Call of Kavaledurga | Essay

Here I put down the article I wrote for Terrascape magazine. The published article has sketches from my previous post on Kavaledurga, but here I share several photographs, hoping to complement the sketches.

Kavaledurga is kind of eerie. It is a ruin, the expanse and at the same time depth of the jungle, with its sounds and air, makes it even more so. One has to visit it to get the feel.

Small gate on the first Terrace near the ramp

A ruined temple in the jungle

round bastion near the first Terrace

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It was this place, this fort in some remote faraway place from where I thought I was now settling in life, shrouded with mystery, reachable only till April-May before the ever wild jungle took over the place for its own in the monsoons. "Plenty of leeches would climb up from the ground and snakes will fall from the trees on top of your head. You have to walk holding a stone on your head!" This is what I was told.

Just this description was enough. I felt the place was calling me, and had delivered its first message. It kept calling on me while I seemed busy with other things. I eventually made plans to visit some sites of Shimoga, along with Balligave - another place that has continued to call and succeed in bringing me to it, year after year, for 5 years now. This time, I would go beyond Balligave - I would go instead towards Tirthahalli and make my appointment with Kavaledurga. Having tasted Malnad and its monsoon, Kavaledurga was just supposed to be more hilly, deeper inhabited forest – much more wild, ruined, unknown and desolate. Yes, it was desolate - and that made its call even more deeply appealing.

I planned to travel with a young driver to help me navigate and communicate in Kannada to locate this place and others in the unforeseen Shimoga region – unforeseen by me, that is. These places are definitely known to a few, they don’t exist at all on popular routes and are without any boards to make you reach them. This is what I exactly want! I don’t want them to be popular, don’t want them to attract the crowds of comfort-seeking tourists to come and click pictures of manicured monuments. Alas, things may become popular, and the “calling”’ will subdue in the newly created veil of the tourist facilities. Till that time, I can make my appointment with these places. Desolate in my sense is more alive than the manicured monuments that kill the sense-of-time for which these monuments are valued and protected. It IS ironical. So is so. My job was to survey and then plan for a documentation of the newly excavated Palace remains of Kavaledurga. It was indeed a difficult task from what I had heard, simply in terms of reaching, staying and continuing to work daily at site. So getting to the site was the first step.

Ramesh, my young driver, asking around meandered through Malnad from Chandragutti, another hill fort that I visited before trying to reach Kavaledurga. These village-jungle roads hardly had people to give directions, but we managed. Of course we were late. That was alright, if I could only get a glimpse of the place, it could give me an idea to plan better. I based myself in Shimoga during this time.

the village fields at the base of the Kavaledurga hill

I reached finally the village of Kavaledurga, well it was an unusual sparse sort of a village, no main street with cluster of houses, rather few temples and houses scattered near and away from the road that passed through, till it reached a kind of dead end. Dead end it was, lush green, fresh paddy fields, a lake, a little stream falling from the rock on the right, cloudy sky and a man in the lone house at the end. He gazed at us in a mix of disinterest and curiosity. We asked him to confirm if we were indeed at Kavaledurga and this is where the fort is to be. It was the place. He pointed to the hill behind him and said “that is where the fort is, it will take you 2 hours to reach and you won’t reach before dark”. I explained I was interested in getting a glimpse, even a gate is enough, and if I could reach a gate. He discouraged us again saying that in the thick jungle it gets dark faster and even the first gate was far. We had to suffice with looking at the hill. The hill was all full of jungle; I could not see any walls or gates or even a rock outcrop. If this jungle conceals a fort, it would be damn exciting!

It turned out that missing the fort, allowed me to explore the little mutt near where we had stopped. And to my surprise it was a very old mutt, evidently (which I figured out later) from the same time as the Palace I was about to document. The mutt had thick wooden columns and structure of a dimension and ornamentation that belonged to that time. “Thick” and dark they were. It even had old wooden chairs and stuff that seemed almost like a mini-museum, which actually housed a shrine. We drove back to Shimoga late evening to return later the next week.

Kavaledurga is mainly reached from Tirthahalli, about 2 hours’ drive from Shimoga. It is a pleasant semi-wooded rural drive. From Tirthahalli I moved further (without crossing the bridge) to turn right at a place with no marker! Well, there is a marker, a marker of a little roadside shrine and hero-stone, concealed in the group of trees on the left. That is the place you must turn right. Soon it becomes thick real jungle, with a different air, a bit more hilly and meandering. Once at Kavaledurga village, I again saw the mutt – only saw did not venture in, was far more eager to meet my calling. The same villager was there, this time smiling pleasantly. I started what appeared as a definite trek.

passing through the paddy fields, Kavaledurga hill (left) does not appear demanding

I passed the check dam which holds the lake and paddy fields. Walking between the paddy fields and another hut in the middle I reached the jungle front. The path was created by use and no directions were needed further. Just at the edge the jungle suddenly takes on, and everything else gets left behind. One can get no idea of what awaits them ahead, and it is best to enjoy this as long as it will last, one reason why I use sketches than photos to convey the experience and save the charm.

It was late afternoon, and Ramesh and his friend rushed the climb while I was slowed in taking pictures. Immediately enough one finds themselves climbing the stone paved ramp, soon stone parapets and some repaired parapets and paths show up. The paths are clear to climb, but one just never saw them from the village! I did not plan to work but only explore today. At one point the ramp disappeared and one discovers only by looking back that the portion has collapsed and consumed by the forest. Moving on I reached the first bastion, ruined tall walls and what should have been a gate. The two bastions and the ASI board announce that we had now reached. But this is merely the beginning. The place had now started to unfold itself, and I could recall the calling of Kavaledurga, and the fact that I was finally here.

third gate on the path, the first Terrace

Into the first gate and the clearing in front, there is almost immediately another gate. This one has some side chambers and motifs on walls. The area is a sort of flat land and there is one nagi kund on the left. The nagi stones stand tall from the undergrowth almost alive and part of the ground they belong to. Now one can hardly remember where one came from, looking back there are only rolling hills and forests – no trace of any habitation or towns till horizon. Another ramp and gate. Few visible ramparts and jharokhas. The jungle continues to move along the sides. The climb keeps unfolding ramps and gates with ever more spectacular views till the last (or so we want to assume) steep climb. This is a beautiful climb with much more ramparts visible and the destination of the top gate with a visible stambha as if announcing the destination.

Looking to the second Terrace from lower first Terrace 

the main Ramp, connecting first and second Terraces. the jungle just besides it holds access to the parallel fort wall, gates, kunds and bastions

Ramp to the second Terrace (looking back)

This last gate, or so we may want to assume after so much climbing, appears to be the main ground of the fort. There is a good natural clearing here, a very peculiar large rock with a shrine on top looking to the East and a fairly intact Shiva temple with 2 stambhas. There are a few ruined structures, covered stone tanks (people will say they were for oil and ghee, while it was used to get potable water during my work with ASI). This was the main area until the Palace ruins were excavated out recently and conserved by the ASI in 2008. If you continue further westward the jungle grows over again and one passes more and larger stepped kunds till the main Palace area. This area is a clearing in the middle of the jungle. The plinths and columns have been restored to their original positions and repaired in many cases. It is not a kind of palace ruin one generally imagines, rather a “footprint form the past” – only plinths, columns and part of walls. The excavation has attempted well to preserve the sense of rooms and enclosures – one can walk through the main hall, several courtyards with covered water tanks, a kitchen area, few toilets and baths, and even extensive details for water works – like some stone pipes. There is also a full water step well to the south of the palace in the clearing. The reddish mud marks reveal how much of the palace was under mud and vegetation before it was excavated out.

The second Terrace with Temples and kunds

The third Terrace with the palace ruins exposed and restored after excavation by ASI

From here one can explore two more important locations known popularly as the “watch tower” and “rama tirtha”. The watchtower in deep into the woods on the north side before the palace. It is a large independent bastion with a large ramp. More layers of fort wall below are partly recognizable through trees and undergrowth. Rama-tirtha is a place where one finds a fresh-water spring saved inside a little cave; this is near the top. Reaching the top is different from the previous path. It is narrower, more wooded, sometimes with steep steps or grassy ground. The top is worth the climb. It has another little shrine and one can look back to the little shrine below on the peculiar rock. Watching the sunset with my driver and his friend who were equally overwhelmed with the experience, we spent few minutes till we feared the darkness on our return.

Step well being excavated and restored behind the main Palace ruins

If you like to explore the unknown, which I certainly do, then venture to the sides of the main ramps, you will discover structural footprints, bastions, layers of walls, wells, kunds, ruined temples and even small gates – after all this was where people lived not just the kings. One of the most beautiful deviations are just behind the main Shiva temple, there is a nice kund right at the edge of the forest cover, if you go deeper and down to the east there are more!

Small gate North of second Terrace

Dam deep lower, behind the temples on second Terrace 

Bastion on rock beyond the small gate Left of the path on first Terrace

Nagi kund on the first Terrace (left of the path)

fort walls south-east of temples on second Terrace

fort walls south of temples on second Terrace

fort walls south-east of temples on second Terrace

I could never have enough of Kavaledurga, I have been there four times. At one time due to my work I had the wonderful opportunity to live with the conservation workers for about a week. I was documenting the Palace ruins for the ASI. The Palace only makes visible how people must have actually lived here, the layers of fortifications already reveal how sought after the place must have been. But more than anything, there is something of a “calling” in Kavaledurga. It has a sense-of-time by its ruined structures, the faces of its walls, nagis - that seem to grow out of its ground, standing silently and watching ­– as the jungle and stone continue to play their silent life together. The wind is pure and eerie, beautiful birds sing and one particular one around the palace, I used to follow its call daily as it moved from top to the valley below. It is world so disconnected from the world we dwell in. If I have still not had enough of Kavaledurga, is because I still have not seen all of it or may be because its secret spirit still continues to call me – something you need to feel and breathe. Kavaledurga will keep calling you.

Temple looking west, on the top of the Kavaledurga

Malnad: Takes its name from male (hill) and nadu (land), the forested hill region of north western Karnataka.

Reaching Kavaledurga: Drive to Shimoga or reach Shimoga by train. Shimoga has few stay options, for the back packer and old decent place is hotel Kamat, it has excellent food. There are better and higher end places to stay too. In Shimoga one can also visit the Shivapanyaka museum on the banks of Tungabhadra housed in the old palace. On way one can also detour to Koodli (Kudliu sangam) where Tunga and Bhadra rivers meet. It has an important mutt and a centrally protected temple. It is about 25km right before the bridge at Shimoga.
Other important places: Check the wiki on Tirthahalli an Shimoga. The bridge at Tirthahalli is a sort of icon for the region. Jog falls is another popular destination from Shimoga. Augambe (cherapunji of south as many call it) is famous for its rainfall and misty environment, that is near Kavaledurga.

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