PLACE MAKING
AT THE CONFLUENCE OF THE RIVERS KRISHNA AND VENNA
Minal Sagare
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| Place is paradise. In the experience and realisation of the collective in the individual and the individual in the collective, place is born. |
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Koya Prabhu, a scholar from the court of Ramraje-Dev Rai of Anegundi, Vijayanagar (15th Century CE), who used to recite stories from the Puranas to the King, once narrated the beauty of the confluence on Rivers Krishna and Venna and its peaceful riverbanks with thick forest. Upon hearing the beauty of this place, the King himself visited the confluence. Mesmerised by the beauty of the place, he awarded Koya Prabhu with ashtadhikar - all the rights to establish a tirtha and a settlement there.
Kshtera Mahuli and Sangam Mahuli are the twin villages located on opposite sides of the confluence of the Rivers Krishna and Venna near Satara in Maharashtra. Being a sangam, both the villages are dotted with large and small temples and samadhis including those built on ghats along the riverbanks. Unlike most of the other sangams in India, this river confluence has temples and ghats built on all the three sides of the confluence; the delightful experience of which is very subtle yet undeniable upon arrival at the riverbank. Architecture and spatial patterns that are pivotal in creating this experience is a resultant of profound layering of tensions between individual and collective, all anchored to the river confluence. Temples of Kashi Vishveshwar, Sangameshwar, Rameshwar, Bilveshwar, Radha Shankar and Saguneshwar and their ghats are the main temples of the sangam precinct. |
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