CITY NEGLECTS ITS TEMPLE TANKS

Narayan.K
BENGALURU: There’s a small lane next to the Sri Vasavi Kanyakaparameshwari Temple on Raja Rammohan Roy Road, just opposite the Kanteerava Stadium. Walk past the Kitturu Rani Chennamma Auto Drivers’ Kannada Yuvakara Sangha (established 2008), and you find yourself in the crowded warren of backstreets and bylanes of Sampangi Ramanagar. Take a left at the Mysore Silk shop at the end of the lane, and you’ll soon find yourself near a fenced-off structure, something that looks like a cross between an old fashioned temple yard and an amphitheatre.
“There used to be a famous kalyani (temple tank) there,” says Hita Unnikrishnan, a post-doctoral scholar at the Azim Premji University.“According to locals, it dated back to the time of Kempegowda. Local legend has it that one day, Kempegowda I and his wife, weary from travelling, happened upon the kalyani. The king decided to take a bath in the tank’s waters, but his wife decided not to. The next day, the queen found herself paralysed from the waist down. The grief-stricken Kempegowda consulted various holy men about this mysterious ailment, and was told that it was because the queen had declined to bathe in the kalyani. So Kempegowda had the queen carried over to the tank, and the queen performed her ablutions – and found her paralysis cured,” she says.
As you walk down the steps of what remains of the tank today, you notice a sculpture of a woman being carried on a platform, by another woman. Older locals will tell you that it’s a representation of Kempegowda’s wife, being carried down to the water for her cure.
Kalyanikere nagara
“Not many people know this, but Bengaluru was once called ‘Kalyanikere Nagara,” says columnist and historian Suresh Moona. “The area around Majestic was full of kalyanis. Ronald Ross had written about Bengaluru as the city of springs. When Swami Vivekananda visited Bengaluru back in 1892, it’s said that he meditated by the side of the kalyani of a Benne Krishna temple in that area. Of course, there’s nothing there now, and where the kalyani once stood, there’s a place where the workers on the metro station keep their construction material,” he says.
If you go to the Vasantha Vallabharaya temple complex in Vasanthapura, you’ll find the temple in bad shape. But shocking as the condition of the temple is, it’s nothing compared to the state of its kalyani, which looks like construction site after heavy rain. The water is brown and muddy, more like a large puddle than a kalyani. The green fencing, the pile of mud and the earth, and the earthmover, parked near a pile of rocks, give the impression that the place will soon transform into yet another soulless set of apartments.
The tank has been at the centre of several controversies, dating back to 2013, when BBMP engineers allegedly squandered Rs 50 lakh earmarked for the restoration of the kalyani. The tank, believed to have been constructed by none other than Shahaji Raje, father of the illustrious Shivaji, was back in the news last month when press reports revealed an attempt to turn three quarters of the kalyani space into a road that would favour a private developer. Since then the authorities have backtracked, and promised to restore the kalyani, but on the ground, there’s nothing happening, despite furious protests by civic groups and police complaints by eminent citizens.
Symbiosis
A kalyani is not a standalone water structure, says Shubha Ramachandran, an environmental consultant with Biome, a city-based design firm focused on ecology, architecture and water. “If you look at traditional temples, you’ll usually find a well inside the temple premises, and the kalyani outside. The water from temple well was usually used for religious duties and for consumption, the kalyani, which also served as a social centre, was used for bathing, washing clothes and so on,” she says. “And the two water sources also had a symbiotic relationship, as one would help recharge the other.”
In 1885, according to Unnikrishnan, there were close to 1,500 wells in Bengaluru. “Today, we have been able to trace fewer than 50. And many of those wells are dry, or boarded over. The ones that are still functional are either associated with temples – or are being used in slum areas where alternative sources of water are either unhealthy or unavailable,” she says.
The problem faced by most kalyanis – and open wells – is one that all of Bengaluru faces, in terms of falling groundwater levels. “The only way to revive these kalyanis in the long term is to raise the aquifer,” says S Vishwanath, noted water researcher. “And that can be done by boring a number of wells in the neighbourhood – wells with a diameter of 2-3 feet and a depth of around 10 feet, with soft earth floors. It will take a while for the groundwater level to rise, though – anywhere from five years to a decade,” he says.
On the steps
As you enter the Bhoganandeeswara temple in Nandi village, you’ll find, just past the main gate, faded signs put up by the Archaeological Society of India, stating that you are in a protected monument, and that construction is prohibited within a 100 meters of the location. Outside, though, nobody cares, but inside, the temple retains a serene beauty. There’s a small kalyani in the courtyard, and there’s another one inside the main temple complex.
Visit the temple in the morning, and you may meet 80-year-old Anjaneyappa, who comes there every day. “This part of the temple,” he says, gesturing to the wooden doors leading to the inner kalyani, “goes back to the time of Krishnadevaraya.” “That side,” he says, waving at the main temple complex, “goes back to the time of the Gangas and the Cholas”. He finishes his prayers at the temples various shrines, and makes his way to the kalyani.
The kalyani itself is beautiful, a little like one of those stepped Mayan pyramids you see in pictures of Chichen Itza, only going down instead of up. At the base is a square pool of water. Anjaneyappa climbs down the stairs, slowly, until he’s at the water’s edge. As he approaches, fat koi fish – black, gold, and white – rise up to greet him. There’s a gentle breeze in the air. The water ripples. And suddenly, you understand, at some emotional level, that it is holy.