Rediscovered Shakti shrine an orb of energy

The 150-year-old Mount Matang Sri Maha Mariaman temple, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia draws hundreds of devotees, hikers and tourists to its quaint doors.

KUCHING: High on Mount Matang sits a small quaint and calm Kerala-styled temple. It’s 150-year-old and dwelling within is the Hindu goddess Shakthi, also know as Sri Maha Mariamma.

The temple is far from the conventional Hindu places of worship here and in the Peninsula Malaya.

If you are a devotee and believer then the shrine is a focused orb of spirituality built entirely from Sarawak’s highly valued Berlian wood and drawing within the energies of its surrounding Matang Forest Reserve and the universe above.

To reach the temple is a hard walk. It takes the uninitiated no less than 80 minutes to trek up the 3.2km meandering slope. Be prepared to share the narrow dirt track with mountain bikers and hikers and the odd 4WD.

Arrival at the temple site some offers a cool atmosphere and a panoramic view of Kuching City.

Built in the 1860s the Sri Maha Mariamman temple with its pyramid shaped gopuram (temple tower) could very well be the earliest known Hindu shrine in Sarawak. And even then it was made of Belian wood.

Apart from drawing hundreds of Hindu devotees during its peak festivals, the temple also attracts adventure seekers, nature lovers and tourists.

Some visitors have described the trek up to the Matang Sri Maha Mariamman temple as ‘similar to the trip to Batu Caves, except among the jungle’. Others have described the trek as a “spiritual journey in itself’.

Hindu arrivals

The history of the temple in Matang links itself to the coming of the ancestors of the present day Sarawak Indians.

Hindu artifacts at the Sarawak Museum note the presence of the Indian community here dating back as far as a thousand years.

Today’s Sarawak Indian community are mainly descendents of South Indian and Sri Lankan tea and coffee plantation workers who were brought here during second half of the nineteenth century.

The Matang coffee estate was opened by the Brooke family in 1867 and was managed on the lines of similar tea plantations in Sri Lanka.

Tamil workers from Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) and from South India were brought in to work in these estates.

The early settlers were principally Hindus, and presumably got together and built the Sri Maha Mariamman temple in the Matang coffee estate.

The Brooke’s 600 acre plantation housed about 1,000 Tamils Hindus. It was also the first known major Indian settlement in Sarawak.

In 1912 the plantations was shut down for reasons unknown and the workers were given an option of either staying on in Kuching or returning to their homelands.

Many opted to return to their homeland. The remaining 100 to 200 workers settled in Sarawak and adopted the state as their new home.

With the exit of the workers, the deep Matang jungle claimed the temple and it was left abandoned for almost half a century – 45 years to be exact.

Then it was rediscovered in 1967 by a Bidayuh villager who stumbled across the abandoned wooden shrine during a hunting trip.

Strangely whilst the exterior of structure was direlict the interior remained undamaged.

Lost for 45 years

He then informed the Indian comunity in Kuching about his find.

The community promptly made their way up to the site to discover a structure enveloped in jungle creepers, run down from decades of disregard and exposure to the forces of nature.

The small community then set about clearing the heavy jungle undergrowth in and around the temple and cleared a pathway to the shrine.

The temple was reopened for prayers on Dec 4, 1970, and was taken over by the Hindu Temple Association six years later.

The initial restoration at the Sri Maha Mariamman temple started around 1970 followed by further minor works in the late 1980s which included cement being airlifted into the area.

But it was only in 2007 that work on a new temple mirroring the original dwellings began.

Even though a number of the previous temple structures were replaced, the wide-ranging use of Belian wood, an essential characteristic of the old temple, was maintained.

The temple restoration committee managed to secure authorisation from the Forestry Department to cut down four Belian trees to construct the temple.

Craftsmen from India were brought in to shape elaborate patterns on Belian doors, walls, pillars and furnishings of the temple and fashion statues and motifs bearing intricate details.

This, most extensive renovation also involved the construction of two shrines and reworking of most, if not all, of the existing temple structure and its compound.

Shrines enroute
The first shrine, that visitors will pass enroute to the Mount Matang temple is the Sri Munisperan shrine. It sits at the foothill and houses the guardian deity of the same name.

Sharing this space is a smaller shrine for Lord Ganesha – worshiped by Hindus as the remover of all obstacles.

Having paid homage to these deities, the journey uphill begins.

Interestingly enough everyone irrespective of race and religion stops here be it in silent prayer or curiosity before moving on.

The second shrine is situated about two kilometers up the mountain. Here dwells the guardian deity Jada Munir in a small pictorial clearing surrounded by tall trees.

It’s a much needed rest-stop for body and soul before the final thrust upwards.

source: freemalaysiatoday