Talakona
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Talakona
Valley, waterfall, and temple in the Vayalpad taluk of Cuddapah District, Madras, situated in 13° 47' N. and 79° 14" E., in the Palkonda Hills. The approach to the place runs first over uneven country, dotted in the hollows with rice and sugar-cane cultiva- tion, and interspersed with numerous little tanks and immense many- stepped wells. Farther on the richer land gives place to tracts of scrub jungle, gram-fields, and fine tamarind-trees, lapsing, as one approaches the foot of the Palkonda Hills, into thicker jungle and rocky eminences crowned with giant tors and boulders in grotesque confusion. After passing the last inhabited village outside the belt of forest with which the hills are fringed, the path ascends gradually, crossing stony streams and stretches of sand marked everywhere with the tracks of sambar, spotted deer, and wild hog, until it reaches the entrance to the deep cleft in the hills in which is situated the waterfall of Talakona. Through dense bamboo jungle, shaded by wild mangoes and other large trees, the way leads along the stream, which hurries from the waterfall until it gains a little open space cleared on the bank of the torrent round a small temple and a resthouse. As evening falls, jungle-fowl call to each other from all parts of the thick under- growth on either side of the stream, sambar bell in the forest on the slopes, and the owners of the cattle grazing in the forest drive them into enclosures strongly fenced with thorns and lighted with fires to keep off prowling tigers.
The path to the falls leads along the edge of the stream through thick growth relieved by clumps of date-palms and the handsome sulphur-yellow flowers of the wild hemp. Passing two ancient mango- trees known as Rama and Lakshmana, it rapidly ascends the side of the beautiful little valley at the bottom of which the stream hurries along. Immediately overhead rise the cliffs, clothed with trees for two-thirds of their height, but above that consisting of a deep scarp of bare red rock, the colours of which are in wonderful contrast to the varied shades of green of the forest below. Beneath is the stream, visible now and again through the tangled growth. As it ascends, the path gradually narrows until it is only a yard or so wide as it clings to the side of the valley, and then it suddenly turns and faces the waterfall. The stream above which the path has been running here precipitates itself from the top of the red scarp on the crest of the hills, falls some 70 or 80 feet down a dark hollow on to a black ledge of rock, striking it in a smother of spray, and thence, in numerous smaller falls, hurries to the foot of the valley below the path. To bathe in this fall and in another higher up the cliff purifies from all sin ; and on Sivaratri day, in the last week of February, thousands of people con- sequently brave the tiring journey hither through the jungle and the real and fancied perils which beset it. Arrived at the spot, they first pass through the fall just described, when the water comes rattling and stinging on their shoulders like large hailstones. Then they cross the ledge on to which it dashes and gain a path which leads to the upper fall. This path passes a cave, through which (it is said) a local person- age of great sanctity used to travel by underground ways to the holy temple of Tirupati, and up hundreds of steps, which have an aspect of great antiquity and must have taken years of expensive work to put in position. At the top, the river runs placidly along over a flat rocky bed. A hundred yards farther on is the upper fall. It is only about 12 feet high and rolls quietly over the edge of its rocky bed to a platform below, and thence from a clear pool falls some 60 feet to an inaccessible hollow.
At the time of the festival the scene here is one to be remem- bered : smooth black rocks, green trees, and blue sky above ; the fall curving over the lip of the little hollow ; the bathers in white and red cloths, their bodies glittering with drops of water ; and the priest reciting the appropriate words as each in succession passes under the falling water and sees his sins flowing through the pool below and down the glen to be carried through the plains to the all-absorbing sea.
After bathing in the two falls the pilgrims journey back in their wet clothes to the little temple already mentioned at the entrance to the valley, and there lie prostrate before the god, sometimes for hours, till tliey have a vision, which is regarded as the message of the deity to the worshipper. Hundreds of them may he seen there, lying face downwards in their wet clothes for hours, shivering with cold but waiting patiently for the message. A large proportion of them are childless wives or those who have no male offspring, and they undertake this toilsome pilgrimage in the hope that they will thereby be blessed with a son.
