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Published: September 30th 2014
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A unique Pagoda
After 25 years, on second August 2013, I had an unexpected opportunity to visit again this lake side mountain temple of sage Prashar. I had then written a story namely ‘The Grandfather of Gods’ about it in The Tribune’s Himachal that You Do not Know series of articles. Till then it was a mere a neighbourhood travel and pilgrimage spot, away from its present national and Bollywood fame. As an exotic alpine meadow excursion spot and an antiquated spiritual seat of sage Parashar now it is a dream destination for not only the patron population of the surrounding villages of Mandi and Kullu districts of Himachal Pradesh, but also for people from other parts of the country and many foreign lands. When I wrote the piece I was a post-graduate student freaking out in the idyllic mountain side annual fair at the temple site with my newly-wed friends, Keshab Thakur(now Principal of Crescent Moon School Bajaura) and his wife, and a retinue of friends and relatives.
In that first travel piece of mine I had forecast that this
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Highly decorated wooden columns place would become Himachal’s Gulmarg with the right efforts of PWD to provide road; Forest and Environment with its efforts to keep the lake and its surrounding healthy and strengthened with right ecological development approach; and Fishery Department with appropriate approach to keep the lake unharmed with thoughtless interventions about the lake’s aquatic ecology; and the tourism Department with its presence in providing good tourism infrastructure and elaborate signage. I also drew attention to the Forest Department’s lackadaisical attempt to plant pine trees along its hills. The entire slope had been left scarred badly due to this thoughtless action. Trying to plant pine trees on a richly alpine flora covered lake surroundings would have been only a naive act, I had pointed out.
Twenty five years down the line, the place now is connected with road, boasts of two government guest-houses, a couple of inns; and the lake brimming with good water, and visible Parikarma path along it; and over all neat and clean surrounds. All this despite a heavy flow of tourists and pilgrims during the major festival days in June, the holy dip month of Bhadon and round-the-year visits of thousands of tourists. It has become an
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Popular Prashar panorama attraction for bikers, motorists and other forms of explorers; and has provided exotic setting for Bollywood movie stories. But of the thoughtless pine plantation what is left now are two young deodar trees.
The three days long fair during the month of June attracts around tend thousand visitors, and similarly on other occasions, liked Panjo Festival of six neighbouring deities assembling at Prasar’s court, the place experiences big number of footfall. In addition to stray visitors from all over Himachal and India keep flocking to this lake site deity. Though as on date there is no system for recording the visitors’ numbers, the number might have risen phenomenally. This might be challenging to the delicate ecological carrying capacity of the lake. For its long-run sustainability, to avoid any adverse impact on the lake ecology, the floral bio-diversity, to keep its attractiveness to the visitors, a system for gauging the burden need to be put in place.
The best step taken by the forest department is barbed wire fencing of the 126 bighas of the Sage’s sacred lake and its surround areas. This has played a role in keeping intact the lake area’s alpine flora.
There is an interesting legend about the lake’s formation. Thousands of years ago when sage Parashar reached Himachal after his travel of China, Tibet and Nepal, he found this bowl shaped place luring; and sat for meditation under the shadow of a deodar tree. When he felt thirst, he hit the ground with his trident, and water sprouted forming a lake. This filled him with the desire of building a shrine. After getting this magnificent shrine built with a single deodar tree he was very pleased. The temple’s wooden decoration got completed with the help of a six year old boy who followed the hints of Brahma moving in the disguise of a spider. Swayed with the temple’s unmatchable elegance, he wished to rule out future creation of any replica of the shrine. He brought the main mason who had built the temple kill himself by jumping off its top into the lake. But the Sage did this unaware of the fact that soon he would be himself struck by a massive feeling of guilt; which he could rid of only by organizing an atonement Yajna, ritual feast to the neighbouing gods and goddesses and their patron villagers. The famous June festival is supposed to be the remnant of this very atonement ritual.
The geography of land formation tells that this is a typical cirque formation caused by glacial erosion millions of years ago. Of course there are signs of trees having existed at some point of time; and formation of lake or pond in such a bowl shaped land form is only conceivable. The drainage system that develops in a bowl-shaped terrain only make water gather from all surrounding slopes to form a lake at the bottom. This is a micro plateau land form. A high altitude plain surrounded by hillocks on four sides, and their drainage through seepage providing water to the lake.
To the question of how the site might have come up in this distant place, the anthropological answer can be seen in the local deities’ tendency to manifest in a person or in an object or place as their medium or abode, and the patron kings and public gather required resources to build temples in return. Recognizing the wide popularity of the deity in the region, it was King Ban Sen of Mandi kingdom who had built this temple in 1346 in the Pagoda style, one of the four major temple architecture styles prevalent in Himachal Pradesh.
A close look at the temple’s architecture reveal several beautiful features. To begin with, it is claimed to have been built with the wood of just one old deodar tree. This legend perhaps has its base in the fact that the the temple in reality appears to have been built of a wooden monolith. The temple standing roughly 45-50 feet in height is completely wood work. Erected around a square tower of around six-feet by six dimension, rising 45-50 feet in height, it has a huge 12 feet slopping length conical umbrella on its top, covering a square balcony of six feet height; and below it is the second squarish roof covering a squarish balcony of six feet height; and below it is the third slopping roof hanging only six feet above the surface. This roof covers the ground floor inner deity room of six feet by six feet, the inner and outer-court, and the approximately 20 feet by 20 feet ground floor temple space which is provided with 12 sturdy highly decorate wooden pillars. It is in the style of a wooden monolith. With the outer ground floor door only 2 feet into 4 feet dimension; and the inner court door and deity room door all of the same size; and the wall of the ground floor square only 8 feet high, the architect appeared to have give due consideration to wooden material limitation, as well as the suitability to face cold and fierce winds that the temple has to face. Most importantly the very selection of the site in the warm and protected foothill of the eastern hill of the bowl shaped terrain indicates the architect’s wisdom.
The architectural strength of the shrine has stood the the seismic-resistance test. The only damage that even the biggest local earth-quake of 1905, namely the Kangara Quake of continental intensity could not impact it except causing a slight right-ward tilt in the temple structure which is visible at the base front.
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