We both started on a trip to Dakshin kannada district to cover the major places in 3 days of Makara Sankranthi festival i.e;14th to 16th of Jan 2011. We first started towards Dharmasthala, in fact with no exact plan of tour, but on the way we came across the direction board showing Sravana Belagola. So we continued in that direction to get the tour go ahead with the blessings of Gomateshwara there. The huge statue of the Jain Tirthankara really stunned us and we could even find the idols of the 24 Tirthankaras of the Jain tradition in that temple. The temple was atop a hill with around 800 steps, with no roofing. we had an excellent view from the top of the hill but were unable to capture its complete beauty in the camera.
The story behind this is like this: The elder brother Bahubali defeats his brother in a war and becomes the king as per their condition of the war. But then he realizes how fatal are the worldly riches so sacrifices the kingdom to his brother and starts his penance in a standing pose which continues for a year. In memory of that Tirthankara the statue was made.
Then we went to Halebeedu to visit a very old temple rich in its architechture. The temple built by the king for Lord Shiva is Hoysaleshwara temple and the one built by the queen is Shantaleshwara temple. There are statues of beautifully decorated nandis which is the unique feature of the temple. We were assisted by a guide to know the amazing history of the temple.
From here our next destination was Belur which is a temple similar to this but of lord Vishnu-Chennakesava swami temple.
Our next stop was at Dharmasthala for a night stay. The temple of Sri Manjunatheshwara here is again a master piece. We were lucky to enter the temple at the time of some seva going on(may be on the eve of Makara sankranthi) so thart we could see the idol of the god for a long time with no obstructions. The seva was quite different from that which we'd seen earlier. A Pujari was wearing many ornaments and a traditional dress and he carried the Utsava vigraha on his head to do circumambulations to the temple with an elephant for some time and later the idol was placed in a palanquin along with lights and bands.
The accomodation of the devasthan was simply superb in the Rajatadri Guest house. We even had our dinner in the annadana which was in typical Karnataka style.
The next morning we went to get blessings of Subrahmanya Swami of Kukke which was around 60 KM from Dharmasthala. The beauty of the idol of the god here is simply beyond expressions.
The drive all through the way was felt like we were going deep into the forests which was fantastic. The scenic beauty really made us enjoy the long drives.We even crossed some ghat roads which we felt thrilling and challenging
Our next halt was at Sringeri-The true land of Sarada mata and the land blessed by Sri Adi Shankaracharya. Here also we opted for temple accomodation which was again a nice choice.We were even blessed to get a chance to attend the Chandramouleeswara aaradhana performed by the peethadhipathi Sri Bharathi Teertha Swami. The darshan in these temples is not like that of famous temples in Andhra. We can stand before the main idol of the god for a considerable time to have a satisfactory darshan to be kept as a memory in our database. The beauty of the golden Sarada mata idol just left me spellbound. The definition of beauty is before our eyes when we stand there.Awesome.......
On day 3 morning we started back to pavillion and the high way route was really enjoyable. Just had a break for lunch and reached the garden city by the time of sun set.
Altogether, we had gathered great memories to be treasured and shared.
Really nice tour.........
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