Inside The Rock Fort - Trichy

Faith Mysticism

-Staff

By Staff

Wednesday, August 27, 2008, 13:57

Trichy, Tamil Nadu: one of the most amazing pieces of architecture can be found at the rock fort in Trichy. It's not just a temple; it's not just a fort, but a set of monolithic rocks that make room for both.

Getting into the rock fort can be through a very unassuming entrance with tiny shops around till one reaches the shrine of Ganesha. The Ganesha here is covered with turmeric giving it the yellow look and making him almost come to life from his otherwise rocky exterior! After darshan and having bought the ticket one begins to ascend one of the most amazing pieces of architecture in the south. Staircases lined up, one after the other, are punctuated with smaller shrines of Shiva and Ganesha along the way up. It's just fantastic and an entirely different experience to walk through these ancient walls.

The walk is for a short while and a little tiring as the steps are greater in height and were meant for horses to climb. Along the way are dark mandapas with mythological figures staring down, multi colored and vibrant guarding smaller Shiva shrines lit up with small flames. Though the way up looks narrow, steep and reasonably intriguing, there is enough and more ventilation to bring in the much needed breeze. Deep grilled windows carved into the rocky wall provide the cool breeze interspaced with small images of Ganesha and other deities along the way. The steps are all painted red and white adding to the ambience of a rock temple fort. There comes a point one needs to turn right for the Ganesha temple way above and left to the Shiva temple way inside.

Leading the way through to the Ganesha shrine, quite a distance way up the hill are the Pallava cave which appear on the left. This cave hosts the sculptures of Shiva Gangadhara and appears to be an incomplete cave. The artists of that period carved on the walls and left valuable historical evidence about this temple. There are elaborate scripts on the wall but the pillars stay unfinished. Walking further up, we get a gasping view of the beautiful city scape with the Caveri flowing along one side. It's just breath taking as the strong breeze just sweeps through.

The walk up to the Ganesha temple atop the rocky hill is tough but beautifully managed by carving steps into the very rock itself. It's very clear, originally this was a plain mandapa which hosts ganesha within its four walls, and had a pillared corridor around it without any parapet wall. The view of the Srirangam gopuram from up here is amazing and gives a complete picture of not just Trichy in all its expanse but the beautiful island temple of Srirangam and Thiruvanaikkaval in the middle of the dry Caveri.

Descending from the Ganesha temple and heading left towards Lord Shiva's shrine, this is one temple that can take anyone's imagination by storm. It leads through a series of winding staircases so much so that keeping an eye on the direction of north gets to be quite difficult. As we proceed from one mandapa to another, with the feel of having walked into a temple and a cave at the same time, the navagraha, smaller Shiva Lingas and Ganesha with towering dwarapalas tower around us as we go into the heart of the very fort.

This vision of this interior brings back the ancient past. It feels like the palace fort awakens with the commanders as the king comes to perform a great fire sacrifice and the army is ready for attack. The halls are richly decorated and the sounds of the drums and trumpets announce the arrival of the king. Richly decorated mandapas host a colorful spectacle of an even more richly dressed king and his battalion with dancers and queens adding to his magnificence.

Fire torches light up the interiors and the whole place wakes up with the rhythmic beat of drums. Throughout the path up the steps are small triangular holes in the walls for oil lamps to light up the passageway. As this royal procession arrives, the king visits the Mother Goddess shrine, and asks her for her blessings. Rising even higher up, he crosses over to the higher floor, past the roof of the shrine that rises out of the floor above.

Finally the most breath taking of them all is what lies at the upper end on this hall. The vision is that of the Great Shiva shrine that rises out of a Swayambhuva Linga. It is hosted within a garbha griha with no circum-ambulation within itself, though the outside has colorful walls with all the bronzes that speak every story from Shiva iconography. The Shiva idol is massive, black, and silent and only viewed in oil lamp lights, it's a vision that can make any heart just swell up with reverence. The king awaits as the priest performs the sacrifice, for victory over all.

All of a sudden the drums beat, and the last arti for the evening is performed. The king and his queens are gone, the color, the dancers, the decorated halls, the music, the fire torches, the lit interiors, the war cries... everything vanishes into thin air and the curtain drops. Rock fort Trichy closes for the night.