It was Saturday, the 21st of July, 2007 when I started off to Bangalore with my parents. We were on Karnataka tour. Having reached Banglore on 22nd morning, we went to our uncle’s house. Got ready and drove off to Dharmastala.
The way we drove in was with varied picturesque beauty. In the beginning we could see the huzz buzz of the Bangalore city. Its population, pollution and traffic jams. There were 4 peculiar things I noticed in Bangalore. The first was yellow colony sign-boards. They had a peculiar shape resembling the temple’s gaali goopuraa. The second was the taste and architectural excellence of the houses. The city center had many many independent houses(unlike in Bombay and Hyderabad) where every house had a unique style of building. Every house used typical “Bangalore Tiles”. The third was flowers. Every lady I have seen had a garden of flowers in her hair. The fourth was their eating habits. They have coffee almost all throughout the day. Take tiffin in place of lunch. Their main course of food consisted of some or the other “Bath”- alubath, metibath, tomatobath with “sappasaaru”- rasam and buttermilk. After crossing the city I could find huge palace type houses on either side of the highway each with a unique architectural excellence. One thing I couldnot understand was “Are the Kannadigs so rich to afforde such houses or are that the construction rates low” I donno the answer.
After crossing Hassan, a junction we were in “Sakkalespur”. That place had 450cms of rainfall annually. There were mini hydel projects, waterfalls, reservoirs, coffeewood products I could fine on the way. In the ghat road I could find myself surrounded by trees. There were trees of sandalwood, banana, entagling pepper creepers, long n lean gun powder(pooka) trees, pine, coconut and many others. We could atlast reach Dharmastata after traveling for 7 hours by road.
Dharmastala temple is also called Manjunatha Temple(that temple was shown in the telugu film “Manjunatha”) The Manjunath Temple, at the foot of Kadri Hills attracts devotees and tourists in thousands. Dharmastala is regarded as the home of Dharma or righteousness. We got a peculiar room in the temple guest house. Thousands of pilgrims were offered food in the temple everyday. We took our dinner in the temple’s “Annapoorna Dining Hall” which could accommodate a thousand at a time. The neatness, love n affection shown by the people there was remarkable. Having seen the shiva, ammavaru and ganesha we started off to “Kateel” the next morning.
On the way we found a beautiful temple –“Ramashetra”. It was about 5 kms from Dharmastala and had about 25 statues of different gods n goddesses in marble. It was a high investment project. We could also find River Netravati. We reached Kateel in 3 hours. Kateel had “Durga Parameshwari Temple”. It is situated in dakshina kannada in the middle of the sacred river Nandini. From kateel we stared off to Udipi. Udupi is known for the Krishna Mutt (Temple of Lord Krishna). The Krishna idol is turned(Stala purana says that the lord had turned to see his devotee tied in ropes to prove that he is there) and we had to see the lord from a window having 9 holes resembling Naagraha. The window is called the “navagraha dwara”. The mutt provided food for many devotees. I saw something strange in Udipi. The autos there were shrunk and elongated. From there we moved to “Anegadda”- Ganesh temple. Then we went to Murdeswara. The way to Murdeswara had a a place where we could find ourselves in between a beach and backwaters on a stretch of 5 kms. The was a memorable sight. On the way we could find many factories and coconut trees as in Kerala. We somehow passed through heavy rain n reached our destination.
Murdeswara had spectacular constructions. An enormously big shiva sat behind the temple with ganga shiva scene, Krishna Ratha, Surya Ratha and ascetics around him. The temple is on the shores of Malpe Beach. Then we started off to Kollur to see “Mookambika temple”. That place also had a dining hall for the devotees. We stayed for the nite and started off to Sringeri.
Sringeri had ammavaru’s temple. According to legend, Adi Shankaracharya is said to have selected the site as the place to stay and teach his disciples, because when he was walking by the Tunga river, he saw a cobra with a raised hood, providing shelter from the hot sun, to a frog about to spawn. Impressed with the place where natural enemies had gone beyond their instincts, he stayed here for twelve years. Adi Shankaracharya also established mathas in the northern (at Jyotirmath, near Badrinath), eastern (at Puri) and western (at Dwaraka) quarters of India. We saw the mutt’s meditation hall on the other bank of tunga. This place also had a large dining hall which could accommodate a 1000 at a time.
From there we moved to Hornadu. On the way I could find tea gardens, coffee fields, dense forest, oil reserves and an iron ore. Both sringeri and hornadu are admist hills n fog. Hornadu had “Annapoorneswari Temple”. Her beauty had no competition. She was in complete gold. The whole temple was decorated with flowers. The speciality of that temple was that the devotees were given breakfast and coffee along with lunch and dinner. The temple staff asked everyone if they had their prasadam. The warmth n affection they showed had no comparison. Many devotees donated different food grains, spices, coffee grains into different boxes placed there.
One thing I noticed near all the temples was that there were no beggars. The kannadigs are selfless people with a good taste. We stayed in Hornadu for a nite and moved off to Banglore on 25th July, the nxt morning. On the way back we saw Bellure’s Chennakesawa temple which had the architectural masterpieces of “Amarasilpi Chakkana”. We started off from Bangalore on 26th to Hyderabad. On the whole we could see the Shillong cherapunji, Ooty and Darjeeling teagardens and dense forests of India in this single trip. :)
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