They may not find their names on tourist maps. They may have been erased on historic maps. Yet, crumbled stone walls and broken sculptures tell you a story, sometimes giving you clues to the very identity of a city.
I am in Begur, in what was once a small village, located on the outskirts of Bangalore and now a suburb which has merged somewhere with the IT corridor. The banks of the lake have been taken over by multicoloured apartment complexes, while cranes (not the birds) hover over the horizon.
The village has its own history dating back to the 6th century, when it was under the rule of the Ganga Dynasty. Ancient temples, the crumbling mud fort, the remains of a Jain basti, lost inscriptions, broken veerakals (hero stones) and scattered sculptures tell you a tale. It is like piecing together a story with the help of clues in a jigsaw puzzle.
I start with a little sculpture placed in front of a house. The owners call it the “Buddha” and they say it has been around for more than a hundred years, ever since their ancestors lived here. But it did not belong to them. It is perhaps an indication that there was an ancient Jaina basti around. They direct me to more houses in the village. After losing our way, we finally reached a small patch of land where a residential colony had sprouted out of nowhere. And nestled in the undergrowth, amidst thorns and shrubs is a headless Tirthankara and another idol of Parshwanatha lying around, belonging to no one in particular. The Jain sculptures were probably the remains of an ancient basti that had been around here.
I head to the crumbling fort where an auto-rickshaw driver turns out to be my guide. The fort has become a playground as the boys in the neighbourhood play cricket here. I am, however, drawn towards the stone pillars and some old inscriptions that are lying around. Another inscription on the walls spoke about the death of the daughter of a chieftain, Nagattara, who fasted to death through a Jain ritual called sallekhna. A tiny mandapa is the local adda for the villagers.
My guide points out to the ancient Gopalaswamy temple in the fort compound, a temple that seemed even smaller than some of the road side temples in Bangalore , but I learn that the original idol of Venugopal (Krishna playing the flute) is today placed in the Visvesvaraya Museum in Bangalore. A tunnel is buried somewhere in the sands here.
My last stop at Begur should have ideally been the first. I visit the thousand-year-old Panchalingeshwara Temple built during the reign of the Ganga and Chola Dynasties. The oldest of the shrines is the Nageshwara Temple and the remaining four – Naareshwara, Choleshwara, Karneshwara and Kalikamateshwara – were added much later. There are several chipped and crumbled veerakals or hero stones – scattered around the temple.
I meet the head priest Girish who gives me some historical details regarding the temple. The most important of them lies in a little stone relic – an inscription that mentions the city Bengaluru (or Bangalore, as the British rulers Anglicized it) for the very first time in history. Girish tells me that it refers to a battle of Bengaluru fought around 900 AD, which resulted in the death of Nagattara’s sons Buttana Setti and Pervona Setti. It does not say against whom the battle was fought. The hero stones depict scenes from the chieftain’s life. Some of the inscriptions are at the museum in Bangalore, while a few are still here at Begur.
The temple is in the midst of festivities and Girish gets busy. I walk around the streets. It is business as usual here. While Begur has merged with Bangalore today, the history and heritage of both these cities are lost somewhere in the stones and sculptures. As I leave, Girish’s words echo in my ears, “For us, Begur is mula or the origin; only after that comes Bangalore.”
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