The monuments and temples in India abound with exquisite sculptures based on the epics. This is a humble attempt to explain some of them.This is no scholarly work.I have only collected these from several sources- oral, printed and on-line. There can be no authentic version of such stories as there are many variations and interpretations . I have left out the complex explanations and debates to just give an overview of episodes depicted in stone. All photographs by (C) V.Harihara Subramanian.
Monday, August 3, 2015
Virupanna's bleeding eyes
The Lepakshi temple was built by the brothers Virupanna and Veeranna who were officers in the court of Achyutaraya. After the death of Achyutaraya, his son-in-law assumed the throne as the former had no sons. Some courtiers spread a rumour that Virupanna embezzled the court funds to build the temple. The king ordered Viurupanna to be blinded. Virupanna stung by the accusation and sentence prempted and gouged out his eyes and flung them on the wall of the temple. Even today one can see two spots with a blood like stain on the walls withstanding centuries of wind and rain. According to our guide, the British government in the last century did a chemical analysis and confirmed that the stains were indeed from human blood! The Kalyana mandap which was under construction at that stage remained unfinished after this incident.
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Interesting story. Please correct the typo. In the third sentence, it should read "the king" and not "the kind".
ReplyDeleteThank you. That was very kind of you!
ReplyDeleteVery good movie story.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Yea . Hope some big banner movie production house thinks so too.
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