Places are like people. Some charm you; some are rude; some are friendly, some distant. And like people, places too are complicated. They do not always fit into neat brackets.
Jhalawar, a town on the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border, is one such place. It is unpredictable – while it presents a rugged and aggressive façade, it reveals a warm and artistic side to those who make an effort to know it well. Not that it is easy to do so, but this south-eastern region of Rajasthan is the least explored and not well-connected.
The connected world that we know loses its potency as soon as one crosses Kota, the gateway to the Jhalawar district.
The 84-km ride to Jhalawar reminded me of the oft-repeated jibe on the state of infrastructure in not-so-glamorous parts of India – it seems as if those in authority collected a lot of potholes, put them in a line and called the result the road to Jhalawar.
Even the 22-km road from Ramganj Mandi, the nearest railway station for long-distance trains (from Jhalawar there’s only a daily passenger train to Kota), suffers from the same fate. This ensures one thing, whenever you reach Jhalawar, you are wide awake.
So, there I was on a winter morning, well shaken and stirred, waiting with my friend at the Jhalawar bus terminus for the taxi we had hired by phone a day earlier. A loudspeaker was blaring a parodied Bollywood tune from a temple nearby.
My friend, no doubt in an effort to shake off the effects of the journey, did a small jig to the beat of the tune. What happened next was something I can never forget – a man standing at some distance and one who was obviously still under the influence of excesses he had committed through the night, saw my friend’s attempt. He zigzagged his way towards us, put his small bag on a wall on the side, and stood with his legs apart, right in front of my friend. With his eyes blazing, he looked at him. It was not a friendly stare. We grew a bit uncomfortable, not knowing what to do. In the next instance, he shook himself, raised his hands above his head, stomped his feet and started a vigorous dance! At first, we did not realise what he was doing and took a few steps back in alarm.
And then it dawned; he had decided to challenge my friend to a dance-duel! Fortunately, our cab came, and we rushed into it, bursting out with laughter. What a welcome, but symptomatic of the experience of travelling in the region; you never know what surprise it will spring on you!
Our first stop after breakfast was Gagron Fort, the iconic structure of the region. It’s one of my favourite destinations in India and it was a photograph of the fort that I had chanced upon in the 1990s that took me first to Jhalawar. In the last two decades, I have made over four visits to the fort and even today it has lost none of its charm. Its location makes it a magnificent sight. More so, as it is not surrounded by any habitation unlike most big forts in Rajasthan.
Founded in the 7th century and greatly expanded during the 11th century, it stands there in splendid isolation, the master of all it surveys. About 10 km from the city if you are driving (3 km if you decide to walk), the fort was recently declared a UNESCO Heritage Site.
A fine example of a river-protected fort, it is built on an outcrop just next to the confluence of Ahu and Kali Sindh rivers, which after merging take an impressive turn to flank the fort on three sides. The fourth side is protected by a moat. The main access to the fort is from the northern side via a steep passage through two gates – Ganesh Pol and Nakkar Khana. only after we had walked to almost the end of the fort on the other side of the river that we realised that we’ll have to walk the full way back as there was no bridge or shallow spot where we could cross over to where our cab was waiting.
Then the heat hit us. While walking back, I poured the river water on my head at intervals to beat the heat. The first thing we did when we reached the cab was to rush to the makeshift shop to buy a drinking water bottle each and finished them in one go.
As we made our way back to the city for lunch, we debated what to do – take a much-needed nap in our hotel room or go and visit Jhalarapatan, an older city about 7 km away. As I knew that there was much to do in Jhalarapatan and wanted to spend a full day there, I was inclined more towards the nap. Only problem was that it sounded like a waste of time. So, at lunch we arrived at a compromise. We decided to divide our visit to Jhalarapatan – one part we’ll visit on Day 1 and the next part on the morning of the next day. The first part included a visit to the Sun Temple, sitting in the middle of the walled town.
Jhalarapatan is a much older town than Jhalawar and it shows. One, it is walled from all sides and Towards the side where river takes almost a U-turn to run along the rear wall of the fort, there is a vertical cliff nearly 100 metres high – true to its appearance it’s called Gidh-karai, or vulture’s cliff. Inside, the fort is mostly in ruins – mainly water reservoirs, a few residential buildings and some temples.
According to historical records, the typology and architectural style of Gagron Fort is representative of the Dodiya and Khinchi Rajput military architecture of the 12th century while the 18th-19th century structures were built by Jhala Rajputs, after whom Jhalawar is named. We spent around three hours in and around the fort. We walked along the river to the hillock on the rear side to soak in the strength that fort exudes.
The sun was at its peak and the stratified rock inclines on the bank of the river were blazing hot. But nothing stopped us, such was the spell of the fort. It was two, it is a conglomerate of narrow lanes and bylanes that house interesting old structures. In a nutshell, it smells old. It is said to be founded by Parmara Chandra Sen, grandson of Vikramaditya.
Heavily populated, the lanes of Jhalarapatan are always crowded. And all the lanes lead to the Sun Temple, built in the 11th-12th century – there is nothing definitive in the region so giving an exact time period is almost impossible here.
The temple is a grand structure though hemmed in from all sides by houses. Thus, it is difficult to take a step back and take in the whole structure in one glance. What stands apart though is its tall spire, every inch of which is carved with sculptures of gods and goddesses. And each sculpture is different and an example of exquisite workmanship. One can spend hours looking at them and marvelling at the dedication of the artisans who gave them shape.
The temple has three sides entrance, and every entrance has a toran over it. The prayer hall has a large number of pillars, each adorned with floral designs and various gods and goddesses. The sanctum, in comparison, in extremely plain and simple – the image of ‘Padmnabh’ is worshipped here. The outer walls of the sanctum display icons of Surya, sur sundries and other miniature scenes related to daily life, apart from Ganesh idols. As the sun god was bidding adieu for the day, we too made our way back to our hotel in Jhalawar.
The dinner was spent planning the next day. There were many more temples in Jhalarapatan – the 11th century Shantinath Jain temple and Dwarkadheesh temple built by Jhala Zalim Singh being among the important ones. James Todd, the British East India Company officer and an oriental scholar, mentions counting 108 temples here. No wonder, the tourism department calls Jhalarapatan the city of temple bells! But, as we did not want to rush from one spot to another and just tick the checklist, we settled on going to the group of temples on the banks of the Chandrabhaga stream, which rises from a spring. The reason: among this group was what was touted as the oldest temple in Rajasthan. That was indeed a qualification in the country’s largest State in geographical size that boasts of hundreds and hundreds of temples!
This group of temples – commonly known as Chandrabhaga temples – lay a kilometre beyond the walls of the town of Jhalarapatan. As we drove towards it the next morning, we came across an amazing sight which finds no mention in any tourist brochure or internet sites.
There was a large ground on our right as we crossed Jhalarapatan and in a distance we could see a closely knit group of tall white irregular structures. As we left the road and approached them, they turned out to be whitewashed statues with their fronts decorated. The smallest was about 12 feet high while the tallest was easily topping 20 feet. They were circular in built and the girth of bigger ones was about 7-8 feet each. These even had small door like openings at the base.
One statue was lying on the ground with legs apart – it was the only one with defined legs. Except for one, all had a moustache and a headgear. They turned out to be depictions of the family of Ravan, the king of Lanka. The Ravan was the tallest one; there was Megnath and Vibhishna and Mandodri and the one lying flat on the ground was Kumbhkaran, sleeping of course. On enquiring we came to know that these permanent statues come to use during the Dusshera festival. They are whitewashed and decorated with floral designs every year after monsoon. They reminded me of the famous Maori sculptures of Easter Island. At the centre of the ground, they stood together as a family ostracised from a village. They turned out to be the biggest surprise of our trip!
The Chandrabhaga temples were just half a kilometre from there. Enclosed within a wall, the oldest in the group – and the biggest – was the Shiva Temple. Founded in 689 AD, the temple consists of a garbhagriha, a vestibule and a mukhamandapa.
The sabha-mandapa, through which one enters, is said to have been built two centuries later and it has 26 exquisitely carved pillars which show vase and foliage motifs. Among other temples in the group are those dedicated to Kalika Devi, Mahadeva, Vishnu and Varaha. Except for the main temple, the rest are closed today. There was a huge banyan tree on one side of the temple from where steps went down leading to the Chandrabhaga stream. The scene was one of gaiety; a large number of children were jumping into the stream with whoops of delight. On seeing our cameras, the intensity of the jumps increased as we clicked trying to catch their jumps in mid-air. After about a 15-minute photo session, we waved them goodbye and returned to Jhalawar for lunch. There we first read about Kakuni, a temple in ruins on the banks of the Parvan River. According to internet sites, the ruins were about 20 km from Jhalawar.
We asked at the hotel about the way; they knew nothing. The taxi driver too had not heard of them. He then called one of his friends to inquire. He professed to know about the place, but the description he gave was at odds with what we read on the internet. According to him, the ruins were much more than hour away. We decided to give him a try nevertheless as he was the only one who was talking of some real place.
It took us more than a couple of hours to reach Kakuni – it turned out to be the one we had read about on the net. But it was 65 km away on – you guessed it – an extremely pot-holed road. It was beyond a town called Aklera on the Kota-Bhopal highway. And it was locally known as Ganeshpura Kakuni. It was on a hill at the end of an extremely impoverished village.
The temple, dating back to the 8th century, was totally in ruins, but what was left of it was an eye-opener. The sculptures on the remaining walls were intricate, crowding the panels all over. Not even an inch of the original stone could be seen, carvings of figures jutted onto each other in a mad, happy rush – it was like a mela (fair) of sculptures. The spire of one temple was broken, but the part that was standing was chiselled to the extreme. Amidst another ruined platform stood a huge Shivalinga, unlike any I had ever seen. A path led from there to the winding Parvan River below. There was a whitewashed intact temple on one side with a verandah. A saffron-coloured statue of Ganesha stood there. This one was obviously worshipped even today. And in the verandah was yet another amazing statue – that of Varaha shaped out of a single stone with all its sides carved with minute sculptures running in form of panels.
This was clearly a temple that had seen extremely good days in the yore. The carvings would give the best in the world a run for their money. Later we came to know that most sculptures that were found here are exhibited in museums in Kota and Jhalawar.
The irony is that with the shifting of sculptures, the authorities also seem to have shrugged away any responsibility to preserve the place. I am sure there are many such hidden gems in the region, but to discover them would take many more visits. I hope to do that some day!
