While in Bhubaneshwar ( Odisha ), we planned to drive to Konark Sun Temple and witness it's grandness & heritage.
Temple has beautifully carved stone wheels, pillars and walls. A lot of portions of temple are in ruins, although remained part is being maintained. Some work was happening when we visited the temple this month (july’2016).
Sun Temple in Konark is 65 kilometers from Bhubaneshwar and 35 km from Puri.
ASI maintains the temple and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Konark Sun temple is also featured in the list of 7 wonders in India, along with Meenakshi Amman Temple of Madurai, Dholavira of Gujarat, Red Fort of Delhi, Jaisalmer Fort of Rajasthan, Nalanda of Bihar and Khajuraho of Madhya Pradesh.
The name Konark comes from Sanskrit words - Kona and Ark. Europian sailors had 2 important temples in this part of India - Konark Sun Temple and Jaganath Temple in Puri, which are called Black Pagoda and White Padoga respectively.
Konark Sun Temple has used iron beams for it’s structure. It was made to look like Surya-Rath (Chariot of Sun God). There are 12 carved stone wheels which are 3 meters wide and is pulled by a set of seven horses, which you see on entry gate of the temple. It followed popular Kalinga Architecture.
Maintenance of Konark Sun Temple was in progress and it made us feel good about the care ASI is taking of these beautiful heritage buildings in India. Although it made us worry about the way these structures are restored. Plain stones without any carving are being added to give support to the structure. It's understandable that same carving might be difficult to achieve but some creative stuff can be done. More than structure, the craved stones are decaying with time and wondering if there is a good way to avoid it. I am sure ASI must thinking about all these things.
Konark Sun Temple is one of the most visited tourist places in Odisha and it's considered as one of the most popular places to visit around Bubaneshwar. We didn't want to miss and happy that it was a nice experience to be there. Although the weather was not suitable, but we had fun.
There are some interesting facts about the architecture of Konark Sun Temple. Original temple had one part of the compound, which was 70 mgr high. Now the highest structure of the Sun Temple is 30 meters high, which is essentially the audience hall along with smaller structures like Dance hall and Dining hall.
Orissa Tourism website lists few interesting details around history behind this temple.
Surrounding of the Konark Sun Temple is pretty green and the weather made it greener for us.
We had great time roaming around this beautiful campus of Konark Sun Temple, which has lot to surprise you and make you think how it was built many centuries ago. Here we tried to click family selfie with our DSLR and it came out well :)
These are the Ashvas (horses) of Surya Rath. Somehow the faces are different and I am not sure why. There must be some reason behind these shapes.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
- Manage your waste well and don’t litter
- Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
- Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
- Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
- Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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