Its not often we get a chance to visit offbeat sites and when our Tour guide Dhani mentioned about a Hindu temple in Batam, ‘ we ‘ pushed the shopping agenda to make way for the famed ” Naga” temple of Batam. Nestled amidst dense vegetation, the first glimpse was the typical Balinese Gopura. The structure immediately brought to mind Dr. Kudavoil Balasubramaniam’s book “Koyil Kalai Marabhu’ where he had illustrated these very structures - Hindu temple Gopura’s typically signify the ritual of passing through an entrance of fire, thereby purifying the soul - and that is what evolved to present day towering Gopuras - however, the vestigial links with the original concept are still seen strewn across Indonesia.
Just we passed through, we were pleasantly surprised to see a perfect modern temple to our side - Sri Tripurasundari temple, complete with a priest from Devakkottai. He did mention that he was still preparing for pooja and advised us to go visit the shrine farther away and comeback to see his !
A stiff 100 m walk and we were faced with a steep flight of steps ending in a magnificent entrance Gopura,
The time period/dates of this structure are still unclear but my joy knew no bounds when we were greeted by a pair of superb doorguardians and an equally superlative lintel of Garuda.
The door guardians seems to part of a larger arrangement while the Gopura and the lintel persay seemed more recent works.
As we entered the temple, we were greeted by a very ‘Indian’ Ganesha. You will understand why i mention so shortly.
The next view blew us away. Such a towering sight , considering that we had already climbed a decent height - but this structure was massive and being hidden from view from the outside the effect was doubly strong.
We were certainly not expecting to see such a structure. There were two cute ‘local’ ganesha’s different yet complete with the attributes - the axe, the flower, the mothahagams and suvadis !
What was more unique is the depiction of the various ’snakes’ on the mount !
We couldn’t quite makeout the central theme and decided to go around to inspect more.
Seeing the massive curls of the snake coil around the structure, a realisation occurred that this could be the depiction of the churning of the Milk ocean for Amrit. The claws and the tail were a definite clincher. ( here is our Tour guide Mr Dhani - just to give you an idea of the scale !)
So when we moved to the front again they all began to fall in place.
The Bottom dragon face was infact that of a turtle - of Vishnu balancing the mount as turtle Kurma! and the churning rope being the snake Vasuki ( the dragon head on top)!
Usually the focus would be the Devas adn the Asuras holding the two sides and churning, but they have been done away with totally, instead focussing our attention entirely on the main act !
What made the entire complex so wonderful was the design, of presenting it on a small cliff with this artificial mount. The interesting part was the depiction of Garuda at the back and also a swan / bird above him.
The top has a Gold embossed dancing pose. It could be the classical Cambodian depiction of vishnu as seen in the famed Angkor panels
The Angkor panel for comparison
But without attributes it is very difficult to be sure and the locals call this a Sivan temple.
We finished the tour with a wonderful time at the temple nearby with the priest giving us a service straight from any temple in Tamil Nadu for his Aadhi Vinayagar and Tripurasundari
Dont miss the excellent services of Mr. Dhani Hariadi
PT. TITA PANORAMA INDAH TOURS & TRAVEL
Komplek TanjungPantun Blok P No. 4 Batam Island 29453, Indonesia.
Phone:+62 (778) 3306999
Fax: +62 (778) 456 797
Mobile Number: (+62) 81372788887
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