Maneesh F Singh to direct crossover film on Goa’s little known submerged temples

LONDON: Goa has at least three submerged temples, two of which are undocumented and not well-known, while the third is known, says film director Maneesh F Singh, who is all set to direct a crossover film on the subject.

The 70 minute film will go on floor in the month of March next year, Singh announced.

The relics of an ancient temple of Shree Ganesh at Kurdi, which has received decent media coverage are known and visited by hundreds of visitors during summer. The other two temples, which are also over a 100-years old are not even known to locals.

Kurdi is a village near Ponda that lies submerged in water round the year. The entire village was evacuated when the Selaulim dam project covered huge tracts of land under water about 30 years ago.

While the villagers were rehabilitated, the temple remained with its idols and every summer when the water abates the village surfaces for about 20 days, only to be inundated under water as soon as the monsoons set in.

Original inhabitants of the village who visit the remains of what was once their home, stumbled on the idol of Lord Ganpati during one of their annual visits to the site during summer when the village resurfaces.

“More explorations led them to the relics of the ancient temple. The idol of the deity is made of stone, and probably dates back to over a century. Nobody knew a temple existed in this village, not even the old timers who resided here. This suggests that the Shree Ganesh temple may have been razed at least over a century ago,” the Times of India quoted some villagers in one of its reports.

There are no records of this ancient submerged Hindu temple with the state department of archaeology or any other government bodies – one of the main reasons why it has not got any official status.

Media reports claim the ruins went unnoticed by Kurdi residents as the site was covered by mounds of earth, debris and thick vegetation that sprouts up as the water abates and dries up.

The submergence of the village, and the subsequent relocation of the villagers, led to the ancient temple ruins slipping into oblivion, before a chance discovery brought it into focus.

The ruins of the ancient Shree Ganesh temple are located less than 500m from the ruins of the relatively well-known ancient temple of Shree Someshwar, the presiding deity of Kurdi.

The relics of Someshwar temple, along with the vestiges of the entire submerged village, resurface during the summer months of April and May, before going under water once the monsoon sets in.

The villagers of Kurdi and Selaulim, over 3,000 in number, were displaced after their villages came under the reservoir submergence of the Selaulim irrigation project.

The Selaulim irrigation project including a dam were planned in 1965. Work began on the dam in 1977 and the villagers left their hearths and homes to be rehabilitated in the remote Valkini and Vaddem villages.

In addition to the Ganesh temple at Kurdi, there are two more lesser-known submerged temples in Goa, one of them being at Betul and the other one on the banks of the Netravali river, Singh says.

The remains of the original century-old temple in disarray and underwater, which another temple on the banks of the river, which was built later on, also gets submerged during the monsoon.