Mahabalipuram: Early Hindu temples on the shore (Lorie in India, Blog #7)

Our guide, Lacuma, tells us about Indian religions.  How many are there?  Basically, she says, they all come from one: Hinduisum. The Indus River Valley civilization, in the north, where Indian civilization first began, also began the Hindustan religion, which means the religion of the Indus/Indian people.  At first this religion was an earth worshipping religion, focused on the sun, trees, plants, animals, and other things that helped this farming society to survive.  (Growing wheat and barley in the north; rice in the south) Then waves of people invaded India, from Iran and Turkey.  They were called the Aryans, which means “people who do not come from this land.”  They brought the idea of gods, and of the caste system, and they conquered the north in a series of waves, creating great empires.  They created the Hindi language, which is derivative from Sanskrit.  Many Hindu people moved south, where they avoided most of these outside empires.  They are the Drividian people who speak Tamil and other local languages, and created Hindu empires in the south. 

Deities became gradually blended with the earth religion, resulting in Hinduism as it is today.  One way these religions combined is that the gods took on sacred animals who were their vehicles.  For example, Shiva’s vehicle is the bramin, the bull with a hump.  These bulls and their cows are all over the temples, because they protect and transport Shiva, and are therefore sacred.  Likewise, the times of the year and the movements of the stars, which were central to the earth religion, are important in Hinduism, where worship consists mostly of bringing flower offerings and candles, and praying to the appropriate deity for the time and situation.  The gods are numerous and historical, and represent energy forces which transform into various incarnations.  There are many gods, and god is in everything.  Humans never know what will happen next, but they try to do things in a manner which is good and auspicious and will bring peace and happiness. Spirituality is a way of life.

Other religions of India, according to Lacuma, all derived from Hinduism.  Buddhism evolved from Siddhartha’s discontent with his privileged life as a prince, and his desire to search for the cause of suffering in the world.  In his time, many Aryan people of privilege were unfair to the lower castes, and demanded big temple offerings from them.  Materialism seemed to have corrupted the world, so the Buddha renounced it and set out on a spiritual journey.  Jainism evolved in the west as an offshoot of Buddhism.  Jain people do not believe in killing or eating anything, even insects.  Another offshoot in the 18^th century was the Sikh religion, where the five elements are carried at all times by followers. 

Hinduism as a way of life includes many things, which are built into daily life—yoga, massage, meditation, and diet.  About half of the population of Southern India is vegetarian, although that is a family by family choice.  But for everyone, since ancient times, a part of life is also worshipping at the temples, which exist everywhere in historic and more current forms.  To visit the monuments of Southern India is to visit Hindu temples. 

Some of the earliest temples were done as bas relief carved from cave walls.  Along the shore at Mahabalipuram, we saw amazing caves carved from granite rocks which occurred naturally along the Bay of Bengal.  These date back to the 6^th century.

In these temples, the animals interact with people and gods, but also appear as guardians on the temple walls- sacred cows which provide Shiva’s transport.

Near the Shore Temple, which is beautifully sited next to a rough but dramatic part of the seacoast, real Brahmin bulls make themselves at home.

The Shore Temple itself is beautiful and worn, having been sprayed with ocean waves and even occasionally flooded since the 6^th century.

Everyone loves the elephants!  And, just as real cows and bulls populate the land, so do present day granite carvers, doing what people in this area have done for over 1500 years.  

At Mahabalipuram and its vicinity, the early history of Hindu temples is well preserved.  Some think that this place was an early sculpture school, where artists practiced carving the granite rocks naturally occurring there, gradually working their way from cave carvings to temples cared from found stones to temples built elsewhere with stone that was quarried and moved.  But no one knows for sure.