CMN SHASTRY SPEAKS

Mr.CMN SHASTRY, Working President of the Trust, speaking on his experiences and dreams about Temple Restoration work, conserving ecology through afforestation and creating awareness about Rain Water Harvesting.

TEMPLE RENOVATION

I hail from Puttur in South Kanara district. Because of my marriage from Sagar area, I got connected to this area. Even though there was no special instinct or experience prompting me to take up the restoration work, some of the happenings brought me to involve in this project.


* During late eighties I was looking for a farm to stay after my retirement. My sister in law selected and finalized the farm in Hosagunda on our behalf and we inspected the farm after it was bought and registered in our name ! It was in 1991.

* During the year 2000, one or two calves in our cattle shed died for no reason , female workers in the farm started going unconscious without any reason while working and got consciousness after couple of hours etc , these kind of unusual things started happening.

* My wife Smt.Shobha N.Shastry and my Sister-in-law Smt.Madhura Bhat requested famous Pundit and spiritual expert Sri Katte Parameshwar Bhat to visit the farm and give his advice. I was traveling in Europe, during his visit. I got a call from my wife saying that Sri Katte Parameshwar Bhat says that we should take up restoration of the abandoned shiva temple in the midst of forest adjacent to our farm and we are destined to do it .Without any second thought, instantly I said ‘Yes’. That’s how it all started.

On coming back from Europe, when I brought up this subject with neighbors, they told that as per the advise by Holy Guru Sri Sridhar Swamiji of Varadahalli, sagar , they should wait for somebody to come to take up this work and they saw " somebody " in me and came forward to support the cause.

* Immediate task was to organize installation of the " Shivaling " and restore the daily poojas , was done by getting the " narmada bana linga " from Narmada river . Everything was going on smoothly for nearly two years.

* All of a sudden many mishaps occurred. My father Shri.Cha.Mu.Eshwara Shastry coming to Hosagunda from Puttur for some religious function at temple was ran-over by a speeding truck on the way and died on spot. President of our registered charitable Trust specially formed for restoration of the temple committed suicide within a month for no reason, couple of other suicides in the village for no serious reason etc etc.,

* On the advise of Sri Sri Raghaveshwara Swamiji of Sri.Ramachandrapura Muth . " Ashta Mangala Prashna " was held with famous Astrologers from Kerala participating.
Through astrological science, it was revealed that when a temple is in a abandoned condition for hundreds of years, it should be first purified and made free from all evils before restarting it. In this case restarting being done without performing all those rituals could be the reason for all the mishaps .Also the Astrologers strongly advised to take up the restoration of various other temple ruins inside the forest. As per their direction, immediately purification rituals took place and make shift temples were constructed and pooja and worship for all the deities started.

Eventhogh we still don’t have record as to who and when the stone monument Sri Umamaheshwar Temple was built, the stone inscriptions found so far indicate that it would be around 1000 to 1100 year old. Stone inscriptions found here also mention that the Dynasty which ruled from Hosagunda as its capital for about 300 years originally came from Humcha from where Santara Dynasty had ruled the area.

* Because the foundation of this monument had sunk in two portions and cracks had developed, with the expertise and cooperation of Sri Dharmastala Dharmothana Trust entire temple was dismantled by numbering each and every part, foundation redone and reassembly work is going on

* There may be only one or two monuments in the world which are restored by totally dismantling and reassembling, but Sri Umamaheshwara temple restoration is first of its kind in the world because we are using the same material, even broken parts are joined meticulously and restored in totality

* According to ancient Scripts, building a new temple is considered to be holy , restoring an existing temple is considered to be very holy and restoring an abandoned ,ruined temple is considered to be extremely holy work and rare opportunity . Hence my wish is that at least 100008 people spread over from all the 29 states should participate and contribute for this restoration work , in rebuilding this temple city or " Devalaya Nagari "My wish and long term goal is to develop Hosagunda an "Abode of Peace " .It should be developed as " a must visit " place for everyone -for those who are religiously inclined , for those who are spiritually inclined , for those environment lovers, and also for those who want peace .

* Giving peace to every one who steps in here will perhaps bring peace to those who long ago shed the blood here, who built all these temples here.

REGARDING SACRED FOREST IN HOSAGUNDA
After initiating the restoration of about 1100 year old monument Sri Umamaheshwar Temple in 2001, one day, myself and my friend Mr Deepak Sagar ( Awardee - State Environment Award ) were trecking inside Hosagunda forest and found various ruins of many other temples such as Prasanna Narayana , Kanchi Kalamma etc deep inside the forest
With the background of history of Hosagunda in mind, we felt, because of various temple ruins, the entire population of this capital township must have migrated to other places for fear of God's wrath. With no inhabitants around for hundreds of years the entire place developed into a dense forest!

Because the forest so developed was God's own creation, we decided to conserve and protect it as " God's Forest " or " Sacred Grove "

The Government records still show this forest spread over 600 acres as revenue land. The forest dept did not have jurisdiction to declare it as God’s Forest , hence , we approached the then Minister in charge for Shimoga district Mr Kagodu Thimmappa with our request. He reciprocated positively and arranged for a survey of the forest by forest dept officials
Our Sri Umamaheshwara Seva Trust sponsored the survey which lasted for about 3 months and boundary for the forest was fixed.

Meanwhile well known Agriculture Scientist and winner of Jamnalal Bajaj Award Prof.Katigehallimath on his visit to Hosagunda suggested for a study and documentation on the flora and fauna of this forest. Dr. S.P.Hiremath , the then Vice Chanceller of Kuvempu University was approached. Under his guidance a committee was formed . Professors, students and research scholars from the Dept of Botany visited Hosagunda forest every week end for about 4 months. The Team identified more than 350 species of plants and trees. Many of the trees were estimated to be more than 300 to 500 year old, one particular mango tree was estimated to be 650 years old! Herbarium and other records were prepared and released at a function in Jan 2002.

My inner desire that this God’s Forest should become a place of study and research for students and environment lovers, made me to come up with the idea of enriching this forest with more bio diversity . In order to ensure that the effort put in is something worthwhile a five year plan was chalked out to plant endangered and extinct species of plants - 108 different species , each year different , from each species 108 saplings !

It was rather easy task for our expert Mr Umesh Adiga to collect and develop planting material in the first two years, this year it was quite difficult, in the coming years it would be a Herculean task for us to collect because it has to be other than those already planted.
Efforts are also being made to put boards alongside the plants planted with details of common name, botanical name in local language and English so that interested people visiting the forest can easily identify these rare species .

This year we have launched preparation of Monographs and Herbarium of all those species planted here. The library of this will help the researchers and eventually this place should develop in to a study and research centre . Shortage of resources may delay the things little bit!

Special care has been taken to plant some fruit and flower bearing plant and tree species so that in the coming years the forest can attract more birds and butterflies and also may be some wild animals!

RAIN WATER HARVESTING:
It is hard to believe that in spite of dense forests in and around Hosagunda , there is shortage of even drinking water in some villages around during summer ! This prompted me to invite experts in the field such as Sri Padre , Shivananda Kalave , K.V. Bhat etc to Hosagunda and arrange for workshop and training to local people on rain water harvesting.

Again a five year plan, third years program was held last month. Rain water harvesting is very simple to follow and implement, there are no big costs, only making sure that maximum amount of rain water is made to seep into your own land, that is it ! Making of simple bunds and trenches takes care of it!

And it gives instant result. For example the temple holy pond was drying up in Dec - Jan itself . After first years training program, we made couple of water sinking pits around the area, next summer the pond had water up to beginning of May . After second years rain water harvesting, last summer holy pond was bearing water upto the rainy season

I was told that around fifty years before, farmers at hosagunda village were having two crops of paddy , today the situation is that even for one crop there is shortage of water . My dream is to bring the lost glory back