MATTUR , The SANSKRIT VILLAGE

 

MATTUR, THE SANSKRIT VILLAGE 

A tiny village in the Shimoga District of Karnataka, the little Mattur village alongwith its twin village Hosahalli is famous across the world for being one of the few existing locations where the ancient language is used coloquially.  Though the regionallanguage of Karnataka being Kannda, the inhabitants of Mattur  are fluent in Sanskrit in their daily life.  You could see somee signboards in Sanskrit even now.  The Vedas , one of the oldest texts in the world, are taught in schools here.   The villagers here are more than willing to impart their  knwoledge to anyone who is interested absolutely free.

It will be interesting to note that only 1% of the world population speak Sanskrit.

We set out to visit Mattur  from Bengalore  by Car .  It is about 300 kms from Bengalore and takes about six hours to reach.  There are two reasons to visit this village.  One,  the excitement to know more and explore the only village in India that speaks Sanskrit and the other one is that my Brother in Law and  family migrated to this place five years ago from Bengalore to lead a totally different life style. He started taking interest in learning Sanskrit through Samkrita Bharati in Bengalore and the whole family followed suit.  Soon, the entire family started speaking in Sanskrit among themselves . I also started attending Sanskrit classes but could not continue.  We even tried to promote Sanskrit through our Lions Club,  We organised a big gathering of Lions and the public and invited Sanskrit Scholars but could'nt make a breakthrough.  However,  my Brother in law and family went ahead and decided to relocate to this Mattur village to pursue a different life altogether.  It needs lot of will power to take to this life inspite of being born and brought up in cities over a long period of time. Both my nephews have done over 5 years of learning in  gurukulam and are thorough about Vedas, Upanishads and other related ritual processes.  They are equally good at the modern gadgets and have sound technical knowledge and can talk to you  on any subject.

When they suddenly announced the decision to move to Mattur it was not easily digestable to the extended family,  

 We reached Shimoga and the route from Bengalore thru Hosadurga, Chithradurga are full of scenic beauty. Wide four way lanes in Chiradurga Highway with Toll Gates  When we reached Shimoga, it was like any other congested town.  Mattur is another 8 kms from Shimoga .  It has shops on both sides of the road, bad roads at places till we reached 6 kms towards Mattur.  Now things started looking different as we were nearing Mattur.  We passed through   tall coconut trees, Arecanut trees , plantain trees and wow we could imagine how  Mattur would look .

   We reached Mattur.  This charming village practices the ancient Vedic lifestyle, with the entire village of Mattur constructed as a square, resembling a typical agraharam. At the centre of the village lies the central temple and a village pathshala. The Vedas are chanted at the pathshala in the traditional way, and students learn them meticulously in their five-year course, under the careful supervision of the village elders.

As we passed through the village we could see this small village  spread acrosss three streets and could guess some over 100 houses,  You can see here and there Panchakacham wearing people with  Angavastrams around one side of the shoulders walking slowly, Women folk sitting in the thinnai ( a dias kind of sitting place)talking in a language called "Sankethi" mixture of Tamil, Telegu, Kannada etc  But no sanskrit speaking people seen at first instance. The village is inhabited by the Sankethis, an ancient Brahmin community that had migrated from Kerala and settled down in Mattur about 600 years ago. The houses are two storeyed mostly, close to each other, cows roaming around freely or sitting as a cluster in one place. 
At last we  arrived at our Brother in Law's house , situated at a corner of the village surrounded by lush green farms.    We could see two car parking sheds as you enter , a room for storing hay, one yagashala with chimney above it.  Neat corridor where you can relax after a heavy meal.  You enter into the house which has a small long room and another low height entry into the main house,  If you are careless you would get your head injured.  You need to bend down to enter. I forgot to ask the reason for such low height entry.  Large hall with a hollow central kind of Tank supported by Stone pillars with natural lighting above (may be 8X 8 size),  All black granite floor .  There is a big kitchen which also opens to an open area outside where 13 nos cows and calves taking shelter under a tiled roof. Many rooms, Mixture of modern living and village life,  Very peaceful without any noise, Love that.

Bhagwath Geetha Class

House Entrance

House inside

Verrandha (Thinnai)

t is a sprawling house which could easily house  20 people  without any discomfort.  Maintaining this is abig task and I didn't miss a cleaning Robot sitting there quietly in a corner of a room. I remembered having seen a dish washer in the Utility area Later i understood , housekeeping maids are not easily available as they go and work in Arecanut fields which is more rewarding,  I consoled myself  yes Robot and an

dishwasher are  a necessity here.

After we refreshed ourselves , we all had a nice breakfast. 

Went to see the "goshala"  13 cows including calves .  All had sweet names as "balambica, keshava, Madhava, Vishnu etc. All these cows have been acquired by Dhanam (Gift) You call them by the name they respond,  Friendly calves .  We fed them with banana and it just came and sat between us,  Very playful clalves .  I opened the main gate to go out, behind me two calves rushed to come out.  I said to myself I need to be careful to close the gate behind me.  I observed that while all the cows and calves sleep in sitting position in the night, one Cow stands guard by turns,  It  is really amazing.

I found the cofee and tea tastes totally different as they are from cow milk.  

I also find no water filters there. Water direct from the tap.

For the people in their house daily routine is,   getting up at 4.30 AM.  Go to Thunga River and take bath.  Do havan in the Yagshala . (Understand the Lamp inside the Yagashala burns 24 hours/365 days). Sandhya vandhanam etc,  Teaching Vedas to children who gather at the house at a specific time every day.  Evenings while we were there, every day we had one hour of Pravachan on Bhagwat Gita by my Brother in law.  I never thought Bhagwat Gita could be so interesting to listen. At once I became a big fan of Arjun.  

The food is slightly different.  Some vegetables they don't use.   For poori etc only sagu no poori masal and I hate sagu.  Even in the feast the vegetables are different and tastes differently. We got some mixture from the local vendor and it was really awesome.  We packed some for Bangalore,   I noticed that they use hands to serve items on the plaintain leaves or Arecanut plates. .  The advantage of plaintain leaves is after you eat it can be straight away given to the cows. You also get Arecanut plates .

In the evenings we used to visit the check dam about 500 meters from the house and sit there in front of Thunga river,  Breezy air, full of greenery , clear water flowing beautifully and a  very good ambience. Put your legs in the flowing water and enjoy the scenic beauty around.  Mattur looks beautiful when it rains,  You don't feel like coming back from there.

Over all , it is definitely far from the madding crowd.  Difficult to breath as the air is pure and we are not used to it😃

We had early dinner and went to bed.  They all sleep early as they need to get up early. Back in Bengalore we eat late , sleep late and get up late.

Brother in law family owns farm lands .  They cultivate Arecanuts, Plaintains, Jackfruits, Pepper, Ginger etc. They also make organic  Vermi-Compost from cowdung .  Both sons take care of the cultivation part. Lot of   Arecanuts are cultivated there. It is a seasonal and main  crop .  If you have different crops which can take care throughout the year you could earn up to Rs.6 lacs per annum .  Most of the Brahmin Pandits own farm lands and it is thier main source of income,  They are highly learned people and speak fluent sanskrit.  Their wants are limited.  They hardly travel to the cities.  

Adjacent to the house, there is a Govt school with a large ground where we could see children play football.  They play wearing Dhoties and all are having tufts.  Nice to watch football in different dress gear.

We took  a long morning walk .  A concreted 15 ft road and both sides are long arecanut trees .  At the end of the road  we could see a Devi Temple and a settlement colony of Tamils.  Their ancestors have come there during the Thunga river dam building and their next generation are staying there.  

We visited the farm land owned by my Brother in law and had  to walk a lot .  We were given gum boots to walk through the bushes.  You need to be careful as coconuts keep falling from the Trees at random .  Children said it never falls on any people.  You have coconut trees, arecanut trees, plaintain in plenty, pepper, ginger, Jack fruits  etc.  On a covered area tons of vemi -compost were found. 

Next day I went with my nephew to Cow Auction place in Shimoga.  We needed to buy a cow and calf for dhanam,(donation).  The cows were owned by Veterinary college and they do such auction at times.  The vetinary college is quite huge running into acres with a big building with class rooms.  We met Dr. Jayashree Incharge and it was quite interesting to watch the proceedings,  There were 10 people to buy cows.  Cows are tied in  separate closed large asbestors covered place and each cow are tied in a cubicle.  Over that you could see a display board which tells you the breed, year of birth etc.  The Auction started.  Vetinary college have kept a base price for each cow.  With each cow you get a calf free .  Out of 9 people every one got one at different high prices and when our turn came the people gathered to buy wholeheartedly told the auctioneer to give the cow to us at basic price and we walked with a cow and a calf for Rs.4000/- the basic price.  They saw us in Dhothi and we looked like "Swamyji " types.

Some times there I thought this village and vedic life is so monotonous, getting up at 4.30 am , perform routine process , do they not get bored.  Then I thought what we are doing in cities also is  more monotonous and having an artificial life than the life they have chosen.

Our return day came and we got back into the car heading for the concrete jungle  life once again and felt we are going to miss all these simple meaninfgul life.