Temple of Doom

This article is about the structure. You may be looking for the film.

"I'm not going to have anything nice to say about this place when I get back!"

The Temple of Doom was a place of worship to the goddess Kali used by the Thuggee cult.

The temple was hidden underground, beneath Pankot Palace in India, and had been rebuilt following the destruction of the original temple during the British suppression of the cult in the 19th century. While the structure was large in and of itself, evidence suggested that the site was dwarfed by the original temple complex used at the height of Pankot Province's power as the center of Thuggee activity.

Overview[]

The Temple of Doom was located deep within the bowels of the mountain where the town of Pankot was found.^[3]

The main temple room was divided by a chasm filled with lava below. Worshipers and musicians would remain on one side of the room, while focusing their attention on the activity on the other side of the chasm.^[1]

At the center of the smaller side of the temple, stood a large^[1] twenty feet tall^[4] statue of Kali and an altar in the shape of a skull that housed the Sankara Stones. In front of the statue was a portal in the ground, which lead to a volcanic vent. Human sacrifices could be lowered in a cage into the vent.^[1] Statues around the chamber dated back to the fifteenth century, and included one of Ganesha.^[5]

History[]

Origins[]

"A century ago when the British raided this temple and butchered my people, a loyal priest hid the last two stones down here in the catacombs."

―Mola Ram^[src]

Once the center of activity for the Thuggee cult before the time of Robert Clive, a large Thuggee temple dedicated to Kali^[1] was built by the 1800s^[5] under the future foundations of Pankot Palace.^[1] It was destroyed in 1828 with the violent suppression of the cult,^[6] resulting in the deaths of more than 300 Thuggee priests.^[5] While the British raided the temple, a Thuggee priest hid the last two Sankara Stones deep in the catacombs^[1] under the temple.^[5]

Though reduced in number, those who survived managed to reestablish a temple to their goddess,^[2] with portions of the old temple complex used in the 1830s.^[5] Seeing that they could not return to the old ways of worship, the remnants of Kali's followers were forced to change their methods. No longer could Thuggee do things that would attract attention to themselves or to the temple.^[2]

The rebuilt temple was small compared to the original and less ornate. Guards were now only placed in important areas;^[2] traps or Bok-toh rooms were used to protect side entrances.^[1] The goal was not only to defend the temple, but to be noticed as little as possible. Any human sacrifices were performed only on high holy days, and the priests made sure the victims were captured far away from the temple.^[2]

Rise of Mola Ram[]

"Our goddess does not drink the blood of animals! She drinks the blood of men!"

―Mola Ram^[src]

Prior to 1930, Mola Ram, one of the last High Priests of Kali left in the world,^[2] emigrated from Bengal to Pankot^[5] with his followers^[2] in search of three Sankara Stones.^[5] Mola Ram found a powerful ally in Chattar Lal, the Prime Minister of the palace, now recently reinstated by Maharaja Premjit Singh. The pair restored the palace's long-neglected Kali temple, to show the power of Kali to all who looked upon the structure. He was displeased with both the temple itself and the way Kali was being worshiped. Believing that the actions of the temple's priests had angered Kali, Mola Ram ordered them to be sacrificed to appease their goddess and to bring favor to his new temple.^[2]

In addition, the Thuggee set up a mining operation beneath the palace extracting diamonds and precious gems to finance their cause,^[1] with Ram assigning his most senior priests with selling them.^[2] To do so, they enslaved the children of Mayapore^[1] and other villages.^[4] The main goal of the extraction was to dig for the two missing Sankara Stones hidden in the tunnels.^[1]

Downfall[]

Temple of doom sacrifice — The Temple of Doom during a sacrifice ritual

By 1935, Mola Ram had acquired three Sankara Stones, one taken from the village of Mayapore. and held them during the rituals for Kali in a shrine shaped like a human skull.^[1]

After an assassination attempt in Pankot Palace, Indiana Jones, Short Round and Willie Scott discovered the trap-filled chambers that led from Scott's room to the caves beneath the palace, where they found the Temple. They watched in horror as Mola Ram magically removed the heart of a Sacrifice Victim then lowered the still-living man into the lava pit, while many worshipers, including Zalim Singh watched and chanted. After the ceremony, Jones climbed down to try to claim the Sankara Stones, and discovered a vent leading into the mines. Meanwhile, Short Round and Scott were captured.^[1]

Jones was also captured, and forced to drink the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma, turning him into a pawn of the Thuggee. Mola Ram started a new ceremony, using Willie Scott as the sacrifice victim, and made Jones assist him. Short Round used fire to break the Thuggee hold on Jones, and the two freed Scott from the cage and fought off Thuggee acolytes and Chattar Lal. Before Jones could get Mola Ram, the high priest escaped through a secret passage below the statue of Kali. Jones, Short Round, and Scott went into the mines to free the children, and shut down the Thuggee operation. After the Chief Guard was defeated, and Zalim Singh was freed of Thuggee influence, Jones and his companions fled in mine cars. Ram ordered the collapse of a large cistern, flooding the mines to kill the trio, who managed to find an exit on the face of the cliff.^[1] The release of the cistern caused a great deal of damage, but didn't actually destroy very much of the temple. The water caught several Thuggee and children in its wake.^[2]

Aftermath[]

"After a tough climb, I was able to get into the main temple. Like the other parts of the complex there was damage from the water. In the main temple all the smaller statues had been broken, and I could see several bodies in different parts of the room. It wasn't until I got down to the main floor that I noticed that the huge statue of Kali was completely untouched. For a moment I could have sworn I saw it smiling at the carnage around it ..."

―A report by a hardy adventurer who went into the flooded temple.^[src]

Following Lal's escape from Pankot Palace with a large amount of stolen treasure, the British decided to keep an eye out in case Lal tried to establish another Kali temple.^[7]

The flooded temple attracted almost as much interest as the Sankara Stones in the river. At first it was mostly looters and thieves trying to steal what valuables they could find. Both the British and Maharajah Zalim Singh responded by placing guards at most of the entrances. As there were so many side tunnels, however, people were still able to sneak in. The bodies left where they had died lured rats, insects, and other types of creatures from the nearby caves. Few attempted to access the temple itself. Instead, they scavenged the mine, hoping to find some diamonds.^[2] Although Mola Ram was killed by crocodiles in the encounter at Pankot's bridge,^[1] stories circulated that Ram haunted the ruins of the Temple of Doom, hearsay that Zalim Singh and the British didn't attempt to dissuade as they were keen to keep others away from the area.^[2]

Legacy[]

In 1992,^[8] while flying over the United States of America,^[9] an older Indiana Jones^[8] relived the adventures of many years ago, including the memories of the Temple of Doom.^[9]

Behind the scenes[]

To make the Temple of Doom, the filmmakers counted with Brian Muir and his fellow co-workers in the production design department for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Derek Howarth worked on the Kali Ma status while Muir did its sixteen arms because he had yet to start his main work on the scenary for a couple of days, so he opted to help Howarth by making the statue's arms, regarding it as his most challenging work in the Indiana Jones movies. Muir's main assignment was that of designing the elephant head from the statue where Indiana Jones flags his whip to swin down to the Temple of Doom's flor to retrieve the Sankara Stones in the film.^[10]

Why Indy and his friends decide to use the mines for their escape rather than simply using the same route through which the Mayapore children took to escape goes unexplained in the film.^[1] There was intended to be a scene in the film where Indy used a large wooden plank as a bridge so that the slave children could cross the lava to the other side of the temple and escape via the tunnel that connects to Willie Scott's Pankot Palace bedroom. However, when it is Shorty's turn to cross, the plank breaks apart from the heat of the lava, and Willie and Indy catch him from falling. This forces the trio to use the mines as an alternative escape route. While the scene was indeed filmed, it was cut from the final edit.^[11]