Warangal - the megalithic mystery of the times

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

One of the most interesting megalithic mysteries of the planet is Warangal in India through the eyes of an eyewitness.

So, on April 19 of this year by 6 pm I was in Warangal. On the way, on the train, a typical incident occurred: a man was selling fruits I did not understand, I took it from him, I did not like it - he returned the fruit, but he did not give me a rupee. Then a man sitting next to him stopped him and said, “Hey, what is it you? Give him ripe ones! The seller gave me ripe ones and I liked them. Then my defender expressed a whole monologue to the seller that, they say, how not good it is to take advantage of the guest's ignorance and deceive him for the sake of some 10 rupees. I thought, hmmm, this would only be laughed at in the Russian Federation. There and then would be found: officials steal millions, and I slipped a stale roll, is that a deception? This is how deception is generated everywhere - in the Russian Federation, look at both, not there, so they cheat here, you have to literally understand everything.

At the station, the weiting room is not allowed: a man with a crutch is on guard. As it often happens for some reason, cripples especially hate travelers, the third such case is already in India. Well, I went to the senior manager, handed him a pack of 2nd class tickets for 2 months, and they let him in according to his resolution.

Snot all day long. I went to get some cold pills.

Warangal is some kind of backwater hole. But mangoes and bananas 20 rupees, grapes 30.8 days before the flight to Bangkok, and I'm already starting to get nervous. There are 7 more places ahead that I want to see! And then a cold came inappropriately.

^{Mahishamardini, Durga}

20 - in the morning this moron with a crutch began to wake me up and send me out, but it was already 7, so that's the topic. But at lunchtime, when I returned, I completely ignored him and, no matter how he went on strike with his club, washed and drank tea before the train to Secunderabad. True, I arrived at 14, and the train left at 14-30, but I managed to do everything except buying a ticket. And this was the second time in India that I did not pay the fare.

The old warangal has already impressed. The basalt temple located in the city is not very good, but what is called a "fort" is quite. Let's start with the fact that this is not a fort, but an ancient fortified settlement, founded around a lake and a rock that seems to grow out of it.

The lake is 200 meters in diameter, but before the water rose higher, as evidenced by the high bank, on which today the farm fields. When you go around the lake, you see how basalt and granite fragments slide down from the sandy slopes - so there were once many more buildings here. It is interesting that on one site there were preserved braces with which the blocks were restrained - and these are iron braces!

The rock is located in the northern part of the lake, and its top is flat - most likely knocked down. The site is about 40 m, on it there is a temple and something like the remains of a signal tower with 8 teeth. North of the cliff, behind a 100-meter high modern residential building and a road, begins what is today called "Warangal".

This is a 100 by 100 meters area, surrounded on four sides by stone gates - 5 pillars and stone structures placed on them. Apparently, an ancient "sanctuary" or palace was located here.

The "gate" of Warangala limits the site 100 by 100 m

In addition to the carved ornate gates, you will not see other buildings - only ruins have survived, recognizable wells. One of the buildings shows that it had a cult purpose - sites for lingams and lingams on them. In addition, archaeologists have recovered a couple of dozen images of snakes from the ground. And it seems to be nothing special, but …

But I looked closely. And I realized that I was in the right place.

In Warangal, it is not the gate that amazes, but the quality of the processing of hard rocks - it is ideal. Smooth, laser-like measured and cut-off blocks;

curly complex and symmetrically repeated without errors, as from one copy, stone carving, including along the inner contours;

sarcophagi - granite baths with right angles;

polishing small thread details, including sharp corners;

the complexity of the ornaments around the circle - not a single element, neither less nor more, which requires preparation and processing at a highly accurate level; curly thread.

Basalt column. It is striking not only the area of coverage with carvings, but also the number of columns in the complex.

The large number of stone carvings and their impeccable execution are striking, while mistakes should be inevitable. I was especially struck by either the oncoming wind, or the waves along the curb: the thread is so complex in volume that it is even difficult to guess its repeatability, but it repeats itself - if you look closely, it becomes visible - but only if you look closely and try to compare! And to try - it will not work out right away! that is - optical illusion! This is art!

The motives are also interesting: 8-pointed stars and blossoming lotus flowers in them, ducks with carved tails.

There can be no question of primitive tools of labor - a tool was used, and a rather strange one.

I climbed for an hour and a half, and already in a 30-degree heat, so of course I missed something. Now I would thoroughly compare the images of the waves, but then the brain was already floating, and the toilet was closed.

Then I was struck by the fortress walls. They are made in the form of steps on the inside - but why? The volume of production immediately increases by one and a half times.

Well, the blocks, of course, adjusted one under the other at the time of the construction of the walls, the so-called polygonal masonry - typical for Mesoamerica.

There are also granite blocks, which seem to be pressed down, as if they were softened at the time of construction !!! Why and caved in. Here they are:

We can say that these blocks were pushed through by pressure - but how? The old wall around the entire perimeter of the fort does not exceed 5 m - here about a meter and a half remained to the top. It remains to be assumed that the rock - granite, was softened when the blocks were lifted from the ends - and they caved in. Both of them were not cut out with curves initially! We see traces of dents in the photo above - notice how the smaller stones lay in waves on the larger ones. They didn't file them, did they?

Then it is understandable why some rows of stones protrude from the walls - they were softened and shrunk during laying. So our ideas about antiquity can already be safely said "bye-bye!" Something I'm more and more inclined to think that humanity is simply hooked on all sorts of crap - either wars, or the theory of evolution, or the era of consumption … Anything you want, so long as you don't take care of yourself, chasing illusions.

The walls of the "fort" least of all speak about its military purpose, because initially they were not high. But they were completed, already very ineptly, then, among other things, they were "decorated" with stones from the previous buildings. Apparently, they were rebuilding already for military purposes - in the era of the Great Mughals, most likely, or even later.

Well, the moat, of course, encircling the "fort" deserves attention - firstly, it is a gigantic work, and secondly, its connection with the lake is beyond doubt, and this is already a hydrotechnical structure. A canal leads from the lake to the moat. I have not researched, but I think today it is desolate, if not underground. In general, the place looks very shabby compared to what it is in the imagination: a lake, a rock, stone steps and a picturesque channel into a moat - an artificial river. Today it is dry here, there is no swimming in the lake - mud and who knows what, corn and rice fields are in complete decline!

Most of the defensive walls are hidden under the onslaught of acacias.

I wandered into an abandoned temple located in the fields east of the "Warangal complex". All the temples are elongated and from the side it seems flat in shape, with pillars, gopura. In the middle there is a "dance floor". In the images, dancing, playing, smiling gods. And it's true: they sit somewhere out there, behind the sun, as in a theater, and watch our fuss - sometimes sad, sometimes joyful. Probably, this is how the builders imagined. That there is no truth, but only a game, sometimes cruel, at other times touching; that both evil and good triumph equally, therefore there is only one way to perceive - to smile, laugh, rejoice like the gods and dance like them.

Or maybe the builders thought differently: that these are not gods, but existence itself is such, which should be perceived with such a Buddhist smile so as not to get lost in chaos - not to think too much, not to go into sorrow, but to enjoy today, the present, which only exists, which the gods remind of with their gestures and emotions, punishments and rewards.

And maybe it was so, or so: people knew that the sun is not God, but perceived it as a living being; they knew that this creature is formidable, capable of killing with radiation, and that only the balance of forces, the highest moment of which is fertility and the birth of life, is the basis of existence; and therefore they worshiped the lingam, the stone Shiva - as the material embodiment of this process; process, given, as they understood, to a person - and especially to a person who is able to enjoy love and give it to the world around him, capable of prolonged copulation for the sake of opening new feelings. And this is tantra.

I kept walking around Warangal and could not find a place for myself, amazed how we degraded, turning the "miracle of life" into a "consumption reflex"! What zombie monkeys have turned into! Now every second person who rewrote the work of the first one calls himself a scientist, but in fact passes by such obvious things as Warangal! Like Ikki stones! Dzhulsruda collection! Coral Castle! Sarcophagi of the serapeum … the list is very long! It became clear to me that this place, like Mahabalipuram, was inhabited as a natural object, and the water, most likely, approached the steps of the inner part of the walls of the fort. I would not be surprised if the rock was "brought" into the lake and set up. And now what I see - rubbish all around, a worn-out forest, some kind of senseless, primitive fuss.

I had a snack at lunch - it became impossible to eat chomin, they put pepper in this province unthinkable! The word "masala" has been turning me back for a long time, and then they slip me in for free without looking.

There is also a fashion for not giving change 5 rupees - they say, no. On the bus I asked twice. And I specially brought 5 rupees to the storage room so that my 10 was returned to me.

This is the reality now … I came to my senses for the rest of the day. Imagination played. And ahead was Humpy.