Rebuilding a celestial dance pavilion

Work gathers pace for reconstruction of the Kalyana Mandapa that lends the name to the 1,000-pillar temple

The reassuring rhythmic ting, ting, ting, ting sound of a chisel striking a block of stone is back at the Rudreshwara temple in Hanamkonda.

Craftsmen sitting under a blue tarp on the 60-tonne blocks of granite chisel and follow lines to shape what looks like a beam that will cover the outer portion of the Kalyana Mandapa that lends the name to the 1,000-pillar temple. The Kakatiya-era temple is on the base of the hill which lends the name to the town: Anumukonda.

“Two of the 10-metre blocks broke while being unloaded at the worksite,” informs an Archaeological Survey of India official. He pulls up images on the computer to show how six cranes were used to hoist the stone on to the 20-wheeler trailer truck to transport them from Ammavaripeta rock quarry, some 12 km away, to Hanamkonda temple site.

The event shows the kind of challenge the ASI is up against to reassemble the temple pillars that were disassembled in 2005 fearing collapse, according to official documents.

Just a year earlier in 2004, Telugu blockbuster film ‘Varsham’ was shot near the temple where hero Prabhas serenades Trisha. The camera caresses the dark countless pillars as rain pitter-patters and sloshes across the large platform of the temple. The pillars appear intact, and that was the last time the Kalyana Mandapa appeared intact.

Nearly 17 years later, rain descends in sheets as workers carry on chiselling and cutting work. Some of the pillars are vertical and supported by iron scaffolding. “We expect to complete the work by March 2023,” informs an ASI official. Some pillars cracked into two while being dismantled. Some beams got damaged while the temple was being taken apart. Now, steel bands hold the big stone blocks together.

Similar steel bands can be seen on the floor on stones which were assembled by medieval temple architects. A ramp of sand and granite has been set up on the southern side of the Kalyana Mandapa to roll up the granite blocks before they are hoisted into position as beams or pillars.