi bread with some changes)
• The breads lasted and tasted good. There was no after taste that one has with commercial breads even of the multigrain variety. The breads were neither puffy nor porous. They were not hard either. They were not meant to be since we were trying to get the effect of the German bread. Bruno (our fox terrier) preferred this bread to the other commercial baskets. Even the sparrows and other birds preferred the crumbs of this bread.

Some Food for Thought:
One of the problems of breads, German or French (it started with them? Or from the Egyptians?), is that they are made from dough (rye, wheat, barley or even oats) which have gluten in them. Gluten has many cosmetic properties that are liked by the cosmetic or plastic classes which prefer style and never worry about substance. It is gluten that makes the bread have that elastic feeling that allows the bread dough to swell like a balloon during fermentation without cracking up. After baking the gluten becomes hard and this helps to keep the starch in the bread to firm up so that the shape of many bakery items is preserved in the manner that is meant to attract. It is this gluten that is useful in rolling out the dough to make chappaties and rotis. Gluten provides many additional important qualities to bread.

What are the bad effects of gluten? There must be some even if they are not frightening. Among the downsides of gluten are
i) Bread becomes stale faster with Gluten. That is why you require toasting bread after a few days. Toasting bread becomes a value addition in restaurants, although the bread cannot be served unless it is toasted sometimes.
ii) Allergy to gluten gives coeliac disease which is an under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed digestive disease that affects the villi in the small intestine that is responsible for absorption of food. When the villi is affected there is no nourishment and one is tired no matter how much food one eats. In adults this can lead to anemia, osteoporosis, miscarriage, among other problems. As one can see the female species is perhaps more susceptible.
iii) In USA more than 1% of people are affected. This becomes nearly 5% when a parent, sibling or child has the disease.
iv) Avoidance of gluten-free (even in secondary foods) diet is necessary for patients with coeliac disease.
v) People with coeliac disease could also suffer from symptoms due to, say, Vitamin B12 deficiency. This is another line to be taken up later.
vi) With the monopolization of the food industry at least in terms of taste there must be some worry about the amount of gluten going into food. The craze for pastas has increased the use of durum wheat which has the largest amount of gluten.
vii) To reduce risks with gluten it is necessary to avoid all wheat products (including wheat starch, wheat bran, wheat germ, cracked wheat, hydrolyzed wheat protein) as well as rye and barley. That about gets rid of everything? It should not be a problem for rice eaters and bajra-jawar-raagi roti eaters once one continues to know how to flatten the dough between the palm of their hands as they have been doing for millennia.

The “Maharashtrian” bread is recommended for those who insist on not having these skills. Or for those who prefer to experiment for health’s sake.

Pune Street Scenes IV: Pune Trishundiya Ganapathi Temple Interior

This is the second part that follows the earlier blog. It is an attempt to understand the story of this strange temple in terms of the gods within. I might as well forewarn at this stage that I found out nothing about why and when it became known as the triple-trunked trishundiya Ganapathi temple. It was sufficient for me just to see and speculate.

What I do not know about temple architecture and sculpture will most likely fill all the books written on it. One of the things about temple sculpture is that it is living worship that has been metamorphosed into stone. What the living culture is or was we do not know. We know now how quickly a traditional culture can disappear when faced by compelling social changes, such as invasion of the unnecessary kind (armies, fashion, multi-media). The records that survive are the ones of the approved kind, if not of the popular kind. The kinds approved by governing authorities are the ones which last longer. The builders of these architectural records may have little association with the ordinary people even in spirit. There are more temporary records written on the mind and the soul, or on paper or carved from wood which decay faster than the basic sentiments that they have been built on and continue to be associated with. An analysis of these records then is as inconsequential as a so-called “scientific” discovery of the material money-making kind can be in the long run (celestial time scales, as one would say).

One can make an effort nevertheless. One owes it to those who chipped away for the sake of a god of daily things who filled their bellies and perpetuated a basic happiness that lingers and that we thank god for. This, after all, is the symbolic necessity of a temple. Worship at a temple is not always necessary. Study of an unstudied temple may serve as a futile speculation on a dead past. But study we must, if only for an unstudied blog.

We came as early as we could to have a look at the interior of the trishundiya ganapathi temple. The temple was open. It was around 11.30 in the morning (see clock in Fig 2) and the temple would close at noon. We had to hurry. Devotees were going in and out without any constraint. They spent a little while sitting and meditating, went clockwise around the temple from outside (see Fig 1 right for the plan of the temple, click on picture to expand). We expected to see an old wooden statue of ganapathiji with the wooden grains of the sculpture showing somewhat --- probably hidden under layers of oil accumulated over centuries?. As it happens in India, there was indeed a trishundiya, but there was so much else!

Among the first things that hits you when you enter through the eastern portal is the signs of daily life inside the structure. As mentioned in the earlier blog there is a hall with a dome when you enter. On either side of the hanging temple bell two ceiling fans also hang with ill concealed electric cables. On both walls are signs (Fig 1) of daily living --- washed vessels after tea or some other hot drink has been made, or a plastic bag with the days requirement --- in niches made originally perhaps for equally holy gods of big or small things. The hall under the dome is not well lit. It is sufficiently lit to take pictures without using a flash what with all the camera gadgets we have nowadays. I did use a flash, however, apologizing to the gods (including my wife) several times. By the way, as a sign of regular and popular usage, there is a small black-board on which the timings for the next chathurthi (fourth day of the moon) is displayed.

The rough plan of the temple is given in the extreme right of Fig 1. There are some sculpted pieces (Fig 2) on wall 1 which separates the outer hall with the dome and the interior of the temple. The entrance to the interior is through a decorated wooden door which I forgot to examine in detail. The entrance to the sanctum sanctorum is through a raised step on which there are two conches indicating a connection to Vishnu.

There is a gajalakshmi-like structure resembling that in the front at first glance but very different in actual content. Although the outer sculpture (left of Fig 2) may have been touched up with plaster later the basic style of the sculpture seems to be similar so that they were constructed at the same time or by similarly trained craftsmen. The elephants to the right are distinctly seen to hold pots from which water is being poured to bathe the figure.

Instead of a lady sitting between the elephants the figure seemed to be that of a man. This figure with two hands was not holding anything that looked like lotus that Lakshmi would normally hold. Instead the figure seemed to hold a bell in the left hand and a small vessel in the right. In the rituals for worshipping Vishnu it is proscribed that one rings the bell with the left hand and make an offering with the right hand. Apparently the figure is not that of a deity. I could not get a ready reference to this posture. Instead I found that bells and vajra or dorjes are used in many Tibetan Buddhist rituals (see inset) with bell symbolizing a feminine principle and the vajra, which is the thunderbolt that destroys ignorance. For some reason this is considered the masculine principle while the bell suggests the emptiness of the feminine principle. Tantriks and other ladies would know what this means (?). In any case, the union of these two principles gives the enlightened mind --- the Buddha.

There is another aspect of the figure on the right of Fig 2 that is interesting. The feet of the figure are joined together against each other as they are in baddhakona asana pose. In the poses given by yoga practitioners on the internet, however, the hands usually hold the toes on the feet and the body is bent downwards. Interestingly a lady from New York pointed out in her site that the name of the asana is also given as Lakshmi. So I looked up the gajalakshmi poses on the internet and the only book I have on Early Buddhist Rock Temples (by Vidya Dehejia, Cornell, 1972) as well as the internet to get at the origin of the Gajalakshmi pose. As put down on rock, the so-called Gaja Lakshmi pose actually has Buddha’s mother being bathed by elephants (see the previous blog). I first heard of this pose from Lalitha (everybody believes I could be that ignorant) and I assumed from Ravi Varma’s famous paintings that the elephants used a garland. A quickly finished wooden panel by Andhra craftsmen that decorates the entrance to my flat has the elephants garlanding Lakshmi (Fig 4 top left) with her right foot down.

I found from Dehejia’s book that the early Buddhist temples had, Maya, the mother of Buddha being in the Laksmi asana pose (feet pressed together) as in the reconstructed pieces (Fig 4 left bottom, I have reconstructed the photograph some more) in Dehejia’s book and (fig 4 right top) in the arch above the entrance to Nadsur’s vihara VII. These figures clearly show that the elephants are pouring water, so that gajalakshmis bathe and do not garland. I found on the internet an amusing engraving on the pillars of the North gate of the Sanchi stupa two ladies bathing a child (fig 4 centre left down, North Gate Sanchi) with the composition of the figures (hands instead of trunks, for example) resembling that of the Gajalkshmis at first glance.

The Lakshmi asana pose with the feet being pressed together is not a necessary ingredient for the figures being bathed. Maybe human bodies were more supple in earlier times to take up the lakshmi asana pose without bending their bodies? In images from Sanchi stupa (railings of Bharhut stupa from the railing of Stupa II) the ladies could be standing (fig 4 right) or have their left foot down Fig 3 in the middle).

After all this one could conclude, I guess, that the figure in (what may be identified as) the Lakshmiasana pose on Wall 1, just represents that of a devotee being welcomed into the interior of the temple. Now for the trishundiya!?

The sanctum sanctorum is visible through a grilled door (see Fig 9, see later). On top of the grilled door on wall 2 (see Fig 1, right) that separates the sanctum sanctorum in which the main idol is kept there are sculptures (Fig 5 right). The nature of the sculptures seems to be similar to that in Fig 2 except for the central figures and there are no elephants of the gajalakshmi kind. There is also a plaque (Fig 5 left) with engraved scripts on Wall II on top of the grilled door is made from harder rock and must have been placed later on the original wall.

The plaque with scripts seemed to be in a place meant for it. There are three scripts (Fig 6). Two of them on the left are probably in Devnagari script. The script on the extreme left is raised and seems to be Sanskrit (though Sanskrit scholars I know did not seem to have the patience to go through it and read it and translate it). The second Devnagari script (middle of Fig 6) is engraved into the tablet on which the scripts are written. Both the scripts on the left begin with invoking Lord Ganesha which is normal in the temples here usually classified as Hindu temples. The way the scripts are written they could be slokas which are part of a prayer to Lord Ganesha. There may be two scripts on the right. I have no idea what they could be as yet. It could be a simple puzzle for all ye learned scholars.

There is apparently a sitting Vishnu with bhudevi and sridevi on his lap and seated below the head of what looks like a garuda head in the sculpture on top of the door to the sanctum sanctorum. There are two bearded rishis standing on a lotus flower on either side of the door way (left and right of Fig 7) in the usual guardian style. The jats of Punjab, so the legend goes, owe their origin to Siva’s matted hair; it is also said that the jats of Punjab settled in the region around Pune-Satara in the eighth century. and his followers are usually described as wearing jataa or "twisted locks of hair" as in dread locks in a manner similar to that of the catai worn by Dravidian.

In the centre of the piece above the door I thought after a first glance that it was Vishnu with sridevi and bhudevi on his lap. The main figure(Fig 7 centre) had a varada hasta (boon-giving hand; Lalitha said that the boon-giving comes only after sufficient obeisance is made) pose of his right hand typical of Vishnu. In the dark light (Fig 5 right) one could not make out assimilate and analyze the details quickly. With the help of digital photography and a flash one could analyze later with the internet and google. Thanks to the flash and Lalitha, one noted several things: the figure was not sitting on a Garuda so it need not be Vishnu: there were obviously a nandi and a variation of a lion (not a tiger because there were no stripes to rank it as such) which are the vahanas of Siva and Parvati or any of Siva’s consorts; there were snakes of the cobra type around the neck and the waist of the main figures not usually associated with Vishnu even in his wildest days. The problem was that Shiva in a seated posture is rare especially with a varada hasta hand unless he is in the nataraja pose (search internet) when the left hand is in the varada hasta pose and vertical on top of the big toe of the raised left leg (that’s how you are supposed to make out a genuine nataraja from a quick-buck one, anyway).

One of the things I noticed last but liked best was the lying sprawled out lion at the base of the central figure. This was a lion completely at ease. It was not like the lion in the crouching-lion-sitting-bull pose of the vahanas on either side of the central figure. To add to my confusion was the figure of the garuda spreading its wings that was discernible on the top of the structure that is expanded processed and shown in the top right of Fig 7. Ask any garuda and he would swear that he appears only on Vaishnavite temples. So what was Siva doing there? A quick search through the internet did not give anything special about Siva with a lion at his feet and a garuda above his head. It would have seemed that the sculptor had missed out on a few rules.

Missing out on rules in art should always be encouraged. The followers of Vishnu at some stage may not have thought of temple sculpture as art but as a discipline. There were Agamas (see Tirupati as Buddhist Shrine by K. Jamandas of Dalit E-Forum, Chapter 11 for a sufficiently “biased/learned” version) which described the norms for Vishnu images as existing at that time based on what some may call empirical images of Vishnu imagined from some folklore or harikatha. Dravidian rock cut shrines such as those at Mamallapuram in Chennai or the 7th - 8th century Kailasa caves at Ellora seem to have followed some sort of earlier rules (Vaikhanasagama). There is a contention that these Agamas (“for people who have no other purpose on Earth but to worship Lord Vishnu”) were formed around the 9th century AD so that sculptures earlier than this date may not have been as per the present Siva-Vishnu distinctors. The Siva-Parvathi sculpture (shown in negative in Fig 7 bottom right; click to enlarge) from Kailasa temple of Ellora in Plate XXVa of Havell’s Handbook of Indian Art (1920) (available on Internet) is similar in the style of the hair and the face to that in our own Trishundia. The Dravidian people who sculpted Kailasa probably strayed away from those caves to find their Punya in Pune and carved part of these temples as a time-pass (?). Who said no? and who says yes?

There is another line of thought that occurs to some devious minds especially when one is brought up in the atmosphere of plagiarism current in today’s (today could mean from any time) minds of scientists and bureaucrats, the present day avatars of kings and other less pedigreed royalty. This line of thought would suggest that there was a pre-existing Vishnu idol with sridevi and bhudevi on his lap which was then changed into Siva. If one looks casually at the image one can imagine the remnants of Vishnu’s symbols such as the conch and the chakra. In this case Vishnu could have been saddling a garuda, which itself would have been resting on a sprawled out lion. The head of the Garuda would have been transformed into the head of a cobra. The two animals by the side would have been carved out from elephants in the Gajalakshmi pose (compare with other structures). All this speculation may have been inspired by Jamandas’s suggestion that the Vishnu in pre-agama pe-9th century Tirupathi was actually a Buddhist shrine and the extra arms carrying weapons were added later. Or as the some Iyers insist, Tirupathi was a Siva temple that was turned into a Vishnu temple.

Searching through the internet for the role of lion in sculptures or images I came across a gang-of-4 hari (god) reference in hariharihariharivahan Lokeshvara of Nepalese origin. This is a reference to a god-on-god-on-god-on-god vehicle which is Avalokiteshwara (ava means “down”, lokita means lok or “people”, svara may not be from isvara as we would think but a sound perceiver, the Buddha of compassion or Padampani the holder of the Lotus incarnated in the Dalai Lama among others) on Vishnu on Garuda on lion. A figure of this kind is shown in Fig 8 (left, after suitable processing; key word hariharihariharivahan lokeshvara). It is compared with a processed image of Fig 7 centre (Fig 8 right, with suggestions about garuda head). In the centre of Fig 8 is an ancient tribal image of Parvati with a different posture on her lion from the hills around pune (referred to in Part I blog of trishundiya exterior).


As one looks at the sanctum sanctorum there is a warm and peaceful scene. One always finds a devotee sitting peacefully (Fig 9 left) in front of a grilled door separating the sanctum sanctorum from the inner chamber (see Fig 1 right). There is a gold-coloured stylized representation of a tortoise (Fig 9 left) which seems to be characteristic of old temples around Pune. The present tortoise seems to be of more recent fabrication. I (shamelessly, sorry about that) took a shot of the Ganapathi (painted ochre like most old Ganesha idols in Pune) through the bars on a third day (garlands were changed comparing figures on the left and right) to get a more focused picture. There was no way to say whether ganapathiji was made from wood or plaster and mortar or rock. Both the tusks seemed to be of the same size. Legend requires that one of his tusks be broken off. Two of the three trunks were hidden behind a garland; the central trunk hung in the centre curled towards Ganesha’s right. His left trunk tickled the chin of a lady on his left lap whom he held with his hand (Fig 9 left below). It must be his mother gauri. He wore a snake as his head-band. A shaivite symbol of horizontal lines made in (what looked like) steel was placed on his forehead. The peacock’s head was visible. Ganpathi baba can be loved in many ways but he is always beloved. Behind trishundiyaji there is a niche (Fig 9 bottom right) of the same style as those in nearby temples. The wall inside this is bare except for some brass-like carved plate whose origin is not clear. A head is barely visible. There is a wooden almirah painted blue which is visible and which may be holding some god-clothes and utensils or those of his servants.

It was rather dark behind the main idol. The curse of the digital camera is that one can image process and get more information (valuable or otherwise) even at an amateur level. So behind trishundiyaji I found on image processing two features. The first of these is a reclining image of what seemed to be Vishnu and the other seemed to be David’s star.

The reclining Vishnu has been discussed in the previous blog. The snake on which Vishnu is reclining is similar in some way to that of the Vishnu sleeping on Shesha in Aihole’s 7th century Hucchappaya temple, now resting in the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai. The distinguishing feature of this model of the coiled snake is that the coils stretch out in u-turns on a plane like a bed instead of coiling like a helix vertically to form a cushion. One can discuss the nature of coiling later when there is more evidence accumulated (on my part). At present it could be sufficient to point out that there is some resemblance between the two snakes in Fig 10. The head-gear of Vishnu is less elaborate in the trishundiya temple (Fig 10 right) and could suggest an earlier (more primitive) origin. There is no lotus or Brahma appearing (as far as the image could be processed) from the navel of Vishnu, so that this is an image of Vishnu taking rest (if the agama rules were available then).

The second aspect is that on top of the reclining figure is (Fig 11 centre) what seems to be a David’s star (Fig 11 left, 3rd century seal of Solomon from a synagogue in Galilee) that is said to be typical of Jews. So you ask “How did Jews get into this?” But that is only if you have a Western mindset. You don’t ask if you are convinced that David’s star has interlocked triangles which the symbol in the centre of Fig 11 does not have. You also don’t ask this if you are an older day Bengali--- of the tantrik kind. So was this a tantrik temple? One entry in the internet writes one line about this temple being a 4th century tantrik temple! The walls of the temple behind this tantrik work has two faces on either side carved on the wall. They could be more ancient. On coming out of the temple while looking up to see whether you are clearing your head you see Tantrik signs (Fig 11 right; click on figure to enlarge) more clearly. What we should have noted first, we noted last!

In tantrik yantra tradition, the triangle is a feminine symbol of creation. Before one creates one requires a mind. So within the first triangle is a dot, the Bindu which is said to symbolize intense concentration. In tantra the bindu represents Siva. When two triangles are superposed in opposite direction they symbolize Purusha (or Shiva Kona, pointing upwards to represent the element of fire which is always upwards) and Prakriti (Shakti Kona, triangle pointing downward is the feminine yoni symbolizing the flow of water which is always downwards), who participate in the process of creation. This is the Shatkona and not David’s star. The external limit of the Yantra is the Bhupura which is the square. If Siva can be associated with tantrik yantra designs, the Sriyantra is usually associated with

The overlapping squares the vertices of which gives a regular octagon is sometime known as the star of Lakshmi. It is also known as the Rub el Hizb (with a small circle in the centre), an Arabic character associated with Islam which may account for the preponderance of the octagon in Islamic architecture. In tantrik worship the octagon is sometimes referred to as an Ashtar and is the prime form of Shakti or Parvati. The Ashtar also has an important place in Shree Yantra which is usually associated with Lakshmi, Vishnu’s consort, especially when it is a matter of accumulating wealth. There are sixteen- and eight-petalled lotuses as boundaries in this yantra, all enclosed in a square with four doors one on each side.

From beginning to end this temple should be a tantrik structure! Tantrik traditions come from shamanism of which the pre-buddhist bon religion originating in Tibet is one aspect. In shamanism as in Judaism or islam god does not have a shape. That is soul of the spirits we worship. When we give it a shape we freeze our understanding. The trishundiya temple is then a record of a series of frozen beliefs. These frozen moments may still come to life when seen (reflected upon) in rapid succession even though different sequences may give a different story. It is then that your mind becomes alive again. Trishundyaji has many purposes. This could be one of them.
As I come to the end of this post, I realize that I did not look back to see what is on the wall behind nor did I peek over trishundiyaji to see what was directly behind him. I did not speak to the inhabitants of the temple about their thoughts on it. I also did not ask them about the water tank with a maze beneath the temple that is open only on Gauri Pornima day. After all, in the Pune Gazeteer of 1881, mention is made that the “…chief objects of note in Somvar ward are Nageshvar's … and Vishnu's temples …, the latter with a water-lead and a public cistern.” Could they have been to what is now the trishundiya temple?

Pune Street Scenes III: Pune Trishundiya Ganapathi Temple Exterior

I thought this will be a brief blog about a curious trishundiya (three-trunked) ganapathi. It turned out right from the beginning that the ganapathi could be said to be the least curious feature of the temple. It required considerable unbiased erudition to understand the structure. This erudition is a rare commodity in centres of learning mainly because they depend on non-controversial “soft drink” sponsor for their research funding. It may sometimes be preferable to take an unbiased view by satisfying the first requirement, which is not to be learned. That I am. I have taken some post observation (photography) learning through the internet. I have come up with something which I must now put on the blog so as to remain reasonably self-consistent. So here goes. It is twelve page long and has sixteen pictures. So take your time.

One of the first things that anybody says about the trishundya ganapathi temple in Pune, Maharashtra, India is that the Ganapathi in the temple has three trunks and is the only one of its kind in India. One can have a ganapathi with five heads and five trunks or three heads and three trunks. The trishundya ganapathi has one head and three trunks. The ganapathi is seated on a peacock instead of the rat that he is supposed to be carried by. That is indeed unique. The second feature is that the temple is unique because of the carving of a rhinoceros which is not usual for temples in Maharshtra or in the southern parts of India. Indeed, I have not found on the internet (as yet) an example of a rhinoceros sculpture on a temple anywhere in India.

The approach to the temple itself from the newer parts of Pune is not straightforward. It goes through gulleys and there is no premonition of things to come as you walk down the lanes. You finally see it (Fig 1 left; always click on picture to expand) between two nondescript residential buildings. Once you are seated there (on one of two newly provided benches) you can say you are looking at something pleasant (Fig 1 right).

What hits you, however, once you have got used to this strange manifestation of beauty --- for beautiful it is even if it remains ravaged by the passage of time and irreverent use of enamel paints --- you are struck by the uniqueness of it all. I will not be able to do it the full justice it surely deserves except to draw your attention to some details and make my usual un-refereed comments. Except that one does not know where to begin; and, more importantly, there is no external sign of it being a Ganapathi temple of the Shiva-kind.

We came looking for the unique sculpture of the rhinoceros. At first glance it was a “rhinoceros”. Further inspection made it a rhino of the most unusual kind (Fig 2 left). Then you ask yourselves “what on earth is it?” or more appropriately “what on earth is it not?” It is apparent that the sculptor had not done a rhinoceros before and indeed had no idea what it was. The rhinoceros had its front left foot chained for some reason. Apparently the sculptor used a faithful drawing of a rhinoceros in captivity. The sculptor was apparently familiar with sculpting bull elephant and garuda for temples. So the rhinoceros had the body of a bull, feet of elephants the head starts of as that of an elephant and ends up with the beak of a garuda and a horn is later stuck into the “beak”. Why on earth did they have to put the rhinoceros in unless it was purely for fancy? I must straightaway say at this point that I have no idea!

There is no external sign of it being a ganapathi temple. There were two happy looking Ganapathi-like elephant-headed tigers sculpted in the same manner as the lions in temples (Fig 2 centre from Devgaon mandir near Kittur that is supposed to be in the early Chalukyan style) There is also a figure on the door frame (Fig 2 right) of the Lakshmi Narayan temple nearby with a lion-like body and mane but with an elephant-like head which has teeth instead of tusks. Such a head is common in the temples of Bankapura, Gadag-Lakkundi and is a characteristic of the Hoysala/chalukyan temple sculptures (I really cannot distinguish between them) and will not be discussed further in this article. The creature on the right looks like a hybrid of the other two so I guess the unique feature of the figure on the left is that it is the last in their evolution.

The temple has two pairs of elephants on either side of the entrance (Fig 4 left). The style of the elephants, with warriors on them, resemble the dozen or so elephant pairs, each of different style, surrounding the Dodda Basappa temple in Dambal near Gadag (one of them in Fig 4 right). There are attendants of the elephants with sticks that could have come from any style including the style at Sanchi stupa. The same could be said for the two guardians of the temple (seen in Fig 1).

The most noticeable feature on the sculpture on top of the main entrance to the temple is a Gajalakshmi-like sculpture which is considered to be typical of Vaishnavite temples (Fig 5, click on figure to enlarge). On the other hand, the Sanchi stupa has on their panels Maya, the mother of Buddha seated on a lotus flower with elephants on either side bathing her from a vase held by their trunks. Since the figure outside is disfigured we wont be able to say now whether it is Maya being bathed (sprayed?) or Lakshmi being garlanded. The original story is that it was the Ushas maidens rising from the cosmic ocean when Brhama’s lotus unfolded its petals, that were bathed by Indra’s elephants, who were the rain clouds. It is also said that Ganapathi’s elephant head is the head of one of Indra’s elephants. Come round a full circle? No wonder, we Indians (in Hindus-being-Indians sense) don’t have the fear of Gods. We have no option but to love them!?

On top of this “gajalakshmi” is a structure reminiscent of a Kirthimukha origin indicating western Chalukyan influence? The elephant-like creature supporting this structure is also associated with this influence. It has two huge fang-like teeth instead of tusks. One can go on about this Chalukyan influence with its connection to the “elephant” head in Fig 2 right with teeth instead of tusks. It must await another day when I would have learnt some more. Crowning the centerpiece is a proud peacock flanked by two adoring peahens that only our gods (and James Bond?) seem to be successful with. There are monkeys with genuine monkey tails ascending this sturcture. By the way, it may have been noticed in Fig 2 centre that the “lion” seems to have two tails: a monkey-like tail at the back and a lion-like tail that juts forth between its legs. Which came first? the monkey? the tiger? the sculptor’s licence?

The figures on top and on either side of the peacock and peahens (click on figure 5 to enlarge) at the same level has a simple style which I cannot recognize. One of them (immediately to the right of the peacocks) would be a Madonna with a baby in modern terms (see Fig 6 left) although I cannot say what it is in temple terms. There is at least another “Madonna with baby” on the right. These figures seem to have huge ganesha-like ears. From ground level, I was not able to make out whether these ears were added later or not.




There is a genuine Ganesha figure (Fig 6 centre) on the top part of the back wall (just below the roof) of the temple. There is no rat vahana for this ganapathi. The trunk is moved to the left like some of the older ganapathis in Kasbapet or like the lady Ganapathy (Fig 6 right) in Bhuleshwar which I could write about, but later. I included the lady ganapathi also because I sort of imagine (especially after the Bhuleshwar trip) that the ganapathi of Fig 6 has a bikini top. The style of wearing the cloth on the ganapathi may be imagined to be similar to other vasihnavite figures on the walls of the temple (Fig 8). By the way, did you notice the naamam sign on the Bhuleshwar lady ganapathy's right ear? Wonder if it is a hearing aid?

The figures in Fig 7 look like vaishnavite figures either in their head gear or with their naamam-like symbols on their forehead. The guardians at the door (Fig 1) could be from any time except that the trishul or the naamam on the forehead could indicate a Vishnu origin. The so-called naamam sign appears on the hood of the snake of frontispiece picture of an 1889 book on Buddhism by Monier-Williams. It is a Brass Buddha idol (Fig 8 left) in the Mućalinda Serpent pose (serpent not shown) with five rays of light emerging from the crown head. The symbol (I could not get the Buddhist name for the symbol as yet) is similar (you require to be sympathetic and willing to agree some times) to the Persian script for Allah (shown on the top right of Fig 8 left). The naamam-like appears on a door carving in the neighborhood to the temple (Fig 8 centre) as well as on a pillar of a carving for a niche on the wall (Fig 8 right).

The design on the top of the pillars consist of dwarfs in a pose found, for example, in the sun-temple at Modhera (Fig 9, bottom centre) which was built between the 10th-11th century AD by Solanki Rajput kings (?) who were Suryavanshis or descendants of the sun god. The solankis ruled the western and central parts of India between the 10th and 13th centuries AD. Most of the figures in the trishundiya temple pillar tops have vasihnavite head gear. They are also holding bells of the type (without the chains) seen on the top of the walls in Bhuleshwar (about 45 km from Pune) built around the 11th century (so they say). The bells are also hanging from the mouth of a recognizable lion-like face (Fig 9 top left) unlike the stylized kind seen in Fig 2 centre. The lion face found below an urn is comparable to that found in the 10th-11th century Pataleshwar cave temple in Pune. The urn and the lion face are also found in the Modhera sun temple (fig 9 bottom right).



There are arched niches (Fig 10) on each side of the temple containing different idols. I have not tried to find out (as yet) the actual orientation of the temple. The styles of these arches are nearly the same so that one could assume that they were built around the same time. Taking a rough guess from the direction of the shadows, the arched niches from left to right in fig would be north, west and south so that the front of the temple would be facing the east (which is probably not correct, but we will continue with this orientation from now on probably because I am under the impression that vaishnavite temples should have one entrance facing east).

The pillars of these temple-like niches on the walls are shown in Fig 11 with the pillars from left to right being east, south, west and north. In this representation of the orientation the south and west sides of the temple show the most weathering. If the temple is weathered because of the prolonged activity of the south west monsoon in Pune one could expect the south and the west sides to be the most weathered. Its normal to get wrong answers when one is making calculated guesses. So we do not worry about the orientation?

The important feature of interest is the figures in the niches. On the west (right of figure ) is a nataraja of a northern style and on the east (left of figure ) is a Vishnu made in a southern (Trichy?) style. In the cenre is a lingam with a serpent coiled around it with a dove flying towards the top of the lingam and a boar-like creature going down it. This aspect of the lingam was not known to me and I thought that this feature is an unique aspect of the temple. . The connection of the serpent with the lingam would make it a shaivite temple. A search through the internet gave me the following “In tantric yoga kundalini is visualized as a female snake which represents the energies of the adept. … … Furthermore, the force which the snake signifies is female just as the transformative force signified by the opposition of the auspicious and the inauspicious, namely sákti, is a female.” from Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society by JB Carman, F Apffel-Marglin Brill 1985. This did not look satisfactory.

I took some time to find the story about this lingam from the internet but once I got the key search words (Vishnu, Brahma and lingam) I found the legend behind this figure easily. A typical story is as follows (Handbook of Hindu Mythology, G M Williams, ABC-CLIO, 2003):-
In the Śiva Purâna¸Brahmâ Vishnu and Rudra (Śiva) were arguing about creation. When Brahmâ and Vishnu told Śiva that he was the lord of everything and for him to create as he wished, Śiva dove into the cosmic waters for more than a thousand celestial years. Brahmâ and Vishnu decided not to wait for creation any longer; so Vishnu gave Brahmâ enough energy to bring everything into being. Just when Brahmâ had finished his creation, Śiva emerged from the water and angrily destroyed everything by fire. The frightened Brahma worshipped Śiva lavishly, whereupon the pleased Śiva granted Brahmâ a boon. Brahmâ asked that everything be restored. Śiva restored Brahmâ’s creation, discovered that he had no use for all the creative energy he had stored up, and tore off his linga. The discarded linga extended deeper into the cosmic waters than Vishnu (as boar) could dive and higher into the cosmos than Brahmâ (as dove) could soar. So they instituted worship of the linga with heart and mind focused upon Śiva, because all desires would be fulfilled by Śiva.

The top of the temple was visible when we went to the steps of the house in front. It is also visible from far away (Fig 1 left) but we did not notice it probably because the dome, being freshly painted, merged with the background of residential buildings. It looked at first (Fig 13, centre click on picture to expand) like a brick and mortar structure plastered with cement and was thoroughly uninteresting. Inside the temple (seen the next day, although Lalitha seems to have worn the same sari which is extremely unusual), however, this dome was surprising because we did not see it first from outside. There were obvious signs of leakage which must have been uncomfortable for those living inside during Pune’s four-month-long monsoon period. Any plastering work on top must have been done much later.

I looked up Sir Banister’s “History of Architecture: on the Comparative Method”, 16th Edition 1959, which had nothing on Indian or Buddhist architecture. The closest I could get to was the funerary Lion tomb of Cnidos (in Cyprus, ~ 350 BC) discovered by one Newton of the Dilettante Society (an amateur group of the not so idle rich and noble that was founded around 1740. The Cnidos lion (made from a single block of marble) itself was about ten feet long and six feet tall ended up in the British museum. The dimensions and design of the Cnidos tomb is not more than twice that of the trishundiya dome. If your imagination is unfettered by what could be facts, you could conclude (as would Watson to be corrected by Sherlock Holmes) that it could have been a Buddhist stupa with a Buddha figure on top (instead of the lion on the Cnidos tomb).

There are animal figures on the top of the walls supporting the roof. Elephants, horses and lions/tigers could be discerned as brackets. There are coconut coir ropes freshly tied to these animals and must have been used to tie poles for scaffolding for other work. Which will fall first? The rope? Or the sculpture? Below these brackets are carvings of what I think is a lotus flower which I refer to later (in the next blog?).

It took us a second visit to notice Vishnu reclining on a snake which accompanies him in every reincarnation. There seems to be a tortoise flanked by a fish and a crocodile (?) supporting the snake which in my (uninformed perhaps) opinion is strange if not unique. The snake itself is known as Ananta Shesha Naga. The snake is supposed to float on the cosmic ocean which could account for the fish and the tortoise. Like Atlas, the snake bears the earth on his head. When the snake shrugs, like when Atlas shrugs, earth quakes. The snake is without end in time and so the name Anantha Sesha. There are well eroded image of what must be Sridevi at his feet in the style of Fig 6 left. There seems to be (if you imagine or stare hard enough) Brahma being born from a lotus flower on Vishnu’s navel which awakens Vishnu. In this case the two standing human figures at the sides could be those of the demons Madhu and Kaitava whom Vishnu kills as the first thing he does on awakening. So this sculpture would signal Vishnu’s awakening. The way the coiling of the snake is represented gives some indication of the culture of the sculpture.

The much eroded nature of the Vishnu sculpture as contrasted with that of the peacocks below, for instance, which seems to suggest the use of some sort of plaster that resembles a rock. Such a plastering could have also been carried out on some of the portions of the sculpture in the front especially those with sharp edges. It is likely (un-refereed opinion) that such a work was carried out only to sharpen pre-existing features rather than impose new features. Examples of such plastering could also include the work on top of the niche in Fig 10 right. A temple niche in front of the temple (left of Fig 16; click on figure to expand) clearly shows sign of plastering on the right of the arch which has fallen off on the left. Similar plastering work is visible on the wall behind the unplastered living lady of Fig 16, right. It is said by the locals that the three “soldiers” on the left are carrying what looks like rifles and so must have been the work during British times. On the other hand it could have been a more recent dressing of an older figure once the plastering skill is taken into account. The plastering work resembles that in Bhuleshwar or Saswad, for example. The absence of such a plastering of Vishnu, suggests that the reclining Vishnu was part of the original structure.

So, the trishundiya temple is turning out to resemble more a Vishnu temple from its external appearance than a traditional ganapathi temple of Mahrashtra. The existence of a Vishnu temple in Somvarpet of Pune was recorded in the Pune Gazetteer of 1881. Local people tell us (reading from a notice outside the temple) that the temple was constructed in 1754 or so. I won't say “hogwash” to this. Instead, I think the temple was “renovated” or reconstructed around that time. I have to go back and confirm all my speculations but then it may spoil my images. I could say, for examples, that the trishundiya ganapathi (whch is seen inside the temple) was installed during some popular socially acceptable times such as Tilak’s ganapathi puja pre-independence movement.

In the meanwhile I certainly think that knowledgeable and sensitive people should take some time out and restore parts of the temple the way it deserves --- and deserve it certainly does. This temple seem to record the passage of time in Pune and must have existed for much longer than what is officially said. It could be from the 10th century when it pre-dates the official history of Pune. The early history of Pune is said to involve settlements on the banks of Mutha river when it started out as Punnaka - an agricultural settlement in the 8th century and is said to derive its name from Punya Nagari or the city of virtuous deeds. It was ruled first by Rashtrakutas and then by Yadavas before the Muslims and the British came into town. But long before that Buddhist caves at nearby Karla, Baja and Bedsa cave existed. Considering the number of rivers and streams flowing in Pune area it is difficult to imagine that truant or tired Buddhist traders would not have sought rest in this area and rested by a stream in wooden or bamboo shelters and built a more permanent adobe in stone to be later occupied and modified by various rulers and their cultures.

This temple could even be from earlier times if we want to examine the large ears of the figures carved on the top left of Fig 7. I have not found convincing examples as yet. In one entry in the internet there is a figure of Jivai mata in the Jivdan forts of the Shayadri range. This region is supposed to begin from the Satvahan era( see ajayglance of Jan 21 2008 in natureglow.blogspot.com)who participated in the Buddhist sculpture, say, at the Karle caves near Pune. The figure of the devi also has large ears similar to those shown in Fig 7. Maybe there was pre-satvahana structure in this spot?!

As a record of the history of the peopling of Pune, the maintenance of this "trishundiya" temple surely requires a little more sympathy from those who matter in Pune. To begin with, surely one can find a way to get rid of paint marks and painted faces on sculptures (Fig 1 right), vegetation on the sculptures (Fig 5) electrical cables and fittings (Fig 5, Fig 9 bottom left), ropes and other strings tied to figures for hanging things (Fig 14) and improper and obstructive locations of benches (Fig 16 right).

Pune Street Scenes, Part II: Tulsibag, Saswad, Lakkundi

It is difficult for any true Puneite not to visit Tulsibag (written differently as Tulsi baug or Tulshi-bagh) and having gone there not to have spent a few minutes relaxing in the ambience of the Ram Mandir. I somehow managed to spend nearly nineteen years in Pune without visiting the Ram Mandir although I have been to Tulsibag and its environs shopping for various indigeneous produces in its herbal medicine shops and around the mandai vegetable market. I wonder why I did not go there. Probably I have an allergy to “Bhagwan” (of the living or imagined or mythological types) Ram (maybe because of Bengali youth) .

Tulsibag is a crowded street (Fig 1; click to expand) typical of the shopping alleys that lead to important places of worship all over the world. Unlike other places, however, this tulsibag lane has almost anything you wanted to buy and will want to buy each time you visit the place. Unless you are like me, you also will not find anything cheaper any where else than what you pay for in Tulsibag. It is busy all the time and in the afternoon sun you may suddenly think that you are surrounded by a bevy of smartly dressed girls --- maybe a typical affliction of old age.


It is also difficult to associate a Ram Mandir with the Marathi manoos and his Shiv Sena inclinations. The Ram Mandir is probably a creation of the Poona Brahmins who were, at the time of construction of the Tulsibag temple, surviving defenders of the hindu religions after the political power of the previous Hindus (shivaji?)had declined. The Poona Brahmins, including the famous Balshastri Jambhekar, gave guidance in religious matters to outsiders and meetings were held at the temple to decide on various religious issues such as the holding of purification rites for those who had strayed to other religions and wanted to be re-admitted to the Hindu fold.

One may enter the Ram Mandir complex from the Tulsibag shopping street side or from the another busy road with heavy traffic which takes you to vishram bag wada. I will write about this later (I hope). On entering from the shopping street side you first encounter a rather dilapidated structure with a crude iron staircase seeming to lead nowhere (not even only for show). There are remnants of what could have been a magnificent wooden structure made out of thick wooden blocks that could have lasted forever. They reminded me of the more-than-2000-year-old wooden structure on top of the Karla caves near Pune and you wonder from where the wood in Karla came and what kind of wood. There does not seem to be local trees of that type remaining in and around Pune. I guess the wood in the Ram mandir is of the kind used by the Deccan Sultanate for their structures although I have not seen any sultanate-type structures in Pune. The temple is not very old (by Indian standards)having been built in 1761; I suppose access to teak and mahogany would have been possible.

The maintenance of the place has not been kind to it. The right-hand side of the wooden structure has broken off (Fig 2 left; click to expand) and has been kept from falling away by a thin wooden strip iron-nailed (!!!; this must be sacrilege because old temple structures did not use nails of any kind) onto the wooden structure. In this particular structure there are one-foot wide wooden planks which have been joined together. I will have to learn more about carpentry to comment on it properly, even though I will continue to make comments simply because it is my wont?

If you happen to look behind you after you enter you will see (Fig 2, right; click on photo to expand) a red-colored building with Hanuman painted (native Waarli style?) on the top right-hand (facing the building) corner and Garuda on the left. The way the window is constructed with its hinges and metal strips indicates > 100 years vintage. There is a daily life being led behind these walls. For example, if you look through the window on the left hand side of Fig 2 (right, click to enlarge the picture) you see probably the red cloth of the altar of a family deity. You also see a blanket- or carpet-like object with floral design inside the room. These floral designs are similar to what you see on the roof of the temple (see later).

If you go to the other side of the temple (Fig 3, a sketch of the view of the temple from the front is given in the inset on the left; click to enlarge the picture), the structural framework is better maintained. One notices the planks of wood used to make the structure. More interestingly there is an intricate “grill work” in the woodwork on top of the arch. At first glance one would think it is a metal grill. On looking closer (click to expand picture) one finds that there is a prominent crack line in the grill that coincides with the point where the joints of the planks in the main structure have been made. So, one could think that the “grill work” carvings were made on the planks after they were fitted together. But there is another crack line below the main crack-line which does not coincide with the plank-joints! So, was the grill-work made separately and then fitted into its slot? And, what super-adhesive kept the "grill work" attached to the main frame so that it would rather crack than detach (if you get what I am getting at)?! If you look closely at the other un-filled slots, there is no evidence at first sight (or even my closer examination) that there is any evidence for the inlaid work to have been chipped away or broken away.


Other than this piece of wood-work there is hardly anything of instant admiration as far as the wooden sculpture inside the temple is concerned. The temple inside has the usual green and orange and brown-coloured pillars and arches as well as some glass lamp jars (not seen here). The hall in front of the sanctuary does not look like much but it is a nice place to sit and meditate and rest --- even if you are careful with your belongings.


The ceiling of this hall and the adjacent slanted roofs hold surprises (for me, at least). There is a mosaic of engraved work which is uniform over long distances. A floral motif has fallen off in the centre (Fig 5, right; click to enlarge) so that the decoration must have had a Lego-set approach. The work is typical of Muslim (deccan sultanate?) or Christian architecture (European artists?) although I wonder whether the Poona Brahmins, so concerned about conversion and re-conversion, would allow meat-eaters into their temples --- unless they felt white is right, in which case the artists may have been Europeans. Similar ceiling designs are found in the cathedrals in Goa (if my memory serves me right). Actually, the temple is known as a Peshwa temple. The Peshwas built Pune including Shaniwar Wada. There are painting of the Shaniwar Wada (in the British Museums, where else?) in which there are Englishmen who are obviously being treated well. It is not typical (in my opinion) of Hindu artists to repeat their art in a mosaic. They have such a vibrant and multifaceted artistic temper (so many gods!) that it is very unlikely they could repeat art over and over again in the same area. I am at present not aware of whether the engraving was made in plaster or wood and what kind of paints was used. The roof on the left had cracks (see right hand corner) and there is sign of collapse at the center.

Before we become too concerned with the rights of Indian ladies in western dresses in pubs and bars that is being highlighted (highlit?) these days in the Indian media, it may not be too much of a moral policing, if some attention was paid to maintaining the work of these artists if not our culture. On the other hand, it is perhaps a blessing, in some way, that no maintenance was attempted as it is very likely that the corporation would have gone about the job thoroughly in the way they only can.


The borders (Fig 6, left; click to enlarge the picture) of the work on the inside of the slanted roof were different from the main work. The work on one border (to the left facing the sanctum sanctorum) has a slight variation of the floral arrangement while that on the right is very different. The one on the right has work that resembles the “grill work” of the structure in front (Fig 3). The engravings on the borders were on wood. For comparison with other pre-Mughal art I have included a panel from the temple at Deogambe near Kittur which has early Hoysala architecture. The floral motifs here at (Deogambe) could be related to the ram-mandir motifs at least for the border of the left roof.

If I am to believe what is said in “The New Cambridge History of India” authored by > 20 writers, 3 of whom have Indian names, there were no temple building traditions available at the time the Ram Mandir was built. Hindu religious architecture in Deccan was effectively brought to an end by Delhi conquests by the end of the seventeenth century with no living tradition to draw from. According to this book, Maratha temples relied on sultanate and Moghul architecture for techniques and decoration from mosques and tombs. There is no dipamala in the ram Mandir complex, which is characteristic of maratha temples associated with Shivaji (my observation).

The idols of the Mandir (made of white marble) are placed on a square sanctuary made from huge rocks. There are no figures carved on these rocks except for a carved grill work which had some resemblance to the motif on the ceilings.

There is a decorated brick and plaster twelve-sided tower which is nearly 150 feet tall and which rests on the square sanctuary (Fig 7, left). It is perhaps the tallest temple tower in Pune. The style of this tower (click to enlarge picture) resembles in my mind to that (Fig 7, right)of a temple in the Gadag-Lakkundi region. A characteristic of the Ram-mandir tower in Tulsibag is the number of golden finials on the tower (fig 7 left; click to expand). In the comparison of the two styles I have marked the finials in the Gadag-Lakkundi towers by a yellow dot (fig 7 right; click to expand).


The ram mandir at Tulsibag is supposed to be similar in style to that in nearby Saswad. This is sometimes interpreted as being the influences of carried-over skills from the 11th and 12th century Yadav traditions that built Saswad. Both these places (Fig 8; click to expand) have large and small towers; I have not yet familiarized my self with the gods that live in the sanctuary beneath these towers. The temple at Saswad has prominent dipamalas which the ram mandir in Tulsibag does not have. The smaller temple in Tulsibag has different geometrical patterns in the niches of the tower (two shown in the inset of Fig 8, left inset; click on figure to expand) while that in Saswad has human figures. This could attest to the absence of Hindu temple skills in Pune at the time the ram mandir was built.


Finally, in the last set of pictures below, I have compared (fig 9, click on figure to expand) the way various niches in the towers are populated by gods and humans in the temples at ram mandir (left), Saswad (center) and at Gadag-Lakkundi (right). Detailed comments on these figures are not possible at this stage (if only for the sake of brevity). It is true that at the times of the Saswad revival of temple building, the figures of local patrons (made from plaster and without stone) with their typical head-gear were introduced into the towers. This aspect continues, for example, in the shape of the two photographs hanging in the common hall in the ram mandir (fig 4, left). The shape of the head gear has undergone little change between these photographs and the figures on the tower. It is clear that there is a continuity of tradition from the Gadag-Lakkundi times (any where between 6th to 10th century AD) through the Saswad times (after 12 th century?) to the ram-mandir times and which continues to the modern times in the towers of new temples being built in and around Pune. This continuity could be discussed in a future blog. The Gadag-Lakkundi-like temples could have strong Buddhist-like influences especially when one considers the peepul-leaf-shaped niches of the minor figures (fig 9 right).