Mysore part 2- Rickshaws and Temples

We didn't just see palaces and perfumes in Mysore. Oh no! We saw temples, too!

First we drove up Chamundi Hill, which is about 12km outside of Mysore. The terrain and vegetation reminded me a bit of Ojai, so naturally I loved it.

At the top of the hill is a pretty big temple dedicated to the patron goddess of the royal family of Mysore, who is also an incarnation of Durga.  The area around the temple is crowded with worshippers, vendors, stray dogs and cows. Moula warned us that people would try to "give" us icons and flowers, and then demand money when we were on our way out, and firmly instructed us not to accept such offers. So we didn't.

After that we stopped a shrine dedicated to Nandi located further down the hill. There was a huge Nandi icon! Much bigger than I'd expected.

We stopped at a scenic overlook to view all of Mysore down below us. I don't seem to have a picture of that...either I failed to get it off the camera or we didn't take one because it was pretty smoggy. I'm not sure which!

But then the real excitement started. Moula asked Zion if he'd like to try driving the rickshaw. Why, yes! Yes he would. Moula is clearly the best ever.

Sensing the waves of envy radiating from the backseat, Moula asked Alex and Robert if they'd like to have a go.

Alex was the best driver of the three of them. Actually, Zion did just as well, but he had more help from Moula because he couldn't reach things as well, and of course had never driven a vehicle before. I think it's pretty rad that the first thing he drove was an auto rickshaw in Mysore!

The next day we went to the village of Srirangapathna to visit a 9th century temple. It had some scaffolding on it for repairs, but was really impressive nonetheless. And also really uncrowded!

The carvings around the top were amazing. And there were elephants!

The inside was pleasingly ancient feeling. Kind of dark, and solemn, and pious.

There were also some really gorgeous icons inside, and beautifully carved columns. But they were all in places where pictures aren't allowed. We did get one of this guy though, before the picture-less world began!

There were some nice laws on the side, and a pool of some sort.

And finally, here's Alex on the way out, with a bindi and a prasad ladoo.

I really loved this temple. The priests were really nice-- all of them (around the different icons) made an effort to make sure that we understood what was going on, and what we should do, and to bless us. Highly recommend a visit here!

Nandishwara Teertha temple

Today we went to yet another temple in Malleswaram- the Nandishwara Teertha temple. We'd saved it to go to when Alex was visiting, so today was the day!

The old woman guarding the shoes outside the temple was quite delighted with us. She smiled, blessed kids, and smiled some more. I took it as a good sign.

This temple is dedicated to Shiva and Nandi (his cow mount) and was discovered in 1999 according to the few online sources I've found. It was buried, and when the plot of land was excavated the central pool and steps surrounding it were discovered. The source of water that feeds the pool is considered to be a miracle. Here it is, as you enter the main shrine (the temple complex is much bigger than just this shrine).

And a close up:

What you can't see is that the stream of water that feeds the pool is issuing from the mouth of the black cow, Nandi, in the center of the picture. This pic is a little better, but not a lot. But hey, we're not photographers here ;)

You also can't see the turtles that live in the pool.

But now you can!

The kids love, love, loved the turtles. They sat in the sun and watched the them for quite a while, and were delighted when, right before we left, one they'd been watching struggle to leave the pool and sun itself finally gained the bank.

There weren't a lot of other people at the temple. It was so quite and peaceful and the atmosphere was...really religious. I mean, I'm sure that sounds kind of obvious (it's a temple, right?), but this space seemed to have more divine energy to me than other temples we've been in. It felt pretty amazing to be there.

After we'd been there for a little while two women in their early 20s approached Liel and said hi to her. They were so sweet, and really excited about her, which is a rather common occurrence here in India. Liel attracts admirers wherever she goes. At any rate these two chatted her up, asking her name, where she was from etc, then left to be blessed by the priest and drink some of the holy water. Then, to my surprised and delight, they returned bringing a small leaf bowl of sweet rice, which they gave to Liel. We all shared it and it was delicious!

On the way out the shoe minding lady beamed at us all again and shook all of our hands.

We all loved the temple, and plan to go back at least one more time before we leave Bangalore!

Gangama temple, Malleswaram

Today we visited a third temple in our favorite Bangalore neighborhood: the Gangama temple in Malleswaram. Gangama means "Mother Ganges" and the temple is dedicated to the goddess of this all-important river in India.

We were in luck today-- the first auto driver we approached (and the only waiting at the bus stand) agreed to take us. He wasn't entirely sure where the temple was, but he headed to Malleswaram and asked a couple of other auto drivers and got us there just fine. Often auto drivers, for their own inscrutable reasons, will say no when they learn where you want to go. The other day Liel, our friend Bitasta and I went shopping in Malleswaram and had at least half a dozen autos just shake their heads at us and keep going when they heard "Malleswaram". I'm not sure why-- they were all headed in that direction-- but perhaps they thought it was too close and wasn't a worthwhile trip.

Here is the Gangama temple. Isn't it beautiful??

The inside was gorgeous as well. Pictures aren't allowed in the main shrine, but the caretaker said that we could take pictures elsewhere, so we did.

That's Gangama behind Zion, and Ganesh in the cage to her left.

There was also a side room with an elaborate brass chariot containing another image of the goddess.

Outside the temple were two more chariots-- really big ones. At least one of them was advertising for an upcoming ceremony.

After our temple visit we stopped into the old market to buy some coconuts. We ended up buying a pineapple as well, with some haggling. After we'd agreed on a price they tried to put a different (smaller) pineapple in a bag for us to actually buy, and seemed mighty amused when I refused it and insisted on the one I'd been bargaining for. Hopefully I didn't buy a super crappy pineapple!

On the way home from the market we passed a hijra (also referred to as a person of the third gender) on the street. Liel and I were a little bit ahead of Robert and Zion at that point, and s/he blessed us and asked for money. I didn't have any, but pointed to Robert, so the hijra blessed them too, and Robert paid him/her (hijras, like transgendered people the world over, face extreme discrimination. They are usually un(der) educated, and that, in addition to the general prejudice they face, makes it very difficult for them to find regular employment. One way that they support themselves is through begging; another is through attending and performing at certain religious rituals, as they are understood to have the power to bestow both blessings and curses. So our encounter today encompassed parts of both of these roles).

I've known about hijras for some time, but this was my first actual encounter with one. I'm having a hard time describing the event without sounding like this person was some kind of circus attraction, so I'll just say that it was really interesting!

More Malleswaram

We went back to Malleswaram today. There are loads more temples we wanted to visit, and more shopping to do! I'm sure we'll be back again. Not only is it a totally charming neighborhood, there are still at least two more temples we want to see! And one of them has magical water from a mysterious sources, sort of like Lourdes. Clearly a must see. But we didn't see it today...instead we saw other exciting things.

Our morning started of with an auto rickshaw ride to 2nd Temple Street. It was a first for Robert and the kids, and Zion and Liel loved it. In fact, Zion has declared ricks to be his favorite form of ground transportation.

Here are my boys in the rickshaw.

And Liel and me.

Our original plan had been to go to the doomed Malleswaram market, and then visit a temple or two. Instead we found ourselves with 4 gorgeous temples right in front of us...and the market a few blocks away. So we went first to this amazing structure that we thought, from my memory of the map, was the Ganesha temple.

It wasn't. It was an alternate entrence to the same temple we'd gone to the last time we were in Malleswaram! We did get to see its prettier side this time, as well as some lovely gardens and a big lot of nagas.

After that we decided to check out the Lakshmi temple. We completely missed the sign saying no pictures, and were immediately scolded when I took this picture of a silver crusted Hanuman. So, no pictures of the goddess or the rest of the temple, I'm afraid.

We went into the main shrine to see the icon of Lakshmi. It was amazing-- loads more gorgeous silver! And, it turned out we were right in time for one of the main pujas. So we got in line with our offering flowers (and by the way, I totally remembered how to say "ten" in Kannada from our last temple outing! Which turned out to be useful because the flower seller spoke no English was relieved when I was able to tell Robert how much to pay). There was one line for men and one for women. We split up, stood on our respective sides...and the we waited. And waited. Priests moved in and out of the area, more people got in the line, and it got hotter and hotter. Finally the ritual began. I was too ignorant to know much of what was going on, but we put our flowers in the offering basket, one priest rang a silver bell loudly and continuously, and another priest chanted in Sanskrit. Liel and I also got dots of vermillion on our foreheads. Apparently these are a must for women, but not men.

Here's Liel with her dot afterwards, refusing to smile. I don't know why she looks so miserable!

Maybe she was still recovering from the heat in the temple. Remember how I wrote about how I've yet to see an Indian sweating? Well, we were up close to the shrine, with probably 2 dozen other people, all Indian. The only ones sweating were the four of us and one Indian man that Robert noticed. My 7 year old daughter apparently sweats more than most grown men around here!

We were in the temple for about 45 minutes, so after that we decided to go find Malleswaram Market. It's primarily a produce and flower market, and it smelled amazing! It smelled cool and green from the shade and the vegetables, and sweet from the jasmine and the incense. It is the best smelling place I've been in in Bangalore! And quite beautiful.

We bought a coconut. I'm not sure how we're going to open it; the current plan involves putting it in a bag and bashing it on the concrete outside our door.

As we continued walking in the neighborhood, we saw lots of lovely, simple mandalas on the ground, like this one.

We also saw a new sari shop (as yet unopened) getting some sort of religious blessing. They had a full on fire going and everything! It looked very cool.

So, that was our day! Afterwards we walked back to campus, had some delicious food, and chatted with a couple of friends we ran into. One of them gave us a great lead on a particular gift we've been looking for, which was extra pleasing.

And when I got home and looked in the mirror while I was washing my hands I saw the vermillion on my forehead, and having completely forgotten about it thought, "Oh my G-d! Why am I bleeding out of my head??" Luckily it all came back pretty quickly ;)

Malleswaram

Today we went to the neighborhood that borders the far side (from us) of the IISc: Malleswaram. Malleswaram was settled in the late 1890s, and today is considered a rather tranquil, middle class neighborhood. It has one of the oldest existing markets in Bangalore, dating back about a century, and lots of temples and shops. Best of all it's only a 3.5 km walk from our front door!

We left home around 10am and headed for a part of the neighborhood where a lot of the temples are located. Since it was our first trip there we went to the first temple we came to, the Sri Kaadu Mallikarjunaswamy Temple. There isn't a lot of information that I can find about this temple, but apparently it was built in 1669 after a shivalingam was discovered on the spot, so Shiva is the primary deity associated with the temple (though not the only one).

Here's the temple from across the road.

Before we went in we took off our shoes and left them with one of the many shoe-minders, and bought some offering flowers from this lovely  woman.

There weren't a lot of people in the temple. I mean, there were probably close to 100 other folks there, but the space was large enough that it didn't seem crowded, especially with everyone walking around. People seemed to be very devoted and religious. Everyone we saw was praying, bowing, kneeling, and making offerings. Most of the statues were small and unattended, but there was a priest with a statue of what I guess might be Shiva under a lot of flowers. The priest took people's offerings (food, flowers, money, etc) and placed them around the statue. Then he would remove some older ones and give them to devotees along with a blessing.

There was a cow or bull statue that was pretty popular as well.

 Virtually all of the signs in and around the temple were in Kannada, but this useful one about the nature of life was in English.

I particularly like "Life is an adventure: Date it"! I have no idea what that means.

The temple next door, the Sai Baba temple, was crazy, amazingly crowded. The line to get in stretched down the street, so we decided to skip it, and to see the Ganesha temple down the street another day too. Instead we walked back up the hill and headed to the Karnataka Crafts Council's shop. Nearly everything we bought there was a gift, so I can't say much ;) But the kids bought some things that they're really excited about! Liel got a wooden box with a bunny carved on the lid, and a clay necklace and earrings set, and Zion got a little Hanuman statue. We were kind of low on rupees so we didn't buy all the gifts we might like, but we definitely plan to return to both the shop and the neighborhood, so that was OK.

It was nearing lunch time at that point, so we headed back to campus. On the way I noticed that a lot of houses had devotional tiles set in the garden walls, like this one of a baby Ganesha and his parents.

We also saw a sign for a homeopathic doctor!

Oh Positive homeopathy, I like the way you think!

 There's also temple literally right outside that particular gate of the IISc. I'm not sure who's temple it is, but it has some great icons on it.

Unfortunately they're really high up and therefore difficult to photograph :)




So that was our day! It was pretty much perfect-- gorgeous weather, nice neighborhood, beautiful temples, gift purchasing, and a tasty lunch.