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S3/E7: The Brahmagiri Revelation

We end where we began. Not at a new site, but with a question we skipped past entirely back in Episode 1: why is this hill called Brahmagiri at all? Across six episodes we climbed Jatinga-Rameshwara, traced a dried river, mapped two trails toward Rama, and uncovered a marketplace hiding inside what looked like empty farmland. We never once asked the most basic question about the very first site in this series — its name. This is Episode 7 of Series 3 — the finale — The Brahmagiri Revelation. The Story Brahmagiri — Brahma plus Giri, the hill of Brahma. But tradition in this region ties the name less to the god directly and more to a Brahmarishi: Saptarishi Gautama . Local tradition holds that Sage Gautama and his wife Ahalya lived here, performing intense sadhana — meditation — in caves on this very hill, including caves near a site known as Gorakhnath Gufa . If that's true, it connects Brahmagiri to one of the more well-known episodes of the Ramayana: Ahalya, cursed by...
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S3/E6: The Marketplace on the Hill

Since Episode 1, we've been asking the same question: why would an emperor carve his message into a hilltop in the middle of nowhere? This episode is where we finally got an answer. It came almost in passing, in a recorded conversation with an ASI guide at Jatinga-Rameshwara — a few sentences that reframe everything we'd seen at Brahmagiri, Siddapura, and this hill itself. This is Episode 6 of Series 3 — The Marketplace on the Hill. The Story We'd recorded a conversation with our ASI guide while standing beside a structure we'd assumed was simply another protected monument. He told us, plainly: this is a Bauddha stupa . When we asked — "a Buddha stupa?" — he corrected us, gently but precisely: Bauddha , not Buddha. It's the classical term, and we've used his word throughout this series rather than the modern English one, out of respect for how he chose to say it. Then came the detail that changed the whole shape of this investigation. Peopl...
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S3/E5: Rama's Two Trails — Rama's Seal on a Rock?

Two trails. One in the sky, one on the ground. And one of them leads, improbably, straight to our own family's farm. Back in Episode 3, two ASI guides pointed across a valley and connected Jatinga-Rameshwara to a story we'd already encountered at Rishimukha, near Hampi. We said we'd check whether the geography actually held up. This episode is that check — and a second trail we didn't expect to find at all. This is Episode 5 of Series 3 — Rama's Two Trails. The Story Trail One: Ravana's Flight If Jatayu really did intercept Ravana somewhere near Jatinga-Rameshwara after Sita dropped her earrings at Rishimukha, the two points should sit close to a straight line — the kind of path a bird, or a falling object, would actually take, not a road that winds around hills. So we plotted it. Jatinga-Rameshwara sits just 9° off the direct bearing from Rishimukha toward Sri Lanka, about 66 km away. On its own, that's suggestive but not conclusive. So we ext...
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S3/E4: The Two Shivalingas — Rama, Jatayu and Hanuman

Why does this hilltop temple have two Shivalingas instead of one? The tradition has a precise answer — and it's preserved not in a book, but in the order you're expected to worship. In the last episode, we reached the summit of Jatinga-Rameshwara to find two temple doors locked, with only a glimpse of one linga visible through the gap. This episode is that story in full — and it's one of the most vivid pieces of Nambikke we've recorded in this series. This is Episode 4 of Series 3 — The Two Shivalingas. The Story We later recorded a conversation with an ASI guide who walked us through the full account, passed down at this site for generations. After his fight with Ravana, Jatayu had fallen — but he was still alive when Rama found him. Wounded and dying, Jatayu told Rama which direction Ravana's chariot had gone, carrying Sita away. It was, in effect, the first real lead Rama had. Rama asked Jatayu what he could do for him in return. Jatayu's request ...
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S3/E3: Jatinga-Rameshwara — The Climb and The Revelation

Partway up a steep, deserted hill, two strangers resting in the shade pointed across the valley and said: that's where the bird Jatayu lived. That sentence is the reason this episode exists. We went looking for a third Ashokan edict. We came back with a Ramayana connection nobody had prepared us for — confirmed, in part, not by oral tradition alone, but by the Archaeological Survey of India's own signboard. This is Episode 3 of Series 3 — Jatinga-Rameshwara. The Story After a simple breakfast in Chitradurga, we set out for Jatinga-Rameshwara — a hill roughly 5 miles northwest of Brahmagiri, easy enough to find on Google Maps, but a serious climb once you're there. It was hot. The base was deserted. We started up. About half an hour in, we found a few men sitting on the stone steps, resting in the shade of a tree. We asked about the climb. It turned out they were ASI-certified guides — and they offered to climb the rest of the way with us. Partway up, they stop...
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S3/E2: Siddapura — Deeper Into Nowhere

If Brahmagiri was the middle of nowhere, Siddapura is further still. Two kilometres from the first edict, on a rocky hillock surrounded by granite boulders, sits a second Ashokan inscription. No signboard pointed us to it. No path led there. We found it only because a local farmer agreed to walk us through his own fields to reach it. This is Episode 2 of Series 3 — Siddapura. The Story There is no road to Siddapura. To get there, we crossed slushy farmland, climbed over fences, and walked through several different farmers' plots before even reaching the base of the hillock. Without someone local willing to guide us, this site is, in practical terms, unfindable. The inscription itself sits on a boulder that local farmers call Emme Thammana Gundu — a folk name with no apparent connection to the Mauryan emperor whose words are carved into it. The edict is, in content, essentially identical to the one at Brahmagiri: the same dhamma message, sent down the same administrativ...
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S3/E1: Brahmagiri — An Emperor's Message in the Middle of Nowhere

An emperor's edict. Carved 2,300 years ago. In a place nobody visits anymore. That was the moment this series began — not with a plan, but with a question I couldn't let go of. Standing in front of a rock inscription in the middle of farmland outside Chitradurga, Karnataka, with no path, no signage, and no other visitors, I asked myself: why would Emperor Ashoka leave his message here ? This is Episode 1 of our Series 3 investigation — the Ashokan Minor Rock Edicts near Chitradurga. It opens at Brahmagiri. The Story Brahmagiri is not easy to find. There is no road that takes you to it. You navigate through farmland, ask locals who may or may not know where it is, and eventually arrive at a rocky outcrop with an ASI signboard — one of the few signs that anyone official knows this place exists. The edict itself is carved into rock in Brahmi script, in the Prakrit language. It dates to approximately 256–232 BC — the reign of Emperor Ashoka. But it wasn't written by...
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