Indias South and the Dance of the Gods (9/39)

Indias South and the Dance of the Gods (9/39)

In Kumbakonom, according to an ancient myth, the world evolved from a "kumba", a vessel. The city in the south of India claims to be the navel of the world, which, according to the Hindu creed, is actually the sacred city of Benares. This is one of the numerous contradictions which are a particular characteristic of the south of India, where myths, religious traditions and everyday life are entwined in what appears to be a hopelessly tangled web. Yet, in fact, everything does have an inner Indian logic, a cohesion derived and based on thousand-year-old stories of the gods and their worlds. This background explains the mysterious temple and also the fate of an old woman, who dedicated her life to the gods.

In Kumbakonam entstand die Welt aus einer Kumba, einem Gefäß, heißt es in einem uralten Mythos. Die Stadt im Süden Indiens beansprucht für sich der Nabel der Welt zu sein, was nach hinduistischem Verständnis der heiligen Stadt Benares zusteht. Das ist einer von zahllosen Widersprüchen, die gerade den Süden Indiens kennzeichnen, wo Mythen, religiöse Traditionen und Alltag mehr als anderswo zu einem scheinbar unentwirrbaren Geflecht verwachsen. Doch alles hat eine innere indische Logik, einen gewachsenen Zusammenhang, der sich auf Jahrtausende alte Göttergeschichten und Götterwelten gründet. Vor diesem Hintergrund erklären sich die rätselhaften Tempel ebenso wie das Schicksal einer alten Frau, die ihr Leben dem Tanz der Götter widmete.

This series portrays landscapes, metropoles, sacred sites and monuments, all of which have made a unique contribution to the cultural heritage of mankind. Each episode breathes life into civilizations which thrived in the past ten thousand years, some of them then vanishing without a trace into the shadows of history. The films describe epochs whose legacy lingers in the perceptions and ideas of our own age, and cult sites which have managed to preserve their religious and cultural power up to the present day.