DAY 3: KUDALA SANGAMA & BADAMI
We vacated our rooms, Had breakfast and started around 7:00 am.. Koodala sangama is around 3 hrs journey from Hospet....On the way we passed by T.B/Hospet dam, and we saw more gates of the dam, compared to night. May be around 20 were opened. When i asked the driver, he said "Since it is independence day today, all the 33 gates of the dam will opened, they will open one by one and by 12p.m, all 33 will be opened" .. It would have been a spectacular view to see all 33 gates opened, but since we were supposed to go more places we could not wait...But yeah were lucky enough to watch atleast 20+ opened..
1. Sangamantha temple
2. Mutt near sangamantha temple
3. Rock garden (Alammati)
4. Krishna garden (Alammati)
5. Lava-Kusha garden (Alammati)
6. Badami
DESTINATION 1 : SANGAMANATHA TEMPLE:
Kudala Sangama is an important pilgrimage center for the Lingayat community. It is located at around 15 km from Alamatti dam. The samadhi of Basavanna , the founder of the Lingayat sect is located here. The shiva linga here is said to Swayambu Linga. @ the entrance of the temple we can find river krishna, where people can go boating.. We skipped boating and directly went to sangamanatha temple.. We need to climb few steps on the path way bridge of the river, and then get down the cylindrical shaped steps to reach Swayambu Linga. We had darshan and headed to next place...
DESTINATION 2 : MUTT NEAR SANGAMANATHA TEMPLE:
We sat in the car, and while telling the driver to ask localites about the route to Rock Garden in Alamatti dam. (Our next destination) i noticed this colourful mutt, which was just 15 steps away from Sangama temple.. I asked him to stop by, and went inside the mutt(I dont remember the name of that mutt/ashram). The preachings of Basavaana(Poet & Religious leader of Lingayat community) are beautifully explained in colourful paintings...We took some snap and headed to next destination...
DESTINATION 3 . ROCK GARDEN
(ALAMATTI DAM):
Alamatti dam, is one of the big dam, built across Krishna river in North karnataka.. This dam has a beautiful gardens, which is around 12kms of area. Rock garden and Krishna garden is located in Lal bahudar shashtri nagar. This dam is also called lal bahudur shastri dam..
Rock garden is a beautiful theme park with 3 acres of artifical lake, with boating facility, and idol/statues of native people showcasing there professions.. And much more, because of scorching heat, mom/dad gave up and sat under a tree. Ramesh n we went for a quick walk in hot sun, took some snaps and walked back..If you are going in evening, this can easily take an hour's walk and you can enjoy the theme
DESTINATION 4 : KRISHNA GARDEN (ALAMATTI DAM)
This park is in same campus, but around 2kms away..(You can go in car). This park is a theme park dedicated to Krishna and his Leela's...I took some snaps, and a man came running, that we should not take pics. But the funny part was we took a ticket for camera. When asked, he said, the guy giving ticket is new one, n gave by mistake... By then i had already taken few snaps :)... Since it was very hot, we skipped walking further and left to next destination..
DESTINATION 5 : LAVA-KUSHA GARDEN (ALAMATTI DAM)
My parents n Ramesh dint show interest in this park, as it was very hot, and they were not even letting take pics. I told Ramesh, will just go a round, take pics and back in 10 mins, as promised, took few snaps and returned soon. This park's theme is about Lava-Kusha and their child hood days( I hope you guys know who is Lava-Kusha(Lord Rama's n Sita's son). We then left to Badami, which is around, 65kms from Kudala sangama...
DESTINATION 6: BADAMI
We reached Badami around 2:00 pm, directly checked in a hotel ( I had already booked RajaSangama International hotel (Over phone). Freshened up, had lunch in same hotel, and asked driver to take us to Badami Caves... Badami Fort/caves is just 5mins from hotel Rajasangama I was amazed to see huge monolithic rocks, somewhat reddish brown in color everywhere.. It was already 3:00 pm, i was little worried as we had only 2/3hrs and had below things to see...
1. Museum
2. Fort
3. Cavess
4. Boothnatha temples
Badami Museum:
This musueum is at the foot of the Badami fort. We decided to first visit museum then head to Fort, as i knew it it closes by 5:30pm. This museum houses stone equipments and sculptures from Badami, Aihole and Pattadkal. One more rare thing that caught our attention was Lajja-Gauri image of a fertility cult .. Since there were lot of people back of us, we just walked. Later while coming out of the museum, i noticed no one was there, and took this snap :) when checked more about this Lajja-Gauri on net, learnt Lajja Gauri is a godess associated with abundance and fertility. We then walked to Badami fort..
Badami fort:
Left to the museum you will entrance to Badami fort, which was built by Tipu Sultan. Mom was tired, and she said she would wait near the Museum, so even dad stayed back to acompany her. So only me n ramesh headed to fort. First 5 mins we walked easily as there are proper steps carved out of same sand stones. But further we had to hike in a path way, also since there were couple of deviations it was easy to get lost. We dint want to give up, we just walked further, climbing the rocks we found, on our way. Some rocks were literally attached to each other, and only one person could walk between them. Once we reached top of that rock, we saw beautiful view of Badami, and Agastya lake..
We noticed a temple like structure opposite side of the rock, we climbed down, and headed towards that structure. We saw a watch man there, he said, this is shiva temples (No idols and prayers thou). We could also find some shrines and graneries. We could also see a watch tower kinda thing, were Flag was hoisted same day before(it was Aug 15th). It was already 4:30 by then, i told ramesh we have to make it fast, as Badami caves will be closed by 6:00 pm.. We rested for 5mins and headed to Badami Caves..
Badami CAVES:
There are four caves, one above the other.. The first cave can be reached by around 40/50 steps... I was totally speechless seeing those huge red sculptures...
Cave 1:
The first cave is dedicated to Lord shiva, and this was first to be excavated in rock around 550 AD. The cave has open court yard in front and amazing sculpture of Nataraja, with eighteen arms depiciting 9 bharatha-Natya Postures.. We can also find Ganesha and Subramanya in the inner walls of same cave.. This cave also inhouses Lord shiva with his family including Parvati, Ganesha and subramanya on one more wall. Beautiful carvings are not only limited to walls of caves, but also on the ceilings.. Ceilings of this caves has five hooded Nagaraja, king of snakes flanked by charming celestical couples... We took lot of snaps here, and walked to upper cave....
Cave 2:
The second cave is dedicated to Lord Vishnu, this can be reached with around 50 steps from the first Cave... We can find Varaha avatara , which has human body, boar face , holding Bhudevi in one hand, and Shanku chakra in 2 more hands. On the other wall we can see Vamana Avatara , which has greater details of Bali chakravarthi and vamana's story.Again the ceilings here have amazing carvings, two things which caught my attention was Swastik pattern, which has no end or beginning, and a Chakra (wheel) surrounded by fishes. B/W Cave 2 and Cave 3, we can find entrance to Tippu fort, which is now closed..
Cave 3:
Again this third cave is dedicated to Lord vishnu, here you can find carvings of Varaha and Vamana avatar repeated, and few other carvings including Hari-Hara, Narasimha, vishnu seated on Adi sesha, Huge Dwarapalaka with different weapons in multiple hands. The ceilings include Indra with his Ashta dikpalakas. And brackets are covered with Divine loving couples.. This cave is the most ellaborate among all 4, and contains many carvings of Lord vishnu....
Cave 4:
This was last cave, and it is mainly dedicated to Jains... Guide was telling , it took around 100 years to carve this 4th cave.. The main highlight of the cave is the image of Lord Mahavira inside the sanctum. Other than this we can find carvings of 24 Jain tirthankars. It was around 6:00 pm and they started whistling to get down, as it was closing time... Since we had only 1 and half hours, all i could do is take glance of the carvings and take snaps. Wish we had more time, so we would take more time to understand and observe those amazing carvings. We were still left with Boothnath temple in Badami, decided to accomodate tommorrow.. We then left to our rooms. We decided to hire a car locally in Badami for tommorow's journey, and settled money, and sent back driver to Hospet....
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