Purple Waters

It is said that when the fourth (and the only remaining) column breaks, the world will end. This is the cave of Kedareshwar, in which there is a big Shivalinga, which is totally surrounded by water. The total height from its base is five feet, and the water is waist-deep. It is quite difficult to reach the Shivalinga, as the water is ice-cold. There are sculptures carved out here. In monsoon it is not possible to reach this cave, as a huge stream flows across the way.

There are some dreams that stick with you through the years as faint waves of limbic resonance. In one such dream, we walked through waters, navel-deep, my family and a few more seekers, through waters tinted lavender by prolonged sunset. The travellers were singing songs that echo through the walls of my skull in real time, eerily yet, pleasantly… the memory of the harmonised voices invite goosebumps even today. We rushed through the waters to find a dark opening of a cave, which opened up to a giant circular grove filled with darker water – a deep purple pool contained in a realistic, rustic cave setting. The water seemed to possess a certain presence, a life, as if it were charged with orders to guard. Merely looking at the water evoked a sense of peace mixed with danger; an awareness of having to shed the human form in order to touch the waters. I think everyone in the dream felt it too, as no one dared to take a step forward. We could, however, clearly see that right in the middle of the mystical pool, was a flat rock, resting upon which was a Shivalinga (a votary object that symbolises the lord Shiva and is revered as an emblem of generative power) isolating-ly brightened by golden Sunlight that passed through an opening on the cave’s ceiling. We spent several moments staring until I woke up.

In waking life, I remember having a strange affinity for caves; an almost knowing that I’ve had significant associations to or journeys with them in previous lifetimes. Growing up, my father would always take my brother and me to a temple in my city that is, in fact, a Shiva temple within a cave: with two cave openings within the temple’s main cave – one opening that sages, according to folklore, used to travel to get all the way to Kaashi: A Shiva temple in North India; and the other opening that supposedly led to Shivaganga: A prominent Shiva temple all the way in the South India. There are idols of sages who have said to have frequented this temple within the cave as well. This temple looked nothing like the one in my dream, though. Infact, only after having this dream did I look up other Shiva temples in caves and that’s how I came across the featured image on this blogpost.

Another fond memory with caves is one that’s set in Kamalashile – A goddess temple town in south India, home to a tiger that is said to be the deity’s vehicle, spotted often by passers by near a cave, right outside the temple’s premises, that a guide took us all to during one of our visits to this town. My father, barefoot, carried a tiny, 11 year old me on his back as we climbed the giant rocks within the chambers of the dark, almost as if we were trekking, through the darkness with the echoed sounds of water droplets dripping down to meet pools of water that gathered in the nooks, crannies and stream-ways throughout the structure; and the faint sight of bats hanging from the top of the cave’s passages. Fear gripped young me, the thought of stories of the tiger being spotted here, the darkness, the fact that we were all unarmed humans in seemingly unsafe territory. Yet, clinging to my dad, arms on his shoulders, I felt a strange sense of being safe amidst the unsafety. Once we were back in our rooms, the fear had been replaced with the exhilarating high of having been on an adventure.

There have been many dreams, many visions, many desires, many words… yet, only one you. Isn’t that unsurprisingly baffling?