I recently visited Ruins of Hampi in Karnataka. For some it is only a historic site, for me its both historic and religious. The Virupaksha temple in Hampi and Pattadkal are maybe the closest to my heart. While visiting the magnificent temples and the ruins of palaces I was struck by the attention to detail in each and every corner of those structures. There was a moment in the Hazara Rama Temple where I remembered a story told by mother when I was indeed very young (somewhere around 5-6 years old).
The story is very simple and one of my favourite ever. For some it may be too simple to be useful, but for me it guides many of my decisions I take. Here it goes:
Once many many centuries ago, a king and her queen walk into a temple construction site they had commissioned. The temple was to host a magnificent and large statue in the central sanctum. Most of the workers used to work on that statue as it had the most prestige and more pay allotted to it.
The king liked to pay surprise visits to the construction site to see if the work is progressing in a proper fashion. He used to visit in the day, so he can talk to all the stakeholders and also make sure all the needs of the workers and contractors are met. He once decided to visit the temple in the middle of the night. He wanted some solitude and peace from the daily affairs of the kingdom.
He heard some noise from the farthest corner of the temple. He wondered if someone knows his whereabouts and is planning an attack on him. The brave king moved towards the noise and after sometime found that there was also a source of light in that direction. As he charged in the direction of the noise he found a lamp which was the source of the light. In front of the lamp there was a sculptor working with a chisel on a statue in the wall, unruffled by the presence of a second body in the middle of the night.
The king asked, “What are you doing here, when everyone else is sleeping?”
The sculptor hesitated for some while and said, “I am working on the most important statue of the temple, your highness. This is the statue of my Lord Shiva. I can not afford to sleep.”
King, “This is a corner of this vast temple, some 150 steps from the main sanctum. Who will come here? No sunlight will reach here. Who even knows that you are working here? ”
The sculptor says, “I know and my Lord Shiva knows. He doesn’t need a lamp to see this statue, he needs no sunlight. Though this is a corner of this large temple, he does not mind. He is everywhere. Your Highness, I know this statue exists and my Lord knows this statue exists. Nothing else is needed. ”