The Sculptor of Ramappa Temple

Told in English, Telugu.

The car stopped beside a wide, quiet lake, and Sravya climbed out, rubbing her eyes. She had slept most of the way from Hanumakonda. Her Thathayya was already standing on the path, his white towel over his shoulder, looking at something through the trees.

"There it is," he said softly. "Ramappa gudi."

Sravya looked. On a raised stone platform stood a temple, dark and golden at the same time, its walls covered with so many carvings that at first they looked like lace. Above it rose a tower, shaped like a tall step-pyramid.

"It's old," she said.

"Very old," Thathayya agreed. "Eight hundred years and more. A stone inscription here tells us it was finished in the year 1213. In those days the Kakatiya kings ruled this land from Orugallu, the city we now call Warangal. The king was Ganapati Deva, and one of his generals, a man named Recherla Rudra, built this temple for Lord Shiva. The god here is called Ramalingeswara."

Sravya frowned. "Then why is it called Ramappa temple? Is Ramappa the general?"

Thathayya smiled the smile he kept for good questions. "No, chitti. People say Ramappa was the chief sculptor, the man who led the carving of this temple. And people say it may be the only temple in all of India that is known by the name of the one who carved it, instead of the king who paid for it, or the god who lives inside."

Sravya thought about that as they climbed the steps. A sculptor. Not a king. Not a general. Just a man with tools.

"What was he like?" she asked.

Thathayya sat down on the cool stone at the edge of the platform, and Sravya sat beside him.

"Here I must be honest with you," he said. "Nobody wrote down Ramappa's life. We don't know where he was born, or what he ate for breakfast, or whether he had children. All we truly have is his work, and his name. So the rest, I will imagine for you. Imagine with me, all right?"

Sravya nodded.

"Picture this place eight hundred years ago," Thathayya began. "No car, no road, only fields and forest and the great lake the Kakatiyas dug to hold the rain. And here, on this very spot, hundreds of workers. Some are hauling blocks of reddish sandstone. Some are mixing mortar. And in a shady corner, the carvers sit with their chisels, tap, tap, tap, all day long."

"Among them, let us say, is a boy called Mallanna. He is about twelve. He has come to learn from the great Ramappa, and he is very proud of it. He is also very impatient."

Sravya grinned. "Like me."

"A little like you," Thathayya laughed. "One morning Ramappa gives Mallanna a small block of hard black stone and says, carve me a lotus. Just a lotus. Mallanna is disappointed. He wants to carve dancers and elephants and gods, not a flower. So he hurries. He strikes hard, he wants to finish by noon. And just before noon, crack! A petal splits right off."

"Oh no," said Sravya.

"Mallanna's face goes hot. He hides the broken lotus behind his back. He waits to be scolded. But Ramappa only holds out his hand, takes the stone, and turns it slowly in the light. Then he says something like this. Stone is older than you and me, Mallanna. It has its own lines inside it, like the grain in wood. If you shout at it with your hammer, it breaks. If you listen, it tells you where to cut. Tomorrow, start again. Go slowly. Listen."

"Did he?"

"He did. And the next lotus took him many days. His shoulders ached and his fingers were sore. Some evenings he wanted to quit and go home to his mother's cooking. But when he finally finished, the petals were so thin that light came through them. And that was the day Mallanna understood what kind of work he had joined."

Thathayya stood and led Sravya to one of the pillars at the corner of the temple. Leaning out from the top of it, carved in shining black stone, was the figure of a dancer. Her body curved like a bent bow. Her anklets, her necklace, even the folds of her clothes looked so fine that Sravya could hardly believe they were stone.

"These are called madanikas," Thathayya said. "They hold up the roof, but they look as if they are dancing. Some of them are so finely made and so smoothly polished that they still gleam today, after eight hundred years of sun and rain."

Sravya reached up, then stopped and looked at him. He nodded, and she touched the cool base of the pillar gently with one finger.

"How did they make it so shiny?"

"Patience," said Thathayya. "Hours and hours of polishing. Imagine Mallanna, older now, rubbing the stone with sand and water until his arms trembled. Imagine Ramappa walking behind the rows of carvers, saying, not yet, not yet, and then one day, yes. That one is ready."

They walked around the outside wall. There were rows and rows of carvings: elephants marching trunk to tail, musicians with drums, dancers in a hundred poses, little scenes of everyday people.

"Do you know," Thathayya said, "in the same Kakatiya court there lived a man named Jayapa, who commanded the king's elephants and also wrote a book about dance, called Nritta Ratnavali. Many dance poses carved on these walls match the dances of that time. And in our own lifetime, a great dance teacher, Nataraja Ramakrishna, studied these very sculptures and that old book, and helped bring back a forgotten warrior dance called Perini. So you see, these stones didn't only keep a sculptor's name. They kept a whole dance alive."

Sravya looked at the stone dancers with new eyes. They seemed almost ready to move.

Then Thathayya pointed up at the tower. "One more secret. The tower is made of bricks so light that, people say, they can float on water. Think about it. If the top of a temple is very heavy, it presses down on the walls. So the builders made the top light and the bottom strong. And for the ground underneath, they used a clever bed of sand that helps the temple stay steady. This region has felt earthquakes over the centuries, and still Ramappa stands."

"So Ramappa wasn't only an artist," Sravya said slowly. "He had to be clever, too. Or his team did."

"Exactly. Hundreds of people, all working together, for many years. Ramappa's name is on the temple, but every lotus and every elephant was carved by somebody's hands. Maybe one of them was a boy like Mallanna."

They went inside to see the great Nandi, the bull, sitting before the shrine with his head turned slightly as if he were listening. Sravya folded her hands. The air was cool and smelled of oil lamps.

When they came out again, the sun was low over the lake, and the sandstone walls had turned the colour of jaggery.

"Thathayya," Sravya said, "is it sad that we don't know anything else about Ramappa?"

Thathayya was quiet for a moment. "A little sad, yes. I would love to know his face. But think of it this way. Kings and generals had their names carved into inscriptions. Ramappa had his name carved into people's hearts. For eight hundred years, every farmer, every pilgrim, every child has walked here and said his name. In 2021, the whole world agreed this temple is precious, and it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A sculptor, chitti. A man with a chisel."

Sravya looked down at her own hands. Last week she had torn up a drawing because the horse's legs looked wrong. She hadn't even tried a second time.

"Thathayya," she said, "when we get home, can you help me draw a lotus? Slowly?"

He put his arm around her shoulders. "Slowly is the only way," he said. "Ramappa would be proud."

And as they walked back toward the lake, Sravya turned once more to look at the temple, glowing in the evening light, and whispered the sculptor's name, just as people have done for eight hundred years. Can you whisper it too? Ramappa.