Tambdi Surla
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Mahadev Devul temple
June 27, 2020: The Times of India
From: June 27, 2020: The Times of India
In the depths of a wildlife sanctuary in the Western Ghats, VITHAL C NADKARNI chances upon Goa’s oldest surviving temple at Tambdi Surla
In Konkani, which is spoken in Goa, tambdo stands for ‘red’. So Tambdi Surla means ‘Red Surla’.That’s the epithet for Goa’s most ancient and sole surviving temple from its pre-colonial past. The Tambdi Surla Mahadev Devul survived the Portuguese Inquisition probably because it was tucked away in the dense Western Ghats forest near Sanguem, now protected as the Bhagwan Mahaveer Wildlife Sanctuary.
We are tramping in the sanctuary towards the Ragado River on whose banks stands this superb 12th century shrine built by Queen Kamladevi of Kadamba monarch Shivachitta.Troops of graceful bonnet macaques follow our jungle yatra with interest.The younger simians scamper down mossy trunks to snatch at the small yellow bananas that our driver holds out.
During our hike through the sunlit jungle, we also encounter giant trees crowned with blazing-red inflorescences. These are kinjals, winged myrobalans, from the Rangoon Creeper family, which is prized for its crimson-and-white papery flowers. We wonder if that was the reason the forest village got named ‘Red’ Surla.
The temple, too, is unusual in that it is not made of the basalt, which was normally used to build shrines. The weather-resistant, grey-black, talc chlorite schist soapstone used here has not only made the carvers’ task easier, but their handwork on the walls of the single-storey temple has also remained fresh after all these centuries. The Shaivite shrine has a pillared porch and three-stepped entrances. And its squat roof is surmounted by a tower.The small sanctum is adorned with a brownish Shiva Linga upon which hangs a wide-mouthed conical copper ablution vessel. The crouching stone Nandi in the centre of the main porch, however, is without a head.This is the only visible sign of the exigencies of the passing centuries. Otherwise, despite its vintage, the temple seems remarkably well-preserved.
Vikram Gaonkar, a local village sevak-turned-ASI-guard tells us that hundreds of devotees visit the temple during the Great Night of Shiva Festival in February-March.Today if the shrine looks as though it was put together in a hurry, he adds, citing a local legend, this may be because Pandava princes from the Mahabharata supposedly built the temple in the course of a single night, during their sojourn through the forest.
Gaonkar also points to the pedestal of an impressive icon of Durga Mahishasura-Mardini.The image is housed in a niche on the left-hand side of the main door.“Look closely at the war elephant standing near Ma Durga’s feet,” the guard guides us. “This was the royal emblem of the Kadamba dynasty.”
The Kadambas, who started out as feudatories of the Chalukyas, ruled Goa from the 10th to the 14th centuries.They seem to have taken over the territories ruled by the Silaharas.The legendary founder of the dynasty, Mayurasharma, is said to have been a Kannada scholar, and a native of Talagunda (in modern Shimoga district).
The earliest Kannada inscriptions are attributed to his lineage, which takes its name from a kadamba tree, which has tennis-balllike flowers that grew near their original family home. During their reign, the fame of their capital, Goapuri, was at its zenith, what with their extensive and prosperous trade contacts with Zanzibar, Sri Lanka, Bengal and Gujarat, according to Jain Sanskrit texts. The Kadambas were also tolerant kings and patronised Vedic religion even as they popularised Jainism and promoted Shaivism.An austere stone image of Vishnu-Narayana set in another niche by the Shaivite sanctum offers mute testimony to the ecumenism of the Kadambas.There is a stone icon of Ganesha in the niche facing the idol of Vishnu. It is adorned with a delicate garland of fresh moonbeam flowers. Stone slabs bearing sinuous Naga emblems are also kept on either side of the entrance to the sanctum.
The universalism of the Kadambas gets even more prominently highlighted by the mini icon of the fourarmed Vishnu-Janardana with a dancing Garuda at his feet, which is carved on the front of the dome. Other sides bear similar-sized images of Brahma, Bhairava and multi-armed Gajalakshmi, attesting to the Panchayatana,‘respect all sects’ approach that these enlightened Goan kings encouraged. During their reign, one of the earliest mosques on the west coast of India got built and an Arab merchant and a commander of the fleet, Chhadama, was appointed as a governor of the capital. But the end of the Kadambas, resulting from weakened lines and violent palace feuds, was equally inglorious. The renowned Arab chronicler, Ibn Batutua, who visited Goa during this turmoil, provides a graphic account of the unsuccessful siege of Gopakapattam that Kadamba troops launched to recapture their citadel.All that has now flown down the river of time.What does stand before us today is a peaceful shrine surrounded by a fence and a well-manicured lawn, gently being perfumed by the incense wafting from a large terracotta jar filled with vibhuti, sacred ash of Shiva.
