Preserving a monument

Sir, - An ancient temple of Eswar was located at the confluence of the rivers Krishna, Thungabhadra and Bhavanasi, near Sangameswaram village in Kurnool district. When the Srisailam project was under construction, the then Government took a decision to shift the temple to a safer place. The intention of the Government was laudable, but it bungled while implementing the scheme. The first mistake was to shift the temple to a far- off place, atop a hillock near Kurnool, a distance of about 40 km from the original site.

The second was the dismantling and transporting of the whole material to a far-off place, instead of having it photographed, videographed, sketched to the actual measurements and computerised to build a new temple in its original shape in a nearby area, at a much cheaper cost.

Nevertheless, the entire temple was dismantled, dismembered and the heavy stone material, including statues, stone-carvings, sculptures, wall-panels, pillars, huge beams, and each and every piece of stone, were transported to the new site. Even ordinary stones, big and small with no artistic value, had been transported to the new site at an enormous cost. During the process of dismantling, each piece of stone was numbered in serial order.

When the new temple was completed, it was astoundingly identical to the original structure. It was really an engineering marvel, and the engineers, architects and even the ordinary workers did a meticulous and magnificent job in retaining the original form and shape of the archaic structure. Some crores of public money had been spent on the project, only to be abandoned in its final stages.

Instead, the authorities should have gracefully allowed the temple to be submerged, along with scores of other villages and temples, in the back waters of the Srisailam project and thus saved whopping amount of the public exchequer, inasmuch as the temple was put to disuse since ages on account of its remoteness to civilisation and part of the temple was already submerged in the perilous waters of the confluence, and remained only as a relic of a bygone era.

The new temple has now become the habitat for bats, spiders, reptiles and other insects, and also a rendezvous for criminals, fugitives and other shady characters.

It is disheartening to see that some of the priceless art pieces such as stone statues, sculptures, and carvings, some intact and many broken or disfigured, lay scattered along with stones and rubble all around the place, unprotected and uncared for. These things, at least, should have been preserved in the nearby archaeological museum.

Even now, the place can be developed into a pilgrim centre or a tourist attraction by laying an asphalt road between the national highway No. 18 and the temple, a stretch of hardly 3 km, and raising greenery around the temple. The Religious and Endowment Department should do something to improve matters.

V. Janakiram,

Kurnool (AP)

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