THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A welcoming arch by the Vithura-Bonacaud road opens the door to an archaeological mystery. The rugged road by the side of a crystal-clear stream by the foothills of the Western Ghats, adds to the adventure.
The narrow lane winds its way through the trees and occasional rural homesteads to a temple that goes by the name ‘Makki Sree Dharma Sastha temple’. The centuries-old idol could be seen on a raised platform surrounded by the hint of an enclosure. The residents call it a ‘forest deity’ suggesting that the entire place was once a forest and home to the Kani tribe.
“The temple is of Vana Sasthavu,” says a resident who claims worship is done twice a week at the temple along with regular festivals. “There are several such temples in the forest areas of the region,” he says.
Some others claim it could be Buddha, because the idol has a tuft of hair rounded into a bun at the crown, and Sastha aka ‘Chathan’ in common parlance has to do a lot with Buddha.
However, with Makki being a very prominent trade route during the ancient era, there is a high possibility that the idol could reflect a Jain thought, says historian Vellanadu Ramachandran.
He quotes the 797 AD Jain text Kuvaleyamala in which the trade links to Vijayapuri (present-day Vizhinjam) are mentioned, which could throw light on the Makki-Vithura connect to Jainism.
“This was one of the prime routes Jain monks and traders used to commute. The trade was for pepper, which is grown in abundance in the Nedumangad taluk of which Makki is a part. There are other places in the taluk depicting such a Jain influence such as Manikkal (Manikkan in Tamil denotes a Jain connect), and Vellanchira (Vellayappan is a Tamil term for Jain deity).
There is also a Tirthankara near Vithura, Kottur and Manikkan panchayat. Then, there is Kalliyode, which again shows the Jain link, as ‘kallu’ in Tamil denotes a Jain shrine. Makki is also a regionalised term for Margi meaning those who have chosen the ‘margam or path’,” he says.
The idol is naked in the temple, much like the statues pertaining to the Digambara sect of Jainism. The head bun is the only aberration from regular Jain statues, Ramachandran says. “The concept of Vana Sastha or ‘Chathan’ or Buddha is entirely different from the way the idol is at Makki,” he says, adding commoners often cannot spot the difference between Jain idols and Buddhist ones.
“The idol and the area around it could have been made by traders frequenting the path. Or it could have been Jain shrine where monks stopped by,” he says.
But historian M G Sashibhooshan says the idol has to be examined to ascertain its faith lineage. We cannot say for sure as ancient India was a centre for several faiths, not just Buddhism and Jainism, he adds.
“There were a group called Ajivakas, who faded away in time. The prominent ones are Jainism and Buddhism and both have a few similarities with Hindu schools of thought,” he says.
For example, the Tantric Buddhist deities of Avalokahiteswara and Tara are quite identical to Shiva and Devi, venerated by the Hindus. In Ladakh, where Tantric Buddhism is prevalent, there are shrines where same deity is worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists.
“In Kerala, too, Tantric Buddhism was prevalent, so there is every possibility that Avalokahiteshwara and Ayyanar or Ayyappa worship (which in the Shatavahana and Kushana periods of north India is known as Revantha) existed simultaneously and the similarity between Sastha and Buddha could have its roots there,” he says.
In that context, the Makki idol could be such a shrine where different worships coexisted, and hence the idol must be studied for its construct and the symbols engraved on it to find out, he says.
That the place has its name as Makki could also mean ‘margam’ or path which need not mean a change of faith but just a way of thought, says Sashibhooshan.
Thus, a nondescript temple in a remote spot in Vithura is evoking the interests of not just locals but also those who know the history of the area and want a proper study of the idol that retains a mystic, enigmatic charm.
There & then
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