Hey guys, today, we are going to look at some strange carvings of Veeranarayana
Temple. This first carving is a real shocker, it is a large scale model of Lord Buddha. Now,
this is an ancient Hindu temple that is about 800 years old. But you can see
they have carved Buddha, on the front wall, as a giant statue. This could be shocking to
many people today, because they think Hinduism and Buddhism are completely different religions,
In fact, people theorize that these 2 religions were fighting against each other in ancient times. But here,
you can this giant carving of Buddha, right in the front of the temple, the same size as the
Hindu God Krishna nearby, so the ancient builders had no issues in accepting Buddha as a Hindu God.
Unfortunately, this is completely destroyed by invaders, you can see they disfigured it from top
to bottom, and because of this destruction, some experts have even claimed that this is not Buddha,
this is some other Hindu deity. But this is Buddha, you can see him in the meditating pose,
with clear Hand signals. We can also see him carved in the main statue of this temple, that
one is much smaller, but we can clearly identify him as Buddha. Again, I have also shown you that
Buddha was carved in another Hindu temple nearby, the Chennakeshava temple also shows Buddha.
But this carving is actually a real treasure because the rest of them are smaller statues,
and as far as I have seen in this region, this is the only large statue of Buddha
carved in a Hindu temple, but it is a shame that it is nearly unrecognizable.
Right next to Buddha, you can see Lord Krishna, and he is playing flute, and every body is
mesmerized by his music. Not only humans, but even animals are completely enthralled by his music,
but do you notice anything strange?
This guy, is wearing a backpack, just like today's backpack
It is clearly shown that it is a separate bag, but it is strapped to him. This is really fantastic,
because we would assume that they started using backpacks may be in the last century,
but this is at least 800 years old. Here is another carving, of a man
standing under a tree, this is very confusing, because I don’t fully understand the details,
but he is clearly shown with a backpack, and it seems like he is removing the backpack. Now,
there is another strange feature in this carving, there is a weird animal hiding in the tree.
In this carving you can see a hill, or you can think of it as a giant boulder, with lots of trees
and several animals. This boulder is being lifted by Krishna, and you can see snakes come out of the
bottom of the rock. This is a fascinating detail, because snakes are known for hiding under stones.
I remember when I was a child, when I flipped over small stones, I would always find worms,
and when I got too excited and I flipped bigger stones, I would sometimes
find snakes, I guess it is always moist and dark under the stones, this is probably an ideal
condition for worms and snakes. But this detail shows how observant ancient builders were.
Here you can see another snake, it is shown with 5 heads. Did such snakes exist
during the time of Krishna? Remember, Krishna is said to have lived about 5000 years ago,
so we can only image if such multi-headed snakes actually existed during those times.
Today, sometimes they find two-headed snakes, and it makes us wonder if what we see in these
carvings is fiction or fact? But here, the story gets more interesting, it is not just a snake,
it is a demon in the form of Naga, and here, you can see a woman, begging for mercy.
Who is she? She is one of the wives of this Naga, and at this point, Krishna is considering
if he should show mercy to the snake, while he is dancing on its head.
What is fascinating, is this nearby carving of Garuda, the eagle like God,
next to Krishna. It is very strange because he is doing Namaste to Krishna, as though he
is also begging him, to leave the snake alone. In fact, the snake is getting destroyed because
of this eagle. This eagle is the one who displaced the snake from its original house, and put it near
Krishna’s house. Remember eagles and snakes have been sworn enemies forever, like lions and hyenas.
But now he is pretending to ask for mercy for the snake. There is definitely some hidden humor
in this and ancient people would have laughed at this carving.
But you can see another fascinating anatomical detail in this carving. Can you tell me what
it is? Here, you can see this tiny protrusion on his leg. This is actually one of his toes,
in anatomy it is called a dewclaw or a spur. Birds have an extra toe high up in the leg,
it is almost never used. Most people don’t even know that such a feature exists in birds,
but this is a very interesting, tiny little detail that has been added in this carving,
and gives us great insight to understanding how close ancient builders were, to
nature. Here is another carving of Garuda, again you can see the dewclaw, so it makes we wonder,
how sculptors thought of this tiny detail and kept it consistently in all carvings of Garuda. .
Today, there is a new trend, people get dogs and cats as pets and they may not even realize that
they don’t have dewclaws. Most Dogs are born with dewclaws, but now dog breeders are removing them,
when the puppies are just 5 or 7 days old. Ancient builders were not doing little things like
declawing dogs, but were involved in major things like de-tusking elephants. I don’t know if there
is a word called de-tusking, may be I made that up, but you can see these beautiful elephants,
but their tusks.. initially you may think they are broken. They are not broken, they are trimmed and
capped with metal caps. Believe it or not, you can still see this practice in temple elephants today,
the tusks, if allowed to grow fully, can be quite dangerous and can cause a lot of damage, even
accidentally. And look at the heavy ornamenting on its body, ancient Indians had mastered the art
of domesticating elephants at least 2000 years ago. And again, you can see a very interesting
detail. There are veins and arteries carved on the earlobe. If you ever had a pet elephant,
you may have realized how veinous an elephant’s ear lobes can be. It is a big chore to clean an
elephant’s ears because they can easily bleed. But what are these elephants doing in this temple?
Look at their legs, they are bent at a 45 degree angle. Why? I told you every ancient carving has
a purpose, these elephants are dragging a huge load, they are pulling a vehicle. And what is
that vehicle? it is the temple itself. If you take a step back and observe, you will realize that
the temple is designed like a giant chariot, and it is being drawn by these elephants.
But there are many mysterious, unexplained carvings inside the temple, on the ceiling.
Look at this, this is mind boggling. It just appears as though a bunch of humanoids are wrapped
up like mummies and are arranged in various circles. What do you think is going on here?
But one carving in the ceiling has survived, and instead of satisfying our curiosity,
it actually increases our curiosity. Krishna is standing in the middle with
a flute. Now, if you look around, the first circle, you will see 8 dancers around him.
In the next circle, you will see 16 chakras and conchs positioned symmetrically. In the
outermost circle, you can see 32 cows. And if you look at the square around this, you can count 64
floral patterns. But this gets more weird, if you have studied ancient Indian texts.
Krishna is the 8th avatar of Vishnu, The flute he is playing has 8 holes, and there are 8 dancers,
they could be his wives called Ashtalakshmis. You can see 8 Conchs, precisely pointing in 8
directions, and there are 8 chakras and if we zoom in on each chakra, each one has exactly 8 teeth,
like the teeth of a gear. If you look at the cows, its gets very interesting,
because initially I thought it is just a random array of 32 cows. But if you observe carfefully,
again you see that there are 4 types of cows shown, some with very long horns,
some with medium horns, etcetera. That again means there are 8 carvings of
any particular type or breed. I am sure, we can find that hidden 8 in the outer square also, if
these patterns had not been partially destroyed. There is some weird connection between the number
8 and these ceiling carvings, but nearly all the other carvings have been destroyed that it is
impossible to decode them further. Here Again, a spectacular carving, with intertwined Nagas, You
can see the 8 sides of this panel, but the other details, are not so visible anymore.
What was the obsession with snakes? What are the ancient builders trying to tell us here?
This giant guy is fighting this giant snake, and he is holding on to a tree,
and look, there is a baby hiding in the tree. And this tiny guy is fighting this tiny snake,
and all this is happening while somebody is hiding in the closet. We could make this into
a horror movie today, who can explain this? You can also find other animals, like lizards
and caterpillars, but these are not carvings, they are real animals living in this temple.
Of course we have to examine the most dominant species on the planet. Here is a woman with a
unique hairdo, and she is holding a rectangular device in her hand. Is she taking a selfie with
her iphone 13 ? Or Is it just a mirror? Is it a clay tablet, where some message is written? Or
is it a kindle, and she is reading an ebook? Is she on a video call with someone?
What is this device? The standard theory of archeologists is that , this is a mirror,
and they think nobody should even question that. Sometimes the woman is shown primiping,
then we can guess it is a mirror. Sometimes, they are shown writing on it, so we can say
it may have been a clay tablet, or a padded cloth. Sumerians used clay tablets widely,
but it is unclear if this practice also existed in India. The face would have revealed micro
expressions, like vanity, or surprise, but it is destroyed. If it shows vanity, we can conclude
it is a mirror, if it shows surprise, we can say it was a tablet containing some information, or a
message from someone, or if she shows a duckface, we can conclude she is taking a selfie. I think,
she is watching a YouTube video, just like you. I hope you liked this video, I am Praveen Mohan,
thanks a lot for watching, don’t forget to subscribe and I will talk to you soon. Bye!