Telangana's Ramappa temple, a marvel heritage in distress

Only a few weeks back, the Kakatiya Rudreshwara (Ramappa) temple at Palampet village of the erstwhile Warangal district in Telangana, was accorded the UNESCO World Heritage Monument status. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and several top leaders of the state were elated by the news.

It was a sure boost to attract new tourists to the architectural marvel, unique because it was named after an architect-sculptor. The deity is Rudreshwara or Ramalingeswara or Lord Shiva.

The 800-year-old temple is historically and archeologically significant. The Ramappa temple, 39th in India and the only one in the two Telugu states with the world heritage tag, is located about 200 km from Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana and about 75 km from Warangal.

It was completed in 1213 AD by the Kakatiya dynasty. The Kakatiya kings ruled the region from the 10th to the 13th century, with the most famous ruler among them being Rani Rudrama Devi.

The temple is splendidly built on a 6ft high star-shaped platform, presenting a spectacular craftsmanship. The main structure is of reddish sandstone while the columns around the outside have large brackets of black basalt. There are a variety of carvings of dancers, animals, and musicians too.

The hall in front of the sanctum sanatorium has numerous carved pillars arranged in a geometric form. The roof of the temple is built with bricks, which are so light that they are afloat on water.

An elated Telangana government is now batting for a similar heritage site status for Hyderabad and for the historical Golconda Fort and the landmark Charminar as well.

Upcoming coal mine

However, the Ramappa temple faces a serious existential threat. The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), a state-owned coal mining company, has proposed an opencast mining in an area of 500 hectares falling under Venkatapur and Yellareddy villages and Palampet, which would be about 5.7km from the temple, well within the buffer zone of the proposed coal block.

Official sources in SCCL confirmed that the process of land acquisition is in progress. They said 315 hectares of reserve forests, 1.5 hectares of government and private lands have been identified as potential coal reserves and notified for acquisition.

As of now, the SCCL is operating four underground mines and two opencast (KTK OC Sector 1 and KTK OC-2) projects. The coal reserves of KTK OC Sector-I are     expected to be exhausted by 2018-19. The life of the KTK OC 2 project is only 15 years. The need for the proposed KTK Opencast project-III in the vicinity of the Ramappa temple arises due to this. It also aims to feed the 1100 MW Kakatiya Thermal Plant of TS Genco. Telangana’s thermal power plants are running with 70 percent of coal exploited from opencast mines. The KTK OC-III project has been proposed to produce 40.43 million tons of coal over a period of 19 years.

Heritage activists working for the protection of Ramappa temple suggest a 15 km radius around the temple be notified as a special buffer zone to avoid any threat from the opencast mine.

“Studies conducted so far showed no impact. But this (UNESCO’s heritage recognition for the temple) is the latest development. So we are yet to firm up the particular project,” a senior official from the SCCL said. However, heritage activists contended that the opencast mining by blasting will generate vibrations affecting the structure of the temple.

The safety concerns caused by the proposed opencast mining were initially mentioned in the Environmental Impact Assessment/Environmental Management Plan prepared by the Hyderabad-based Environment Protection Training and Research Institute (EPTRI) for the SCCL, it is said.

Cracks run deep

Nagaraju, who teaches architecture in a Hyderabad college, says Ramappa temple is an architectural marvel. The craftsmanship is so splendid that the four pillars of the temple were built in varying sizes, different proportions and carvings but they look alike to the naked eye.

Ghulam Yezdani, director of the department of archaeology under Mir Osman Ali Khan’s administration in the Memoirs of Archaeological Survey of India, describes a cluster of temples including Ramappa temple at Palampet as “The Temples at Palampet constitute perhaps the brightest stars in the galaxy of medieval Deccan”.

The temple precincts presented a deplorable picture a decade back, prompting the ‘Save Ramappa temple protests’, recalls Velijala Chandrasekhar, a local journalist who led the protests.

The site was in a neglected condition so much that food wastes and puja material such as sugar and copra were strewn around. Foraging for food, ants were found making their way deep into the soil close to the temple’s pillars extracting sand from the “sand boxes” leading to the weakening of the foundations, Chandrasekhar said.

The technique used in the temple construction is based on sandbox technology. It involves filling the pit — dug up for laying the foundation — with a mixture of sand-lime, jaggery (for binding), and karakkaya (black myrobalan fruit) before the strong structures were constructed on these ‘sandboxes’.

As a result of the protests, the government ensured some measures to upkeep the temple premises, bettering the situation to some extent but not to the satisfaction of heritage activists and temple lovers.

The reasons for the poor condition of the temple was studied and analysed by the Civil Engineering department of the NIT (then Regional Engineering College).

They found that the water channels running underground in the vicinity coupled with the lack of upkeep had led to the weakening of the foundations. The structures of the temple suffered a collapse at various places.
Experts in seismology also said that the so-called sand-box technique acts as a cushion against tremors insulating the temple during earthquakes.

The Ramappa temple faced a similar threat when the government proposed to build the Devadula project for drawing water from the Godavari to Mulugu area by building tunnels in 2010. The land parcels en route needed to be dug up deep as part of the tunnel works and this might cause vibrations damaging the temple. The villagers of Palampet formed the Ramappa Temple Protection Committee opposing the tunnel works. The government relented and replaced tunnels with pipes, skirting the danger for the temple.

The Telangana government since the formation of the separate state in 2014 has been making efforts to promote the Warangal-Eturnagaram circuit involving the Ramappa temple site as well as the Kakatiyan monuments, as part of its tourism drive, with improvement of facilities to stay, boat rides and forest trekking activities. But the threat to Ramappa temple from the proposed coal mine will have to be first dealt with.