Over the weekend, I visited Devarayana Durga. To the uninitiated, Devarayana Durga is a temple town, about 65 km from Bangalore, in Karnataka. The town is situated at an altitude of 3940 feet, and is surrounded by deciduous forest. The preceding deities are Bhoga Narasimha and Yoga Narasimha. While the temple dedicated to Bhoga Narasimha is at the foot hills, Yoga Narasimha is situated on a hill top.
The Bhoga Narasimha temple seems to be more than 350 years old. According to locals, the Bhoga Narasimha temple, which is build in Dravidian style of architecture, is said to have been constructed by Kanthirava Narasaraja I, with further repairs done in 1858, by the Krishnaraja Wodeyar III.
Background (source Wikipedia)
The place was originally known as Anebiddasari, and then as Jadakana Durga after a chief named Jadaka, and finally as Devarayana Durga subsequent to its capture by Mysore king, Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar.
Devarayana Durga consists of three elevations and seven gates leading to the top.
On the lowest elevation is the Bhoga Narasimha (also, called Lakshmi-Narasimha Swamy) temple. Near by, is a spring known as Ane-done. On the slope of the hill is a pond said to the source of stream, Mangali. Higher up is another small spring named Jaya-tirtha, representing the source of another stream Jaya. Both the streams unite at Irukasandra, to form Jayamangali. The hills are also said to be source of the river, Shimsha.
Cut. To my trip.
We reached the temple town at 10.30 AM, in the morning. We took the National Highway 4, which connects Chennai to Mumbai; it took us about an hour-and-half to cover 65 km. The puja at the temple begins only around 10.30 AM, after the arrival of the government (KSRTC) bus. Most visitors to this town come by this bus, and the temple has adjusted its puja timings to match with the arrival of this bus! Isn’t it an act of human ingenuity?
As is the case with any temple, we had to buy tickets to get the puja done. We bought the tickets; while others entered the temple, I began to stroll round the temple’s sanctum sanatorium. Though it was hot outside, it was surprisingly cool inside the temple premises. It maybe because the whole temple is built in stone; it is like entering a stone cave, except that it is a man made one. It is surprising isn’t it: man breaks up naturally occurring boulders into stone blocks only to reassemble them as structures? Man wants to better what nature has created. Well, lots of people call this evolution.
The history of temple architecture also follows this same pattern. Historians suggest that man initially started building structures in wood and later moved to stone. The first temples were build in caves; using the naturally occurring opening as an entrance. Man being man, used to carve out beams on the ceilings of these caves, as beams were needed to support a wooden structure. It took man some time, rather centuries, to understand and grasp the use of pillars and beams. Anyway, this was long before any western civilization could even think of building structures.
Back to the temple: over time the temple had undergone several renovations, with the sanctum sanatorium being left untouched. So, you have a stone pillar carving that has been whitewashed by a painter who has no idea of the cultural or the symbolic significance of the carving on the wall. The ravage of the original piece of architecture is pathetic.
I decided to sit down for a while, as the puja was yet to start. The place was cool, with the whole flooring paved with polished granite. Obviously, a generous bhakta, or a patron, of the temple believed that the sins (bad karma) of his/her previous life would be washed away by such an act. This is a very common practice at the temples. The patron of the temple invariably does such an act in a belief that such acts would either reduce the bad karma or increase the good karma. Either way, it is beneficial to the individual’s future life! However, I am always intruded by the fact that why such acts of “charity” are invariably accompanied by huge hoarding displaying the patron’s name and the act? Is it about gaining good karma and washing away the bad karma, or just an ego booster?
Well, a visit to the temple is a way to reflect upon oneself and the society that one lives in. Right?
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