A weekend pilgrimage to Rayagada

While transiting through southern Odisha on our way to Chhattisgarh last year, my wife expressed a desire to visit the famous Maa Majhighariani (माँ मझिघरियानी) Mandir in Rayagada (रायगडा). I told her that it meant a detour of over 200 kms over bad roads and promised to take her there some other time. She wasn’t happy but had no choice in the matter. A few days later, there was a minor collision with a truck which my wife viewed as a divine warning. Recently, I changed my car and my wife was insistent that we go and seek the forgiveness and blessings of the Goddess.

So, off we went, on a cloudy Sunday morning in August from Vizag along with my nephew Suresh and his family. Suresh was familiar with the route and he led the way and we followed him. The highway was good and we made good progress till we crossed the state border and entered Odisha.

The character of the highway abruptly changed from smooth to bumpy, no thanks to the numerous potholes which cropped up with jarring regularity. The landscape, however, was breathtaking with green farmlands on both flanks and the rugged Eastern Ghats loomed over the horizon, their lofty peaks flirting with gently drifting fluffy white clouds. The traffic was sparse and there were hardly any signs of human habitation.

Rayagada, the headquarters of a district bearing the same name, is in southern Odisha. A majority of its residents are tribals belonging to the Kond and Savara tribes. It is part of a larger tribal domain stretching from the Vindhyas to the Eastern Ghats and is spread over the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Its forest and mineral wealth has attracted the attention of industries who have set up mining and paper industries. Not surprisingly, it is also home to deadly Maoists insurgents.

On the outskirts of Rayagada, there was a trilingual sign in Odiya, Telugu and English indicating that the temple was to the right and a short winding road took us atop a mound dominated by the shrine surrounded by numerous thatched shacks housing vendors and pilgrim utilities. The rest of the space served as an open parking area for  hundreds of auto rickshaws, motorcycles, cars and vans, half of which bore license plates of Andhra Pradesh, a testimony to the fact that the Goddess is immensely popular not just in Odisha but also in its southern neighbour.

The presiding diety of Rayagada, Maa Majhghariani, is known as Majji Gowri in A.P. Originally a tribal diety, she is considered to be an incarnation of Goddess Durga. In the 4th century AD, when the Emperor Samudragupta invaded this area, the local ruler was able to successfully defend his kingdom with the blessings of this Goddess. In the 14th century, a temple was built at the exact centre of a fort (Majhi Ghariani literally means occupant of the central house) and that is how she acquired this name.

The temple building is just about five decades old. It is said that while a railway bridge was being constructed across River Nagavali (नागावली) in close proximity to the temple, the supporting pillars kept collapsing. The chief priest then dreamt that the Maa ordered him to first rebuild her temple. After the temple was built, the construction of the railway bridge proceeded without a hitch!

In spite of the shabby, chaotic surroundings, the temple itself is surprisingly clean. The impressive entrance gateway is adorned with tribal motifs typical of the region. The temple itself is a squat, rectangular structure with a short flight of steps leading to the entrance hall.  In between the temple and the gateway is a hexagonal pavilion housing a highly polished metallic statue of a horse. There was some inscription a plaque which I could not decipher as the script was Odiya. I asked some devotees about this horse but nobody seemed to have a clue. My guess is that it is probably in honour of a legendary war horse which played a stellar role in some long forgotten battle.

There is also a tree in the compound whose branches were festooned with bright red ribbons tied by devotees seeking fulfilment of some wish or the other. I wonder if this is another tribal custom adopted by mainstream Hinduism.

It being a Sunday, the temple was crammed with devotees, many of them holding sacrificial chicken in their hands as they waited for darshan. It is a custom here (tribal origin, perhaps) that when a wish is fulfilled, the devotees make an animal sacrifice. After darshan, they slaughter the offering and cook it in one of the nearby shacks and eat it there.

The idol of the Goddess is a lingam shaped stone deeply embedded into the ground. The visible part is coated with a bright vermillion pigment on which metallic eyes, eyebrows, nose, ears and lips have been affixed and adorned with a crown and other ornaments. A silver tongue protrudes out of the mouth. Flanking the idol are two silver lions. Reflections of the deity can also be seen on the glass ceiling of the temple as we approach the sanctum sanctorum.

After darshan, we proceeded to the eastern side of the temple for the vahan pooja. A priest strung together some limes and tied them to the grille along with a bright red embroidered ribbon. He then applied a tilak on the logo and the steering wheel, sprinkled some flowers and then broke a coconut on the ground in front of the car. Finally, he placed a lime under each tyre and asked me to drive over them.

After lunch, we proceeded to the industrial township of Therubali (थेरुबाली), some 20 kilometres away. The road was surprisingly good and the view was awesome with verdant farmlands hemmed in by hills all around. A corporate house, Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys Limited (IMFA) have built a beautiful temple complex within their campus. The architecture is classically Odishi but instead of limestone, the structures are made of concrete. The main shrine is devoted to the deities Lakshmi and Narayan and hence is known as the Laxminarayan Temple.  In addition to idols of these deities, there are idols of Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and Hanuman inside this temple.

The ambience of the temples is enhanced by a spacious, well-maintained garden with meticulously manicured lawns, trees and shrubs. The interiors of the temples are spotlessly clean and covered with marble and granite.

To the right of the main temple is a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva and to the left is the temple dedicated to his divine consort, Goddess Durga.  While the architecture is similiar in most respects, the spires of the Vaishnavite temples have chakras adorning the shikhars, the Shiva and Shakti temples have trishuls at the top.

Not far from Therubali railway station is the Padaleshwara temple, located in a place known as Paikapada (पैकपडा) The ethereal surroundings are stunningly beautiful. Situated on the banks of a placid lake and surround by craggy hills, the place seems to have changed little over the millennia, except for some electric poles striking a jarring note.

The extant temple seems to be a pale shadow of its glorious past. It surely must have been much larger and I suspect that most of the structures have collapsed either due to natural or historical calamities and that most of the artifacts were plundered. Legend has it that the total number of Shivalingas in this complex is exactly one less than a crore (99,99,999). The reality is that the compound wall encloses a very small area and the space within is not sufficient to house even a thousand lingas, let alone lakhs of them.

The main temple looks like a comparatively recent addition because of its architecture, while all around it are ancient stone temples built in the early Kalingan style. Strewn about haphazardly inside the compound are hundreds of lingams and slabs of rock carved with exquisite images of assorted Gods, Goddesses and mythological creatures. The temple is in a bad shape probably due to financial constraints and other than the caretakers-cum-priests, there were no devotees.  During Shivaratri, however, it is thronged by hordes of devotees and a major attraction is the Rath Yatra. Unlike in other shrines, the priests here permitted us to take pictures of the idols too.

There is a separate shrine dedicated for worshipping Maa Dakshineswar Kalika. In addition, there are images of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra crammed into a small corner outside the garbha griha.  It is highly probable that there was a separate shrine for these deities which must have collapsed and the idols have been shifted to this space till a new shrine is built.

It was getting dark and it was time to embark on our return journey. As we left this holy place, one felt ashamed of the sheer callousness of our attitude to our invaluable heritage. We are blessed with an abundance of cultural wealth and this probably makes us callous, insensitive and unaware of its splendour and value. I wonder how many museums and art galleries worldwide have benefitted from the plunder of our ancient temples.

Tailpiece: Petrol in Odisha costs just about Rs. 69 per litre, 10 % cheaper than what I pay in my home state of Andhra Pradesh. So I made it a point to top up my tank before leaving for Vizag. On the way back, my front tyre burst while navigating the terrible roads in Odisha. I might have saved a couple of hundreds on fuel but I had to cough up Rs.5,500 to replace the damaged tyre. I have stopped grumbling about having to pay more since I have realised that everything comes at a price.