Journalism of Courage
It is 6 am and the only sounds that break the silence within the stone walls of Panchganga Mandir — the temple of five rivers in Mahabaleshwar in Satara district of Maharashtra — are the gurgling sound of the water that flows from the five perennial rivers and the chants from an old priest sitting in the corner. Sometime later, women from Mahabaleshwar village arrive at the temple to fill brass and copper pots with the crystal clear water flowing out of the gomukh — the stone outlet in the shape of a cow’s mouth.
The temple was built to worship five rivers — Krishna, Koyna, Venna, Gayatri and Savitri — which have their origins in the surrounding areas. During monsoon, hundreds of small streams find their way through the mossy rocks and the rich fauna of the Sahyadri range to form these rivers.
Of these, the Krishna goes on to become the third-longest river of India covering 1,400 km, its basin extending across 8 per cent of land in India. While the Koyna and Venna flow to the east to become the tributaries of the Krishna, the Gayatri and Savitri, which flow underground in some parts, flow to the west to join the rivers in the Konkan belt.
Life in the village revolves around the temple. The houses are built around the temple, and priests take turns to conduct rituals. The villagers have an amazing story of their relation with the rivers and the agony of having seen these streams getting polluted within a span of a generation.
According to a book, Mahabaleshwar, written in 1906 by DB Parasnis, the Rao Bahadur of Satara, the first major construction at the site of the Panchganga temple, was carried out in the early 17th century by Maratha nobleman Chandrarao More, who served the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur. The temple had two tanks, called kundas. The water from the gomukh empties into the first kund and overflows into the second. While no one is allowed to enter the first kunda, the second one is open for devotees to dip their legs.
But villagers believe that the base structure of the temple is much older — around 800 years old. “References to this temple can be found even in very old texts. The small tank in which the water of the five streams empties, is around 800 years old, built during the Yadava era in the 13th century. The pillars and arches have been built around the 17th century, while the roof was built by a local trader, Parshuram Angal, in the late 19th century,” Onkar Dikshit tells me, as we complete our pradakshina — the walk on the circular path around the temple. Onkar owns a shop in Mahabaleshwar village and has studied the history of the temples here.
“The starting points of these rivers are not in the temple,” he adds, as we sit in a corner for a few minutes, resting our backs to the cold and damp temple stone wall. Onkar’s father Sanjay says, “We have learnt from our forefathers that the idea behind creating these places of worship and the rituals about these rivers was to ensure that the streams are kept clean and we respect their purity. Not just the streams near the origin of the river but those on all the mountains along the river need to be kept clean. The forest around the village was a devrai — a sacred grove — in the past. It is not so anymore.”
Mahabaleshwar town is a few kilometres away from the village. The hills around the town and the village are dotted with small farms of strawberries, and other vegetables and are irrigated mainly by the waters of the streams.
For five days after Holi every year, a unique festival is celebrated in Mahabaleshwar — Krushnabaicha Utsav. “During the festival, all the streams are cleaned. The important mantra chanted during this festival is the Shree Sukta, which says water is our wealth, something that must be earned, preserved and used very carefully. It is this wealth that makes our world beautiful. The festival is celebrated during spring, when new leaves start sprouting. The streams get their water throughout the year from what gets accumulated during the monsoons in the porous rocks in the mountains. That is why we also worship the mountains. Life is a flow.” says Sanjay.
During the British era, Mahabaleshwar had been developed as a hill station, and a sanitarium for patients. Surprisingly, it also had a jail for Chinese and Malaysian prisoners and continues to be a busy tourist destination and pilgrimage even today.
Few hundred meters from the Panchganga temple, another temple to Krishna stands on the edge of the valley. The stream from the Panchganga, which goes underground, emerges here again to fall into the valley. According to Parasnis’ book, this temple was built during Shivaji’s time in the mid-17th century.
Onkar takes us on a walk in the village and shows us the old system of wells in the village. An old villager, Dilip Langi, says, “Till a few years ago, we all used to drink the water from the wells, which are replenished by underground streams. But pollution in the surrounding areas due to ever-increasing tourism has polluted these waters. Even the mountain streams, which create the rivers, are becoming the victims of our greed. This was actual mineral water, and not the one that we get in plastic bottles. Fortunately, the five streams in the temple have not been polluted as of now. All the homes from the villages use their water for drinking.”
Ironically, the tank in which the waters from the five streams fall, gets polluted due to rituals performed by the devotees, says Onkar. As we are about to leave the temple, we see a woman filling up a plastic bottle from the stream. The old priest, who by now is done with his chanting, says, “This is the present of these rivers. Thank god, I won’t be alive to witness the future.”
