Have you ever heard of Gingee?

On the coastal plains in random locations rise granite hills. On a group of such hills about 30 miles inland from the French colonial port of Pondicherry is the Gingee fortress. Krishnagiri, about 400 feet high, was allegedly first fortified in about 800 A.D.

Eventually, three fortified hills were connected by walls enclosing an area up to three miles wide.

This view from the top of Krishnagiri better shows the 20’ wide wall and its 80’ moat (left of the wall, now with grass instead of water).

With the transformation from fortress to tourist site over a century ago, easy(?) access has been provided by a stone stairway.

Atop the hill are fortifications, palaces, and storage facilities for grain, oil, and water to supply the complex for years.

Some show the early Indian cut granite pillar-and-lintel construction overlaid with later brick and mortar with Arabic style cues.

Most impressive is the 800’ monolith of Rajagiri with its extensive refuge citadel on top. Inasmuch as the temperature 105 F, we saved that climb for a cooler day. More on that later, maybe.

In the walled valley below was a sprawling complex dominated by a plaza in which the king could address thousands. Here our group on the throne platform looks to the colonnade at the back.

Here is a perpendicular view across the plaza.

A stone spiral staircase ascends from near the throne platform to a temple complex above the wall on the left.

Behind the colonnade rises the 8 story Kalyana Mahal, or marriage hall. It seems that extravagant weddings go back a long time.

The complex includes a large and deep pond for storing monsoon rainwater, surrounded on all four sides with steps and bathhouses.

Part of the grounds is kept as a watered garden where we and our group could rest in the shade of a dozen massive banyans.

Near the fort is a temple, said to be much older.

Entry is through this elaborately carved gate

Across the courtyard from the gate is the “temple of a thousand pillars”

(If you don’t believe me, count them.)

which goes on forever, covering acres.

When the French captured the area in 1760, they plundered and pillaged some pillars for their own monunents in Pondicherry.

Twenty foot high columns cut as single pieces of granite support granite lintels which support two-foot-wide by eight inch thick slabs of granite laid across as a roof. All this has been standing there for centuries. Note the detail in the column capitals and in the ceiling.

All the stone is native. Here is a boulder which was successfully split but for some reason abandoned.

The stonework is beyond my comprehension: the size of the single pieces, the precision of the cutting, the zillions of man-hours it must have taken. Walls are laid up without mortar (except that added later in clumsy repairs by Europeans) with fit that would make an Inca proud. Here are the eaves of the bathhouse surrounding the reservoir. One stone has broken, allowing a cross-sectional view. A root about 6” thick extends to the right over the lintel, with this complicated curved cross section of about 4” maximum thickness cantilevered outward. How do you cut that without breaking 90% of them in the process? As you see in the background, most of them are still there after centuries.

We monkeyed around the temple site for a while. No, the monkey is not carved in stone, and he was close enough to plop that banana on my head if he wanted to.

Meet John

John lives in the rural village where he was born, about 70 km. south of Chennai. He was raised Hindu and became a priest. He was also bright, learned English, left the village, and had a good job in a bank in Chennai when he was bothered for a year or so with an incapacitating illness. Someone suggested it might be tuberculosis, but a TB specialist put him through extensive tests and could not tell him what the sickness was, only that it was not TB. He went from specialist to specialist with the same result. Desparate for help, he stumbled across a Christian magazine which talked about faith healing. He wrote the editor a letter describing his plight, who replied that if he had faith in Jesus Christ he could be healed. Within three days his symptoms disappeared and did not return.This got his attention, and he decided he had to learn something about this Jesus Christ. He got a picture of Jesus, placed it in the Hindu shrine in his house, and started praying to the picture. As he went from church to church, each told him a different story. He did not give up. Eventually he enrolled in a theological seminary and for two years studied for the ministry. He felt called to return to his native village and bring Christ, which about 20% accepted. He found he could not affiliate with any of the local denominations (some of the main ones here are Church of Southern India (CSI), Church of Northern India (CNI), Roman Catholic (RC), Assembly of God (AG), Seventh Day Adventist (SDA)) because none of them taught what he believed the Bible taught, so he called his church The Church of Jesus Christ. Non-affiliation presents some hardships, as there is no source for teaching aids, manuals, or handbooks. He had to rely on the Bible alone.

The word spread to nearby villages, and he now ministers to three congregations, and to provide for his wife and four children, works as a security guard at nearby Rising Star Outreach, a school for children from the leper colonies. (See http://www.risingstaroutreach.org/ for another mind-boggling story.)

When one of the Latter-day Saint volunteers at RSO told John about the modern restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, he eagerly began to read. A third of the way through, things got busy and he put the book down for a couple of days. He was awakened in the night by a voice telling him, "Read the book of Alma". He looked in the Book of Mormon for the book of Alma, and found answers to many questions that had long troubled him.

After finishing the Book of Mormon he took up the Gospel Principles Sunday School manual and found out for himself the benefit of having modern living Apostles and Prophets. He excitedly pointed out to us Elder Boyd K. Packer's parable of the Unwise Debtor and exclaimed, "Now I can explain the doctrine of the Atonement in a way that people can understand it!" He is now using the Gospel Principles manual to teach in his church, and we are supplying him copies of the Book of Mormon in Tamil, though most of the villagers are not literate in either English or Tamil.

On the day of this photo, his sister (seated on his right, in red) who lives in Chennai, had been out in the countryside on business and on her way thought to drop in on her brother while we were there. Within an hour's discussion she told her brother, "God delayed my return to the city so I could hear this. You need to be teaching us every week out of this Book of Mormon."

(to be continued)