Heritage Excursion - Part 1

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After a tiring week, we were rewarded with a long weekend: Saturday is always a day of rest, and Sunday was a moon day. So roommate Jessica, Rosy from Thailand, and I headed off for a 3-day excursion to see some nearby heritage sights.

First was Sravana Belagola, a small rural town that is the site of a couple of Jainist temples set high up on rock outcroppings arising from an otherwise flat arid landscape. We reached this town in three stages: a city bus to the Mysore bus station (15 minutes); a bus to Chanarayaputna (2-3 hours), then the bus to the village (20 minutes). We had a seat on each bus, though they were all crowded, hot, dry, and dusty.

The main accommodation in Sravana is a complex of guesthouses operated by the temple authority, and I expect most guests are Jains on their pilgrimage to the sacred temples. The setting is nice enough, multiple small 2-storey guesthouses in an enclosed quiet complex with lots of coconut trees and lawns. Our room was simple (R160=$3 for triple), though it lacked luxuries such as running water.

We saw loads of pilgrims at the site, not unlike the Hindu pilgrims elsewhere: all men (many young men), all wearing black lungis (cotton cloth worn like a skirt), often with painted faces and shirtless, traveling in groups loaded into jeeps decorated with orange flowers and flags. Several groups of pilgrims we encountered in Sravana were boisterous, shouting out rudimentary English phrases at us (“Hello, what is your country? What is your name?”), surreptitiously taking pictures of us. Pilgrimage apparently does not require solemnity at the temple site.

After a delicious lunch at the main restaurant in town, we hiked barefoot (the entire site is a temple) up the rock steps. Atop the higher site is a 28' monolith of a standing naked man, visible for miles around. From what I understand, Jains believe in meditating standing up, and that’s what this monolith is depicted as doing. I understand, too, that the person/saint whom the temple commemorates starved himself to death while meditating at the site. And I further understand this is the tallest monolith of a man (or a naked man? not sure which) in India (or the world, not sure which). There was an outstandingly spectacular view of the fertile country-side from the top, coconut trees as far as the eye can see, and lots of solitary places to sit and enjoy the peace. We watched a stunning sunset from the lower temple site. Due to a power outage starting at 6:30pm, and exhaustion following travel and the 3am start to the day, we bedded down early.

Rosy and I planned to get up early to hike the higher hill again for the purportedly spectacular sunrise view. But when the alarm went off at 5:50am, Rosy bailed, so I went up alone. I joined about 15 people -- pilgrims, tourists, a family, and an Indian man with bleached red hair dressed in all white carrying a coconut and smelling of ghee (not sure if he or the coconut were smeered) -- at the gate entrance awaiting the 6:15am opening. Indeed it was a spectacular vantage point, though there was enough of that Western Ghats haze on the horizon to keep the sunrise itself from being particularly commendable.

Sravana is such a small town, and the surrounding countryside appears easily accessible for hiking, we could have spent more time there, but instead pressed on to Halebid.

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