Mahakavi Bharathi Memorial Museum

Sri Aurobindo was not the only nationalist to flee to Pondicherry. The Tamil Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi also found refuge in Pondicherry.

My husband and I visited the Mahakavi Bharathi Memorial Museum and Research Centre in Pondicherry. It's not easy to find: our driver had to ask for directions several times before we found the museum.

The museum is housed in the home where Bharathi lived in Pondicherry. It is very small, consisting of only three rooms. We went about the three rooms, and nothing was intelligible to us, as neither of us read Tamil. We mentioned this to museum staff, and they showed a well-produced video in English about the museum.

In one room, photographs of people who had influential roles in Bharathi’s life are hung on the walls. In the display cases are journals and other publications for which Bharathi wrote and served as editor. In the largest room, there is a large oil painting of Bharathi, surrounded by pictures of his family. In another room are letters he wrote to other notables.

Subramanya Bharathi

We love checking out museum shops, but alas, the only publications for sale were in French and Tamil. A few CDs of Bharatiyar kritis for purchase would have been great.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram

The Union Territory of Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry) is a former French colony that provided refuge to Indian nationalists who fled prosecution under British rule.

Sri Aurobindo settled in Pondicherry in 1910 and stayed there until he left his body in 1950. He withdrew from politics and devoted himself to spiritual work in the forty years he lived in Pondicherry.

On a previous trip, we visited Sri Aurobindo Nivas in Vadodara (formerly Baroda), where Sri Aurobindo lived from 1893-1907. It was a logical progression that we visit the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.

Our visit to the Ashram was a short one. We had darshan at the cenotaph for the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.


Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother

Then we went into the bookstore, which has a comprehensive collection of books by or about Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. In a room off the bookstore, the chair in which Sri Aurobindo is seated in the photograph below is preserved:

Mahabalipuram

Last month, I realized a long-standing ambition to visit southern India. India is endlessly fascinating in its variety of ethnic groups and languages, and I believe that the common thread that runs through these groups is Hinduism.

My husband and I flew from Kolkata (Calcutta) to Chennai, from where we took road trips to Mahabalipuram, Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry), and Auroville.

In this post, I will discuss our visit to Mahabalipuram. Mahabalipuram hosts many rock-cut monuments that date to the Pallava dynasty of the 7th century CE.

Mahabalipuram is somewhat of an anomaly: while it is located in southern India, the monuments make references to the Mahabharata.


Arjuna's Penance

Arjuna is the emaciated figure standing on one leg on the upper left. Wikipedia states that one interpretation of the Arjuna's Penance relief is that "[Arjuna is] performing an austerity Tapas to receive a boon from Shiva as an aid in fighting the Mahabharata war. (The boon which Arjuna is said to have received was called Pasupata, Shiva's most powerful weapon)."

However, the Wikipedia account is not consistent with the account given in the translation of The Mahabharata by Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan, which is based on the critical edition from the Bhandakar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. In the latter account, Arjuna meets Shiva, who is in the guise of a hunter. Shiva bests Arjuna with his prowess with bow and arrow and hand-to-hand fighting, but nonetheless praises Arjuna's skills and bequeaths the Pasupata to Arjuna.



Above is the panch ratras, each dedicated to one of the Pandavas. From left (foreground) to right: Draupadi's ratha (resembling a thatched roof house), Arjuna's ratha, Bhima's ratha, and Dharmaraja Yudhisthira's ratha. To the right of the elephant is the ratha for the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, sons of Madri.

There is so much more to Mahabalipuram - for example, the rock relief showing Krishna's raising of Govardhan hill, the "Butter Ball," a huge rock resting precipitously on a slope, and the Shore Temple - that I encourage the reader to Google Mahabalipuram.