The Konark Sun Temple: A Dream And A Vision In Poetry Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Poetry as inscriptions, stone carvings,
Terracotta images,
Sculptures and figurines,
Art and artifacts,
History and legacy of India,
Heritage sites described



By
Bijay Kant Dubey




Only the poets are not all who dream about and materialize them into to be called great thinkers and artists. The real builders and thinkers are also those who cut and chisel and hew the stones to make the sculptures look like and gestured as human beings. Stone carvings and sculptures are no less than poetry. Architects are no less than. A dancer's gesture is poetry in symbols and signs. A painter's sketches are poems in scenery. A singer's voice pitched or stressing in tune with rhythm and music also expresses the same. A musician's music is the poetry of melodious sound. Flowers carved in stone are no less than poetic pieces.





























© Author
2016






The Konark Sun Temple
The splendor and architectural excellence
Of whose I could not,
Could not the artistic grandeur,
Sculptural and stupendous.

A vision was it to see,
A dream was it
To view the temple
At dawn break and twilight,
The temple by the river.

Who built,
How the architects and planners,
Sculptors and artistes,
Stone-cutters and workers,
Who could say to?

















The Konark Sun Temple

The Konark Sun temple
In the form of a chariot
Drawn by white mythical horses
Cut and built from
Rocks basalt,
Cut and chiseled
And hewn

With the chariot wheels
Set to
And the columns decorated
With the sculptures
In erotic love,
War, devotion and so on
Telling of dharma-artha-kama-and-moksha
Motif of Indian philosophy.

But who, who made them,
When did they
The Ganga kings,
Who, who,
How had it been the times,
How the architects and planners,
How the sculptors
With what tools did they
Carve out and chisel?

Konark Sun temple
Sun facing
With the deity of the Surya,
Sun God
So old
And so scientific
Telling of an age gone by,
Full of architectural
Splendour and magnificence.

A chariot wheel
With the twelve pairs of ornamented wheels
Drawn and driven by seven horses,
The Suraya Narayana at the middle,
Biranchi Narayan
Within the periphery,
Of Puri Jagannath Temple.


People say it
The statue of the Surya Narayana
Lay it at the middle
In between the floor and the roof
Held by some magnetic power
And the diamond set into the statue
Used to reflect beautifully.

The Konark Sun temple,
The Sun temple
Of Bhubaneswar
With Surya Narayana
An image golden
With the sun rays flashing over
At dawn
Against backdrop of the sea,
Sea-facing.

The more I saw see,
The more I get pleasure
In seeing,
Viewing
The Sun temple
Which the invaders and plundered
Could not feel it,
The nomadic hordes.

Barbarian and bestial
And brutal and bloody
They even spared it not
The Sun temple,
I wonder,
Wonder,
How backward had they been,
How illiterate,
How much uncivilized!

Even art and artifacts,
Temples,
They could not,
Could not spare them,
To break and plunder
And loot
Had been, had been
Their culture,
Family tradition
Which learnt they at home.

Iconoclasm
To break and plunder,
To loot
And take the booty
Had been their philosophy,
The rugged man's view of life,
The most uncouth and clumsy people
Had been they
The looters from foreign.

But it was a fault of ours too,
Many paths and many sects
Made us cross
And above all, unitedly
Thought we not,
Lived we not
In a society of
So many differences
In a multi-ethnic, racial society.

Divided had we been,
Divided we, so encroach they into,
Intruded upon our space
As intruders unwanted,
The criminals from far,
The barbarians
Bloody and brutal
Uncivilized and uncultured.

Had they been not uncivilized
And uncultured
And uneducated not,
Would they have,
Would they have the temples
Of other faith
Than that of their own,
Had they been not,
Had they been…?

The other thing too is this
We grew it more superstitious,
Blindly adhering
To customs and rituals
In search of creational search,
Nocturnal vision
Forgetting the early,
Bare realities of life
Gone unheeded.

The priests taught it blindly
Taking faith to be his own,
Adding personally,
The florists and middle men,
The astrologers and palmists,
The soothsayers and oracle-carriers
And the men likewise.

Things create and destroy
Naturally,
This is but Nature,
The way of the world,
What was it will it,
What shall we
They will in future.

O traveler of yore,
Passer-by passing,
Tell me, tell me,
Listeners,
Listeners imaginary,
The construction you have,
The building of the temple
And you passing through the way.

The temple,
The Konark Sun temple,
How gorgeous is it still,
How stupendous and grand
And magnificent,
Bearing testimony
To an age gone by
And the builders anonymous.

Konark,
Konark,
I turn over the album
Of photos
And keep seeing
In wonder and astonishment
The legacy for a tradition.
Artistic skill,
Architectural beauty
Appearing as a vision.

Konark,
Konark
Appearing golden at dawn break,
Glowing
With the retreating steps of the sun.

Konark,
Konark, how magical
The words
And is combination,
Kona and ark,
Kona, meaning angle
And arka, sun,
Meaning hereby, the angle of the sun.

The masons and sculptors
And rock-cutters
Who cut and made the temple
Made in consultation
With the king,
The astrologers,
Astronomers,
Soothsayers,
Oracle- carriers.
The architect,
The sculptor.

The white Pagoda was that of the Puri temple
And the black one
That of The Konark Sun temple
Where resided it the Surya dev,
Surya Narayana,
The Sun god
At Konark,
Konark standing as a heritage site
Preserved by.

The temple in the form of a chariot
With the wheels
And drawn by horses,
A ratha design
Spectacular of course
Rarely to be vied by the poets
Which but is the bliss
Of architects and sculptors.

The elephants and lions
At the entrance,
Carvings on stone,
Sculptures designed
And decorating,
How to describe them
And depict?

I see the architecture
And think about,
I see the sculpture
And feel about
The massive plan of work,
The grand deign
Cut and chiseled in stone.