.. a visit to Lord Bahubali.. Shravanbelgoda..

Heritage Triangle: Belur - Halebidu - Shravanbelgoda

Bangalore–Shravanbelgoda-Halebidu-Belur-Bangalore

26th December 2009; Day Trip (7am-10.30pm)

Long weekend of Xmas and no travel plans yet ready...for sure I didn’t want to be alone at home doing nothing and was busy working out some exciting day travel plans..... luckily I got across Karnataka Tourism (KSTDC) web page and decided to capture on the day trip of ‘Heritage Triangle’ of Karnataka- Belur, Halebidu and Shravanbelgoda... After long time I was heading for hardcore Heritage Tour so was kind of exciting... For some reason was not expecting too many people to opt for this route but was totally wrong when I managed to get the last available coach ticket... huh...

It was a pleasant experience to be there at 7 am at KSTDC office, Badami House, BLR from where these coaches depart. I quite liked the Karnataka Tourism efforts to boost the tourism sector across the state may it be online booking facility, decent accommodations or even the quality of coaches they have. Wonder MTDC (Maharashtra Tourism) have failed to upgrade themselves at least to this standard. y other states (...honestly I shouldn’t talk about other states as I don’t know much about their initiatives...)

Shravanbelgoda (158 kms from Bangalore)

Coaches for this day trip left Badami House at 7.15 am sharp. We were heading toward Shravanbelgoda, a Jain pilgrimage centre of prime importance. After a quick breakfast stop at around 9.30am, we marched ahead to reach this town at around 10.30am. We all got down from the coach with strict instructions from the driver to be back in an hour’s time. ...

Shravanbelgoda... about 158 kms from Bangalore, it is a city located in the Hassan district of Karnataka and is a Jain Pilgrimage Centre of prime importance today!!... Located between the two hills, Chandragiri and Vindhyagiri, it is famous for the 57 feet monolithic statue of ‘Bhagavan Gomateshwara Bahubali’, located on the Vindyagiri. It was erected by Chamundaraya in 10^th century and is considered to be the tallest monolithic statue in the world till today…

…to get to this giant statue you have to climb around 700 steps of Vindhyagiri…

… its all worth it for the great view of the town against the backdrop of Chandragiri Hill…

… effort has been made to protect the old scripts carved in the rock by the travelers visiting the place during 9th-14^th centuries…

… as you are a top, you are fronted by this giant monolithic statue of lord Bahubali carved out of granite…

… the base of the statue has inscriptions in Kannada and Tamil. Also it hold the oldest evidence of written Marathi, dating from 981 AD…’Shri Chamundaraye Karaviyale’ is what it suggests according to one local there…

… this place is also famous for the great event ‘Mahamastakabhishek’ that takes place every 12 years… the statue is covered with milk, curds, ghee, saffron and gold coins then… the next ‘Mahamastakabhishek’ is suppose to take place in 2018…

So after witnessing this magnificent statue, surprisingly everyone was back to the coach almost in time …it was already 11.45 am and from here on we were on move to our next destination.. the ‘Hoyasaleshwara temple’ in Halebidu… UNESCO World Heritage Site….