Aditya’s journey – from Prabas Patan to Kasheli

                               Surya from Nuggehalli temple 

Today is Ratha Saptami, I miss the related festivities at Kanchipuram. This year, I have had a “discovery” as precious as the “Dwadasa Adityas” in Varanasi last year. The Kanakaditya Mandir at Kasheli, near Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. I was at Ratnagiri recently and was so thrilled that we were going to a Mandir that houses a deity who had “fled” Gujarat during the persecution somewhere in 13^th century. Somehow no one in the trip with me was even discussing the temple, and we went to a pre-historic site which was the main agenda of the trip, but we didn’t go anywhere near the temple. I was disappointed. I thought I would go as soon as I can – then I came across a write up that said starting Rata Saptami they have a week-long festival including a rath festival on the Ratha Saptami day. I quickly checked train tickets, thought will make a day trip and visit the temple on Ratha Saptami to have darshan of Surya. But, train tickets are all waitlisted and I can’t undertake the journey.

My interest in the temple is because of a general interest in Surya mandirs across the country – having been to Modhera in the west, and Konark in the east I keep thinking of a Surya Mandir that is a living temple with pujas. We know neither Multan nor Martand survived, Modhera was sacked and no deity, Konark fell into ruin and so it is just a structure now. But, the Kanakaditya temple at Kasheli is a living temple, and so I was keen to go. Another fact that made it interesting for is the fact that the deity had travelled from Prabhas Patan, Somnath on the Gujarat coast to Konkan sometime during the attack there by Allaud-din-khilji. As Dr. Meenakshi Jain has written in the book ‘Flight of Deities’, we see the phenomenon across the country. I am mentioning her again and again because the sensitivity towards such a flight, the safekeeping, continuing, restarting pujas, during the period of strife, shows what devotees went through, and what efforts they took.

     Pic credit: Internet

The only reference I could was in a blog that said there were twelve Surya murtis at Prabhas Patan and the Pujari of the temple loaded a ship that was sailing south with the deities when Khilji attacked Saurashtra in 1296. Local legend at Kasheli says that the trader who was sailing got stuck off the coast and only after removing the vigraha and keeping it in a natural cave on the coast at Kasheli was he able to sail again. A girl called Kanaka, a Surya devotee sighted the vigraha at what is called “Devachi Kholi” or God’s room and with the help of villagers got the murti installed. Hence the temple is called Kanakaditya Mandir.

This is a photograph of the interiors of Surya Kunda temple at Somnath taken by D.H. Sykes in 1869. Somnath has a Surya temple even today though I haven’t been able to get the picture and the condition of the temple as it is today. “In the report, 'Somanatha and other mediaeval temples in Kathiawad' of 1931, Henry Cousens wrote, "Outside the town, on the east, and placed upon an eminence overlooking the Triveni, or junction of the three streams, facing the rising sun, is an old temple of Surya...It [dates] perhaps, about 1350. The upper portion of its sikhara, together with the roof of the hall and the whole of the porch, have been thrown down...The forward part of the mandapa including the roof and front doorway, has been rebuilt in a clumsy fashion...On the front of the temple, above the entrance doorway, is an image of Surya with his seven horses below him and his two wives...” to quote from

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/i/019pho0001000s7u00794000.html

Hopefully I will visit both the temples, at Somnath as well Kasheli one day and update this blog further.