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This is the story of a beauteous Venugopala who just got too tired of transfers.
Kannambadi (in local parlance)/ Caniambady (in EIC records)/ Kanvapadi ( in mythology), before the 20th Century , was a busy station by a ford which was an important crossing in the Kaveri valley for local life and commerce. The Hermitage of Sage Kanva was believed to have been situated here. The ford was used by the English Cavalry in their march to besiege Srirangapatna . It was also crossed by Tipu Sultan to attack Gen.Stuart, before his fall.
The little town boasted of two ancient temples : The Kanveshwara and The Gopalakrishna . The triad, Kaveri-Kanveshwara-Gopalakrishna was revered as Ma Ganga - Kasi Vishwanath-Bindumadhava of the region.
Kanveshwara temple is attributed to 12CE , upon inscriptional data. .
The Gopalakrishna Temple was described thus by the renowned Historian and Committee Head of Mysore Gazetteer, C.Hayavadana Rao , after a visit : "It is a large structure, 100yds by 60yds, being a mixture of Dravidian and Chalukyan styles. ....has considerable artistic merit and is enclosed by two prakarams .Around the inner prakaram are 46 shrines that house the 24 murtis and 10 avatars of Vishnu, besides Brahma, Saraswathi, Harihara, Hayagreeva,Jalasayana and others , with their names engraved in Hoysala style script on the lintels....This temple is said to have been enlarged by Narasaraja Wodeyar , son of RajaWodeyar....Inscriptional evidence points to renovation work also done during Veera Ballala III 's reign.....the Gopalakrishna, which is a later addition, is a finely worked image."
Veera Ballala III, last Great King of the Hoysala Dynasty , ruled from 1292 to 1342 . So the temple must have been in existence from before 1300CE.
Cut to HosaHolalu ,not too far away, in Mandya District . The grand Lakshminarayana Temple here was built by Veera Someshwara in 1250 CE . This Hoysala gem closely resembles the famed Somanathpur temple, in art and architecture. The south cell of the tricutachala temple once housed a wonderful icon of Venugopala aka Gopalakrishna.
When Narasa Raja Wodeyar saw this Venugopala, he decided he had to have it closer home and carted it away to be installed in the Kannambadi Gopalakrishna temple , which he was renovating and extending. Well, he was The King , after all, and could have his way ! But then,who can resist falling in love with such a splendid piece of art !
Then , in early 1900s came The Dam.
The KrishnaRajaSagara Dam was a great project but it necessitated inundation of 44 villages that lay across its blueprint . A massive relocation work was undertaken.
All natives of Kannambadi town - human, bovine and divine - were shifted to a newly created hamlet, close to old address but on safer ground. It was aptly named Hosa Kannambadi . Hosa =New.
Icons in worship were saved, the edifices were not.
People acquired humble new homes as compensation for their humble old homes ; the Gods acquired humble new shrines as compensation for their magnificent old abodes .
Upon completion of the dam , three temples of Kannambadi went under water :
The Kanveshwara Temple , The Gopalakrishna Temple and the relatively younger Lakshmi Devi Temple.All their worshipped murthis were duly consecrated in newly built shrines.
Of the three old temples , only the Gopalakrishna temple was dredged out and rebuilt on the bank of the reservoir by the Khoday Distillary Company in recent years . The salvaged temple is impressive but remains an empty curio . Venugopala stays put in the Hosa hamlet, though the reborn temple is called Venugopalaswami Temple, in his honour !
He is not tempted. He had already moved once , from a grander house in Hosaholalu. No more moving. Time to settle down in peace.
Peaceful it is, in the little hamlet, beyond the Reservoir. The new temples built for the relocated Gods are simple ,unpretentious and cosy .
No one who enters the Venugopala Shrine is ever prepared for the stunning vision that will greet them inside the bare room.
The stele of Venugopala , installed in the left cell as we enter, is carved out of black schist , polished to a high degree of smoothness. Gopala is a youthful figure , standing under a lush , leafy tree, said to be Honge ( pongamia) .
All around him are his friends and admirers apparently enchanted by the divine music pouring forth from the flute of the Divine Cowherd.
The sculptor must have been in some kind of a spiritual trance to have translated that dreamy scene so intricately into stone art .
(The Dashavataras , worked into the border .)
Venugopala seems happy in his little cell , where a dedicated priest showers him with love and care twice a day . Stray visitors, who do not expect to see such a splendid sculpture in such a humdrum shrine , bow down to him in awe . That suffices .
He plays on to the enchantment of the numerous little attendants who surround Him on the stele , keeping him eternal company , from Hosaholalu ....to Kanvapadi .....to HosaKannambadi .
( HosaHolalu , in Mandya District, that was His original home.)
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All photographs are mine.
References:
Site visits ; Oral history collected on site.
Mandya District Gazetteer - Govt. Of Kar.
Mysore Gazetteer Vol.5 - C.Hayavadana Rao.
Epigraphia Carnatica Vol 3, 6
Karnataka Itihasa Akademi articles.
Added to 'See' list. Good writeup. So the nomad has grown roots !
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