India 2007: Climbing Orchha's Fort and Temples

March 2007

This river was mostly dry - note the bridge on the far right

The Orchha fort and temple ruins are the ‘newest’ ruins we’ve seen. The fort is located on an island in the confluence of two rivers – the Betwa and Jamni Rivers. In addition to the temples within the fort, there are many other temples in and around Orchha that are well worth visiting.

We spent several days here, and we took full advantage of every opportunity to explore the many ruins as fully as possible.

We went into every room and climbed every staircase, including almost all of the tallest, steepest and darkest of the lot, using our hands to pull ourselves up.

We noted the worn treads of the stairs, and the smoothness of the handholds.

Clearly thousands had done this before us, many of whom would have been carrying weapons, or heavy loads of supplies.

The fort, palaces, temples and related structures, including a camel stable, were built between 1531 and 1783 ACE (AD).

They were made of bricks and mortar, covered with plaster, and at one time, painted with natural pigments.

The outsides of many of the structures are fairly ornate, with elephant and lion carvings, decorative trimmings, multiple windows and balconies, many with beautiful carved stone lattice work screens, and soaring conical towers.

The scale of these, and other, ruins is one of the most awe-inspiring features.

The insides are frequently a maze of courtyards and rooms, multiple staircases and secret passageways, and arched doorways and windows. Many of the walls show traces of the original detailed paintings, some in surprisingly good repair. Several ceilings are completely covered by small bird and flower motifs. All fabulous places.

A zenana (women's quarters) window - carved birds at the top

The king’s palace, or Raja Mahal, is deceptively plain on the outside, but richly decorated on the inside. Once brilliantly coloured wall murals depict scenes from the Ramayana, and from periods of more recent Indian history, including the British Raj.

It was interesting to see the very detailed and accurate paintings of the British soldiers, wearing their full uniforms and tall hats and riding on splendid horses. The first line of soldiers was depicted firing their muskets, the second loading, and the third preparing to load, exactly as they would have done.

The Indian soldiers, on horse and camel and on foot, were all turbaned, and brandished spears, lances and swords. Many Indian soldiers at first refused to use rifles as they believed it was dishonourable to kill an enemy at a distance. They preferred hand-to-hand combat – and they were good at it. But after several crushing defeats during which their regiments were slaughtered en masse by distant enemy soldiers they decided to arm themselves with rifles. And the rest, as they say, is history.

We noted in several of the paintings that the British officers were shown drinking wine. This clearly impressed the Indians, most of whom were more accustomed to drinking opium tea before battle – to give them visions of glory, to help them withstand pain, and to staunch the flow of blood.

One of the most famous buildings is the Jahangir Mahal, a palace built to humour Mughal Emperor Jahangir, who was a guest of the Maharaja for only one night. The excesses of the time, some perhaps continuing today, were extraordinary. Especially as the vast majority of the population is so poor, too many just one step away from starvation.

At one of the monuments, an old temple with an especially high ‘roof’ and spires, we met a young Indian fellow from Delhi. Like us, he was making a point of really climbing around in these ruins, and getting to the top whenever he could. He explained that now, as the Archaeological Society of India was acquiring and restoring more and more of the ruins in India (including this one), the opportunity to climb around inside of them was fast disappearing. He figured it was just a matter of a few years before the myriad stairwells at Orchha would be gated, the upper galleries and balconies off-limits to the public.

There are a number of good reasons for this. One, of course, is safety. These are, after all, ruins, and many of the staircases were crumbling, with plenty of uneven surfaces and piles of debris (rubble and garbage) to stumble upon. Additionally many of the windows and balconies were completely open, with no ‘sides’ or railings, these having fallen away long ago, or perhaps having never existed. From many of them it was a sheer drop several stories down to either a stone-paved courtyard or an unappetizing thicket of shrubs and garbage. Similarly the upper internal galleries and external balconies were often nothing more than ledges, narrow enough that I, with my acrophobia, could only proceed by not looking down, taking a deep breath, and backing myself up against the wall, creeping step by step forward towards Doug’s outstretched hand.

The second, and perhaps more important reason for restricting public access to many parts of the ruins is to try to protect the ruins themselves from desecration and destruction. It's distressing to see how many and how much of the priceless Indian heritage, and in particular the beautiful ancient paintings, have been utterly destroyed by the scratching and penning of thousands upon thousands of names, writ large and small. Given that many of the Indian tourists are groups of unchaperoned adolescent boys, it is not surprising that most of the names are male.

In one of the caves at Ajanta and entire wall of thus destroyed paintings has been covered with glass and put on display as a testament, and a warning, about the damage being done to Indian heritage. At all of the Indian heritage sites there are multiple signs in English and Hindi warning of large fines and even imprisonment if one is caught damaging any part of the site. But just as Indians tend to ignore (or can’t read?) signs requesting silence or forbidding photos, signs prohibiting desecration of sites will not be enough to protect them.

We are therefore very grateful to have gone to Orchha, and to the many other still open and explorable sites, at which we were able to explore them as fully as we desired. There is something about really exploring a ruin, about the physical effort of climbing the steep stairs and holding on to the stones, touching the carved panels and sculptures, watching the birds nesting in the nooks and crannies, and smelling the bat shit, that engraves the memory of it in your mind. While we may need our photos to remind us which fort or temple we were in, we won’t soon forget the way they felt as we climbed about within them.

Time - and trees - slowly overtaking these wonderful old structures

We were also glad to see the ongoing restoration work at Orchha, being done in much the same way it would have been done originally.

The lowliest of the workers, as always, were women.

They act as porters or gofers, carrying rubble and bricks on their heads.

And yet look strangely elegant, walking with straight backs and necks to ensure their loads are balanced.

And wearing colourful saris, bangles around their wrists. They always smiled at us.

Literally higher up the ladder, at least in terms of worker's value, barefooted men climbing about on precarious looking bamboo scaffolding. The scaffolding is stitched together with rope.

They are at least two stories above the hard stone floor.

I can’t help but wonder how many accidents they have.

They also smile or wave at us when we look at them.

I hope they are proud of the work they are doing.

Perhaps one of the most valued and highest paid workers, a serious looking stone mason is working on a brick and mortar pointed arch. Although also barefoot, he had a watch and sunglasses. He doesn’t smile, and looks as though there’s some place he’d rather be. And just maybe that would be in Kajuraho....

Kajuraho – The R-rated Ruins

Undoubtedly because of the explicit eroticism of the carvings in Kajuraho, those ruins are far more popular with western tourists than the much tamer Orchha ruins.

Fortunately they're very close to Orchha - just a taxi ride away - so of course we had to go.

According to Wikipedia:

The temples have a rich display of intricately carved statues. While they are famous for their erotic sculpture, sexual themes cover less than 10% of the temple sculpture. Further, most erotic scene panels are neither prominent nor emphasized at the expense of the rest, rather they are in proportional balance with the non-sexual images. The viewer has to look closely to find them, or be directed by a guide.

We had no trouble finding them – just looked for the large groups of Western tourists standing under particular structures. Certainly some of the panels are very explicit. And erotic. Apparently they served to instruct young boys on the ways of the world. That seems a bit of a stretch – bestiality?