My trip to Lepakshi!

Hey guys! Today I had been to Lepakshi in Andhra Pradesh. I visited a temple there which had a story with a combination of mythology and history. It was a very interesting story. I heard the story from Viroopanna uncle who was one of the guides in Lepakshi.

Lepakshi is a 120 km drive from Bangalore. We took 3 hours to reach including our breakfast break. So.. let me tell you the stories of the temple. :)

This Virabhadra temple is built on a large tortoise shaped stone by the two brothers Viranna and Virupanna Nayaka. It is built in such a way that the temple wont collapse even after 500 years or more. This temple was dedicated to shiva, vishnu and virabhadra. It was built in the Vijayanagar period. The temple includes 7 rounds of mantapas like this..

Those days, the people used to travel to this temple by bullock carts and stay for 2 or 3 days in the temple itself. The 7 rounds of mantapas were built for the people who used to stay in the temple. The temple was actually 180 acres but now has reduced to 5 acres because the people who came to visit and stayed for a few days settled themselves and totally occupied 4 rounds of the mantapas. The Lepakshi Nandhi was in the 6th round of the temple. But now the Nandhi is out of the city.  Before there were pillars inside the house. The rich would have 50 to 60 pillars in their house. 

    There are hooks in the mantapas to hang the curtains in the night for privacy. They were hanging even the oil lamps which was needed.

 There were small pits on the ground which was used to grind spices for cooking like how we use mixer grinder these days.

This is the place where the marriage of shiva and parvathi which happened in kashi is depicted on the stones. They have shown the welcoming of the saptarushi and the V.I.Ps who had come to attend the marriage.

Before the humans were in giant size!.. so they used to eat in big plates like this..

Now the mythological touch!..In Ramayana, when Ravana and Jatayu is fighting in the sky, jatayu gets injured and falls down. Then sita comes and blesses the jatayu and tells to utter rama's name until he comes to save. She keeps one of her feet on the stone while blessing from where the water will start flowing from the sides. Jatayu had to drink the water coming from the sides of the impression of sita's foot to survive till rama comes to rescue.Then rama comes and tells "le pakshi" which means "rise bird". Hence it has been named Lepakshi. Now also there is water coming from the sides of the foot impression.     

                                                                   

This is the place where virabhadra threw his two eyes and the stain of the blood on the wall. The government has taken a blood sample of this and has proved it as real human blood!! Can't believe!

      

Once when the sculptors were done with their work and were waiting for their lunch to be prepared by their mom, they carved a 7 head snake within 1 hour which can be seen from the nandhi if you stand 5 feet away from it on the right side.

Now the miraculous thing!!.. the hanging pillar. There are 70 pillars in the 1st round of the temple. All the 69 pillars are linked to one hanging pillar in such a way that if the hanging pillar falls the entire building collapses.

When shiva wanted to marry parvathi, he came in a form of a beggar to parvathi's house and begged for some food. To test parvathi, shiva pulled her saree but she did not realize. Shiva gave parvathi a boon to marry shiva for her dedication towards any work she does. She was putting honey into shiva's plate so dedicatedly that she could not realize her saree was pulled.

These were some paintings which they did with natural colors and are not repainted. They used to crush the vegetables and leaves in the small pits for making natural colours.

This is the nandi which was in the sixth round of the temple but now is not included in the temple. We can see the 7 headed snake if we stand 5 feet away from the nandi on the right side.

Hope you enjoyed it.. :)