dear tapati di,

greetings from Bhubaneshvar. 

i am just about finished with my interviews, with which, two new anxieties have
dawned upon me. the first is that my theoretical framework seems to have gone for a
toss. the other is that the material collected is too sparse to make up
a voluminous chapter.
as you know i was following two lines of inquiry. one regarding arakhit das, his sect
and claims for religious power through orders of display and representation. for this i
have sufficient material i believe but my framework here needs then to be able to talk
about pilgrimage and tourism and not just limit itself to archaeology.
the other chapter which i thought i would work on for the presentation in May was on
the jain temple. however when i got to the field, the temple itself became sort of a
boring certainty what seemed to be the riveting point for the recent local history of
khandagiri was the conflict regarding the Barabhuji cave. unfortunately all the
involved parties were rather hesitant to talk freely about it. hence i dont have much
material, however some of it displays a rather eclectic mixture of historical 'fact' and
mythical/mythological histories.
so i'll just narrate out all of what i have collected, which, like i said isnt much.
i'll begin with an interview with Birinchi Baba for Lalatendu Kesari Aashram on
Khandagiri,  he began by saying that Bhubaneshvar was another name of lord Shiva
and the city of Bhubaneshvar was actually 'Nemisharandya' the abode of lord shiva
extending to a radius of 22 kos from the Lingraj temple and khandagiri and udayagiri
at it's edge was the 'Ekamrakanan' : the meditation retreat where lord shiva passed
on brahamagyan to Parvathy. (actually the first thing he said was "are you hindu or
jain?" when i said no to both "muslim, buddhist? christian?" finallly we both agreed to
settle for sanatan dharma, i wasnt sure what that meant but it sounded neutral
enough) 
that shiva passed on esoteric knowledge to parvathy in Ekamrakanan, according to
Birinchi Baba is mentioned in Skanda Purana and Shiv Purana. he went on to say
that this was the spot of Kartikeyaya's birth. which is why the hill was named
skhandagiri which through colloquial useage became khandagiri. even the medivial
name for the site is kumar parvat , kumar being another name for kartikeya ,
udayagiri was named after his wife, as kumari parvat(this is the name that is used in
kharavela's inscription). Kharavela according to him was not a Jain but a Shaivite.
He further went on to say that Jainism is not a separate religion but rather a part of
the Sanatan mat ( view/ order). then he went on to say that graet writers such as
Jaggannath das (medivial) says that Rishabhnath (first jain tirthankar) was an
incarnation of Vishnu as was Buddha. it was the corruption of brahmins that forced
lord vishnu to incarnate as Buddha or the Jinas.
when asked about the histoy of his own aashram he said that the " dhuni (homa fire)
had been burning there continously since ancient times" achiyutananda das (one of
the panchasakhas) says that the lalatendukesari aashram is a moola sthan (base,
central/nodal point) where the 12 armed goddess protects. laltendu kesari himself
performed tapas here for 12 years or so . then he pointed to some nearby rocks and
said that there lalatendu kesari had carved a stone throne for himself, across which
he pointed to a stone wall and said that there he would hold audience with sadhus
and had carved seats for them. finally he said that there were hundreds of sadhu's in
khadagiri that were in samadhi in underground, hidden locations who would re-
emerge when the time was right. While bidding goodbye he said that he had gotten
state endowment for his aashram as a result of which the ASI could not evict him.
He pointed towards a water tank and tap; and said that the ASI had even helped with
the water supplies.
next i went to the barabhuji cave where thankfully i was freely allowed to take
pictures. the pujari there (who's name i yet have to find out) repeated the same story
about jainism not being a different religion but belonging to the sanatan legacy.
interestingly for them there exists no significant difference between sanatan dharma
and modern day hinduism.
the first thing he said to me was "just like in ayodhya there is a conflict between the
hindus and the muslims, someone says it's babri masjid someone says it's
ramjanambhoomi, so too is the case here.."
he said the cave was an ancient devi temple and was made 2000 years ago.that
hindu worship here was ancient. the marble flooring he said was recent and the
courtyard in front formed by stacking a large number of stone was 200-300 years
old. he said that the jains called the goddesses chakreshwari and shankheshvari
which were evidently hindu goddesses as they had conncetions with shankha and
chakra two of vishnu's famous iconographic characteristics. he claimed that the jain
temple was consecrated in 1934 prior to which it was occupied by a vishnu image
ananta kesari, which was then moved to the jagamara math ( jagmara is the name of
a nearby village) every year on magh saptami when the mela is heald at khandagiri,
ananta kesari visits from the math to khandagiri amid much chanting of mantras and
burning of sacrificial fires.
when i asked him about the abandoned temple just above barabhuji, he said it was
an old structure, no one knew when it was built and to whoum it was consecrated.
when asked if the ASI had ever tried to shut down worship in the barabhuji 'temple'
he said 'many times' but because the local people are very devoted to maa barabhuji
they always rendered any attempts to reclaim the cave unsuccessful.
While i was taking pictures a jain priest came to the cave and got into an argument
with one of the priests over covering of the images. The jain said that it was because
of their nakedness that the images were holy while the hindu priest maintained that
naked images could not be worshipped. In the face of the Jain’s persistence the
hindu priest relented and said that his predecessors had clothed the images and it
was not upto him to change that.
the other person i spoke to was Debendra Subudhi he is the secretary of the village
committe of Dumduma village and also my landlord in Bhubaneshwar. Dumduma is
one of the 10-15 villages which considers Maa Barabhuji to be their Ishata Devi. he
said he was 61 yrs old and all his life he'd seen her being worshipped by hindus.
he also said that 80 years ago or so the jain temple was a hindu temple which
housed a vishnu image ananta kesari. then he named 4 villages and 4 vishnu
images in four directions surrounding khandagiri and said that the ananta kesari
temple and the barabhuji temple formed the center of the complex. ( i still havent but
i shall attempt to see at least one of these four images.) . he said that the barabhuji
cave had beeen an issue of debate for the last 30 years or so. also said that locally,
in the villages surrounding khandagiri there was not even one jain family living.

Next i went to the jain dharamshala where i met a lady called bimla devi, the
manager of the jain institutions at khandagiri who was from uttar pradesh but for the
last generation or two had been at khandagiri. she was incharge of overseeing the
temple, the dharamshala and the charitable dispensary. the dharamshala she said
was approximately 70- 80 years old, as she herself had been present there for the
last 60 years or so. the charitable homeopathic dispensery was set u in 1958. she
told me that there was no other jain pilgrimage site in orissa. most of the jain
population lived in Cuttack specifically in choudharybazaar. when asked about
barabhuji she said that the jain community had won the case in high court but
because of a 15 village strong local committe the cave had not been delivered to the
jains. the police were all hindu as were the elected representatives.
when asked about the court case between the aarakhit sect and the jains she
seemed a bit more apologetic and said " well they claim that the dharamshala is built
over the samadhis of their previous mahants, the thing is that the jain committe
bought the land from their trust board members, after which the land becomes ours
to do with as we see fit"
the temple on top of khandagiri she said was 500 years old.
when i asked her about goddess worship in present jain practice she said the devis
were servants of the Jinas, and attended to the worldly needs of the devotees of the
thirthankers ( who themselves were liberated and hence would not participate in
worldly actions) the devis had attained heaven but not liberation as women cannot
attain liberation. However when i pointed out that in the recently installed image the
devis were made much smaller than the Thirthanker whereas in the cave images at
Khandagiri they were often the same size, she could not give a very coherent
answer.
Interestingly she too was of the opinion that Jainism and Hinduism were not all that
different, she refered to Adinath or Rshbhnath who for her was quivalent with shiva
on account of them both being associated with the Bull and Mt> Kailash. She gave
me a little booklet, which claimed Khandagiri and Udayagiri to be Jain sites, however
in the same sentence the writer would often draw parallels with Bharuch or Sanchi.
Next, I met Sri Santosh Kumar Jain who was the manager at the Jain temple and
trust at ChaudharyBazzar at Cuttack. He told me that the Barabhuji cave had
become an issue post 1959. In 1965 the Jain trust relinquished control over
Khandagiri to the ASI. Prior to which he said they had a patta for the khandagiri
mountain granted to them by the colonial government. The smaller temple on
khandagiri was made in 1940 the larger one was over 200 years old. He also said
that one of the Adinath murtis worshipped there was the Kalinga Jina mentioned in
the inscription. During magh saptami when the mela was heald, the image was taken
in a Vimana yatra to Udayagiri, hathi gumpha under the inscription.
When i asked him if prior to the occupation the images at barabhuji were worshipped
by the Jains, he said that the images were reliefs and hence their prana prathistha
could not be done, hence they did not have the status of sacred images.
After this interview i went back to barabhuji to ask the hindu priests if the hindus had
performed their prana prathistha. The first priest got very angry and said i must be
incredibly stupid to ask that in a temple which was under worship. The second priest
who i had interviewed earlier said that since these were ancient images they must’ve
been consecrated by people in ancient times beyond of what anyone surviving now
would know of.
Finally i went to the Bhubaneshvar archaeology office and there spoke to a H.A. Naik ( Deputy
Superintendent Archaeologist) and Sushant Kumarkar (Asst. Archaeologist). According to them that
ASI declared it’s authority over the site in 1915. The ramp to hathi gumpha and the apsidial shrine at
the top were excavated during 1958-61 under the eye of Debala Mitra. They said the ramp was there
for actual elephants to go up to the hathi gumpha. The ASI had however repaired it and provided
railings. Apart from which the ASI looked after the watertightining of caves to arrest seepage of
water (something of which, i might add after examining several caves, that they did not do a good
job of) several pillars were installed in rani gumpha and other caves as measures for conservation. In
1996 they introduced tickets for udaygiri, set up boundaries (fences) during 2002. They also set up
informative signboards and made pathways for visitors to access the caves. There is also a
horticulture dept in the ASI bhuvaneshvar office that looks after the gardening and landscaping of
the site. Apart from this they take care of the cleaning and maintainence.

When asked why khandagiri was not ticketed they said all over india wherever religious activities are
going on, in ‘living’ monuments’ there are no tickets.

When asked about the presence of sadhus in caves, they very categorically said that only Jain monks
lived in the caves and the caves were mode only for the jain monks and devotees to live in that any
other sadhu living in them was accidental, they even mentioned that they had evicted a Sadhu called
Naga Baba from khandagiri in 2005 ( which struck me as odd, because i had met naga baba in 2005
and again in 2007, though presently he is not at the site. Also that naga baba used to stay in laltendu
kesari aashram or in a aashram at the base of khandagiri, i doubt if he would go occupy a cave after
that). They also said that it was not possible for Birinchi baba of lalatendukesari aashram to have
gotten the endowment because the aashram is a sort of encroaching. When asked why they didn’t
evict him they said it was a religious matter and for a long time , i.e. 20 years or so ‘these people’
had been active at that place. Concerning eviction and barabhuji cave he said that ASI was not the
implementing authority, the ASI can only serve notices to the encroachers and then the district
authorities have to evict them. With regards to barabhuji the state govt was unable to take action,
though they had tried multiple times but because of the ‘politicisation’ of the matter it could not be
eicted. He added that these are all religious matters and needed to be tackled carefull. Further that
the court case regarding barabhuji was that of the Jain trust vs the hindu village committees where
the ASI appeared as a partner to the Jain trust, and since the case was pending sub-judice he could
not talk much about it.

Regards udayagiri he said that there was no religious activities on udayagiri, and denied that it had
any modern history (19th ce) of religious activity. Said that the caves were always found empty and
they had to problems there. Regarding the paduka aashram at udayagiri they said that they had
sealed the entrance several times but was always reopened by local vandals. The last time so in
2001-02. As for security of the caves he said that they were severely short staffed and a Bgroup site
such as khandagiri could not amass as much caretaking and security such as the A+ high profile
world heritage sites such as Ajanta or Ellora.