Konark- Verses Written on Stone

Honeymoon trip of a modern young couple in a religious place. Sounds odd? But it was true in our case. My husband and I chose Konark as our honeymoon destination. It is true that both of us are not so much devoted to the almighty, but the Sun temple of Konark was a place of wonder to us- a World heritage; not merely a religious place.

Once Rabindranath Tagore told about Konark – “Here the language of stone surpasses the language of man”. And being an admirer of art and sculpture we had decided to visit Konark.

On day-2 of our honeymoon trip, we hired a car and went to visit Konark. We reached there at around 3PM in the afternoon. The man-made stone-wonder was shining in the bright sun rays in front of us. We were awestruck. It was so huge, so beautiful; no word of the world was able to admire its beauty.

The Sun Temple

The Sun Temple of Konark was built in the 13th century in Orissa, India. It is also known as Black Pagoda. According to the belief, this temple was built by king Narasimhadev 1 of Easter Ganga Dynasty. It was created in 1250 AD. It was originally situated on the banks of river Chandrabhaga which is now merged with the sea. Currently, it is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The temple was built in the shape of an enormous chariot with twelve pairs of superbly decorated wheels dragged by seven horses. According to the Hindu mythology the God Sun used to travel in a chariot dragged by seven fierce horses. The Sun temple was built according to that myth.

Entrance

At the entrance of the Sun temple, there was a sculpture of two enormous lions each of them crushing an elephant.

The Sun temple of Konark is famous for its stone sculptures. Once we had entered the place we were speechless by seeing those huge statues. We felt that man had written beautiful verses here; not with a pen but with the stones.

Inside the Temple

All over the places there were stunning sculptures. On one of the walls, there was the depiction of the daily life of the ancient India.

On another wall, there were sculptures showing the relationships between man and women.

On some other pillar, there were huge animal figures that drew our attention.

There were some attractive stone figures of the temple dancers known as devadasis. They showed the various dance movement of popular dance form Odissi.

Other than these, the sculptures that blew my heart away were the three enormous statues of Sun God Surya. The three statues displayed the figure of Sun God during three times of a day; early morning- pravat Surya, mid-day- madhyanna Surya and the afternoon time- osto Surya.

Many parts of the Sun temple were then ruined and the process of the renovation was going on. Due to that reason we were unable to visit some of the places there.

The surrounding garden was also well-managed and we took some photos there.

On our way to the resort, we visited the lonely Chandravaga marine drive beach, which was beside the temple. We viewed sunset there and then went back to the city.

Getting there

The Sun temple of Konark can be reached by road from Puri or Bhubaneswar.

Accommodation

There are many private hotels and resorts near Konark Sun temple, where you can stay at night.