Yesterday, taking a break from my routine schedule, I'd arranged a small outing to Ādi Chunchungiri hills, to see our Home God (mane devru) - Sri Kālabhairaveshwara Swami. Just the 3 of us - myself & my parents. We started at around 8 AM and boarded a Hassan bound bus from Majestic. We were to get down at Bellur Cross and from there take a rick or something to reach the temple, as this was the info given to us by some relatives and also some websites.
It took us nearly 3hrs to reach Bellur Cross and landed there at 1145. Immediately, we caught a rick (seat auto - 10 bucks pp, as many people) and reached the foothill of Ādi Chunchungiri at around 12. On the way, we saw a big Kalyani. A huge number of steps (200, to be precise) and a big arc at the top was awaiting to be climbed.
We reached the top (first level) and a magnificient temple was there in front of us. We directly entered the temple thru one of its side doors. There wasn't much rush, as I had expected initially. There were small dieties of God all over on the pillars. When asked someone, he said there were a total of 64 Bhairavas around the interiors, 8 Bhairavas in the centre & 1 Main idol of the Lord in Garbhagudi. Probably, photos can explain it better..
Needless to mention, the dog is the vehicle (vahana) of this Lord and he's there right in front of Him.
The main Garbhagudi was made of black stone while the rest of the temple was of white stone. We had a view of entire temple, did Archana there and left the temple. Adjacent to the temple was a 27 foot, single stone carved idol of Shiva - Sri Nagalingeshwara.
Beside this, there was a board which read - Way to Gangadeshwara, Kattale Someshwara and Chola Stambha. This again were to be climbed. At another 150 steps was the Gangadeshwara temple, which looked as if it was in a cave. Very small with little light around. Further up the hill was the Kattale Someshwara, but mom stayed behind and me & dad only went up (lil adventurous). After 200 steps (each step was approx 1 ft high), we came across a small cave with entire darkness. We had to use the light in our mobile to get in thru it and saw the Kattale Someshwara idol. (Kattale = dark). We further wanted to go up and see the Chola Stambha, but as people over there said that we had to do some rock climbing, we rejected the idea.
We then came back to the place where mom was resting and decided to have lunch there, which was packed and got from home. But, to our dismay, some monkeys attacked us and made us leave the place. So, we had to discontinue our lunch and hurriedly packed everything and came down. On the way down, we saw Swamiji's Kuteera and resting place. Back near the temple, we saw Sri Annapoorneshwari Prasada Nilaya and just went in. To our surprise, they were serving lunch as Prasada ! Immediately we got in and had the Prasada. Thanks monkeys ! They didn't want us to have home food & have the Prasada !
After the lunch, we checked into some exhibition cum shopping centre and looked for idols of Kālabhairaveshwara. But, none of them suited our requirements, so left the place without buying anything.
When we got down the 200 steps at 3 PM, a rick was already waiting for us and we barged into that. In 10 mins we were back at Bellur Cross and a bus too was waiting for us ! It all appeared like all ready ! We were back in Bangalore at around 630 PM.
There were no hindrances like rain or anything. The weather was also just too good. The Lord truely takes care of His devotees. Thanks Lord :)
