Little Dharmapada

Little Dharmapada
P K Routray

The Sun temple at Konark is an epitome of art and sculpture,
It is located in Odisha’s sea shore.
The temple was meant to worship the God sun,
The source of all energies to our illiterate ancestors this subtle knowledge being known.
This temple was built in the twelfth century for worshipping the sun,
Over the years of the ravages of unscrupulous enemies it has met its partial destruction.
The existing part of the temple is still a unique monument,
It was built even when the modern technique of construction was absent.
Rock pieces with monolithic sculpture,
Each weighing many tons or more,
Were brought from far off places,
Was it not a marvel in transportation and handling process?
Twelve hundred carpenters toiled over twelve years,
to build up to the crown of the temple with toil and sweat but with cheers.
But at the crown they failed repeatedly,
Their skill, intellect knowledge and expertise failed miserably.
The king was frustrated at the delay of his noble mission and the future blame,
He mercilessly declared punishment with a time frame.
There was a greater interest for mankind as the king had learnt from a subtle authority,
That sooner the sun as symbol and source of energy is properly worshipped, the better it is for human entity.
Bisu Maharana was the head of the group of sculptors,
He was a worried man and frightened of punishment to his group members.
Bisu had left his house twelve years earlier to this spot,
without waiting for the birth of their progeny even when his wife was pregnant.
She delivered a child and called him as Dharmapada by name,
who grew with mother’s care only, listening about fathers’ skill with many a laurel and fame.
The boy had keen power of observation,
His mother, like other children of the village, gave him the ancestral pattern of education.
Bisu had a dream before his departure to the project site,
He had narrated his dream to his wife on the technique of fixation of the crown stone at a height.
The crown stone had to be magnetic,
Dharma in the womb had listened to attentively and learned the whole technique.
Twelve year old Dharma insisted to see his father,
to see the construction of the temple where in would be worshiped the god sun the wonder,
With his mother’s permission
And with berry nuts from his garden as identification,
he walked miles while asking the direction of the village Konark,
He continued to nonstop walking with only ambition to see his father and his work.
Ultimately he reached the destination,
“Who can stop you if you have devotion and dedication”?.
He could locate his father with disturbed emotion.
He touched the feet of his father with mother’s berries for his own identification,
But he could hardly get his father’s warm affection.
Even though he was minor he could judge the gravity of the situation,
He went to see the cause of delay and the magnetic crown stone,
Surveyed the position and reflected on his mother’s imparted education.
In the night when the world was in deep slumber,
Bisu was discussing with co-sculptors brooding over their fate with tear,
Dharma went up to the top of the temple alone without fear,
completed the crown with his concentration at the feet of his father and mother.
Suddenly he overheard the apprehensions from the conversation,
“If a boy of twelve could complete the crown to whom the technique is supposed to be unknown,
when the king knows, he will doubt the carpenters’ integrity and intention.
They will all lose their dignity,
May be with punishment of fatality.”
To save the heads of twelve hundred brethren of his father,
He jumped to the sea and merged in water for ever.
For upholding father’s prestige and dignity,
To save the carpenter community,
He sacrificed his life in the sea jumping from top of the temple,
Before the sun comes to earth he blesses Dharma’s soul at that spot from his castle.
There is no historic proof to the story,
But we from our childhood we get inspired by hearing Dharma and Bishu’s glory.