Patal Bhuvaneshwar: The Temple You Enter Lying Down

The cave is a limestone karst cave and the process that made it is worth understanding, because it makes the formations more interesting rather than less.

How limestone caves form:

• Rainwater absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and from soil, becoming weakly acidic
• That water percolates through limestone, which is calcium carbonate and dissolves in weak acid
• Over very long periods, water enlarges joints and bedding planes into passages
• Passages join, chambers form, and a cave system develops
• The process takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years

How the formations grow:

• Water carrying dissolved calcium carbonate seeps into an air filled cave
• At the cave surface, carbon dioxide escapes from the water
• The water can no longer hold the calcium carbonate in solution, and it is deposited
• A drop hanging from the roof leaves a ring, and repeated drops build a stalactite downward
• The drop that falls deposits on the floor and builds a stalagmite upward
• Where they meet, they form a column
• Sheets of flowing water build flowstone and curtains

Rates. Typical growth rates for stalactites and stalagmites are in the order of a fraction of a millimetre to a few millimetres per year, and vary enormously with water supply, temperature and carbon dioxide levels.

A formation a metre high may therefore represent anything from a few thousand to a great many thousand years.

What that means for the Kali Yuga formation. If the identified formation is, say, a few centimetres from the roof, then at a typical growth rate the meeting would be some hundreds to some thousands of years away.

That is not a claim anybody has published for this specific formation and it should not be treated as one. It does indicate that the timescale involved is a geological one, which is precisely what a claim about the end of an age requires.

Holding the two accounts together. The framework from the Yaganti entry applies exactly.

• The geologist says: calcium carbonate is being deposited by dripping water and will eventually bridge the gap
• The tradition says: this is the age, and when it closes the age closes
• Both can be true
• The geology tells you the mechanism and the rate. It says nothing about what the meeting will mean

And here the geology helps the tradition. A claim that an age will end when a stone touches a roof is a strong claim precisely because the stone is genuinely growing and genuinely will, eventually, touch.

It is a prediction with a mechanism. That is unusual for a religious claim and it should be counted in the tradition's favour rather than against it.

Other Indian cave temples in limestone or rock:

• Amarnath in Kashmir, where an ice stalagmite forms seasonally and is worshipped as a linga
• Borra caves in Andhra, with formations identified as a Shivalinga
• Belum caves in Andhra, the longest system, with limited religious use
• Vaishno Devi in Jammu, a cave shrine, now with a widened access tunnel
• Amarnath and Patal Bhuvaneshwar are the two where the geology and the worship are most closely tied

The Amarnath comparison. At Amarnath, an ice formation grows and shrinks seasonally, waxing and waning with the moon in the traditional account, and the yatra is timed to when it is at its fullest.

That is a shrine built around a formation that appears and disappears every year. Patal Bhuvaneshwar is a shrine built around one that appears once, over geological time, and is understood as marking the end of everything.

Between them they cover both ends of the timescale.

The cave carries several stories and they are layered rather than competing.

The discovery:

• Raja Rituparna, a Suryavanshi king of the Treta Yuga, is said to have found the cave while hunting or following a deer
• He entered and was granted a vision of the deities within
• Access was then restricted

The rediscovery:

• Adi Shankaracharya is said to have visited in the eighth century
• He is credited with reopening the cave and re establishing worship
• A copper shivalinga installed by him is shown

Adi Shankaracharya in the Himalaya. His name attaches to a very large number of Himalayan sites and it is worth setting out what is and is not established.

• Shankara was an eighth century philosopher, the principal exponent of Advaita Vedanta
• He composed commentaries on the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, and a body of devotional hymns
• He established, in the standard account, four mathas at the compass points: Sringeri, Puri, Dwarka and Jyotirmath in Uttarakhand
• He is credited in tradition with restoring or establishing worship at very many temples, including Badrinath, Kedarnath, Haat Kalika and here
• The details of his travels are known from later hagiographies, the Shankara Digvijaya literature, rather than from contemporary record

How to hold that. Shankara was real, was extraordinarily influential, and did travel and establish institutions. The attribution of specific temple foundations to him across the subcontinent is tradition rather than documentation, and the number of sites claiming him exceeds what one lifetime allows.

That is not a criticism of the tradition. Attributing a foundation to Shankara is a way of claiming a place within the Advaita and Smarta framework, and it tells you about the site's affiliation rather than about the eighth century.

The Pandavas. As at many Himalayan sites, the Pandavas are said to have visited during their journey to the Himalaya, and formations are identified accordingly.

The custodial family. Traditionally, the right to perform worship at Patal Bhuvaneshwar belongs to a specific family, the Bhandaris, by hereditary appointment said to date from Shankara's visit.

That arrangement, a single family holding the priesthood of a shrine by inheritance, is common across the Himalaya and reflects the fact that a remote shrine needs somebody who is committed to being there.

The char dham inside. The claim that Kedarnath, Badrinath and the other principal shrines are represented within the cave has a specific function.

As discussed at Dwaraka Tirumala, Indian tradition regularly creates local equivalents of distant pilgrimages.

Here the argument is more compact: rather than a local Kedarnath, the cave contains representations of all of them at once, so that a devotee who cannot reach any of them has been to all of them.

For a Kumaoni villager in the period before roads, with Kedarnath and Badrinath on the other side of very difficult country, that was not a small offer.

This section matters more than any other in this entry.

What the descent actually involves:

• A narrow, low passage for the first stretch
• Around thirty metres of descent
• A chain to hold, fixed to the rock
• Sections where you must go feet first on your back, pushing yourself along
• Wet, slippery rock
• Steps cut in the wider parts
• Limited lighting
• A single file route with no way to turn around in the narrow sections
• The same route back up, which is harder than going down

Who should not go in:

• Anyone with claustrophobia, and this is not a mild inconvenience. People panic in there
• Anyone with a significant heart condition
• Anyone with breathing difficulty, since the air inside is humid and the exertion is real
• Anyone with mobility difficulty, knee or hip problems, or who cannot crouch and crawl
• Anyone of a build that will not fit the passage. This is a real constraint and the temple will tell you
• Pregnant women
• Very young children, and anyone who cannot follow instructions reliably
• Anyone who has been drinking

If you are unsure whether you can do it, ask at the temple and describe your situation honestly. The people there know the passage and have seen every kind of difficulty.

Practical guidance for those who do go:

• Wear clothes you do not mind ruining. You will get wet and muddy
• Wear footwear with grip, though you may be asked to remove it, in which case go carefully
• Do not carry a bag through the passage. Leave it
• Keep both hands free for the chain
• Go slowly and do not push the person in front
• Do not stop in the narrowest sections, since everybody behind you is stuck
• If you begin to feel panicked, say so immediately and before the passage narrows further, and go back

Inside:

• Do not touch the formations. Oils from skin stop them growing and mark them permanently
• Do not break anything off. This should not need saying and it does
• Follow the guide's route
• Photography may be restricted. Ask

Crowds. The cave can only take a limited number at a time and there is often a queue. Go early, and be prepared to wait.

On the wider question of caves in worship. Patal Bhuvaneshwar is a fragile environment being used heavily.

• Formations grow at a fraction of a millimetre a year and are destroyed instantly
• Human breath, body heat and lighting change the cave's atmosphere and affect deposition
• Lampenflora, algae growing under artificial lights, is a documented problem in show caves worldwide
• Physical damage from handling is permanent on any human timescale

The temple manages access and it is a genuinely difficult balance between a shrine that people have a right to visit and a cave system that cannot take unlimited traffic.

What a visitor can do is straightforward: touch nothing, take nothing, and go through once with attention rather than repeatedly with a camera.

And a word on the experience itself. It is not comfortable and it is not meant to be.

You go into the ground, in the dark, on your back, holding a chain, into a space that people have been entering the same way for a very long time.

That is a fair description of what most religious traditions say a serious approach to the sacred involves, and here it is not a metaphor.

The cave is at Gangolihat, and the town is worth understanding because it is a centre of a distinct religious tradition.

Gangolihat:

• A small town in Pithoragarh district at about 1,700 metres
• On the road between Almora and Pithoragarh
• Surrounded by pine and oak forest and terraced fields
• Historically a Shakta centre, associated with Adi Shankaracharya and with a group of Devi shrines

The shrines around Gangolihat:

• Haat Kalika, the Mahakali temple, described separately in this batch
• Patal Bhuvaneshwar, this cave
• Chamunda, Vaishnavi and other Devi shrines in the surrounding country
• Berinag and its shrines, further on

The Shakta tradition in Kumaon. Worth setting out because it shapes the region's religion.

• Kumaon has a very strong Devi tradition, of which Nanda Devi is the most prominent expression
• Nanda Devi is the presiding goddess of the region, identified with the mountain of that name, and the Nanda Devi Raj Jat is her great pilgrimage
• Local goddesses at village level are ubiquitous
• Shakta and Shaiva practice are thoroughly interwoven, and the same families and villages observe both

The Nanda Devi Raj Jat. Since it comes up in any account of Uttarakhandi religion, it should be described.

• A pilgrimage held approximately every twelve years
• Running from Nauti village in Chamoli to Homkund, near the base of Nanda Ghunti, at around 4,800 metres
• Around 280 km on foot, over roughly three weeks, crossing very high and difficult country
• Led by a four horned ram, which is regarded as the goddess's own and which is released at Homkund to continue alone
• The story is that Nanda is a daughter of the region being escorted to her husband's home at Kailash, which is why the region walks with her
• It is among the most demanding pilgrimages in India

That framing, the goddess as a daughter being sent to her marital home, is central to Kumaoni and Garhwali religion and it makes the relationship with her different from that with a remote cosmic deity.

She is somebody's daughter. The region is her natal family. They walk her to the edge of their country and then let her go on.

Golu Devta. The other characteristic Kumaoni deity, mentioned in the Katarmal entry and worth explaining here.

• A local deity, understood as a judge or dispenser of justice
• Principal shrines at Chitai near Almora, at Ghorakhal near Bhimtal, and elsewhere
• Devotees petition him for justice, in disputes, in legal cases and against wrongs done to them
• Petitions are written, on paper and on stamped legal paper, and hung at the temple
• When a petition is granted, the devotee offers a bell, and the temples are consequently hung with tens of thousands of bells

Why Golu Devta matters. This is a functioning institution of last resort.

People who have been wronged and cannot get redress through the courts or through their community write it down and take it to the deity. The temple is covered in the written record of what people in this region feel has been done to them and could not be fixed any other way.

Reading a few of those petitions, which are public and are hung in the open, tells you more about the region than any amount of temple architecture.

A note on visiting Chitai. Take a bell if you want to make an offering, do not read petitions aloud or photograph individual ones, and understand that what looks like a picturesque tangle of bells is a very large number of people's grievances.

Getting there

• Patal Bhuvaneshwar, near Gangolihat, Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand
• About 14 km from Gangolihat and roughly 90 km from Almora
• About 110 km from Pithoragarh town
• Kathgodam is the nearest railhead, about 190 km
• Pantnagar is the nearest airport
• Taxis and shared vehicles run from Almora, Gangolihat and Pithoragarh

Timings

• Generally open through the day, with entry in managed groups
• Check current timings and whether entry is restricted on particular days

Before you go in

• Read the safety section above and be honest with yourself about whether you can do it
• Ask at the temple if you are unsure
• Leave bags outside
• Wear clothes you do not mind getting wet and dirty

How long it takes

• The visit inside takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the group and the queue
• Allow more for waiting

When to go

• March to June and September to November for road conditions and weather
• Early in the day to avoid the queue
• Avoid the peak monsoon, when roads in Pithoragarh district are prone to landslides and the descent is wetter
• Winter is cold but the cave temperature is stable, and it is quieter

Practicalities

• Basic accommodation is available near the site and at Gangolihat
• Facilities are limited. Carry water and food
• Cash. Card facilities are unlikely
• Mobile coverage is patchy

Combining the visit

• Haat Kalika at Gangolihat, about 14 km, which should be done in the same trip
• Berinag, for the views of the Panchachuli range and the tea
• Chaukori, a small hill station with among the best Himalayan views in Kumaon
• Pithoragarh town and the Soar valley
• Jageshwar, on the way back toward Almora
• Almora, Katarmal and Chitai Golu Devta
• Munsiyari, further east, with the Panchachuli directly above

On Chaukori and Munsiyari. Both are worth building in.

Chaukori is a small place with a direct view of Nanda Devi, Nanda Kot and the Panchachuli group across a valley, and it is one of the best mountain viewpoints in India that you can reach by car.

Munsiyari is further and higher, at the head of the Gori valley, directly under the Panchachuli peaks, and is the starting point for treks including toward Milam glacier. It is one of the more remarkable places in Uttarakhand and a very long way from anywhere.

A Pithoragarh district route. Almora to Jageshwar, then to Gangolihat for Patal Bhuvaneshwar and Haat Kalika, then to Chaukori, then to Munsiyari, over four or five days.

That is eastern Kumaon, it is beautiful, it is almost entirely unvisited by comparison with Nainital and Mussoorie, and the roads are slow.

A closing thought. You go into a hole in the ground on your back, in the dark, in a queue, and somebody points a torch at a lump of calcium carbonate and tells you it is the age you are living in, and that when it reaches the ceiling everything ends.

It is, on the geology, going to reach the ceiling. Nobody knows when. That is a more honest eschatology than most.