Woke up today, hearing a child crying,at 5.30am, thanks to that kid, as my mobile alarm did not ring.Couldn't judge for a moment where i was, then slowly came out of the sleep, saw a ttr, checking tickets of everyone who are awake,saw me too, asked me something, couldn't make out what he meant by moving his head,i showed him ticket, he checked,and went satisfied.Mobile charge was too low that time, had the charger with me, fortunately we had pins in our train,connected the charger, and saw the charger blocks in mobile is moving. Hurrai, it worked!The train was still moving with a good speed,the sun was only about to rise, i got down from my berth, went to my people, helped my mother and sister to join my uncle and family.
Finally we reached the railway station uduppi, the front part of the station is more or less like a temple, yes uduppi is a land of temples, got the darshan of sri gopala krishna from the railway station itself, i've took some photos there,but i've no good camera with me, have to adjust with vga camera of my mobile.The pic of krishna was taken from the railway station park!Good happy to had the darshan, we moved to the hotel, the taxi was arranged in advance.
Now reached the hotel,got a room with ac, tv, hot water etc.. A good hotel, part of which is under construction. Saw the indian express here also, but the bangluru edition,filled with news about govt and its policies here.I got a very bad coffee, made by myself with the milk powder, nescafe and hot water, now waiting for a bath.Could see the sun shining near the window, very bright,hope its a cold sunny day.
Yes had the bath,now in hotel mangala, they say break fast is buffe, we've to take what we want, i thought there'l be a lot of choices, but ha ha, only poori masala and bread roast. Wonderful! We've to make the tea ourself, this time i didn't take the risk. Upsetting stomach is dangerous when we are in a journey. So the break fast is now over, ate 5puris, drank a good coffe, now back in room!
Now we'l visit some temples around here, going to kollur only in the evening as its the time to get the kashaya prasadam,an ayurvedic prasadam. Worthwhile during break fast we had discussion whether to buy a camera from here itself, because no one of us had a personal digital camera,after the round table conference, we had a positive outcome.I will get a camera this time.. Its great!
I like photography a lot, have crazy ideas about making small documentari films,needed a good camera very badly.Going to get one soon,..:-) :-) :-). Now waiting for the taxi man to come!
Now in our taxi which i believe the owner is a kannada language lover, because the number plate is writern in kannada lipi.First time seeing such a no. Plate written in language other than english.Feeling proud being in a taxi owned by a person who loves his mother tongue..
We started our pilgrimage starting from small temples, yes we visited a small hanuman temple,unlike in our temples, we can be close enough to see the vigraha, and can ring the temple bell any time. I rang it once, put the kanikya,got the prasadam, put the red thilak on the forehead and now moving on.Near to that temple is the amriteshwari temple, a devi temple, i chanted the shlokah silently, ya devi sarvabhooteshu, vidya roopena samsthitha,namasthasyai namasthasyai namasthasyai namo namaha. our driver said in konkani,(ya he knows our language too cos his friends belong to our community in manglore,his mother tongue is thulu) pointing his fingers at various shiva linga around the temple that they are swayambhu and these stones grow automatically like some plants. I chanted om namah shivay with great feelings,vishwaso phaladayaka!Out side the temple, there is a small temple of kali, with bhaya and bhakthi i prostorated before the universal mother.
Now reached the annegudai vinayaka temple,around the temple walls we could see stone cravings which symbolised various incidents in puranas.The idol of vinayaka is very big,and beautiful too..A big pimpal (baniyan)tree is outside this temple making the temple more beautiful..Now where next is my next question.. Life moves on...
From man built temples to nature built temples,i'm now standing before the mighty arabian sea under the noon sun, i remember the gita where the lord krishna says "i'm the ocean" and also a beautiful stanzas "apooryamanam achalaprathishtam.." describing the ocean, the yogi should be like the ocean which remains undisturbed though various water join them from various sides.Spent some time near the beach drinking the coconut water i recollected the famous scientist newton's words that he 's just a small kid playing with some pebbles on the seashore.Yes then what are we playing wit?
Again in the taxi, i think next we are going to shiva temple. Details i'l tell, hang on..
We are moving now to muradeshwar temple, haven't reached the place, seeing throug the windows of the car i'm travelling i could see many women walking in black dress, covering their faces, some doesn't close their eyes,some are fully covered,wondering how they live inside this dress,i thought about our women who enjoy great freedom comparing to these,but always complain they are in chains.Hmmm...! Atimoham! We the hindus evolved with time, we modified our culture and our ways according to the time, rules and regulations should be changed from time to time,else we'l lose ourselves in the flow of time. That doesn't mean we've to give up our culture, we've to adjust, thats all i meant..Now i saw the murudeshwara gate way, going to visit it, eager to see..
Yes now on my way to kollur, saw the muradeshwar temple, the gopur is a big one, have got the photo. Hats off to our ancestors who did all these without any selfish interests, that too with this much perfection and beauty. Nearby the temple gopur we could see the great shiva statue,that was built recently, ten yrs ago or so. But the temple as such is very old. The construction is such that with all the cranes and modern engineering tools we can not construct the temple with this perfection and spirituality.Grateful to the culture i belong to.:!!
We had the darshan of the lord shiva their, i went inside with a vibration of gratitude, chanted om namah shivai, and had a great darshan..
The important feature in ktka temple is that all those who are visiting the temple is provided free meals prasadam here, it was a different serving of meals there. Like all south indian temples we've to sit in the floor, and different from other places we are given the plate, first a person carries a bucket of water to each individual and he'l pour it in each one's plate, we've to wash our plates and another man'l come with another bucket to which we've to pour back the washed water.I liked that system very much, first we had the payasam and later we had the rice and rasam.I loved the prasadam lunch, i took some good photos using my uncles 1.3mp mobile camera, will attach in a later blog.
Some correction needed in my earlier para, the gopuram is not the ancient one, it was constructed recently since the earlier gopuram was damaged. Anyways i'm not disappointed , but rather encouraged with the fact that people still such large temples.And still the people visit them in large numbers, large doesn't means simply large, its a big number..So we moved from the big dining hall to the temple ground..
There is a big shiva statue near to the main temple, its huge and we can go very close to it, near the statue we saw geetopadesham, and saptharishi's sitting in tapas, beautifully made, amazing with spiritual touch..The photo blog will be selfexplainatory.
Hats off to temple management system in ktka!
From the shiva temple in muradeshwar to shakthi temple in mookambika our journey was very good, saw some mirage in roads,the mookambika temple is situated in a mountain, we reached there at about 4.3o, the first thing we were searching for was obviously toilets, hotels were not clean, atlast we located a temple toilet there. It was very good. After that we had tea, as we were very tired after the two hour journey.After eating masala dosa and chapathis, i mean satisfying our vaishwanaragni, we moved to visit the devi there..
I'l give the details in my next blog, along with the pics which i took today, now very tired after the return journey going to sleep..
India is blessed with the temples and the people who visit them..
Visiting each and every temples in bharat is my next dream..
Dream dream dream..
Good night..
VandeMataram.
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