Cauvery Basin: The desert of Talakad

Large dunes rise up at the end of a street in the village of Talakad as if they had been made for a movie set. A sudden desert in the lush Cauvery basin. These shifting sands have covered the fifth to tenth century Ganga dynasty capital, which was later an important centre for both the Cholas and the Hoysalas. Its political significance was due to its location in both a rich agricultural basin and on the trade route linking Karnataka with the Tamil plains. The geological explanation for the dunes is that Talakad is set on a sharp bend in the Cauvery and, because the river flow is hindered, sand has built up on the inner bank blowing up into dunes.
I prefer the mythological explanation surrounding the seventh century queen Rangamma, who had gone to meet her husband in Talakad where he was battling with the king of Mysore. She arrived to find her husband had been killed and threw herself into the Cauvery cursing that Talakad be buried in sand, for where she jumped into the river to become a whirlpool and for the Mysore dynasty to end for lack of an heir. All are still true. The Maharaja of Mysore has not had a direct line of descendants and successive archaeologists dig up buildings, only for the sands to cover them again.

The Vaidyeshvara temple (an important pilgrimage site, where Panchalinga, a bathing festival is held) and the Kirtinarayana temple remain uncovered largely due to concrete walls that keep the sand at bay. Walking to see the unearthed temples, only a fraction of the estimated thirty submerged, I thought I could feel Talakads' palaces, temples and houses sleeping beneath my feet as if they had drowned that day in sand.