Celebrating the Sun – Konark!

One of the places that we were really looking forward to visiting was the Sun temple at Konark. The mighty structure, the chakras (wheels), the even bigger structure that is no longer there – all this history made us look forward to the moment we would be able to stand and admire the mightiness.

Kalinga architecture

The temple is attributed to King Narasimhadeva of the Eastern Ganga Dynasty and dated to around the middle of the 13th century CE.

The grandeur of the structures that remain give us hints of the scale of the temple that would’ve existed before the depredations of time. The temple’s architectural style is Kalinga.

It consists of a main mandapa or Jagamohana (assembly of the people), which is about 30 m tall. The structure is in the form of a large 24-wheeled chariot, drawn by horses.

The chariot

The temple is dedicated to the sun god Surya. The iconographic representation of Surya is usually in a chariot drawn by seven horses. The deity is usually shown standing and holding a lotus flower with two hands. Arjuna is his charioteer. Sometimes, there are two other deities, Usha and Pratyusha, signifying the dawn, shooting arrows that symbolise driving away the darkness of the night. The chariot is usually shown having 12 wheels, signifying the months of the year.

Upon entering the complex, the first structure we encountered was the Dance Hall or Nata Mandir. It features a square elevated platform accessed by single flights of stairs on three sides. On the fourth side, two flights of stairs lead to the ground level from the centre of the platform. The pillars of this hall had exquisite carvings and even the platform on which the hall stood has many detailed carvings.

It is interesting that none of the materials – Chlorite, Laterite and Khondalite, used in the construction of the temple occur naturally nearby and probably had to be transported over large distances which, considering the scale and age of the structure, is no small feat of engineering.

Unfortunately, the choice of materials is one of the suspects in large parts of the structures falling prey to the elements.

To the immediate left of the Nata Mandir is the structure called the Offering Hall or Bhog Mandir, of which only the plinth and pillars remain.

There are also the remains of a kitchen nearby that was probably used to prepare the offerings on ceremonial occasions.

There are two other shrines within the complex. One is called the Mayadevi temple and the other is called the Vaishnava temple. However, later studies indicate that the Mayadevi temple may have actually been an older shrine dedicated to Surya and has amongst other deities, a Nataraja and damaged statues of Agni (fire god), Varuna (water god), Vayu (wind god), Vishnu and Surya holding a lotus.

The Vaishnava temple is small and has the deities of Balarama, Varaha, Vamana-Trivikrama as relief sculptures, but is missing the primary deity’s idol. The other structures around the temple complex are a kitchen and a couple of wells which probably supplied the kitchens and washing platforms with water.

The main tower or shikara no longer exists, having fallen prey to the elements completely by 1848. The structure was reputedly 70 m tall, which is twice the height of the surviving jagamohana. The tower was called as the ‘Black Pagoda’ by European sailors due to the colour of the material used in its construction. Such was the height of the structure that it was used as a landmark by sailors in the Bay of Bengal.

The iconic wheel

The highlights of the surviving principal structure are the lively sculptures that decorate the surrounding outer walls of the jagamohana’s platform, the intricate carvings of each of the 24 massive 4 m tall wheels, their spokes and axles.

The Deity

The walls of the structure tower for nearly 30 m above us. Far above us, we could faintly identify the sculptures of musicians as they slowly showed themselves from the haze that surrounded the spire’s upper levels. We’d borrowed a telephoto lens for the trip and the details of the sculptures that decorate the walls and upper levels that we saw through it were astounding. We could see an idol of Surya, the Sun god housed in a niche in the bottom most of the three levels that the spire seemed to be divided into.

The series of elephants that made up the bottom-most level of the jagamohana’s platform reminded us of Hoysala temple architecture. Other elements that we felt to be common with the Hoysala temples and Konark were depictions of women applying makeup or wearing accessories with handheld mirrors, chasing a monkey that is proving to be a pest and other hunting scenes.

There were also depictions of erotic scenes which hinted at a much more progressive view of life at the time of the shrine’s construction than the Victorian sentiments that followed later and seem to have prevailed.

We could also see images of deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, Lakshmi, Narasimha and other deities in the round niches that feature in the middle of each of the wheel spokes of the main structure’s platform.

There were plenty of monkeys that seemed well behaved for the most part except for a couple of young ones that were either taunting or actively chasing dogs and having a whale of a time. After making a couple of rounds around the temple complex, we made our way to the next place on the itinerary and the home of the Aruna Stambh, originally in the Konark Sun temple – the world famous Jagannath temple in Puri.